Chapter Sixteen

Joe enjoyed the evening meal with Garnedell, and the boy put forth great effort in teaching him that evening. The night went quickly, and Joe greatly enjoyed his excitement. Towards the end, the boy asked if he understood, and Joe finally felt as if he did, so nodded with enthusiasm and a thumbs up. Garnedell responded with great joy, and then focused on finishing his meal.

The next day saw them out in the forest slaughtering slimes again. It took almost the whole day, but Joe was able to reach level ten for his metropolitan job. He quickly went to his available jobs screen, but found nothing available, and Joe frowned with some disappointment. He also made sure to check his current job skills as well, but found nothing. Closing the screen with disgust, he led Garnedell back to town in the setting sun. He made it back with the sun still a bit over the horizon and had Garnedell stay behind in the village to grab their cleaning supplies to meet at the stream. Joe sprinted to catch the priest before he went to bed, and made it in time where he still felt comfortable enough to interrupt his evening. The priest came out, a bit grumpy, but still more sober than when they had first met. The priest stared at him with a bit more focus than before, but Joe simply smiled and waved in greeting. The priest grunted in response before waving his hand fluidly and with much greater dexterity causing the status to appear before him offering him a job change. Once again, he chose to simply go in order, but chose the reverse, selecting cook, since none of the jobs seemed important to increasing his learning skill.

He made it back to the stream and was quite surprised to find a fourth waiting to bathe. A woman. Joe blinked with some surprise and while he was still stunned, Garnedell brought ‘slime guy’ …oops… Marcan… Marcan! Garnedell brought Marcan and the woman before him, and the two stood before him. Joe gathered himself quickly and waved, smiling at both of them, and the two smiled in return, but simply stood before him, unmoving. Joe began to feel a bit disconcerted as the stood before him, and he wiggled a bit, staring at them. After a few moments, confusion began to settle on his face before he suddenly saw a Garnedell waving energetically in the background. The boy caught his attention carefully raised both arms before him, palm outward, and then pressed them forward. Then he showed pressing his palm to his forehead then mimed speaking, his other hand and mouth opening and closing before he fluttered his fingers out of his mouth. Joe blinked a few times, then realization and horror slid over him.

Oh no… Oh no way! No, no, no! They want me to do some kind of ceremony for them! Joe considered rejecting for a moment, his face firming, but then he saw Garnedell waving in panic and shaking his head no, a habit he had learned from Joe. Joe blinked several times at his vehement denial, then closed his eyes in acceptance, although he desperately tried to keep the disapproval from his face. Don’t want them to think I disapproved of whatever this was! Joe lifted his palms forward. As he did so, he saw the two quickly relax, the tension flushing from them and he realized that they had been terrified of his decision.

Joe smiled widely and looked at both carefully before looking to Garnedell. The teen nodded and pressed his palms forward, then showed his palm pressing into his own forehead. Joe brought his palms down in front of the two’s eyes so they could not see his face, and he quickly nodded to both of them, questioning Garnedell as he subtly pressed his left, then right, then both palms forward. Garnedell blinked a few times, then nodded quickly as he pressed both palms to his own forehead, nodding quickly in affirmation. Joe offered a slight nod to Garnedell and followed his lead, palms pressing to their foreheads. He then considered for a moment before speaking what he could.

“A blessing of great… uh greatness on you and all your great endeavors. May the force be…”

Joe gritted his teeth, stifling the end, but the ridiculous line slipped out before he could stop himself, and he no longer felt he could leave it without completing it. It wouldn’t sound right otherwise. Joe cleared his face and returned his smile before removing his palms, smiling at both of them.

The two looked a bit surprised, but then smiled gleefully at one another, palms coming together for a bit before they quickly stiffened them back to their sides. Was it too short? And they can’t touch? Hmm… I’ll need to be carefully about getting to close to any of the women then?

The two guys then turned towards the river and began removing their clothing as they always did, leaving themselves only in their smallclothes. Joe blinked in surprise, then saw the woman also begin to remove her clothes and Joe’s blink quickly changed to wide eyed shock. He turned away quickly and placed his back to her, but then noticed the two men were doing nothing in response to the woman’s disrobing. Seriously, men and women can’t touch but it’s OK to get naked? Maybe I’ll like this place?

Joe moved further upstream, making sure to keep his eyes averted so as to not offend, but when he saw the two boys turn to the stream without worry, Joe did so carefully and noticed that the woman was still quite clothed. She had simply taken off her outer gown, an inner one covered her quite well and she followed the instructions of the other two carefully. Joe actually felt both disappointment and relief simultaneously. Quickly dismissing the distraction, Joe finished his bathing and returned to the inn for the evening.

* * *

The next several weeks passed quickly, and Joe spent almost all of them in the depths of the forest. By the time he had finished leveling up another two jobs to ten, his third job was taking almost exactly a day and a half and he spent his lunch break running to the priest and back, allowing him to efficiently use his days. The first two jobs were tough to complete in only three days though, one and a half each, and he lost about an extra half a day between those two. It seemed that he would need twenty five, and not twenty four days to complete level ten in all his jobs. The difference in speed in his growth was significant, and Joe could only feel satisfaction at the speed.

As he began being able to return a bit earlier every other day, the people began to be much more friendly with him, often coming to him in greeting or outright trying to have a conversation with him, which proved as mildly amusing as it was mildly frustrating. Some even began to join him at the stream, the bathing group only increasing in size week by week, with another one or two joining per week. The stream was beginning to get downright crowded for their bathing, despite its broad width, its definition as a stream only maintained because of how shallow the water ran.

Towards the end of his power leveling to ten, he came home early enough one afternoon with enough time to spare so he spent a bit of it to construct a small enclosure that hid half the stream on the far side on four sides and allowed entrance around a u-bend into the stream. It was more of a large tent, struck into the ground with poles to which the cloth was strapped to offer the women some more privacy in their bathing. Joe even added a cloth roof to the affair to keep anyone peeping from the higher elevated road. It wouldn’t last long, but it would be good enough for the next year and by then and, he would have met his minimum stats or not. If he did make it, he would be able to make a more complete structure; if he didn’t, he might not have the intelligence to be able to make one, let alone continue his future in any meaningful way.

That evening, he pointed the women toward the enclosed area, and there was a bit of confusion which quickly changed to excitement as the women realized what he had made for them. Joe tried to explain to Garnedell that men were not allowed in that portion of the stream, and he seemed to understand and explained it to the other men. That evening on was a much more enjoyable bathing experience for Joe, and he was able to relax during his bathing time. But man! I really miss a hot bath… A shower! I might be able to get some hot water… take a bit of work… but I wonder if I could maybe setup up something for a shower?

Finally, at the end of the twenty fifth day, his last job of villager made it to level ten and he had made some significant gains. It seemed that most skills only started to become available at level ten. Farmer had given him the ability to use a plow at level ten, while the waiter job had given him the ability balance glasses when delivering them to tables. The reeve job made him more popular, for some reason. Why would it do that? What is a reeve anyway? The rest of the jobs actually made sense with forester giving him insight into plant life, trapper being able to read animals, the fisherman being able to read ponds for fish, the hunter able to read trails, the miner could read the landscape to search for minerals, bakers could now bake bread, and the cook could make food with grains. However, bartender, chief, day laborer, and inn keeper still hadn’t received any skills.

In contrast to the lackluster skills, Joe was excited to see all his stats at almost thirty or more. Granted, when he chose another new job and started at zero again, his stats would be just a little over twenty instead. Seeing his new base stats, he considered his growth and the time necessary to grow. It was time to make a decision; should he take metropolitan straight to twenty, or try to take the next step of making everything level fifteen. Huh… I wonder if it would be worth it to try to get my jobs to fifteen then?

Base Stats:

Status

Current Job

Available Jobs

Current Skills

Available Skills

Log

Joe McConnell

Magical Resistances

Status

Physical Resistances

Wind

3.30

HP

18 (138)

Physical:

Water

2.80

MP

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18 (100)

Piercing

2 (48)

Fire

0.50

Attack

18 (181)

Crushing

3.25 (132)

Ice

2.55

Defense

18 (158)

Slashing

2.5 (39)

Magic

18 (100)

Magic Defense

18 (100)

Strength

26 (148)

Dexterity

24 (112)

Agility

21 (133)

IQ

22 (132)

Wisdom

21.5 (105)

Learning

36.00

Luck

1.25

When he ran the numbers, he found out that it would take four and a half days to level to fifteen per job, dropping to about four days when he had finished about half the jobs and to three and a half days for the last couple jobs. It averaged out to about four days per job. He had sixteen jobs to level to fifteen. Sixty four days to get everything to fifteen. That didn’t make much sense because he was able to get metropolitan to twenty in only thirty days even when he had all his jobs five levels lower. It was time to get metropolitan straight to twenty and see if he couldn’t unlock some more low hanging fruit. With his current stats, it seemed that he could get metropolitan to twenty in about twenty eight days, but probably a bit less since each level up added another learning and greatly decreased the time needed to level. Whelp… guess it’s time to just go straight to the next available bunch of jobs!

* * *