The five gold coins sat in my [Infinite Inventory], not as a comforting weight, but as a glowing, radioactive reminder of my own stupidity. I had gotten greedy. I had broken the first rule of being a background character: Never be remarkable. Lily's curious, analytical gaze was burned into my memory. I needed to lay low. I needed a quest so boring, so forgettable, that it would bleach the memory of the Radiant Moonlight Herb from her mind.
For two days, I became a ghost in Maplewood. I stayed in my room at the Snoring Slime, surviving on inventory-stored bread and cheese. I took walks at odd hours, using [Absolute Stealth] to ensure no one even registered my presence. I was a data point in the process of deleting itself.
On the third day, I ventured back into the Adventurer's Guild, my shoulders hunched in what I hoped was a convincing portrayal of post-failure dejection. The guild was bustling, a cacophony of clanking armor and raised voices. I slipped through the crowd, my [Absolute Stealth] dialed to a low, passive setting that simply made people's eyes slide off me.
I went straight to the quest board, ignoring the exciting notices with bold red lettering—"Goblin Extermination," "Missing Child in the Foothills," "Escort Mission to the Capital." My eyes scanned for the most mundane, beige-colored tag I could find.
And there it was. Tucked in the bottom corner, slightly crumpled, as if it had been passed over by dozens of more ambitious adventurers.
Quest: Courier Delivery
Rank:F
Client:Master Theron, Cartographer
Objective:Deliver one sealed parcel to Scholar Yorin in the town of Oakhaven.
Reward:15 Copper Coins
Timeframe:Within 3 days.
It was perfect. Oakhaven was a small, unremarkable town about a day's travel by foot, two if you were lazy. The pay was pathetic. The task required no combat, no gathering, no skill whatsoever beyond the ability to walk in a straight line and not lose the package. It was the quintessential background character quest.
I snatched the slip from the board before some other similarly unambitious soul could claim it and approached the counter. It was a different receptionist today, a bored-looking older man with a monocle. Perfect.
"I'd like to take this one," I said, sliding the slip across the counter.
The man, whose nametag read 'Gerald,' glanced at it, then at me, his expression suggesting I'd just handed him a dead fish. "Oakhaven, eh? Fine. Parcel is behind the counter. Sign here." He produced a ledger. "You have three days. Late delivery means no pay."
I signed 'Bob' with a flourish that was utterly un-flourish-like and took the small, carefully wrapped parcel tied with twine. It was about the size of a book and smelled faintly of old paper and ink. I stored it instantly in my inventory. Gerald didn't even blink. Another transaction completed, another forgettable adventurer sent on his way. It was beautiful.
I walked out of the guild and around the corner into a quiet alley. The plan was simple. I would use [Instant Transmission] to go to Oakhaven, deliver the parcel, and be back in Maplewood before lunch. I'd then spend the next two and a half days "resting," further cementing my image as a lazy, unambitious F-Ranker. It was the ultimate expression of working smart, not hard.
Now, for the teleportation. I'd never been to Oakhaven, but the quest slip had a small, crude map. I focused on it, visualizing the town. It was a smaller version of Maplewood, with a central square, a well, and a few main streets. I needed a specific location. An empty alley would be best. Somewhere I could appear without being seen.
'Ultimate Appraisal,' I thought, targeting the map itself.
The information flooded into my mind, far more detailed than the simple drawing suggested. I wasn't just seeing the map; I was perceiving the concept of Oakhaven as defined by the cartographer's intent and the knowledge embedded in the quest magic. I saw the town layout, the names of the streets, the location of the central well, and… the residence of Scholar Yorin. It was a small, slightly tilting stone house on the edge of town, with a overgrown herb garden and a perpetually smoking chimney.
Even better. I could deliver it right to his doorstep.
I focused on the space in front of Yorin's door. I visualized the mossy stones of the path, the chipped paint on the doorframe, the specific warp in the wood of the door. The spatial coordinates locked into my mind with absolute precision. It was like entering a GPS location into a divine navigation system.
'Instant Transmission.'
There was no sound, no flash of light. It was less like moving and more like the world was a page being turned. One moment, the damp brick of the Maplewood alley was in front of my face. The next, it was the warped, wooden door of Scholar Yorin's house in Oakhaven.
The air was different here. Cleaner, with a faint scent of pine and woodsmoke. The only sound was the buzzing of bees in the overgrown garden. I had crossed a day's journey in less than a heartbeat. The sheer, reality-defying power of it was, once again, staggering.
I took a steadying breath. Phase one complete. Now for the delivery.
I retrieved the parcel from my inventory and knocked firmly on the door. A moment later, it creaked open to reveal a wizened old man with a wild shock of white hair and ink-stained fingers. He peered at me through spectacles so thick they made his eyes look like a pair of startled fish.
"Yes? What is it? I'm busy cataloguing the migratory patterns of the common blue sparrow, and you're interrupting a critical data cross-reference!" he snapped, his voice raspy.
"Delivery for Scholar Yorin," I said, holding out the parcel. "From Master Theron in Maplewood."
Yorin's bushy white eyebrows shot up so high they nearly merged with his hairline. He snatched the parcel from my hands, his eyes wide with disbelief.
"From Theron? In Maplewood?" he repeated, his voice rising in pitch. "But that's impossible! I just received a sending-stone message from him this morning! He said he was finishing the final illustrations! The bird he uses for courier flights takes a full day to get here! How… how did you get this so fast?"
Oh.
Oh, no.
In my brilliant, efficiency-obsessed mind, I had failed to account for one critical variable: normal people's understanding of time and space. I had just invalidated the entire continent's postal service with a single thought.
My brain, the same one that could process the entire genetic sequence of a tree from a mile away, short-circuited. I stood there, my mouth slightly agape, as the scholar stared at me, his expression a mixture of confusion and dawning suspicion.
"I… I run fast," I stammered, the lamest lie in the history of lies falling from my lips.
"Run fast?" Yorin squawked. "Boy, Maplewood is over thirty miles away, through bandit-infested woods and across the Stone River! You'd have to be a demigod to run that in under three hours! Did you teleport? Are you some kind of archmage in disguise? Is this a test?"
This was spiraling out of control. Fast. I needed to abort. Now.
"Just… a dedicated courier," I mumbled, taking a step back. "The reward…?"
"The reward? Oh! Yes, of course!" Still muttering about "impossible logistics" and "violations of causal reality," Yorin fumbled in a pouch and shoved a few copper coins into my hand. "Here! Now, tell me, how did you truly—"
"Thankyougooddaysir!" I blurted out, cutting him off. I didn't wait for a response. I turned on my heel, walked briskly down the garden path, and the moment I was out of his direct line of sight around a large, overgrown bush, I activated [Instant Transmission] again.
The world turned. The scent of pine and scholar's ire was replaced by the familiar damp-dog-and-ale smell of the Snoring Slime's back alley. I leaned against the wall, my heart trying to punch its way out of my chest.
That had been a catastrophe. A glorious, self-inflicted catastrophe. I had taken the most boring quest imaginable and turned it into a potential existential crisis for a local academic. If Yorin started talking about a superhuman courier, word might get back to Maplewood. Word might get back to Lily.
I looked at the fifteen copper coins in my hand. The payoff for nearly blowing my cover wider than the Hero had blown his chance at a decent first impression. It wasn't worth it.
The lesson was painfully, abundantly clear. My powers were too absolute for this world. Efficiency was a threat. Speed was a danger. To survive as a background character, I had to not only act the part, I had to embody the limitations. I had to be slow. I had to be inefficient. I had to be… average.
Later that afternoon, I walked back into the Adventurer's Guild, doing my best to look appropriately travel-worn. I made a show of dusting off my tunic as I approached Gerald's counter.
"Back already?" he grunted, not looking up from his ledger. "Give up? Lost the parcel?"
"No, sir. Delivery complete," I said, placing the completed quest slip on the counter.
Gerald's head snapped up, his monocle popping loose. He fumbled for it. "Complete? Already? But… Oakhaven… that's a full day's journey!"
I had prepared for this. I summoned my best impression of a simpleton who'd gotten lucky. "Oh, I got a ride most of the way with a friendly merchant's cart! They were headed that way with a light load. Lucky break!"
Gerald stared at me for a long moment, then slowly nodded, a look of mild, dismissive understanding dawning on his face. "Huh. Lucky indeed. Well, a completed quest is a completed quest." He stamped the slip and counted out fifteen copper coins. "Here you are. Don't expect that kind of luck every time, boy."
"I won't, sir," I said, injecting just the right amount of naive gratitude into my voice.
As I turned to leave, I saw Lily watching me from across the hall, where she was helping a group of armored adventurers. Our eyes met for a fraction of a second. There was no intense curiosity this time, just a brief, neutral acknowledgment before she turned back to her work. She'd probably heard my "lucky ride" story. It was a perfectly believable, perfectly mediocre explanation.
I had done it. I had successfully navigated a crisis of my own making and re-established my cover. I was Bob, the adventurer who occasionally got lucky with herbs and who definitely caught rides with merchants.
Walking out of the guild, the fifteen copper coins felt like a greater victory than the five gold. The gold represented a mistake. The copper represented a lesson learned.
From now on, every quest would be completed with deliberate, painstaking slowness. I would take the full time allotted, and then some. I would be the adventurer who always returned just under the wire, looking slightly harried and very, very average.
The path to a quiet life wasn't paved with speed and efficiency. It was paved with patience, deliberate delay, and the art of being convincingly, gloriously unremarkable.
My next quest, I decided, would involve watching paint dry. And I would take a full week to do it.
---
Chapter 5 End.
Author's Note:
Bob learns a critical lesson:in the quest for ultimate peace, being too good is just as bad as being too bad. His god-like powers require a human-level throttle. The balance between using his abilities for comfort and not drawing attention is a delicate one. Will he master the art of being average? Or will the world's inherent drama keep interfering? The quest for a quiet life continues!