Colby turned around to find a brown haired boy, even shorter than he was. Not that he was short by any means. He was perfectly average height for his age. No, he did not have a height complex or anything even remotely close. And it definitely wasn’t because he was jealous that Elaine, his ex-best friend, had grown taller than him.

  He tossed away any possible thought that he might be short.

  Instead, a huge smile lit up on his face as he looked at the scrawny boy with more holes in his shirt than swiss cheese.

  “Porter!” Colby yelled.

  What little stamina he had regained was immediately spent on dashing towards his best friend, Porter.

  A screen opened up right next to Colby. He dug his hand inside and retrieved that cool-looking stick he found on the ground the other day.

  “Check out this stick I found,” Colby said, showing off his prize to Porter.

  His friend reached his hand out, fingers slowly curling over the other end of the stick. “Whoa, Colby. This is a cool-looking stick. It looks like a gun.”

  “Right! That’s what I thought too.”

  “Can I?” Porter asked.

  “Of course.”

  Colby let go of the stick, giving full control to Porter. He closed one eye and brought the nub that looked like a scope close to the open one. Porter started fake shooting the stick gun, shouting out, “Pew! Pew! Pew!”

  He blasted the General Store, the cobbled floor, a random innocent tree, then finally, he turned towards Colby and let out one last, “Pew!”

  Colby clutched his chest, screaming, “I’ve been hit!”

  He stumbled, feet shuffling left to right, before collapsing on his back. Colby stuck out his tongue to the side, and his eyes rolled back into his head, showing only whites.

  Laughter penetrated his ears, and Colby brought his eyes back around. In front of him was Porter, laughing while extending a hand toward him. Colby graciously accepted it as he got back up to his feet.

  After dusting himself off, Porter handed back the cool-looking gun stick, which Colby promptly shoved back into his Inventory. When he looked down again, Porter was looking at him with those big, brown, earnest eyes of his.

  “Did you just come back from a Supply Run?” Colby asked.

  “Almost. I have a delivery for Mr. Goodsell,” Porter said. “What are you doing here?”

  “Just buying some Skate Goat milk. We ran out.”

  “Ran out? How’d your family run out? Don’t you normally order more than enough to last the shop for the week? Did the supply issue already hit Brinebrook?”

  “It’s more of a me issue than a supply issue. I ended up getting way too engrossed in one of my cheese experiments and used up all of the Skate Goat milk.”

  “Oh. Do you have enough gold? Do you need me to buy it for you? It’s no biggie.”

  Colby looked at his friend. Tattered holes in his clothes, bruises on his cheek, and a shoe that he was pretty sure was missing its sole.

  “It’s okay, Port. You need the gold more than I do.”

  “Oh, this?” Porter said, looking down at himself. “It’s just part of the job. I earn enough as a Supply Runner.”

  “Are you sure? Don't Supply Runners famously not earn enough unless they're one of the best of the best?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “And aren't you only beginning in your Supply Runner journey?”

  “Yes, but I earn enough for me to be comfortable. Speaking of Supply Running, guess what?”

  “You're secretly experimenting with cheese making at the side?”

  “You and your cheese. But no.”

  “Good, because I wouldn't want any extra competition. Especially not from you.”

  “I wouldn't be good at it anyway. It’s my Core. I’ve managed to expand it to Tier 1!”

  Colby grabbed Porter’s shoulders and shook him. “That’s amazing, Port. I still only have a Tier 0 Core. Let me guess, you prioritized more Inventory space during the Core Expansion.”

  “You know it! All the best, Supply Runners have tons of space for delivering goods. And about that, I really need to drop off the supplies to Mr. Goodsell.”

  “By all means, Port,” Colby bowed and extended his hand toward the door of the General Store. “Make your delivery.”

  Porter entered the store with Colby trailing behind him. Inside were shelves upon shelves stocked with various goodies. The owner of the General Store sat at the counter, leg crossed as he read the day’s paper.

  “Got a delivery for you, Mr. Goodsell,” Porter said, walking up to the counter.

  Colby followed behind. Though there was a nagging thought egging the back of his mind.

  The General Store owner lowered his paper, staring at both of them. Mr. Goodsell was a man with graying hair who looked to be in his mid-fifties. Apart from the wrinkles on his face, the most striking thing about him was the scar that ran down the right side of his face, crossing over his eye. The pupil there was white, and Colby was pretty sure he couldn’t see out of it.

  Each time he asked how he got that scar, Mr. Goodsell would always reply that he simply tripped and fell.

  Now, Colby may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but something told him that tripping and falling wouldn’t leave such a nasty scar that would be his most defining feature.

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  There were many times when he tripped and fell because Brie left her toys out. And yet he was miraculously scar-free.

  The only scar he ever developed was the ache of watching a perfect piece of cheddar tumble out of his hands, spinning in the air, before the floor lay claim to its prize. Colby still ate it anyway—because of the five-second rule—but it just wasn’t the same after that.

  “I don’t remember ordering so much that I’d need two Supply Runners,” Mr. Goodsell said.

  “Oh, I’m not a Supply Runner. I’m just here to get some milk,” Colby said.

  Milk!

  Everything came crashing back.

  “Sorry, Port, gotta run,” Colby said. “I’ll find you later and we can celebrate.”

  “Okay,” Porter said, but Colby had already dashed over to the cold box at the side of the store—a box with magical enchantments to keep things cool—and grabbed a bottle of Skate Goat milk.

  Would one bottle be enough? He grabbed another one. Would two bottles be enough? He grabbed a third, fourth, and fifth bottle, skipping the repetitive internal monologue, and shoving all of them into his Inventory.

  He could immediately feel their weight, weighing him down. Inventories were useful, it’s like a little pocket dimension that everyone had access to—unless you’re a cripple—that allowed them to store items. The downside was that you still had to physically carry them.

  Now, imagine having to physically shoulder the burden of a hundred milk bottles. Even for the bodiest of bodybuilders, it wouldn’t be possible. And yet, the numerous bottles of milk and other ingredients in The Cheesetastic Fridge said otherwise.

  When there’s a will, there’s a whey.

  No, Colby wasn’t some secretly jacked dude, as much as he would like that.

  It was magic. One of the first things his parents had taught him when they gave him the privilege of handling ingredients. It was technically a spell, but also not really.

  Colby closed his eyes and focused on his Core.

  Inside, he walked over to Stove. Cheese Bowl and Cheese-lander were atop of him, currently engaged in a death-defying duel of Rock-Paper-Scissors. The only problem was that their noodle-like hands could at most be considered rock.

  Curd-Cutter spectated, cheering both sides on with rapid waves of his noodle-like limbs as they dueled to the death, constantly drawing with each other.

  Stove, on the other hand, wasn’t pleased with the Core Constructs resting on him. He showed his displeasure with small little puffs of fire from his burners. But all it did was liven the atmosphere, making the duel all the more exciting, despite the fact that they could only draw with each other.

  Colby sighed. Maybe he shouldn’t have given his Core Constructs personalities. But then again, it certainly made things more interesting, except for the part where they rebelled against him.

  Anyway, the key Core Construct to this ‘spell, but also not really’, was Curd-Cutter.

  He grabbed the knife by the handle. Curd-Cutter, still upset from Colby’s earlier treatment when he was dropped onto the floor, retaliated. Noodle-like limbs from the construct’s handle whipped Colby’s knuckles.

  He ignored it.

  Colby walked over to the door leading to his Inventory. Opening it, he grabbed a bottle of Skate Goat milk and angled Curd-Cutter towards it—after going through this process multiple times, the Core Construct knew what was up.

  Curd-Cutter settled down, receding his noodle-like limbs into his handle. There was nothing in life that Curd-Cutter enjoyed more than cutting.

  Colby flipped Curd-Cutter around, grabbing hold of the blade. An unorthodox method for sure, but Curd-Cutter was very particular about which part of his body cut what. The blade was reserved for curds, the handle was for everything that wasn’t curds.

  Channeling the intent to ‘cut weight’, Mana within his Core was poured into Curd-Cutter. He brought the handle of the knife toward the glass bottle. Screeches of scratching glass filled the Core as Curd-Cutter carved the word, ‘Lighten’, onto the bottle’s glass curves. Almost immediately, a soft glow emanated from it, and Colby could feel himself slightly lighter.

  Casting spells was all about intention. Core Constructs were used to channel that intention to manipulate the Mana within the Core. In his case, he employed Curd-Cutter to ‘cut the weight' of the bottle of milk.

  Although technically, he hadn’t cast a spell. In order for a spell to be considered cast, it had to successfully leave the Core. What he had done was just modify the properties of the milk bottle. Now, it was in the intermediary stage of the spellcasting phase. He had managed to attain the benefits of the spell [Lighten] all without casting it. A pretty useful workaround for a guy who struggled to cast anything that wasn’t cheese.

  A downside was that he couldn’t benefit from the spell leveling up, where it would be able to reduce the weight of objects even further. But he wasn’t complaining—okay, he was complaining just a little tinge.

  Other people, like Supply Runners, had more specialized Core Constructs to cast [Lighten] at a higher level, but Colby was content with what he and Curd-Cutter could do.

  He repeated the process with the remaining Skate Goat milk bottles before storing them within The Cheestastic Fridge.

  Congratulations! Curd-Cutter has reached Level 8!

  Yes! His Core Construct had leveled up. It meant that he had a better mastery over it. Colby focused on the knife in his hand, examining it.

  Curd-Cutter:

  Level 8

  It loves to cut things, none more than curds. The blade specializes in cutting curds. The handle is for everything else. It’s a miracle that a wooden handle could even cut anything at all.

  (Each level makes the construct slightly sharper—yes, even the handle.)

  Finally, the Skate Goat milk section within the fridge was filled, rather than the emptiness that haunted him.

  Colby stopped focusing on his Core and rushed back over to the counter.

  Porter and Mr. Goodsell had their inventories open, with Porter retrieving boxes of goods from his and gently placing them into Mr. Goodsell’s. Gentleness was a thing of the past for Colby. He chucked gold coins from his own Inventory into Mr. Goodsell’s before running out the door.

  “Bye, Colby! I’ll see you in a bit,” Porter said, though his voice was faint.

  Colby ran down the street where he had managed to avoid the adventurers that had wanted to rob him. He couldn’t care less now, because joke's on them, he had just spent every last one of his gold coins on Skate Goat milk. Now, if these were milk thieves, he’d be worried.

  What if they were full time gold thieves and part time milk thieves?

  Rather than go down that alleyway, because criminals always return to the scene of the crime, Colby took a detour. It would be longer, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

  He turned a corner, going down another alleyway that wasn’t as comically long.

  Now, he just had to make it back in time to fulfill Ms. M’s order. Maybe he should prepare the chévre on the way? But with his focus split, he ran the risk of ruining the cheese. And there was no way he was going to waste more than a single bottle of Skate Goat milk on anything other than his cheese experiments.

  Colby bumped into someone.

  “Sorry,” he said, looking up from his thoughts.

  Of all the people he could’ve bumped into, it just had to be them. Two large bald men in leather armor with dull swords and a black robed girl with a pair of daggers caked with rust and bits of mozzarella.

  Colby groaned.

  Why them?

  He’d rather bump into Elaine.

  Why was getting milk so hard? All he wanted to do was make some cheese.