The kitchen floor core.

1)

In the afterlife.

I had lived a good life. Spend a few years leveling up as an adventurer. Married another one after we both figured out neither of us had the kind of drive we needed to make it to gold rank or even high silver.

Plus all our friends had retired before they hit Silver one. After that, between people constantly coming and going as they team shopped, and having to put up with the pain of minor wounds the healers didn’t think was worth a spell. We decided to call it quits shortly before reaching the Silver ranks

Even Silver one would have been more of a benchmark. Something to brag about, but I was done. And really, I think Alelan had been ready to call it a day for quite some time. I’m sorry now that I pretty much kept her at it just because she knew I wasn’t ready to quit quite yet.

We pooled our money to buy out her uncle’s farm and then set him up in an old folks cottage nearby until old age took him. Which I’m very glad I did. Just changing to the farmer class made it easier to gain farmer skills, but you still needed to know the basics of what the heck you were doing to get the job change. Uncle Isstan taught me a lot and helped with the kids when they came.

I did make a damned good father, and I would later do my best to be as good of a grandfather as Isstan had been a granduncle. When my youngest returned to the homestead after only getting to copper four I let him take over the cottage so he had his own place and he gradually took on more and more of the work of running the farm.

The boy had figured out he wasn’t cut for higher ranks a lot quicker than I did. Pretty soon one of his former party members came looking for him. The girl nearly had to draw him a diagram to explain to him why she came looking for him. My wife said he got that from me.

Having an orc-blooded gal really helped with the farm work, and the grand kids little tusks were darn cute. We switched places since the pensioner cottage was more than big enough for us two, and my boy and his girl needed the room for the younglings. All ten of them.

I claimed he got that from me too. My wife just rolled her eyes.

After the grand kids began to go off to earn their copper twos it got a little boring around the farm. Then the Ender came for my wife, her health score had only been average for her level, so old age came to her a long time before it would finally come to me.

Staying on the farm just constantly reminded me of her, and of how she was gone. So I decided to take up holy orders.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

A few years there at the end spent in quiet prayer and taking care of the gardens was nice. I never did get a job change or anything. But I did get to lie down out there between the beans and the corn when my time came. Basking in the warm sun as my flesh grew cold.

That was it. My end. Then I had to deal with the afterlife.

It was supposed to be simple. I died, then I was supposed to see my Alelan again. Instead, I got some sort of generic looking celestial being.

He introduced himself, and I tried to get him to tell me the one important thing I wanted to know. Instead, he seemed intent on trying to talk to me about something else.

“I’m only going to ask this one more time Clement. Where. Is. My. Wife?”

The winged figure held up his hands again. “Please I’m trying to explain, and I really can’t do so while you’re hovering in the air like that.”

Hovering?

I finally bothered to look down at myself and didn’t see my toes, my legs, or even my hands. Gnawer nuts! “Where the hell is my body?”

The thin green skinned man, green like cloudy jade, not like a green blood, sighed again. “From what your psychopomp told me, it’s most likely still lying out on the ground. You’ve only been dead for a few moments.”

I glared at him, or at least tried to. It was a bit hard to do without a face. “Yeah about that? Wasn’t I supposed to get a figure dressed all in black with a great sword as dark as the night? Goes by the title The Ender. What was up with the little pale girl?”

The green angel suddenly smiled. “The Ender of all joys and sorrows is moving up to the position of one of the three judges of the Triumvirate of souls. His daughter is starting to take on his work.” The angel waved his hands in front of himself. “Wasn’t she so adorable with her little soul reaping dagger? I can’t stand it.”

“Ah, yeah... She was nice and very professional. Even if I did throw her off a bit by being in a hurry instead of being upset. But my wife...?”

The angel, Clement, folded his hands in front of him. “She was given a choice of receiving her reward of paradise, immediate reincarnation, or joining the hierarchy. She asked about what all was involved and decided to take a job.”

Clement coughed into his fist. “I believed she mentioned that you always took forever to get anything done and she would get bored waiting around for you.”

That was… rather accurate. I did like to get a job done right the first time, no matter how long it took. And I had concentrated on developing my health score and training for toughness for my job as the party defender when we had still been dungeon diving. It was why it had taken me so much longer for age to catch up with me.

“So where is she?”

The angel held his hands apart to show the image of a blue and green world between his palms. “It’s called Earth, and we really needed some good people there. Still do.”