I’ll admit took me a while to calm down about the whole "Gluttony" thing. I mean, who wouldn't be upset about gaining an ability based on the sin of eating too much. I mean, I admit to snacking now and then but who doesn't?
Stop staring at me like that! Okay, okay, I love snacks but can you blame me? I used to have to hunt to find food in my last life and made a living by killing the occasional low level monster. And while my roasting skills were quite developed, honestly there were no snacks. The closest to that you'd get where the sort of pastries the upper class ate with their tea during social gatherings. For someone of my weak economic strength those things were only dreams I had after boiling hard jerky in water to make it into a weak soup.
To have so many different wonderful foods in the world and most of them being so affordable made me wonder as a child if this world was Heaven. I learned that it of course wasn't but I refuse to bend on my desire to enjoy as much of those delicious foods as I can!
So yes, I was a bit upset about the Gluttony skill at first. That is until I opened the description.
Gluttony (level 1)
Can eat twice as much. Excessive eating will not result in feeling ill or gaining excess weight. For every 1,000 calories consumed 1 point of health, magic or stamina may be regained without requiring rest. Excess calories consumed are lost.
What paradise is this? I can eat without feeling overly full or slowly turning into a beachball!? Oh, sorry, let me wipe that drool off my lip. This is such a wonderful skill! Now I can enjoy so many more wonderful things!
I want to go to a bakery and order one of everything!
I mean, sure, the recovery thing is nice, but I can enjoy so much more food now!
My excitement only increased when I opened the Iron Stomach skill to read it as well.
Iron Stomach (level 1)
Decreases negative effects from things consumed based on level.
Such a lovely support skill! I want to hurry and master this skill so I can eat all sorts of interesting things now! Spicy food without heartburn? Sure! Soda and Ice Cream without feeling bloated? Done! That mystery jelly bean I found in the couch without worrying about getting sick! Definitely!
Okay, maybe not that last one, but with high levels I could try Fugu without worrying about poison, or see if sauted toadstools are tasty. There were just sooooo many more food options when poison isn't a thing to worry about.
Oh, my face went limp from thinking about all the things I could try with this skill. Ahhhhhh, I wish I had such a wonderful skill in my last life. Maybe this is why I never caught any stomach bugs even when other people got sick from eating the same thing?
Oh Mother, oh Father, thank you for your wonderful genes to give me such a strong stomach! I vow to master this extension of your gift-
My praise for the wonderful nature of those skills that I had was cut short by another dangerous gurgle from my stomach.
Right, I need to give my wonderful stomach some food. Guess finding some would be the best thing I could do right now since I couldn’t even bring a single chip with me. My bare feet enjoyed the cool sensation from the smooth stone floor as I walked while my brain too busy wondering what sort of food was hiding in this place to realize that I had nothing in my shorts and t-shirt based outfit to cook with. When I did realize it I couldn’t help but curse.
"Crabapples," slipped through my lips as I paused to wonder how to solve the problem. Perhaps it would be stuff I could eat raw? Hm....meat was probably out then. That is unless I could figure out how to make sashimi I mean.
As I continued to walk forward, my brain wrapped around the problem of trying to prepare raw meat. Maybe fish would be a good way to try?
Skill: Cooking (level 5) recognized.
Oh....looks like Mom's advice about knowing how to cook better than you know how to eat really is something I ended up following. I mean it wasn’t, why would my cooking skill be higher than my eating skill?
Cooking (level 5)
Increases the skill in which food is prepared and made.
Nothing exceptional, but this sort of skill was considered a knowledge skill rather than an enhancement skill. You basically raise these through practice and study and the accumulated knowledge increases the skill's level. Level bonuses could sometimes fill gaps in your knowledge for that skill level, which prompts more study and practice to push your new knowledge further.
Basically they represent an accumulated amount of work more than give a bonus like Gluttony does. That said, I'll gladly take a skill based on cooking, even if it's only because it'll make my ability to make tasty things become an ability to make them into even tastier things.
Like that person who invented putting chips in your sandwich.
Sadly my new skill didn't teach me how to prepare sashimi, it did let me think about how I could cook something. If I found wood I could probably make a fire, but how did I start fires in my past life?
Honestly I don't know how anyone can expect to remember anything useful from a lifetime ago. My two lifetimes combined gives me 36 years of experience and from that I barely remember most things from this half of it, much less the first half. Information about [Status], some general stuff about my old life and frequently used knowledge could be dug up pretty easily, but that's only because I had to think about that stuff a lot. I mean I could probably track an animal in the woods-
Skill: Tracking (level 3) recognized.
Okay, apparently I can actually still track an animal in the woods. And while it’s kind of exciting that knowledge skills from my past life can be regained in this one, even if I tracked something how was I going to kill it in order to eat? My disappointment in not having the ability to remember something like how to fire bare handed. Wait, did I even know how to do that? Ug, I don’t even know what I’ve forgotten that I knew. Well, on the bright side, at least the tunnel is getting brighter.
My feet stop as the information filters past my desire for food and into the thinkier parts of my brain: there is light ahead. From where I stood it looked like a steady light that diffused a lot like sunlight does, and not like the flickering of torches or even the pulsing of fluorescent lights.
My empty hand ran through my hair as I stared at the light. I mean if it's actually sunlight then I'd be outside already, but consider I went from browsing the internet to falling through the broken shards of reality into what seemed to be a dark void only to wake up inside of a mystery tunnel part of me definitely was not excited by what could be ahead. I mean, it’s probably not the outside world. I mean, if I woke up in a mystery mining tunnel or something that’d be one thing, but I can’t count on my luck being that high. One, because there is no stat for luck, and two.
Mostly because only one thing in my memory had lights like the sun underground: dungeons.
I didn't have any memories of going into dungeons, but bits and pieces of stories were still in the cobweb-coated parts of my mind, things like Sun Stones which would cycle from day to night in the larger dungeons, allowing for something kind of close to a normal day inside.
The crystals would carpet the ceiling of larger caves often turning them into little chunks of the world above. Some of the biggest dungeons even had whole towns inside caves like that, made by merchants who saw a business opportunity.
Though I have to doubt a town would be so easy to find this soon after Earth changed. So no chance of delicious snack foods then.
Maybe there might be some fruit trees or something? Hoping for something I could use to silence the beast like growls coming from my complaining stomach I continued forward, tuning my ears the best I could to any sounds that might be coming from the opening ahead.
There were no sounds of birds, nor wind, but as I got close enough to see the opening ahead I could see something unusual: a road.
A black ribbon of asphalt with broken dashes of yellow paint forming a line running down the middle met the edge of the end of the tunnel and further away I could see fields of grain and what looked like a house that was off to the right side. As I reached the end of the tunnel properly and could see farther to either side I could also see a barn and a grain silo behind the house, and grain as far as I could see.
Did a farm end up inside the dungeon too? While the grains themselves were useless to me who didn’t know how to process them or even if I could cook them as is, a house could definitely a place that might have food! Excitement filled my step as I walked as fast as I could while avoiding any sharp looking rocks on the road. A place like this could have food! Maybe people too, but hopefully they were the kind of people who'd share their food! While such delusional thoughts were dancing in my head like so many sugar plums I practically skipped my way towards that house.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
With a thought the former-cellphone in my hand disappeared into my inventory as the light from the cave ceiling above was brighter than the glow of the phone's screen. My Inventory was safer than my hands, and since my pajamas don't have pockets, taking up space there was safer than potentially forgetting about it somewhere, or dropping it. I mean, Job Stone or not, it's still a cellphone and I didn't want to risk breaking it.
The surrounding silence was only broken by my breathing as I walked. There was no wind here, and it was strangely empty of the sound of insects. The smell of the field was the only thing I could smell until I got closer to the house where a pungent odor hung like an annoying relative and attacked my nostrils. It was like greasy dirt and burnt skin with a taint of blood.
Goblin.
That was the first word that came to mind with the smell, and one of the few monsters I had memories of actually killing. In appearance they don't look like much of a threat, resembling tiny old men with bald heads, green skin and limbs that look more like sticks stuck to a scrawny body with a potbelly. Even their clothes don't look that impressive being either scraps of animal skin or cloth so dirty that it turned permanently brown.
Even the more dangerous ones only really have a different skin color and a slight increase in size to set them apart. Red for the more elite fighters and blue for their shamen. I've heard of ones that have pitch black skin but having never seen one I can't begin to describe them.
Anyways, that weak appearance hides two major things about those scrawny runts: first they are very good at ambushing people who don't pay attention, and secondly they like to throw flaming jars that burst when they hit something covering everything the inside touches with fire.
Mix the two things together and you have a very short, but very deadly fight on your hands, with it usually resulting in their victim being very quickly roasted.
Thankfully, once you know that dirty, oily smell it becomes pretty apparent if they're either around, or have been around recently. Once you know that, then preparing to deal with them is pretty easy. My favorite method when I was a hunter was to climb a tree and pick them off with my bow from my hiding spot. But since there are no trees around, and I don't have a bow, that plan won't work here. That's some stinky cheese level of obstacle right there. I mean, clearly I need to do something to solve the problem, but it was a smelly one that got in the way of what I really wanted.
I paused, my body tensed and ready to run as I listened for the sounds of those little creeps skulking around. The fields were still silent, but now that I was close to the house I could hear something occasionally throwing things inside. If it was just one or two then maybe I had a chance, assuming I could find a weapon.
Almost immediately my mind went towards the kitchen, but not for the thought of food, but because almost every kitchen has a lot of knives. Honestly I admit that I was a little too proud for thinking of it so quickly. Guess my two points of Insight were showing decent use so far.
Moving around the house slowly to not make noise I managed to find the backdoor, or rather, what was now left of it. The door itself was hanging by a single hinge with dents in the wood showing that something heavy had been used to pound it open. Inside it almost looked as a hurricane had come through the kitchen as drawers and cabinets had been pulled open and ransacked.
Bits of empty boxes that once held food were scattered everywhere, shards of broken plates and glass covered the floor and the only tableware left seemed to be spoons. Not only were the knives taken, even the forks were as well.
"Do they just see anything remotely pokey as a weapon?" I muttered to myself mostly out of amazement. I mean I knew they scavenged weapons, but wasn't this somewhat excessive?
Carefully tiptoeing through the debris to avoid any of the shards I made my way to the stove and grabbed the only thing I could see that could be used as a weapon: a large cast iron skillet. Did they not take it because it was too heavy, or was it because they didn't understand cooking? Maybe only sharp things were seen as weapons and everything else was useless?
Honestly I couldn't guess. I mean I'm not a tiny green old man monster, so how could I even know why they did stuff?
The skillet was fairly wide and had a handle just longer than my hand was made of wood around a metal handle that ended in an iron ring, probably for hanging the skillet from. Since picking it up didn’t generate a message from [Status] it probably wasn't seen as a proper weapon, but anything was better than trying to fight with my bare hands.
As I escaped the kitchen, or rather its dangerous floor, and entered a hallway that ran towards the front of the house I noticed a heavy stench of blood from what I could only guess was the living room. Part of me was full of a morbid curiosity to look inside, but since that smell was probably the remains of the people who'd originally owned this house and I couldn't say I wanted to see what had happened to them just yet. I admit my nerves are just not that strong to see a person like that and still have the strength to fight right afterwards.
I found the stairs by the front door and carefully followed them up, walking the outermost sides of the steps to try and avoid any creaky steps. As weak as Goblins are known to be a fight, right now I was pretty weak too and honestly any advantage I could get was one I'd gladly take. Besides, if it was one of the red brutes then the blindly rushing in like some sort of berserker was just asking to be cut down. Nope, definitely better to sneak in and crack his wrinkly head like an egg.
It’s not being cowardly! It’s just compensating for your weaknesses! So what if I’m weak? That doesn’t mean I’ll just give up and run in like an idiot.
I followed the sounds of things occasionally being tossed and the grunting snorts of the creature digging through whatever was in the room and entered the room that was halfway down the hall. Almost immediately the wrinkled bald head tipped up and started sniffing.
"Huh? Smell. It girl?" came a low mutter of heavily accented and broken English. His wrinkled, bald head turned to face me as it followed the sniffing beak of a nose and his dark beady eyes seemed to light up as he spotted me. "Girl!"
The small body sprang from a crouch into a dive with outstretched arms seeking grab onto my leg. Sorry grandpa, but touching is a no-no! Perverts get punished! BANG!
His body crumpled from the cast iron blow to the face, but I didn't stop hitting. I wasn't strong so it'd take more than one good hit to kill the creature. Around the fifth or sixth hit I was started to feel tired, my breath coming out in short gasps like I'd been running too much. It was while I was getting ready to swing again a notice popped up in my vision:
+20 XP
Oh. It was dead. Good.
I fell onto my butt in the middle of the scattered clothes, broken and let my stamina slowly recover, the little yellow bar ticking back up slowly. Each attack didn't take much out of the bar, but pushing myself to hit as hard as I could several times in a row drained it faster than my glass of milk on hot wing night at home. Thankfully the only time you use stamina is when you push yourself so it’s not something I was draining before I started swinging, so I had enough to kill the goblin before I ran out of energy. The stat was just a simple representation of how deep you could dig and how long you could go full out for, and honestly I couldn't feel my well was pretty shallow.
I didn't push that spare skill point into increasing it despite how shallow it was, mostly out of worry that I might need it to protect my health. Honestly magic wasn't really a concern for me because despite having MP I couldn't use it in my last life, and couldn't expect to magically be able to use it in this one.
So yeah, not something I held out any hope for in this life. If I wanted magic support it was going to have to come from someone else. Quit staring like that. You know what I mean. Like a friend or maybe even a lover.
What? It may come to shock you, but I have friends! Okay, I have one friend and neither of us have ever dated and he's kind of odd because he spends a lot of time looking at bridal magazines but still, I'm not a loner! Well...not in this life at least.
My breathing steadied as the bar reached half-full and my heartbeat became normal after it finished refilling. With my stamina full again I began the noblest pastime of every person to visit a dungeon anywhere : looting. I started by stashing my makeshift weapon in my inventory.
Skillet acquired.
As you may have noticed, To some it may be shameful, but honestly I couldn't care about shame. I mean, if no one knows, how can you be ashamed? Besides, a dungeon is no place to run around wearing only your pajamas.
You know, unless you're an idiot and a pervert. A perviot if you will. Or a perverted idiot if you won't. Besides, I've seen enough movies to know it's always the girl who isn't wearing enough clothes who dies the worst death.
I ended up wearing a large flannel shirt and overalls that with the legs rolled up so I could walk as I kept looking around. If I was lucky this farmer would have a gun, but despite checking around I only found a few shotgun shells. Even the goblin didn't have much to work with, having a pouch with a handful of small blue mushrooms inside.
The barn was where I got truly lucky. Stashed away in a corner behind some boxes that had been torn into were some old green duffel bags full of old military gear. Green camouflage uniforms, boots that were too big for my feet but were better than being barefoot, a belt with harness and a large knife in a heavy plastic sheath. The exciting part wasn't that I had found clothes, but by simply picking them up [Status] began giving me notifications like it had when I’d picked up my cellphone:
Camouflage uniform acquired.
Camouflage uniform acquired.
Camouflage uniform acquired.
Camouflage uniform acquired.
Combat boots acquired.
Bayonet acquired.
Combat Harness acquired.
Without a single pause I threw all of it into my inventory. Sure stats would be important when choosing what to use later, but for the moment I just wanted to make sure I didn't leave anything this useful behind. I mean, when you basically have nothing but a skillet and pajamas, is anything worth leaving behind?
Sadly after going through the barn and house nothing else gave that reaction. I guess [Status] only made things into equipment if they were made with the intent of being used in a fight. So military uniforms would be considered equipment, but normal clothes wouldn't be due to what they were made for. But, even non-equipment things were still catalogued by [Status] even if they didn't have the ability to gain stats or accept mana. It was interesting to think about what the system accepted as equipment since in my last world the only clothing that I knew of as equipment was functional as armour of some kind while the uniform I got was just fabric.
The grumbling of my stomach drew me back from my wondering of how things worked now that Earth was under the management of [Status]. Unfortunately the only thing I had on hand to eat were those blue mushrooms, something I wasn't keen on trying. Don't get me wrong, Goblins can't eat anything humans can't, but at the same time they seem to have little care for how stuff tastes. It's not even clear if they really can taste at all or if they have a different sort of sense of taste as humans because they often eat things that are incredibly bitter or foul to the point of normally being inedible to anyone who had a normal sense of taste.
Bracing myself I took one of the mushrooms out and popped it into my mouth. Almost immediately it began to fizz across my tongue with the sensation of small popping sounds dancing on my tongue. It tasted strangely blue, but the flavor melded with the way it as it melted away. I had just swallowed it and taken out another one when a notice popped into my vision:
-1 Insight for 5 minutes.
Wait, what?
----
Emily's Food Log:
Blue Mushrooms: Fizzy, melty goodness that dances across your tongue like popping rock candies! A little bit of natural sweetness makes them pretty good as a snack, just watch out for the Insight penalty!