Heka

Biodata

Feature	Information
Name	Heka (贺卡)
Alias(es)	Boss; “Cripple Boss”
Species/Race	Lightfoot Halfling/Human hybrid
Gender	Male
Affiliation	Formerly Graytooth Gang; later Black Mountain Merchants
Occupation/Role	Former engineer; petty thief; investigator and proposed smuggling-route planner
Status	Alive
First Appearance	Chapter 1

Power Progression

Stage / Realm / Level	Chapter	Notes
Initial status-panel state	1	Strength 0.256, Constitution 0.217, Agility 1.278, Speed 0.871, Intelligence 1.178; Pickpocketing 6789/10000, Slashing 187/10000, and Sleight of Hand 218/10000.
Improved survival condition	1, 6	Regular food and training gradually raise his Constitution and Strength; by Chapter 6, Constitution reaches 0.218 and Strength 0.257.
Advanced skill training	6	Theft reaches 7180/10000, Slashing 1987/10000, and Sleight of Hand 518/10000 through repeated practice.
Slashing mastery	12	Slashing reaches its maximum proficiency and grants an additional 20% damage when using daggers or short swords.
First challenge reward: Constitution	20–23	After defeating Foucault, Heka exchanges one reward point for Constitution; the resulting panel shows Constitution 1.219, Strength 0.470, Dexterity 1.281, and Speed 0.943.
Sweeping Strike acquired	23	A new combat skill appears at 1/10000, apparently gained after killing an attacker while recovering from severe hunger and injuries.
Continued combat and language progress	29	Sweeping Strike reaches 3118/10000, Valin reaches 1098/10000, and Strength rises to 0.472.
Investigation acquired	36	Matching Dungeon maps to locations in Seapeak Port unlocks Investigation at 1/10000; Sweeping Strike reaches 4389/10000 and Valin 1997/10000.
Second challenge reward: Strength	45	After defeating Thirl, Heka spends the reward point on Strength, raising it from 0.472 to 1.472.
Sword Sense acquired	49	Deko’s precision sword-control exercise unlocks Sword Sense at 1/10000.

Background / History

Heka came from another world, where he had been an engineer. After taking over a body in Valin, he retained fragments of the body’s memories and quickly learned to speak the local language, though he initially could not read or write 1 11.

Three months after arriving in the new world, Heka was living as a petty thief controlled by the Graytooth Gang in Seapeak Port. He disliked stealing, but gang violence, poverty, and the treatment of runaway children left him with few alternatives. His skills developed rapidly through the mysterious status panel, making him one of the gang’s most capable young pickpockets 1 3.

His theft of a pouch containing sixteen bloodstained Huika Gold Coins transformed a routine crime into a citywide crisis. Heka hid in the sewers with Tuft of Hair, gradually building a fortune, improving his skills, and preparing an escape while gangs, officials, and adventurers searched for him 1 6 11 15.

When forced to return to the surface, Heka fought through gang guards and killed Foucault, surviving severe injuries by using deception, hidden weapons, and his spatial storage ability. He then became the target of a public bounty and a coordinated search 19 24.

Heka abandoned his plan to escape by ship and instead sought leverage among the factions competing for control of Seapeak Port. He approached the Black Mountain Merchants with a proposal to use the city’s abandoned Dungeon and sewer system as a smuggling route 24 28.

The Black Mountain Merchants accepted him as a useful but dangerous asset. During his confinement at their headquarters, Heka researched the city, trained with a sword, mapped hidden passages, and identified a forgotten Marnie Lineage warehouse beneath the Golden Horseshoe Carriage Company 29 37.

Appearance

Heka appears as a small, youthful halfling-human hybrid with a childlike build. His early body is extremely weak and malnourished, with most physical attributes below the apparent human standard. Improved food, rest, and reward exchanges gradually make him taller, stronger, and more capable 1 23 30.

• Short and physically smaller than adult humans.
• Initially skinny, underfed, and dressed in worn clothing.
• Commonly uses a tattered hat or cloak as part of his disguises.
• His appearance allows him to pass as a child, dwarf, or halfling depending on his clothing and posture.
• Later carries visible injuries, including a damaged hand, a scarred cheek, and wounds from his battles 13 19 20 42 46.

Personality

Heka is cautious, analytical, and intensely practical. He evaluates targets according to their wealth, connections, physical danger, and likelihood of retaliation rather than stealing randomly. His survival strategy relies on preparation, concealment, and turning weaknesses in the environment into advantages 1 13 16.

Although he participates in crime, Heka is not indifferent to suffering. He protects Tuft of Hair, fulfills his promise to carve him a toy, and later insists on learning the boy’s real name. His circumstances nevertheless push him toward increasingly ruthless decisions, including killing wounded opponents and a rooftop child when he believes hesitation could lead to his capture 1 11 19 20 46.

Heka is highly distrustful of institutions and powerful individuals. He assumes that gangs, authorities, merchants, churches, and adventurers will exploit him if he becomes useless. Rather than relying on promises, he creates leverage by controlling information and making himself difficult to replace 28 30 34 39.

He also values knowledge and self-improvement. He learns to read and write, studies Dungeon records, maps Seapeak Port, trains his swordsmanship, and treats every new skill as a possible route to freedom 11 29 36 49.

Abilities & Skills

Status Panel and Challenge System

Heka possesses a mysterious panel displaying his attributes, skills, inventory, and challenges. It does not initially answer questions or directly solve problems, but it records his progress and grants rewards after certain challenges are completed 1 20 23.

• Displays Strength, Constitution, Agility or Dexterity, Speed, and Intelligence.
• Tracks skill proficiency numerically.
• Awards reward points for completed challenges.
• Allows reward points to increase attributes.
• Offers potential exchanges for inventory expansion, skill synthesis, skill extraction, passive conversion, and material extraction.
• Heka does not initially understand the meaning of the “First Exchange Stage” 20 45.

Spatial Inventory

Heka’s backpack functions like a limited magical inventory with ten slots.

• Stores money, food, weapons, water, boxes, and tools.
• Identical items can stack, but containers with different contents occupy separate slots.
• Heka can retrieve items in midair rather than only from the ground.
• Heavy objects such as crates or buckets of water can be materialized as surprise weapons.
• The inventory’s ten-slot limit forces Heka to manage food, water, ammunition, and equipment carefully 4 23 24.

Theft

Heka’s theft ability develops rapidly through pickpocketing and practical experience.

• Cuts pouches from clothing without alerting the victim.
• Uses crowds, distractions, disguises, and escape routes.
• Assesses targets before acting, avoiding adventurers, nobles, merchants, laborers, and other dangerous or unprofitable victims.
• Reaches 7180/10000 proficiency by Chapter 6 1 6.

Slashing

Slashing is Heka’s first major combat skill and eventually becomes his most reliable advantage against stronger opponents.

• Repeated practice increases its proficiency.
• Mastery grants an additional 20% damage with daggers and short swords.
• Allows Heka to compensate for low Strength.
• Works with both his short sword and dagger.
• Heka uses the skill to defeat larger and better-trained opponents through timing and precision 12 24 33.

Sweeping Strike

Sweeping Strike emerges after Heka’s violent encounters in Seapeak Port.

• Appears at 1/10000 proficiency in Chapter 23.
• Reaches 3118/10000 by Chapter 29 and 4389/10000 by Chapter 36.
• Heka believes mastering it could provide another major damage increase.
• Deko becomes concerned about Heka’s repeated use of the technique and deliberately restricts his access to advanced instruction 23 29 34 48.

Sleight of Hand

Heka develops Sleight of Hand through mechanical work and delicate practical tasks.

• Helps him repair and operate improvised crossbows.
• Improves through starting fires, manipulating tools, and other precise actions.
• Reaches 729/10000 after forty-one days underground 6 12.

Swordsmanship

Heka has no formal swordsmanship education at first, but possesses unusually strong instincts for balance, blade alignment, and footwork.

• Defeats Kaso by exploiting agility, timing, and center of gravity rather than matching his strength.
• Learns quickly when Deko corrects his stance.
• Uses wooden swords during training while concealing his stronger techniques.
• His swordsmanship is considered comparable to that of an outstanding Black Mountain warrior in some respects 33 48.

Sword Sense

Deko teaches Heka a precision exercise involving a burr-covered rope and controlled figure-eight movements.

• Requires careful blade control and exact point targeting.
• Unlocks Sword Sense at 1/10000 proficiency.
• Represents Heka’s first documented skill gained from foundational sword training rather than battlefield survival 49.

Investigation

Heka unlocks Investigation while comparing Dungeon sketches, mission reports, travel journals, and city maps.

• Helps him identify correspondences between underground structures and modern locations.
• Leads to the discovery of two likely Lineage warehouse sites.
• Reaches 1/10000 when first acquired 36.

Stealth and Infiltration

Heka routinely survives by avoiding direct detection.

• Enters villas, bathhouses, warehouses, and guarded districts through windows, dog holes, weakened grates, and sewer passages.
• Removes traces of his presence.
• Uses crowds and unrelated adults as moving cover.
• Disguises his build and clothing to pass as an adult dwarf or halfling.
• Relies on observation and escape routes when confronting stronger opponents 4 13 15 16 25.

Crossbow Use

Heka relies on crossbows to overcome his poor Strength, but he has not unlocked a formal crossbow skill.

• Builds and repairs crude crossbows.
• Uses a hand crossbow against unarmored gang guards.
• Constructs a stronger crossbow with a roller mechanism because he cannot draw it by strength alone.
• Uses hidden crossbows for ambushes and close-range attacks.
• Suffers from poor marksmanship and fragile equipment, especially early in his development 7 12 18 19.

Resource Management

Heka’s survival depends on careful management of food, water, fuel, money, ammunition, and storage space.

• Establishes a defensible sewer shelter.
• Rations fuel and lights fires mainly during rain to conceal smoke.
• Stores valuable goods in crates and the magical backpack.
• Tracks the cost of every purchase because his wealth attracts danger.
• Treats food and clean water as more important than comfort or escape plans 6 12 16 21 24.

Equipment / Weapons / Items

• Magical backpack — Ten-slot spatial inventory with stacking restrictions 1 4.
• Crude dagger — Heka’s first weapon and a key tool for pickpocketing and close combat 1.
• Short sword — High-quality, suspiciously sourced weapon bought on the underground black market; benefits from Slashing 14.
• Hand crossbow — Compact weapon used against unarmored targets 18 20.
• Simple heavy crossbow — More powerful crossbow requiring a roller mechanism to cock; Heka later conceals one beneath his cloak 7 43.
• Iron crossbow-string hook — Replaces the weak wooden hook on Heka’s homemade winch 14.
• Cloak and blanket — Essential protection against the coming winter and carefully recovered after battle 19.
• Wooden sword — Training weapon used at the Black Mountain headquarters and later kept as a keepsake 29 48.
• Damaged wooden chest — Used as cover, storage, and a potential surprise weapon through Heka’s spatial ability 24.
• Twenty-three Huika Gold Coins — Part of the fortune that triggers the pursuit of Heka and his companions 1 6.
• Walin silver and copper coins — Used to buy food, weapons, fuel, clothing, and other necessities 6 12 16.
• Wolf-fang pendant — Spoil awarded to Heka after defeating Kaso in a formal duel 33.

Relationships

• Martin — Heka’s younger companion and former distraction partner, originally known as Tuft of Hair. Heka protects, feeds, teaches, and eventually insists on calling him by his real name 1 11 22 23 46.
• Deko — Head of transportation for the Black Mountain Merchants and Heka’s handler. He distrusts Heka, restricts his training, but also protects and instructs him 28 29 33 48 49.
• Riel — Leader and helmsman of the Black Mountain Merchants. He treats Heka as a valuable but expendable asset and demands that he produce profit 34 37 39 46.
• Foucault — Adventurer and pursuer who captures Heka before being killed by Heka’s concealed crossbow attack 19 20.
• Podoli — Dwarf member of the Blood Sparrow Squad and Heka’s hostile opponent. Heka kills him during the ambush and later receives a reward point connected to the battle 40 42 45.
• Blood Sparrow Squad — Adventurer group that helps turn Heka into a public target by spreading his identity and placing a bounty on him 22 40 42.
• Priest Alwin — Wealth Church priest who heals Martin and recognizes Heka from a portrait. Heka is immediately suspicious of his power and interest 39.
• Kaso — Black Mountain warrior who attacks Heka and loses a formal duel. Heka uses the merchants’ customs to have him removed from the group 32 33.
• Carpenter Who Isn’t Called Carpenter — Black Mountain escort member who helps Heka during the Blood Sparrow ambush before apparently dying from his wounds 40 43 46.
• Graytooth Gang — Heka’s former gang and the organization that controlled his early life as a pickpocket 1 4.
• Black Mountain Merchants — Criminal-commercial organization that shelters Heka, restricts him, treats Martin, and uses his Dungeon knowledge for smuggling and warehouse operations 28 49.

Story Role / Major Arcs

Graytooth Gang and the Bloodstained Coins

Heka begins as a coerced pickpocket in Seapeak Port. His theft of bloodstained Huika Gold Coins forces him to flee the Graytooth Gang and hide in the sewers with Martin 1 6.

Sewer Survival

Heka turns an abandoned sewer maintenance shaft into a shelter. He trains his skills, stores his fortune, repairs crossbows, learns to read and write, and prepares for a dangerous return to the surface 6 12.

Return to the Surface

After running out of water, Heka returns to Seapeak Port, buys supplies through the underground black market, and attempts to use hidden routes through the wealthy district. His movements attract gang surveillance and increasingly organized pursuit 12 18.

Battle for the Sewer Entrance

Heka ambushes guards at a sealed sewer entrance but is captured by a well-dressed pursuer. He turns the encounter around using a crate, a hidden crossbow, and extreme self-inflicted violence to escape 19 20.

Bounty and Recovery

After killing Foucault, Heka becomes a wanted fugitive. Martin rescues him from the sanctuary well and spends all his money securing food. Heka survives, gains new attributes and Sweeping Strike, and decides to exploit divisions among the factions hunting him 22 24.

Alliance with the Black Mountain Merchants

Heka confronts the Black Mountain Merchants and proposes using the abandoned Dungeon beneath Seapeak Port as a smuggling route. After enduring their honesty test, he is placed under Deko’s supervision at their headquarters 25 29.

Mapping the Dungeon

Heka researches Seapeak Port’s history, reconstructs city maps, studies Dungeon records, and unlocks Investigation. His research identifies a forgotten Marnie Lineage warehouse beneath the Golden Horseshoe Carriage Company 30 37.

Blood Sparrow and the Ambush

While traveling under escort, Heka spots Blood Sparrow and warns the group. The carriage is ambushed, and Heka protects Martin while fighting Podoli, Al, and Kami. He kills Podoli and survives through improvised tactics, hidden weapons, and careful exploitation of the battlefield 40 45.

Training under Restriction

After recovering from poisoning and severe injuries, Heka returns to training at the Black Mountain headquarters. Deko tries to slow his development with basic exercises, but Heka gains Sword Sense and continues building leverage through his usefulness 46 49.

Notable Quotes

“Knowledge changes fate, understand?” 36

“We don't need to wait for rain. We're getting ready to leave.” 24

“To stay aboard, we'd have to recruit a crewman as an inside man. But right now, we're a piece of prime meat, and there isn't anyone we can completely trust.” 24

“Nothing is more tragic than dying with money left unspent.” 26

“Since the lump's been taken care of, you don't need to call yourself Tuft of Hair anymore. From now on, I'll call you by your name.” 46

Trivia

• Heka’s initial status panel identifies his race as a Lightfoot Halfling/human hybrid 1.
• He believes an ordinary adult human’s attributes are generally close to 1.000 33.
• Heka’s first reward point is spent on Constitution despite previously planning to prioritize Strength, because he is near death from blood loss 20.
• His second documented reward point is spent on Strength, raising the attribute from 0.472 to 1.472 45.
• Heka initially knows Martin only by the nickname “Tuft of Hair” and does not learn his real name until Chapter 46.
• He remains unable to use his inventory openly while staying at the Black Mountain headquarters because the merchants closely monitor him 29.
• Heka’s skill system can recognize practical activities such as starting fires, investigating maps, and precise sword exercises as skill development 6 36 49.