Tyler Kimball - Lessgently
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Pre-Read: Reap What You Sow - Chapter 1
🕑 Added 2024-03-02 18:26:43 +0000 UTCGenre: Fantasy/isekai/LitRPG(Very light - no numbers.)/Adventure/Action
Rough General Premise: Tomboy female MC gets isekai'd. Becomes a farmer along with some other classes. Ends up not being a very good farmer in general. decides to farm the lives of monsters instead.
Content warnings: Occasional blood/gore descriptions. Mc is a smoker.
GOALS
- Tomboy Scythe-wielding badass MC.
- Lots of different and unique monsters.
- Gaining power as a farmer by killing.
This was written months and months ago, and I have a hefty backlog of 40k words. I will post a few chapters over the coming days, and I would like your input.
This first chapter is subject to change.
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Chapter 1
Sable desperately gasped for air as she fell onto her hands and knees in the tall, dry grass. She coughed and sputtered as cold air entered her lungs, much colder and a more difficult task than it should have been. Shakily, she felt along her body. She was trying to find out if she was still in one piece. Her dark, blood-red, contact-colored eyes shook franticly as she tried to understand what had just happened.
Not ten seconds ago, she tried to unlock her front door after returning from a night out at a club with friends. She was still tipsy, but the long cab ride home apparently did her a favor. The stop-and-go traffic from the bustling late-night city streets gave her enough time to sober up. Otherwise, she would have probably been drunk and even more confused, given her situation.
While scraping her keys across the scratch-ridden brass lock, which was mostly her fault, her mind suddenly blanked, and she lost all her senses. At first, she thought she might have been drugged at the club, but she quickly discarded that as a possibility, as she had made it all the way home by herself in the cab. There would be no reason for anybody to drug her with some sort of delayed drug, even though it was always a fear in the back of her mind.
The next thing she knew was that she was just… here. There was no warning, no sounds, nothing but the blankness of her mind into the feeling of dried grass. Grass, which she knew for sure, wasn't anywhere near her home because she lived in a densely populated city in the United States of America—St. Louis.
“HELP!” Sable hoarsely screamed, hoping that anybody nearby would hear her plea.
Pausing for a few seconds, she strained her ears, desperately hoping for a reply. The only sounds she heard were the faint rustling of the grass around her caused by the cold and chilly wind.
The air was cold. Too cold. It felt like the faint chill of autumn, and combined with the all too natural smell of the dried grass beneath her, it gave her a kick of nostalgia—The first thought that came into her foggy mind was of Halloween.
Which would ordinarily be quite lovely. If not for the fact that it was supposed to be mid-summer, as it was coming up on the fourth of July.
After rising unsteadily to her feet, she finally got a good look at where she was—on the top of a small hill in an open field of dried, waist-high grass. First, she noticed that there was no path through the grass to her. The only section of grass pressed to the earth was where she stood. The sun was beginning to set, and far away, she could spot a small thicket of trees creating a treeline. Their orange and red leaves had half fallen off their thick branches as the seasons began to change.
Without another thought, she anxiously patted her dark leather pant pockets to find her phone. Hopefully, there was some signal wherever she was. Thankfully, she kept her phone in her pockets and not her purse, as her purse and keys, which should have been in her hands, were nowhere to be found.
Clicking her phone’s home button rewarded her with both hope and fear. The bright LED screen lit up brightly, but there was no cellular signal—only the SOS for emergencies. Well, this was an emergency. She quickly hit the SOS call button and held her phone up to her ear. It didn’t even ring once. The call failed.
She shakily tucked the phone back into her pant pocket, then padded it at her red long-sleeved cropped leather jacket, feeling its outer pockets. Thankfully, she quickly found what she was looking for—her vape. She took in a long, deep inhale for that hit of nicotine she desperately needed right now.
She cast her eyes around for a landmark while exhaling a giant cloud of foggy vapor. She sure as shit wasn’t going to be staying out in this cold with just a white cropped tee and her leather jacket, dressed for summer. Her long black leather pants and boots were acceptable, but she was cold with her midriff on full display.
Near the end of the treeline, Sable thought she could make out a faint flickering of light way off in the distance. She could still see pretty well even though the sun was beginning to set. The setting sun's bright light reflected off the two moons in the sky…
Two moons? Sable fuzzy mind latched onto the anomaly.
She froze in place and thoughtlessly reached for her phone, causing it to fall out of her pocket and into the tall grass around her. She brushed her short red hair aside as she struggled to comprehend what she was seeing.
There, in the sunsetting sky, were two brilliantly bright moons. The first was much larger than the moon she was used to seeing. It had to have been four, even maybe five times the size of Earth’s moon—a giant white pearl with an enormous crater in the center. Webs of fissures spread out from around an impact zone, giving the moon a beautiful yet ominous appearance—the appearance of a pale white eye.
The second, smaller moon was a rosy pink. Its size was similar to Earth’s moon at first glance, but it appeared much farther away upon further inspection. She couldn’t spot any detail on its surface. It was a blemishless pink marble floating in the sky.
Ducking down while keeping her eyes on the sky, she awkwardly felt around in the grass for her fallen phone. She had to take a picture of this, or nobody would ever believe her. She didn’t even believe herself at this moment. Nothing made sense.
Finding her phone in the grass, thankfully uncracked and unblemished, she took a picture of the wondrous moons. Staring at the picture, still in disbelief, she decided that this was the best proof she would ever have and saved it as her phone's background.
She needed answers, and she needed them soon. She obviously wasn’t on Earth, as she didn’t think that the damn moons randomly got changed. She began to stumble down the small hill through the tall grass as she made her way towards that faint flickering light beyond the treeline. And, of course, she took another hit of her vape to try and cool her ever-increasing nerves and worries.
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At first, trekking through the grass of this unknown planet was nerve-wracking. She feared that something could pop out of the grass randomly and kill her, like some alien animal or monster. If anything was out lurking about in this field, then it knew she was here. Every step she took caused the grass around her to shuffle and be pushed around.
After a few minutes of pushing aside big bushels of grass, so she could continue forward, just to have it lurch back and smack her once she let go, her fear of the grass turned into frustration.
The grass smacked her bare midriff, causing the edges to leave thin papercuts on her cold, bare skin. The random holes hidden in the ground and small boulders positioned all about nearly broke her ankle at least five times.
Occasionally, she would flash her phone in front of her, hoping that the light from the phone would illuminate some of the obstacles in the way. It didn’t ever work, and she didn’t want to use the light too much, as the odds of this world having the means to charge her phone seemed low. Now, if she saw some flying saucer or monolithic buildings, maybe she would change her mind.
She swore and stumbled through the grassy plain for well over an hour. The sun had fully set, causing the air to grow ever colder. She didn’t even need to use her vape to blow out fog now, and she could now make out what was causing the light she spotted from her hill.
It was a fire! Multiple fires! From a distance, their light looked to be a single source, but as she grew closer, she could differentiate the separate fires from atop a large stone wall.
The fire was lighting a city! Well, it was a medieval-looking city. Not that she cared at the moment. Any signs of life were what she wanted to see.
The city had a large wall surrounding it, reaching upwards of at least thirty feet high. The top wasn’t perfectly flat either; it waved upwards and downwards, almost like those pictures from The Great Wall of China. She could make out the silhouettes of people up on the walls, standing in front of the fires. That was all the motivation she needed. She could get help.
She picked up the pace, causing her to grimace as the tall grass smacked her harder on the thighs and waist, but she didn’t care anymore. It was always going to smack her; it was inevitable.
Soon enough, she burst through the last of the grassy field and stumbled onto a wide dirt road roughly a hundred feet away from a large wooden gate. There, stood a pair of people. Guards of some sort, standing in front of another set of fires. They flanked either side of the large wooden gate, and they jerked and stood at attention once their eyes landed on her.
Sable was so excited about finding some sort of civilization that she forgot for a moment that this was a whole new world. So, all of that happiness of finding shelter and help faded into wariness. The two guards pointed at her and began to wave her forward, and at this point in time, she saw that they had weapons.
One guard had a spear in hand, the butt of it placed firmly into the ground: the other had a hand on a sheathed sword. Her wariness began creeping into the zone of fear.
She had very little time, as they had already spotted her and waved her forwards. So, she began thinking of what she was going to say to them if they even spoke the same language and how she would view her in their position.
If I was a police officer, and an alien came out of the bushes in front of me. What would I do? Well, firstly, alert the government, obtain the alien knowledge, and lock them away so we can obtain and keep said knowledge. Yeah, over my dead body.
She cautiously walked down the dirt road, still unable to make out the delicate features of these aliens. They looked humanoid and had melee weapons from ages past. So at least she wasn’t going to get raygun’d.
The guard with the sword walked forward, hand raised in a neutral-looking gesture. That was a good sign, at least. They began to speak once they were ten feet apart.
“Halt. Papers, please.”
Well, they somehow speak English, but that is not a great start.
“Uh, I lost mine.”
Sable quickly tried to think of some explanation, and the only thing she could think of was so cliche it even hurt to say it. She barely managed to stutter it out.
“I… I got attacked by bandits.”
That was, apparently, a good thing to say. But also, at the same time, a bad thing. She couldn’t properly make out the guard's face, but she could definitely hear the sarcasm in his voice.
“You got attacked by bandits? Here?” He finished, gesturing around them.
“Uh. Yeah, definitely.” Sable replied in the most uncertain tone.
She saw the guard's shoulders slump and heard a sigh. The guard walked closer, and Sable could then see his features.
The guard was a human! He wore a set of worn leather armor, something Sable would have seen at some Renaissance fair if she had ever actually gone to them, with a set of slightly rusty chainmail on top. The leather had an insignia pinned above the heart, depicting some type of bird flying through a ring.
He looked at Sable, eyebrows raised, in silence for a few seconds before he spoke again.
“You’re going to stand here and tell me bandits are attacking this road? This one?” He emphasized the end of his question by pointing down to the ground at the dirt road they stoof upon.
Sable could have said many things in this situation, but she chose one of her personal favorites when telling a lie. She doubled down with a little bit of spicy misdirection.
“That’s right—bandits, but not on the road. They were out in those fields.”
She pointed toward where she had just come from.
The guard looked her dead in the eyes and was calm when he spoke.
“Listen, lady. The day a bandit group targets empty fields is the day I become an adventurer. Also, as you can see, I'm a [Guard]. Do you know what skill a [Guard] can get early on? [Detect Lies]. So, I’ll go ahead and ignore this whole lying to a member of the watch thing if you just go ahead and tell the truth from now on. Deal?”
At first, Sable didn’t understand half of what he said. The only thing she managed to work out was that this dude, apparently, was some sort of pro lie detector. He had the skills, after all. While he might be good at detecting lies, she was pretty confident in lying—time to put it to the test.
She was about to showcase her skill of flawlessly lying when the guard raised a hand directly in front of her face, cutting her off.
“Now, let me go ahead and ask some questions. What happened to your papers?”
Not having the opportunity to show off her lying skills wholeheartedly, she decided that she would just obfuscate the truth. She wasn’t going to admit she was some alien after all.
“What kind of papers.”
The guard looked at her like she was an idiot. Sable didn’t appreciate that at all.
“Your identification. A guild badge will do.” The guard said.
“I’ve never gotten any identification papers or a guild badge.” Sable was about to stop there, but just in case, she added a little extra on the end. “…from here.”
The guard was staring at her blank-faced. He seemed to know what she was doing. It wasn’t like she was the first to think of this method.
“Do you have any sort of identification at all? Yes or no, please.”
Fuck. Yes or no?
“Not on me, no sir.”
The guard looked her up and down and began asking more questions.
“Are you a wanted criminal, or do you have a criminal record?”
“No. And, no.”
Now she saw a twitch on his face, and the guard suddenly became more alert. He placed his hand on the hilt of his sword as Sable immediately cringed.
You gotta be fucking kidding me. I was fifteen! This guy is good.
“Okay, you have a criminal record. What were the charges?” He sternly asked.
“Underage drinking… I was fifteen…” She meekly whispered.
The guard waited a moment, then looked mildly confused. He took his hand off the sword hilt and looked at her with a weird amount of pity.
“What kind of messed up place has that as a law?”
Not wanting to answer that as a question, she decided just to be honest. Kinda.
“Okay, listen. I’m lost. I don’t know where the hell I am, and I’m freezing out in this cold. Is it possible to talk by the fire, at least? Is there a way for me to get into…” She waved at the city.
The guard inspected her from head to toe, then came to a conclusion. He nodded and escorted her politely to the fire as he said the name of the city.
“Slatt. This is the City of Slatt. You can fill out a visitor form to get in. You could have just asked, you know? You made this harder than it needed to be.”
She was about to ask about whatever forms she needed to fill out when she nearly fell over from shock. Her eyes bulged as they landed on the second guard. This one was not human. The spear guard was a…
fox person?
