Chapter 2: Chapter 2: Sewing Needle Sword

My father had been a ‘Noble.’ He left my mother behind in a border town with a large payment and a magically enforced vow of silence.

Half of the village was hopping that I would be a Noble too.

Everyone in this world had a class; a preconceived place in society where you belonged. They were passed from parent to child; rarely, just rarely, the gods would see fit to adjust the place of a single person, adjusting their class and raising them into nobility. They were the Chosen.

I wasn’t born a noble. And I wasn’t Chosen, either.

[Seamstress class unlocked: +5 to SPEED and DEXTERITY. +(10%+2%/Lvl) to all stats gained from crafted items.]

[Gwendolyn Tailor][Human, Lv1][Seamstress]

[Health: 10/10][Mana: 10/10][XP: 0/10]

[ATTRIBUTES]

►SPD: 10 ►WIL: 5

►STR: 5 ►DEX: 10

►CON: 5 ►PER: 5

[SKILLS]

►Crafting I ►Running Stitch I

[PATTERNS]

►[NONE]

My breath came back haphazardly. The blurred image of the room confronted me, and I struggled to blink it away, only to see the face of the priest leaning over me inches away, eyes bloodshot. I recoiled, falling backwards.

The priest stepped back.

“I thought you would be Chosen.” The priest said, voice dripping with disappointment.

“Why would I be chosen?”

“You have…” The priest sighed, falling backwards into his chair. “So many threads attached to you.”

I stared at him, waiting for more. He stared at the ceiling. Then he waved in a rather rude, dismissive gesture, the long sleeves of his robes falling back as he did so.

“Go.”

I moved to stand but lurched, falling sideways, my body moving faster than I expected. My speed doubling was unkind to my coordination.

I stumbled out of the wagon and looked up at my mom. Her eyes were full of hope, and anything I could say would disappoint her. She wanted the best for me; to have a better life, to have been born with power, to have been born a Noble like my father. I was going to disappoint her.

“Are you — ” she started to ask.

“I want to go home.” I interrupted her, pushing past her, stumbling up the road. I didn’t feel faster or more dexterous. My body felt wrong. I was going to disappoint the entire village. But this was what I wanted; I didn’t really want my father’s class. I had made plans. Dozens of plans for what to do if I became a noble, to take over and buy this village so I could keep it alive. It would be simple. Easy.

Deep in my heart I had always known I wouldn’t inherit my mother’s class; why would the world give me something I wanted? I was going to end up a noble like my father.

My plans had to go on anyway. My memory shot to my mother’s supernatural ability to sew, the way her needle carved through tanned leather like paper. It could carve through living flesh, too, I knew.

I pushed the door to our house and workshop open, shot up the stairs, and pushed into my bedroom. I only had to share it with two other people. But the room was separated by hung curtains, giving an illusion of privacy. Complex patterns were weaved into the hanging cloth, tapestries decorated with images of a disorderly sky and verdant greens of forests, leftover thread from a hundred commissions interwoven in collages of color.

I collapsed into my bed and stared at them, emotional overwhelming me.

This was wrong.

I had mentally prepared myself for this outcome, all of my surface thoughts agreeing this was natural. But it was wrong. It wasn’t what I really expected. Two lives full of failure. I curled up in a ball.

When my mom called me for dinner, I ignored her. She talked softly into the room, letting me know it would be down there when I was ready. I drifted in and out of sleep, waking up to find quiet shuffling in the room around me and a blanket over me.

I curled back up in the dark.

I don’t know how long I sat before I heard the tinking noise on the window. One. Two.

God damnit, Gerald. Someone shuffled next to me in the dark.

I grabbed my backpack as I shot to my feet, trying my best to brush the wrinkles off my clothes, and rushed out the door before anyone could beat me to it. The creaking of the door made me cringe. Even trying my best to be quiet, the stairs protested loudly, old wood clinging desperately to life. I touched the knob on the front door.

My stomach growled.

I turned back and looted a wooden bowl. It smelled good; it was stacked full of soggy vegetables and meat, but I was sure it was fantastic when it was made. I heard the door creak open behind me and ran outside, awkwardly carrying the food.

Gerald was throwing rocks from the street level.

“What are you doing?” I asked in stage whisper.

“Waking you up!” He said.

The door creaked open on the other side of the house.

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“You’re waking the whole house up!” I hissed, looking back at the house even as I started speed walking down the street. Then I grabbed his arm and started leading him away.

“You said you’d meet me an hour ago!” He said, cradling the wooden box in his arms as he struggled to keep up with me.

“That was before I got my class.” I said, realizing I had easily ran ahead of him. He was nearly jogging to keep up. Being a forger didn’t necessitate speed. I slowed to let him match me, turning into the quiet street. The village was nearly dead quiet, save for the sound of wind whistling through the streets and shaking the trees.

I ended up following behind Gerald as he led the way to the dungeon at the center of the city.

“So you didn’t…” Gerald started again, looking over at me. I looked up from the ground, meeting his eyes as he trailed off. “Sorry.” He said.

“Swords won’t do me any good, if you’re asking.” I said, nodding at the box he held. I tried to keep the bitterness out of my voice. Judging by Gerald’s expression souring, I failed.

“Sorry.” He whispered.

We reached the dungeon, standing outside for a quiet moment, just us and rustling leaves.

Gerald popped the box open, presenting it to me without meeting my eyes. He stood a full head over me.

I stared down into the box. Two polished metal needles as long as my arm were pressed in by silk cushioning. He had to have prepared the cushioning before hand.

“They’re not swords.” I said, letting out a breath and grabbing one. It was cold in my hand.

“It’s just like we talked about. I figured… either way.” He said. “They count as swords, for the System. Which means they have weapon stats. But…” he trailed off again.

It was a gigantic sewing needle, wrapped with leather for a handle, a hole at one end for thread, big enough to accommodate rope. It was black and polished to a finish, sucking the heat from my hand.

I held out the gigantic metal needle in my hand. The weight strained my wrist. For the first time, I reached out to the system enchanted magic inside of me, imagining the air as a cloth to stitch. A notification hovered in midair, already fading as quickly as it appeared.

[Running Stitch I] [FAILED CAST]

Magic grabbed my arm like an iron vice grip closing on it, locking it in place. Then it dissipated.

I frowned.

“Didn’t work.” I said.

“Oh, here. Maybe…” Gerald grabbed the box from the ground, pulling out the padding to reveal a rope supporting the cloth. He held it out to me. I looked at it in mute disbelief for a moment before tying the rope to the hole.

[Running Stitch I] [Mana: 9/10]

The iron vice grip of the system locked on my arms again. I gripped the needle with both hands, stabbing forward with a speed that whistled as it split the air, my arms automatically moving as if to thread the rope.

[Cancel]

I staggered forwards as the magic released itself all at once.

Then I stood in awe, regulating my breathing. It would work. I could use the magic of sewing to fight.

“So?” Gerald asked.

“It could work. But… only to clear the lowest level of the dungeon. The Seamstress class just doesn’t have the stats necessary to kill monsters.” I said. “Unless we…”

The words trailed off, dead on my tongue. I wanted to be the hero that saved the village. I didn’t want to be a Seamstress. Yes, I wanted to be like my mother. But I always thought that, with me being reincarnated on this world, I would be a hero of some kind.

Main character syndrome.

“Unless you make clothing out of the monsters. For the stats.”

“Stupid.” I said.

“Crazy.” Gerald replied. “But it was your idea. That’s the plan, right?”

I sat down, picking up the bowl of food and scooping it into my mouth bite by bite. Gerald sat on the muddy flagstones beside me. His eyes glanced from me to the giant sword to the dungeon. He was nervous, too. His fingers bounced on his knee.

“We’re doing it.” I said, taking the final bite of my food.

“We?” Gerald asked.

“I’m doing it. You stay out here. You’re too young.”

“Right.” He said.

I pulled my backpack free and checked it. Bandages, check. The single potion our household owned, looted from our locked cabinet, check. It didn’t glow as brightly as I remembered. Pain numbing leaves for chewing, check. Bottles of water to clean a wound, check. I tied the rope around the second needle and looped it to my backpack, strapping it back onto my back and holding the first needle with both hands.

Gerald hugged me, then stepped back.

“Be safe.” He said.

“It’s just wolves, right? If it looks dangerous, I’ll run.” I nodded. “Don’t worry.”

The dungeon entrance loomed over me, made of stacked white stones covered in plants trying desperately to reclaim it. The portal surface was rippling, the world on the other side hard to make out. I sucked in a final, steadying breath, grabbing the needle with two hands, knuckles white with tension.

Then I stepped into a world full of monsters.

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