Chapter 20: Smooth Criminal

You know that old expression: there are weeks where nothing happens, and there are hours when weeks happen? I might have paraphrased that slightly from the true saying, but you get the gist of it, right? Long stretches of boredom punctuated by brief, intense periods of mayhem: something anyone who ever worked in a customer facing job can likely appreciate. Intensely draining, physically, mentally and spiritually, the lattermost something I’d never fully believed in, until the day I woke up with two sets of memories a mere week ago.

True, I hadn’t spent that long in Edge Wood, barely enough time to fight a few baby mobs, but between the very little sleep I’d managed to get since my Class Day, followed by the actual Class and one revelation after another, all of it culminating in the revelation at the Inn? Well, I was shattered. I didn’t even remember falling asleep, only that it couldn’t have happened any later than mid morning. Despite that early night, when I next opened my eyes, it was bright again, and my stomach was growling like a rabid beast.

Strangely, Pumpkin looked completely unconcerned at my extended rest; he hadn’t woken me up even once, begging for food. It only took a few cursory looks around the room to discover why, and to remind myself of two salient facts. Firstly, that for all Pumpkin looked like the typical pet back in England, he was in fact a wild cat and was more than capable of fending for himself, and secondly, my inn room had a rat infestation. Truly, the Innkeeper had known of my reincarnation, and done his absolute best to make my room remind me of London. I’m joking, by the way. About the Innkeeper, not the rats, those were both big and numerous, though thankfully the three laid out on the floor were missing their heads, and large chunks of their abdomen too.

“I should probably tell someone about that,” I yawned, picking myself up and unlocking the door at least.

The Innkeeper took my good news a bit better than I expected, even saying he wouldn’t charge me extra for the mess, on account of me having missed two meals the previous day, and thus being in credit as far as his tab was concerned. Thus reassured, both by the Innkeeper's character and the fact he hadn't uncovered my reclamation yesterday, I promptly headed back to my room, this time bringing a basket of bread and offal for Pumpkin’s sake, and locked the door behind me again. Now that I was refreshed, it was time to experiment. The System guidance, some of it explicitly spelled out, and some of it as hunches, a sort of gut instinct that something was right.

That wasn’t good enough for me, though, not where levelling up was concerned. I wanted to know exactly what counted, and how best to optimise my growth: my life would depend on it, in all likelihood.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

[Loaf of Bread stored.

Loaf of Bread withdrawn.]

First, I tried to ‘steal’ a loaf of bread. That had no impact, which was more or less expected: I’d already paid for my meals, so this wasn’t theft, only me claiming what was mine by right. The offal had the same result, with the exception of Pumpkin hissing at me, thinking that I was stealing his food. Having concluded that portion of the experiment, I tossed both the bread and offal to Pumpkin, which kept the slightly gluttonous cat busy while I did the rest of my testing.

Trying to store the entire bed failed outright, and I got a sense of amusement from the System, telling me that something so large simply wasn’t going to fit. Not quite what I was going for, but still good to know that I couldn’t just grab someone’s house and walk off with it. But it was my next attempt that actually bore fruit.

[Wicker Basket stored.

1 XP gained.]

While the bread and offal had both been mine, the basket hadn’t been: it was only a container, facilitating the delivery of my food, so there was an unspoken expectation that he’d get it back, and by taking it, I’d gained experience. Just a single point, because it was a common basket, not some ancient work of art, but every little helped, and this in particular helped me establish a trend.

[Wicker Basket withdrawn.]

Removing the basket and returning it to the desk didn’t remove my experience gained, even when I did so with the full intention of giving it back to the Innkeeper

[Wicker Basket stored.]

On the other hand, storing that same basket again didn’t give me anything more, so infinite XP glitches were off the table, pun intended.

[Wicker Basket withdrawn.]

Leaving the basket back out, because it really wasn’t worth getting a criminal record over, I considered what I’d learned so far. Clearly, intent was a major element of how the System apportioned XP: what I’d seen so far didn’t feel like the hard coded calculations of a spreadsheet, but rather the active, holistic management of a being whose surveillance capabilities would have the CIA kneeling at its feet. Not a bad thing, mind you, just interesting: I’d already known the System could speak, but every interaction I had with it made it just a little more human, in my eyes.

“Alright, that’s enough testing for now,” I declared, because really, there wasn’t much more to be gained here.

I could strip the entire inn of goods, and probably not even level up, and the requirements would only scale exponentially past Level 1, judging by the dearth of anybody past Level 3 in Allensward. There were far more productive things to be doing with my time, but for that, I’d need to wait until nightfall. Having made my decision, I reached over to pick up Pumpkin, determined to get to know him better in the meantime.

“Two easy meals, and a day of relaxation, then,” I decided, vowing not to miss a second round of meals at the same inn.