Chapter 48: First Victory

Finn stayed at the bottom of the hill for several seconds before finally pushing himself upright. Grass clung to the front of his shirt, and bits of dirt had caught in his hair, but he ignored both as he looked back toward the sheep standing above him.

The animal had already returned to grazing as though nothing had happened.

Finn lowered his gaze toward the shovel still clutched in his hands. For a moment, he simply stared at it.

Then he let out a long breath.

At least he still had it.

"I can do this," Finn muttered, brushing one palm over the worn wooden handle. "I just need to anticipate its movement correctly."

That was the problem. The sheep was not especially fast. At least, it did not look fast. Finn had simply been attacking where it was instead of where it was going to be.

He wiped the grass from his clothes, pushed a loose curl away from his forehead, and started back up the hill.

This time, he didn’t raise the shovel over his head. When he got close enough, Finn lowered the handle and held the blade forward instead. The shape was awkward, but it gave him more reach than his previous swings had.

The sheep continued chewing. Finn tightened both hands around the handle and thrust.

The edge of the shovel struck the animal squarely in the side.

His eyes widened.

"I hit it!"

The excitement lasted only until the recoil traveled back through his arms.

The sheep’s wool compressed beneath the metal before springing back into place, and the force pushed the shovel toward Finn hard enough that he had to take half a step backward to keep his grip.

The sheep didn’t even lift its head.

Finn stared at it. "Well..."

That had still been better. Yesterday, he had barely managed to touch one without being launched down the hill immediately.

Now he had actually made contact.

Finn adjusted his hands around the shovel and rolled one shoulder. The problem was force.

He looked down at his arms. He could fix that.

Zion watched from the throne with growing interest.

The first few attempts had been funny enough on their own, but the young man had started changing the way he fought instead of repeating the same mistake.

That made the whole thing considerably more interesting.

Finn braced one foot behind him and thrust again, this time putting much more of his weight behind the movement.

The sheep reacted. Just before the shovel reached its body, it lifted one front leg. The edge of the metal struck directly against its hoof.

A sharp clang rang across the pasture.

Finn barely had time to register what happened before the sheep pushed back.

His arms snapped toward his chest. The force traveled through the shovel and lifted him off his feet, sending him backward down the slope for the third time that day.

Zion laughed as Finn disappeared into the grass again, though this time there was more curiosity behind it.

"That was better."

The shovel had actually given him enough reach to make contact.

Zion rested one bony elbow against the armrest and watched Finn slowly sit up at the bottom of the hill.

He still had no idea what class the young man was. Most adventurers gave at least some indication through their equipment or the way they moved. Swordsmen looked like swordsmen. Archers carried bows. Mages were difficult to miss once they started casting.

This one had entered with an old sword, lost it, and returned with a shovel.

Zion tilted his skull slightly. "There isn’t actually a Farm Boy class, is there?"

If there was, this would be his first time seeing one. Still, Finn’s latest attempt had looked much closer to the way someone might use a spear than a sword.

The shovel was longer, and Finn seemed far more comfortable thrusting with it than trying to swing it like a blade.

"Maybe he’s closer to a spear class," Zion murmured. "At least he can hit the sheep now."

Hitting it was still a long way from defeating it.

So far, Finn had not even managed to visibly injure the animal but that didn’t stop him. He climbed the hill again. Then again.

Each attempt looked slightly different from the last.

Sometimes he thrust too early and the sheep moved before he reached it. Other times he waited too long and ended up blocking a hoof with the shovel before getting shoved backward.

Once, he managed to strike the sheep along the shoulder, only for it to turn and ram him hard enough to send him rolling several feet through the grass.

Zion stopped laughing quite as much after that. Not because it had become less funny.

It was still extremely funny.

But somewhere between the repeated falls and Finn dragging himself back up the hill every single time, Zion found himself wanting him to succeed.

The boy never looked toward the exit. He never threw the shovel. More importantly, he never let go of it.

Every time he hit the ground, he checked the tool first before standing again. Eventually, he reached the top of the hill and stopped several feet away from the sheep.

This time there was no crouching, no awkward attempt to sneak closer.

Finn stood upright and wiped the dirt from one cheek with the back of his wrist, leaving a faint brown streak across his skin.

His breathing was heavier now, and several new grass stains covered his clothes, but his attention never left the sheep. It became the only thing on the floor that mattered.

He tightened his grip around the shovel. For a moment, he pictured his family.

His mother asking whether he had been hurt. His father listening quietly while Finn admitted that he had lost his grandfather’s sword. Rowan trying not to laugh while telling him that farm tools had more reach anyway.

Finn swallowed. He wanted to go home and tell them he had done it.

Not because defeating one sheep would suddenly make him a great adventurer—it wouldn’t. But he wanted proof that yesterday had not been the end of it.

That losing once didn’t mean he couldn’t learn.

His fingers tightened around the handle until the wood pressed into his palms. The sheep continued eating.

Finn moved. He stepped forward and swung the shovel from the side with every bit of strength he could gather, keeping his eyes fixed on the animal instead of the weapon.

The sheep shifted.

There.

He saw it. A fraction of a second before the shovel reached it, the sheep started moving to the right.

He changed his grip.

The adjustment was small, barely more than a turn of his wrists and a shift through his shoulders, but it changed the path of the blade enough.

Zion rose from the throne. He didn’t need to breathe anymore, but for some reason he felt as though he were holding it anyway.

The shovel connected. Metal struck the sheep squarely across the head with a heavy crack.

The animal let out a short cry before its body dissolved into a burst of pale smoke.

Finn remained where he was.

The shovel stayed raised in his hands as he stared at the empty patch of grass in front of him. For several seconds, he didn’t seem to understand what had happened. Then his face changed.

"I did it!"

Finn threw one arm into the air, nearly losing his grip on the shovel in the process.

Zion’s skeletal arms shot upward at the same time.

"Yes!"

If anyone had been standing in the throne room, the sight of a Dungeon Lord celebrating the death of one of his own sheep probably would have been difficult to explain.

Zion didn’t care. "Golden boy finally did it!"

Finn laughed as he lowered the shovel, still breathing hard while staring at the place where the sheep had disappeared.

Then the last of the smoke cleared and he noticed something resting in the grass. Finn’s smile faded into confusion.

He stepped closer. A sword lay where the sheep had been. His sword.

He froze. He recognized the worn leather around the grip first, followed by the old scratches running along the blade.

There was no mistaking it.

"Grandfather’s sword..."

His voice came out quieter than before. Finn kept one hand wrapped tightly around the shovel as he crouched and reached toward the weapon with the other.

His fingers closed around the familiar hilt, and for a moment he simply held it there, looking down at it as though someone might take it away again.

Then a grin slowly spread across his face.

He had beaten the sheep. He had gotten the sword back. He could actually go home with his head held high this time.

Finn started to stand. Then something else in the grass caught his eye. Right beside where the sword had been was a small slab of raw meat.

"What’s this?"

Zion leaned forward. He hadn’t put that there. His attention immediately shifted toward the sheep’s loot settings.

The sword was still listed exactly where he had manually assigned it.

Nothing else.

"How did he get that?"

Finn picked up the meat carefully and turned it over in his hand.

The cut was small, but the meat was richly marbled, with thin lines of white fat running through the red.

It looked considerably better than anything his family usually had at home.

His eyes widened.

"Wow."

Finn brought it closer, studying it from both sides before his smile returned even wider than before.

"Mom hasn’t had anything this good in a long time."

The thought of bringing it home seemed to excite him almost as much as getting the sword back.

Finn tucked the weapon carefully beneath one arm while keeping the shovel in the other hand, then looked down at the meat again.

"I have to get home before dinner."

Zion remained on the throne, staring at the unexpected reward in Finn’s hand.

He still had no idea where it had come from.