"Wait, I can explain!"
A feminine voice yelled in panic while raising her hands, with the stone sword still in one of them.
"Well, I'm waiting."
"I got lost in the forest, and night caught up with me, and this was the only place safe from the monsters."
"What's your name? And why are you so far from any settlements?"
From what I know this is at the very edge of the monster's territory, Bobby's village is the border between the Stone Kingdom and the lost land, so I'm curious where she is from.
She doesn't have an iron sword, but she has a full set of iron armor. So she's either a stupid rich kid who went to explore the unknown, or she is running away from someone and can't afford a guard or a good sword.
"My name is Merry Paper and I came with a caravan to trade with your people but I got separated from the group and now I'm lost."
That story sounded awfully suspicious, it's like I heard a similar story somewhere else.
"What happened to your nose?"
"What's wrong with my nose? That's how I was born with it."
Yep, that settles it, she's from another world like me, which means she's a player and most likely the prophesied hero to save the world.
Why is it here? Isn't she supposed to spawn somewhere in the desert since that's where the Pope lives?
With a sigh, I put my sword back into my inventory taking off my golden helmet as well.
"Undying, I have to discuss something with this intruder privately, you can look around the base until I scream for help or when were done."
She looked at me surprised, then at Merry and back at me before lowering her fighting stance and passing both of us with the axe still in her hand.
Once she was out of earshot I signed to Merry to follow back to the portal room.
"So how long have you been in this world."
"Wh-what do you mean in this world?"
I turned around her and smirked.
"Drop the act, there's nobody around here with a nose like you or more exactly the lack of one."
Surprised she raised her hand to feel her face only to realize that she didn't have a nose.
"Your friend had a small nose as well, why would my lack of one make me from another world?"
"Because my friend there, is actually from another dimension. Which further proves my point."
"Ok, but you don't have a nose either, so what's wrong with you then."
"Because I'm also like you, I came from another world. I don't know if we came from the same place though. Mine is a place called Earth and it looked nothing like this."
Surprise appeared on her face, and I could see instantly how her guard dropped.
"You've also been isekaied! Oh geez and here I thought I was someone special that can live their fantasy dream. How many of us are there? Are we that common?"
I don't know how I should feel about her reaction, she didn't mention that she is in a game but uses novel terms. Maybe she doesn't know she's in a game?
"We're not as common as you think, I only know about me and you. And there's a high chance that I'm here by accident while you are the hero of this world."
Her face lit up with excitement like she wanted to hear this from the very start.
"Ok, I know certain tropes are overdone, but I also know I'm not in a world that I'm familiar with. I think we are in a game, do you know it by any chance?"
So she didn't know after all, which I'm surprised since the game is pretty popular. But that means I'll have to explain it to her.
"Yes, we did spawn into a game world, I'm surprised you don't know about it, so here's the gist."
I then told her about Vanilla Minecraft, about what you can build and what you can't, about the animals and the monsters, about the villagers and their trading system, about the fact that there are three dimensions tied to each other in one way or another, and that were players so we can respawn and also act like a demigod between mortals.
"That's the game before I got here, it tends to do some updates from time to time but I don't know if they're including as well. Are we from the same time at least?"
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure we're from the same decade at least. But from what you've told me, there's no plotline in this game, sure there are villagers you can trade with but the only enemies they have are the monsters and the pillagers. Do I have to defeat the Piligers?"
"No no, what I told you was the version of the game in our world, this world is different but still somewhat similar."
Then I told her what I found out about this world. I told her about the three nations in this world, and about how villagers are almost like us but also different enough to be apart from them.
How we brake and place blocks faster than them, and we have four skills instead of two like everyone in this world.
I then told her about the prophecy, about how a Monster Lord would appear to destroy this world, and how the system would summon a hero to help defeat it.
"Wait, but doesn't that mean you can be the hero since you came before me?"
"No, the prophecy it's pretty recent actually, and the people know that a person will appear after the new year. And your the person that recently spawned in this world."
She gave a big sigh while massaging her forehead.
"Ok, that's a lot of information to process. If this was a novel it would be a pretty interesting start, but kind of underwhelming since I know all the information without someone trying to guilt trip me into saving this world."
"That's surprisingly a common trope, so what do you want to do? I can help you get to the Sandstone kingdom, just don't tell them about me. I'm dead in their eyes."
Quite literally actually.
"So you have a mysterious past, that's interesting, care to share it?"
Why do I have a feeling she thinks I'm a character with a tragic back story that needs to be understood?
"Maybe another time, so what do you want to do?"
She started to think intensely about her future for a good 10 minutes before she made a final decision.
"I don't think I'm ready for this world yet, and you seem to know a lot more than me. Is it ok if I stay with you until I think I'm ready to save this world?"
I'm surprised how easily she wants to take the role of a hero, I don't think I would be that comfortable to have such heavy responsibilities on my shoulders. Sure I would help my friends Bobby and Froggy at the drop of a hat no problem, but it's not the same as saving everyone in the world.
But I don't see a reason to refuse her, and on the plus side, I don't have to be alone in one of the most confusing times of my life.
"Sure I don't have a problem with that. Right now I'm building my underground base as you can see. You can help me as well while learning the ropes around this new world."
I raised my hand towards her for a handshake, which made her confused before understanding what I intended.
It's safe to say it was an awkward handshake without palms or fingers but a handshake nonetheless.
"Undying, you can come here now!"
A few moments later a woman in full iron with a small nose, red hair, and dangerous eyes walks into the room.
"I'm guessing everything went well with the surprised guest?"
"Yeah, she is actually from my homeland which is a surprise for me. I thought I was the only mad lad that would want to cross this dangerous forest."
Her expression relaxed as she finally understood she was not a threat. I think the fact she wore iron armor made her more tense than usual.
Can't blame her with that. She has a lot of unpleasant experiences with the outsiders.
"What do you think about my place?"
"It has an interesting design, very different from the capital or the usual city. I think it would fit pretty well with our world. Though I'm guessing it's still under construction."
I can understand why she thinks this design would fit her world more than this one, with all the lava flowing as a light source.
"Yeah, that's why I went to the Nether to get some blocks. Since you're here do you want to see how enchanting works? I can see you already have an enchanted axe, if you want I can put some more enchants on it."
She looked surprised at my sudden offer, but still accepted. And it may be sudden but I have a reason for the offer, with this I can teach both of them about Enchantment in one fell swoop.
And I hope it would makes Undying less tense around Merry.
But the second reason and probably the main one is because of a realization.
Undying came with me as a guide, but I want her to craft me an Ender chest before she leaves. I planned to put the enchanting setup and put the highest level of efficiency on my diamond pickaxe.
With that, then go to mine obsidian but this time much faster.
But here's the problem, I don't know how to write an Efficiency book, which means I have to get the eight blocks of obsidian the normal way, which would take 4 whole hours!
I like to mine long enough that I forget the notion of time, but I don't like to do it on a single block.
So I plan to use this enchanting lesson to convince the girls to help me mine that annoying block.
Is this manipulation?
Probably, but it's not like they lose too much in this deal so I don't feel that bad.
I originally planned the enchanting room to be close to the portal room, but it doesn't make any sense, and I'm too lazy to mine another room.
So I'll merge it with the End storage room since there's not a lot of items I can have from that dimension anyway.
We went to the empty room and placed the enchanting setup.
"This is the enchanting table, it's crafting recipe is four obsidian blocks, two diamonds, and one book. It's a very expensive item in this world, so don't think it's something everyone can make. This block uses lapiz as its fuel to enchant something permanent or temporary. Another important part of this setup it's the shelves around the enchanting table, they need to be exactly one block apart from it and you craft it with three books and six plank wood."
Merry tried to absorb as much information as possible, while Undying gave a nod of understanding.
"That's a lot of wood for only one block, wouldn't be more cost-effective to just do then manually?"
"Oh that's another suspicious stew that we won't talk about today, the short answer is no, the long answer is complicated."
I then took a page out of my inventory and started to write the enchantments for Fortune 1. I worked so much with the first-level enchantments that I memorized all three of them like the back of my hand, unfortunately, the higher-level ones I kind of cheated so I haven't managed to memorize them yet.
"This whole page is Fortune 1 enchantment. I can enchant it like this and get a temporary enchantment that lasts for around a week, or I can put it in an empty book as the first page and get a permanent enchantment."
"It looks like a simple process but I bet it's more complicated than it looks."
Merry seems to be the talkative type while Undying just listens in silence. I gave them the page to study before putting it in a book and throwing it at the enchanting table.
The action seems to confuse the girls, but the book doesn't hit the floor, instead, it starts to float gently while holographic runes move from the bookshelf to the book.
It was a short process, with the end leaving a closed book with pulsating light.
"This is a Fortune 1 enchanted book, it increases the probability of getting multiple ores from one block by a certain percentage. The higher the level is, the better the chances are."
Both of them seemed surprised by the event, but Merry's mouth was wide open while looking at the book in my hand. I could then hear her quietly speaking.
"This world has magic, I hit the jackpot."
I gave them the book to look through and Merry spoke again, this time with a very loud voice.
"Trader, you have to teach me magic!"
How did she even get that name?
I didn't even introduce myself, and this name keeps hunting me.