I opened my eyes and pushed myself up from the cold dirt outside the massive gates of the Imperial Capital.
I was wearing only the hoodie and pants I had gone to sleep in. The fur gambeson and that Goblin dagger Richard had given me were all gone, likely bagged as weird evidence by the NYPD back on Earth.
I needed to make coin to buy my own gear. Clara and the others were inside the walls, caught up in days of high-society protocol, while Richard had vanished the second he knocked me out. Using modern items carried too high a cost, so I had to find another way.
I looked at the system menu and almost sighed aloud:
[Status Screen]
Name: Lee
Level: 3
Class: Marksman
Attributes:
Strength: 0
Agility: 10
Endurance: 0
Intelligence: 5
Perception: 5
Charisma: 8
Combat Skills:
Shooting: 25
General Skills:
Taming: 9
Pain Tolerance: 16
Natural Resistance: 12
Magic Resistance: 7
Poison Resistance: 10
Knowledge: 10
How was I supposed to earn money here with stats like this?
Looking back, I regretted rejecting the live goats, tossing aside dried herbs, and bizarre offerings the townsfolk had brought me in Falkenreach.
I had assumed that with my modern cheat codes, I could smuggle endless processed snacks across the dimensional threshold to dazzle the locals whenever I pleased.
Now that the door had snapped shut, I was forced to rely on my own two hands.
Aside from functioning as a human punching bag, my build was a total disaster.
Still, my shooting skill was not that bad, and with Agility and Charisma creeping above single digits, I at least matched the physical coordination of an average teenager here.
I felt a sting of indignation. I had served in the infantry, yet the system rated my baseline so damn humiliating.
Then again, Richard could lift my entire body off the ground with one armored arm, and his bare-knuckle punch had almost sent me to Jesus.
The locals here were probably born with unnatural build.
A soft snort broke the silence near the drawbridge. A tall warhorse with an ivory coat trotted over, its hooves clicking against the cobblestones.
Whitemane. My only real companion in this entire realm!
I wrapped my arms around the animal's warm neck. It lowered its head, sniffing eagerly at my pockets in search of candy.
"Nothing today, buddy," I murmured, patting its shoulder. "I'll make it up to you later."
Leading the horse by the reins, I wandered the outer areas of the capital city. Passing peddlers, dockworkers, and city guards threw suspicious glares at my oversized cotton hoodie and faded sweatpants.
I ignored the stares, since it was not my first day being an outlander here.
What matters was how to earn coin and level up.
One approach was hiring myself out as a live training dummy, letting thugs beat me up for pennies before returning to Earth to have Clara heal the broken bones.
The obvious downside was the risk: if Clara overused her restoration magic on Earth, modern powers might detect the anomaly and pry into our secrets, ruining our world on both sides.
Another option was relying on hard working…
But bro, are you fucking kidding me?
If I possessed the drive and talent to build my life with bare hands, I wouldn't have been a broke supermarket clerk in New York.
The ideal solution lay in leveraging modern knowledge without importing technical stuff that distorted the dimensional balance.
No junk food, no electronics, and no petty schemes to spite Count Leonardo.
I needed something intangible that would captivate a medieval population through my brain.
As I walked, racking my brain for any single clue, Whitemane suddenly threw its head back and let out a rhythmic whinny that sounded uncannily like a vocal run.
Singing?
If Clara can be an influencer in my world… Why can’t I be an influencer in her world?
It's relatively easy, it's quick money, it's genius.
Fuck. Yeah!
There were no copyright laws across the planar divide. I can do whatever I want with those songs.
The question was whether modern musical structure could resonate with a medieval audience.
Then I remembered Clara swaying to early-2000s pop punk. If a high-ranking Countess could fall in love with modern pop tracks, the commoners outside the capital walls might be even more receptive.
It might really be a brilliant plan! I pulled Whitemane in and gave the horse a grateful pat on the muzzle for the inspiration.
I walked up to the first roadside tavern and asked the barkeep if I could sing for a loaf of bread.
He told me to get lost.
I tried a second tavern. Rejected again.
A third establishment threw an empty wooden tankard at my feet.
Finally, after walking the muddy alleys near the outer slums, a gruff dwarf named Brewstrong agreed to take a chance on me but with no promised payment.
His tavern was decrepit, the floorboards sticky with some liquid I prefer not to know, with barely three patrons seated in the corner and a few tired women working the upstairs rooms.
Well... Gotta start somewhere.
Stepping onto the low wooden crate to sing, my nerves nearly choked me.
When I opened with 5 Seconds of Summer’s Complete Mess, the lack of backing track made my voice sound thin and strained, and I blanked on the second verse entirely.
Bad choice.
The three patrons groaned and banged their mugs on the table, telling me to shut up.
Swallowing my embarrassment, I pivoted to simple tunes meant for a Capella delivery, humming through something soft like I Wish You Love.
I closed my eyes, focused on pitch, and managed to find a steady vocal rhythm.
It wasn't a victory, but Brewstrong gave me the reward, tossing me a hard crust of rye bread and pointing to a pile of dry straw in the corner where I could sleep.
[Brewstrong Affection increased to 1]
Well, this is my start then.
When I opened my eyes back in the hotel room, Clara apologized to me.
The political negotiations in the Imperial Parliament were dragging through layers of bureaucracy, meaning she would be stuck inside the inner palace for weeks, possibly up to a month.
I didn't mind in the slightest. The delay gave me open time to practice.
But just to improve the performance, I decided to take one small risk: bringing a guitar across the threshold.
Looking at the worn wooden instrument in the corner of my old apartment stirred up memories of my teenage years.
The broad ambitions, the half-finished projects, and the dreams that had fizzled out before I dropped school and joined the army.
Huh… I thought to myself. Let’s start trying again.
This time, for myself.