45 Bruce

"Adaline! Gather as much stone as quickly as you can!" Will said.

No sooner when they arrived at their base, did they start working, especially Will. While he cut down trees, Adaline gathered all the stone that they had stored them in chests..

After an hour of cutting down trees, Will was able to barely gather the amount of paper he needed to make a single blueprint.

"So much for teamtrees… now how the hell does this even work?" Will looked at the blueprint.

The blueprint was basically a blue piece of paper, there was nothing special about it. If someone were to inspect it they would think it's just ordinary paper.

"I have an idea on how to cover my base, but I have no idea how to work this- gah! This is getting really old and repetitive!"

It was a never ending cycle. When he finds something new about his system, he doesn't know how it works, then he figures it out, then repeats.

"Let's see."

Will remembered something, the system's pencil. Since the very beginning he has had a brown book that had helped him see all of his crafting recipes that he had unlocked. But, there is also a pencil in it, however that pencil was useless.

There was no use for this pencil other than writing down his own little definition on things like Adaline, or rare crafting recipes that he hasn't been able to craft yet. It's basically for writing extra details about the things that are in his book.

"Maybe this pencil is meant for this?"

Will took out the pencil, the pencil was part of his system, if he threw it away it'll just reappear in his brown book.

Will drew something on the blueprint, it was a circle but imperfect, even a child would have drawn better.

"This is why I failed art class." Will reminisced about the past but put it behind him.

When he drew that imperfect circle, nothing happened.

"Maybe this doesn't work. But the fact that I was able to write on this blueprint has to mean something."

If Will used the system's pencil to draw on anything else, it won't show. The fact that it worked on the blueprints meant that he was on the right path.

"So this means that I am on the right path. What if I do this?"

Will wrote down 'stone' on the blueprint with a little arrow pointed at the imperfect circle.

Contrary to his expectations, something appeared out of the bluescreen.

{Would you like to make this structure?}

{Yes} {No}

{Warning: If you press yes, the blueprint cannot be changed. It will forever remain permanent}

"Wait, what? That's pure B.S. Does this mean I need to make more blueprints in order to make more unique buildings!" Will got frustrated but pressed 'no' now he knew how this worked at least.

"That's weird, I only specified what it was made of. I never specified how tall or big it should be." Will was even more confused than before. This system gave him more questions than answers.

"I really hope this works."

Will drew down what looked like a hill. He wrote down 'stone' and pressed 'yes' this is his plan.

"If I can blend my stone castle with the surrounding area using these stone hills, no one should notice. Even my roof is made of stone should anyone fly over it."

Will took his blueprint and held it like an ipad, but nothing happened.

"...this is gonna be a long day."

Meanwhile…

Back in the kingdom of Reyes, two people had recently come out of the castle.

One of them is Sandra. She wore fancy, enchanted armor that was fairly light, and it covered most of her body. Unlike most anime female characters who wear armor, this one actually covered everything instead of certain parts only.

Nothing much stood out from Sandra as she came out of the castle, she looked like a normal person wearing expensive armor. The only thing that stood out was the sniper rifle weapon on her back.

"Are you ready?" Sandra looked at the person beside her.

"Ready as I'll ever be."

This man is Bruce. He wore no armor, carried no weapons of any kind. The only thing he was wearing was his clothes that were gray, made out of cotton, but were tight but just enough for him to move around without feeling restricted.

"You know you don't have to come with me." Sandra said.

"I know." Bruce was busy doing stretching exercises.

"I still don't understand why you decided to go with me."

"Because a hero cannot go alone, he or she needs to take a companion with him to ensure their survival. And also, I really hate all of our classmates, except you. You're the only one I trust."

"No, yeah, I definitely understand you. But I wouldn't say I hate them, more like…"

"We just can't tolerate them."

"Exactly." Sandra chuckled because it was true.

"Now, where should we go?" Bruce asked.

"Shaun gave me this map. It lists out all the villages nearby."

"Maybe those villages need our help. We should visit them all." Bruce said.

"What do you mean?"

"I want to help people, and the only way I can do that is by bringing these criminals to justice." Bruce took out a pile of wanted people list.

"Oh, so that's what you want to do?"

"Indeed. Ever since I heard what that noble had done to those children, I couldn't help but feel angry that people like him exist and are still out there."

"Didn't think you'd have a sense of justice."

"Of course I do! It's something my teacher told me to do. 'If I ever see someone in trouble, help them.' "

"He sounds like a good teacher." Sandra said.

"My teacher is a woman. And she is the best! But, she also said 'before you can protect others, you need to learn how to protect yourself' and he is correct."

"When you say teacher, exactly what did she teach you?"

"I met her since I was a kid, but she has taught me B.J.J. karate, taekwondo, wrestling, kick-boxing, muay thai."

"Oh yeah, I remember now, you won a lot of medals. I remember our classmates telling me about your accomplishments."

"Yeah, it was nothing much. I will never forget the day I won my first gold medal, when we were still in high school." Bruce got a little sentimental when he thought about that moment, as if it was more of a gloomy memory than a joyful one.

"We should probably go before people recognize us. Where should we go?" Sandra examined the map once more.

"Oh, I think I know where. This village over here." Bruce pointed at one of the villages on the map.

"Why there?"

"Because of them." Bruce showed Sandra two wanted posters, one was a normal looking girl. The other poster showed a man with a dragon-bone helmet covering his face.

It was obvious who these are, Will and Grace.

"Where did you get these?" Asked Sandra.

"The garbage. Apparently someone ordered to take down all of these posters a few days ago, I think it was the day Taker got killed when they were taken down. They said that they took down these posters because we don't have to worry about them anymore. They were really vague about it. Meaning that these two villains are still out there somewhere."

"You want to take these two criminals down?"

"I do. They're both elves, they managed to kill many innocent people right before the soldiers could catch them. I cannot let people like them roam free and keep killing innocents."

"Just these two? Aren't there any more criminals out there?"

"Surprisingly, no. Not that many. Usually bandits are taken down by either monsters, sorcerers, or guards. Any terrorists are immediately taken down by sorcerers and in some cases the Great Sage takes action. Taker was evaded everyone for so long because he acted fast, had a powerful magical item, and managed to escape long before anybody can report a missing child."

"So, just these two then?" Asked Sandra.

"No, there is also someone else named 'Clement' who kidnapped the Princess. But I thought it'd be easier and much faster finding Bonnie and Clyde first." Bruce said with determination in his words and eyes.

Despite all this time, no one has been able to find Clement and the princess.

"Our hero abilities aren't the best at tracking down people. Can I see that picture for a bit?" Sandra pointed at Will's picture.

"Sure." Bruce handed her the wanted poster sheets.

"Hmmm…" Sandra took a good look at the poster.

'It looks like Will but not really. It's hard to tell because of that dragon-bone helmet he has covering his face. And also, this poster states that he's an elf, and also tanned. Will is certainly not tanned or an elf. If he was here, I know he'd come to see me as soon as possible.'

Sandra's eyes got watery, and tears formed and dripped onto the wanted poster.

"Something wrong?"

"No, nothing."

"Oh my god! IT'S TWO MORE HEROES!" A little kid, who was with his mother, the same one who sold a picture to Will, over-dramatically yelled at the top of his lungs.

The busy crowd of people heard him, and they all swarmed Bruce and Sandra. Nobody recognized them until the kid pointed them out.

"O.M.G. can I have your autograph?" The woman asked Bruce.

"With what ink and paper?"

"Wait, I want to draw their faces!"

"Draw a poster with me and them."

"STEP ON MY GENITALS!"

The crowd kept asking for weird and tiresome tasks.

"We took too long." Bruce said.

"Yeah…"

Meanwhile…

"Work! Work goddammit!" Will was having the toughest battle of his life, it was against none other than the annoying crafting system.

"Is a simple instruction manual so much to ask? How do you expect me to figure this out all by myself?" Will got angry and started yelling at the sky.

Adaline was watching Will acting like a psychopath. If she could say anything, she'd tell him 'get a girlfriend' and that's it.

"Well, this blueprint is a complete bust! So many trees wasted."

Will looked at and noticed the sun was setting down.

"At least it's getting darker. Perfect time then. I am gonna do something I haven't done in a while."

Will gathered all the stone in his hands, stored most of it in his bracelet and his ring that he had.

When he made that trade with Josh, Will forgot to give back the ring to him. It wasn't his intention, but he'd much rather keep it to himself than to give it back.

"Spending all nighters building. This is gonna be boring as hell! Oh well."

Will covered his entire base with stone. By the time he was done, it looked like a giant hill.

"No, no, no, no! This is WAY too big and it looks unnatural. Didn't think my base would be bigger than I expected."

Will wanted to make several identical stone hills, and much other smaller hills to make it seem natural. Only a small hole was open to let sunlight hit the camels, apparently they needed the heat of the sun to survive, and couldn't use anything else as a form of substitute.

If he were to make other several identical hills, it would take him days due to its enormous size and the amount of time it took him to build one.

"And this idea was so good in my head. Not only that, but I wasted my blueprint on this, and I DON'T EVEN KNOW HOW IT WORKS!"

Will grabbed his blueprint, and out of anger he attempted to crush it, but it wasn't ordinary paper. It could indeed crumble up, but later it would revert back to its original form.

"Why won't this work! I NEED YOUR HELP!"

Then, to his surprise, an exact replica of what he drew appeared in his eyes.

What it looked like to him was like this: Will would only see the blue linings from the drawing in his blueprint. The size however was much smaller than expected. The hill that he drew was no bigger than his foot. Think of it as if it was a hologram from a movie, but only Will can see it.

"How did I do that? And why is it so small?"

Looking at it carefully, the drawing that he drew on the blueprint was gone, as if he had never drawn anything on it.

The blue linings that appeared beside his feet disappeared and reappeared on the blueprint.

Will examined the blueprint once more treating it nice and gently compared to five minutes ago.

"Wait, don't tell me." Will failed to realize something, it was so simple.

Will touched the blueprint with his finger, and it appeared in front of him again.

"I'm done. I'm a failure to humanity. I'mma go hang myself. Adaline, take care." Will threw the blueprint and went to kill himself for not realizing this sooner.

Adaline was beside him and kept looking at him weirdly. Even if what he said was true he'd just respawn back.

Meanwhile…

"Ahahahah! SO MUCH FRIGGIN' MONEY!" Somebody was enjoying his wealth today,

Josh Jones and his harem were parading around the kingdom as if they owned it.

"It was definitely a good idea to take that job. Not a lot of people are willing to pay that much for dragon corpses." The Sorceress smiled. Dragon corpses are expensive.

"It's all thanks to hero Josh Jones for taking down those dragons."

"Indeed, this calls for a celebration. Here, you take these. You deserve it." Josh handed his harem over half the gold coins he earned. It was inside another magical ring that the kingdom provided him.

"Wait, but why? This is so much money?" Felicia couldn't accept so much money, especially from a hero who saved her.

"You guys helped me out so much, it's only right I do this. Buy whatever you want, clothes, food, jewels, go crazy."

"Then, we thank you." The Sorceress did not reject the offer and took Felicia and the dragon loli with her.

Seeing them spending his hard earned money brought a smile to his face, like a typical hero cliche.

"I'm so glad to be here." Josh said to himself.

Felicia, who was dragged by the Sorceress, didn't like the idea of spending his money.

"Naveah, we literally didn't do anything! It isn't right to spend the hero's money when he did all the work." Felicia said very guilty about it.

"Felicia, you poor, innocent girl, the hero gave us this money, there is no reason to reject it.' Naveah, the seductive Sorceress, smiled at her and she played around with a magical ring that let her carry around a bunch of stuff.

"It just doesn't feel right."

"Think about it, wouldn't it be insulting to the hero, a legendary figure, if we were to reject his kind offer?" Naveah got closer to Felicia's face.

"Ah. You're right!" Felicia didn't think about that. Rejecting his generosity is like spitting on his face.

"And besides, it's not like we didn't do anything, we did the most important thing." Naveah said.

"Really? What's that?"

"Of course we were there for moral support. Didn't it feel great to cheer him up every single time he killed a dragon?"

"It actually did. Maybe you're right. Maybe what we did was good enough for the hero to give us half of his hard earned money.(It's not)" Felicia completely agreed with Naveah.

"Then let's spend this money!"

"Now that I think about it, doesn't it seem cruel to have killed many dragons in front of Maid?"

The Dragon loli was dragged by them, but she couldn't understand a word they said, because they spoke two different languages.

"Nah, she doesn't seem to mind it, right?" Naveah looked at Maid.

Maid merely stood there and didn't say anything.

"See? When she's silent and has a deadpan expression, it means that she agrees."

"Wow, Naveah, I didn't think you could read dragons so easily!"

"What can I say? I am that amazing. And I know she's enjoying being a part of the hero's companions, like you and I."

And so the useless harem began spending the money, while dragging the poor dragon loli.

Josh was staying still and thinking about something.

'I am worried about Maid, doesn't seem like she's enjoying spending time together with a hero. Man, what did I do wrong? Shouldn't she already be begging to be my slave by now like those mangas that I read? Maybe it's because we can't understand each other. I wonder if there's a way. I should ask the king if there's a way.'

"O.M.G. Another hero? Josh Jones? What is with our luck today?!"

The same kid from earlier yelled at the top of his lungs, and everyone began swarming Josh Jones.

"Hero Josh Jones! You were so amazing when you took down that Apex dragon!"

"Is it true that you have a 5-stripped sorceress accompanying you?"

"Can you solve my math problem?"

"Lucas! The respectable hero doesn't have time to do your homework!"

Josh however enjoyed the spotlight.

'I am so glad to be alive.'

"Josh?" A man's voice called out to him.

The swarm of people made a path connecting Josh with Sandra and Bruce.

"Bruce? Cassandra? Did Shaun let both of you go?" Josh didn't expect them to come out.

"He did. Just now."

"Strange, I expected maybe Pete, Henry, Victoria, or Britney to have been released sooner."

"Yeah, those four, and you, have the most destructive powers out of the other heroes."

"My power is indeed destructive. It's simply amazing, combined with my other ability it's simply overpowered." Josh liked his powers so much purely because of how powerful it is, it can even kill dragons with ease.

Josh has the most destructive power that it's almost unheard of. What made him different from those 4 is simple, he has a second ability, a large stamina pool.

All heroes have one special ability, some have copies of others like healing powers. But, in some cases, some heroes are born with a secondary power.

Josh could spam so many of his fireball attacks that it was unreal, thanks to his large stamina pool. If he wasn't born with that second ability, he could never produce such a massive number of destructive fireballs without years of practice.

"Wait, Bruce, you changed your last name to 'Man' right?" Asked Josh.

"I did. After my idol 'Ip Man'"

That's a good idea! Why didn't I think of it? I should perhaps change my name to 'superman' that sounds cool."

"Do you want to get sued?" Sandra asked.

"Yeah, you're right. Maybe 'gasp' 'The invincible superman' that sounds so much cooler."

"That name is also taken." Sandra said.

"Really? By who?"

"Hayato Furinji."

"Who the hell is that?" Josh has never heard of him.

"He's from a popular manga. A friend of mine, Alex, may his soul rest in peace, recommended this to me. And my brother and father are also into this sort of stuff so yeah..." Sandra said.

"Well… how about… Harry Potter."

"Really?"

"Why not? It's a different world, and I got a wand!"

"Is that why you asked the blacksmiths to make you a wand instead of something else?" Bruce asked.

"Well, yeah. Who doesn't like Harry Potter? Wait, I had an idea: Why don't we form a team?"

"No, that's fine."

"Are you sure? Because I already have several companions accompanying me to an epic adventure."

"No, just us two is fine." Bruce and Sandra denied his request.

"If you say so." Josh shrugged his shoulders.

"Hero Josh Jones!"

Naveah, waved to Josh and said, in front of a crowd, "We're going to try out new clothes! Why don't you help us pick them?! We can even try out swimsuits if you want!"

"Why did you say that in front of a group of people?" Felicia was embarrassed.

"Because."

Josh's formed a creepy, perverted smile.

"Excuse me, but booty- duty, calls!" Josh ran to them. While the majority of people followed Josh Jones, since he is more popular than the other heroes.

"Looks like the only epic adventure they're venturing to is in their pants." Bruce smirked at his own comment.

"Doesn't he feel anything at all?" Sandra said.

"What do you mean?" Asked Bruce.

"Doesn't he miss his family? It's like he completely threw out the life he had on the garbage because he was dragged into this world."

"Indeed, I miss my teacher, my family. But, what else can we do? No hero has ever been able to go back to our world." Bruce said.

"Bruce, as long as there is hope, there is still a chance." Sandra will not lose hope.

"I know." Bruce didn't know how to feel to be honest.

Most heroes don't know how to feel about being transported to another world against their will. Are they just to accept it as it is?

Bruce did like his old world, his teacher, family, but this world opened up a new world of possibilities.

'I don't know how to feel about this. At least, when Sandra realizes that going back is impossible, maybe she can forget about Will and perhaps move on over… to me.' Bruce thought.

If he had to thank the gods about one thing, is that Will didn't teleport with them. This way he has a chance.

Meanwhile…

Will was sitting in the dark with a smile on his face.

"I actually did it."

The entire area around had completely changed. What was once a grassy-plain field, it was now a new terrain of hills. The hills spanned a radius of several kilometers. There was no way that anybody, even a sorcerer, who could fly, would be able to find his base.

Adaline would grow plants and trees over the hills, that way she could sense someone approaching. The trees were only possibly because Will planted acorns in those spots.

"But it's not enough. I need to keep expanding it. At least until the rumors die down."

When the sun rised he finally rested.