Another early morning with Madilyn’s knock on the door, Steve was ready for shopping in a jiffy. Traveling in the wagon, south towards her farm, Madilyn informed Steve, “So, this is the plan for today, you harvest some tetra-grain from the farm, I’ll water the fruit trees, you chop down some wood-tree branches and then we go to the market.” Steve just nodded. In the last two days, Steve had learned not to ask many questions when it came to Madilyn. If she asked you to chop wood, she would take care of the axe. If she asked you to harvest the crop, she would bring her scythe. Steve had started to depend on her every order as his future task. The boss had fed him, clothed and sheltered him, brought him into contact with the protectors and administrators of this place, all in all, she had worked to gain his silence. A glance around the wagon confirmed Steve’s theory, there was indeed a purse, an axe, and a scythe in the wagon.
Madilyn rode the wagon to the southernmost point of the farm where the fruit plants were planted. These plants were young, nowhere near fruit-bearing. “ In my childhood, there was a lot of fruit and flowering trees here at this point. Ours was one of the nearest farms from windrow. Farms extended from here to the bay,” Madilyn pointed towards the dense jungle that now stood to the south. “But, people started leaving once the undead showed up from the water. It was too late until the army showed up 15 years ago, the village population dwindled drastically, most moved to tantrax, including my parents. My grandfather stayed, but I was forced to move to tantrax.” “Wait, you just arrived here 3 days ago, how is there a whole field worth of crop standing here?” Steve asked with his logic. “Well, the government took over this farm for the last year as this is the only staple grain farm for the village. There are fruit farms in the north,” Madilyn informed as she handed Steve the scythe, “twenty cobs in a stack, we need a hundred stacks, use the stems themselves as rope for the stacks.” scythe in hand and orders received, Steve started with his first tetra-grain crop.
Cool pre-dawn winds in his hair, Steve squatted down and started with finding weak spots on the stems of the tetra-plant. On the very first hit, he realized it was a new scythe. Twenty stacks in, Steve got a notification.
[ General Handyman class level 6 ]
[ Class feature obtained: Basic Sythe Proficiency ]
[ Basic Sythe Proficiency: faster and more clean cuts from you when using a scythe ]
After the notification, a disappointed Steve got up, “Hey Madilyn, my handyman class just upgraded, do I not get a farmer class for doing farmer things?” A startled Madilyn who was watering the fruit plants with a bucket replied, “The farmer class is far too specialized for a guy like you, also the handyman class is by far the most general class out there with a new skill update for every level, any other class hardly does that.”
‘Well, at least the job at hand gets easier’ Steve was getting the hang of his first class. ‘A broad class with a bunch of skills for daily life makes sense for a non-combat class.’ Steve thought as he continued with his job.
He got another notification after forty more stacks.
[ General Handyman class level 7 ]
[ Class feature obtained: Basic Sythe Proficiency - Mark II]
[ Basic Sythe Proficiency – Mark II: faster and more clean cuts from you when using a scythe ]
‘This is not a general class, this seems like a teasing class, where is my moderate scythe proficiency?’ Steve’s next hit was more forceful out of frustration and two cobs fell on the ground. ‘so one extra plant is cut for every slice I make, not so teasing now mister dumdum’. Faster harvesting with more force, a hundred stacks were made. Steve then moved to Madilyn who was sitting under a tree, making a basket out of the tetra-crop stems. “Slow,” said Madilyn passing Steve the axe near her. “Go for branches longer than your hand, shoulder to fingertips, don't cut the stem,” said a busily weaving Madilyn. She had created ten baskets from the extra tillers of the tetra plant. She pointed Steve to a short Tree with long horizontal branches and a drum-like stem. Steve took the axe and started chopping, once the branch was separated from the stem, a transparent semi-solid glue-like substance oozed out of the stem, Madilyn showed up and started scooping the glue into the newly made baskets. She even took a deeper scoop from the stem itself which was filled with glue. Steve was just staring at something he had never seen or read about. Madilyn gave him a look, “don’t worry, we're not killing the tree, this stuff will grow back in a month, go for the next branch.” subsequently, ten branches and ten glue filled baskets were harvested from the tree.
[ General Handyman class level 8 ]
[ Class feature obtained: Basic Axe Proficiency ]
[ Basic Axe Proficiency: Deeper cut into woods from each attempt ]
[ General Handyman class level 9 ]
[ Class feature obtained: Basic Strength ]
[ Basic Strength: Same muscle, 1.5 times the strength ]
Loading the wagon with the stacks, the glue, and branches, they returned to the village. The market was open on the southern gate itself. Handing Steve his 1 silver and 50 coppers, Madilyn rushed to the forager’s shop where she bought even more transparent glue. Then she bought some bandage raw materials from the alchemist. Steve eventually followed her into a magical items shop. The shopkeeper was a low-level item enchanter himself, but he bought a lot of items from tantrax and sold them here.
“Can I get a grade A pillow like the last one I bought?,” said Madilyn while looking at the items on the counter. The shopkeeper presented to her a normal-looking pillow with a raised eyebrow towards Steve. “I heard you had a server who doubles as a healer in the village, that’s one gold piece,” said the shopkeeper while handing Madilyn the pillow. “Anything you can get for a silver and 50 coppers?” said Steve, to which the shopkeeper replied, “All items start from 50 silver.”
When they left the shop, steve decided to buy a couple of shirts and trousers for 1 silver from a normal shop.
Both returned to the food stop at dawn and steve went ahead and took a bath on the eastern river. When he returned, Glen and Astria were sitting on one of the tables with a serious-looking Madilyn. Steve broke the silence, “umm, hi guys?”
The trio looked up, “Tell him, he is our healer,” said Glen in a flat tone. “Steve, the head of fortune teller society in tantrax has predicted that in the coming days, the skeleton attacks will get much more dangerous. The king has raised the alarm for all adventuring teams inside the borders of dravos to make their way towards windrow. The government has guaranteed free stay, food, and an attractive stipendium to all adventuring teams. I do not doubt that all adventuring teams will abandon their most lucrative dungeons for this job. It is guaranteed pay for protecting a village,” Madilyn continued, “Glen got this message yesterday afternoon, it's natural that I will be the central food provider for the incoming adventurers, but it's you Glen wants to speak to.”
Glen started talking to a shocked steve, “There are very few healers in the teams that will show up here in the next few days. Astria will train you in the fastest way possible so that you can heal the worst wounds. Madilyn tells me you are a handyman too. We are out of those too. There are shelters to be created, walls to be patched and bunkers and pitfalls to be dug. It’s specialized work that a general handyman class can quickly scale upon with every level up. The problem is, it's just you, we have for all of this. The city of tantrax is not that strong a place to send administrative aid, all they can do is send combatants, in this case, adventurers and a lot of gold. The binding raw material you harvested today, will be used to build houses for the adventurers to the east, near the station,” Glen handed steve the pillow Madilyn had bought for him, “This will cut your sleep time by 80%.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Madilyn showed up with the baskets and bags filled with transparent glue, “He’s here to take you to your work today.”
After steve grasped the seriousness of the situation, Glen, Astria, and steve moved to the station with Madilyn’s wagon filled to the brim with glue baskets and branches. “Don’t think of these tasks as a burden, think of them as an opportunity to level like crazy,” said a playful Astria, as they reached the station. The ranger of the team was sitting on the roof as Glen pointed him towards the branches. “Regi, these are the branches you asked for, you remember steve from earlier.” Glen said as regi quickly got down from the station roof and took the branches into the station.
“Steve, I want houses with a front hall and five medium-sized bedrooms, with double brick walls. You have prior experience in construction?” Glen waited for a negative from steve, “Mix one part glue with one part water and ten parts sand or soil. Two men with the labor class will get you the soil from around the river. There is a brickmaker with his makeshift furnace for all the bricks needed. All equipment is on the site itself. Take as much space as you need, I’ll officiate it as governmental residences.”
Steve just nodded to this and took one basket of glue towards the mound of soil and bricks that already existed behind the station. Steve started his job by digging a ten-meter by ten-meter square tunnel in the ground as the outline to the house to be created. He had a simple layout with five, four meter by four meter rooms with a connecting pathway in common and the rest would be the hall. He was not going to think of washrooms because he was not told to and he assumed everyone did it near the river or in the jungle. The mixing ratio given to him worked on the first try. The brickmaker delivered his first 500 bricks and guaranteed steve that the brick supply will be uninterrupted.
Steve started with the double-bricked pillars. He used bricks as stairs to create the 10 feet pillars. He had observed this height at the food stop and the station. Brick by brick, steve started to get comfortable with the cement of this world.
--------
Leaving steve to his work, Glen entered the station to see his team ready for orders. Regi had already started to downsize the branches into smaller pieces. Glen entered his room where another team was waiting for his orders, the administrative team. The administrative team had two members. One was a thick spectacled lady, in white and blue uniform, named Joy and another was a thin messenger mage named Rudy. Joy was in charge of all paperwork related to the village and Rudy was in charge of all communications with tantrax. The fact that waves of monsters were attacking windrow made these non-combatants extremely important for daily operations for Glen.
“Any updates Rudy?” Glen questioned as he entered the room. “Tantrax has increased agricultural export towards windrow. The next farm trader will have more loaded produce. Two thousand gold has been issued for the week for maintenance and shelter construction. Tantrax says no for soldiers from any order. They say adventurers are enough, especially from all around the country. They estimate five hundred teams are present in the country.” Rudy informed while reading from a piece of paper. “When does the first team arrive?” Glen inquired. “The first team arrives here two days from now, let me check the name, it's the flamboyant cutters, grade D. It's an adventuring team of five swordsmen, order unknown. They were near a minor dungeon yesterday when the adventurers guild informed them via mental message about windrow,” Rudy informed.
“Anything about handyman workers or healers?” Glen desperately asked.
“Nothing on that, they say they are fresh out of those classes, many handymen moved to the capital for the monument construction and healers are rare in general,” Joy confirmed.
“Joy, one handyman is working outside, draw plots for him to make houses and don't tell him he has to make five hundred of those, after lunch take him to the southern wall and get him to fix some portions,” Glen ordered as he slowly realized how important Steve was going to be in the coming days. “Rudy, I don’t care how you get me a handyman from tantrax, threaten them, beg, steal, say we will pay in gold, anything. Just lie straight out if you want, just get me some general handymen,” Glen exclaimed in frustration.
Glen left his office with a grim expression on his face, the skeletons may or may not show up, but 500 adventuring teams showing up in windrow, a village of 250 people was going to be a nightmare anyway.
“Guys, we have been doing this for six months, I don’t think we need to prepare separately for this increase in wave intensity thing the fortune tellers are telling us. What we need in the next five days is to level up our non-combatants for strategic advantage in battle. We have to hold stuff together until a couple of grade A teams show up and this becomes a vacation spot for us. Astria, as you are the highest level mage around here, I put the responsibility of training steve in healing magic and mana things. He might see a lot of patients in the coming days. Tracker, follow and protect steve if need be,” the rogue in the team stood, offered a salute to Glen, and walked out of the station. Astria walked to the bookshelf and got a book named ‘spatial mana manipulation techniques’.
---------
[ General Handyman class level 10 ]
[ Class feature obtained: Basic Grip ]
[ Basic Grip: better grip while handling objects ]
‘In a village of 250 people...’
[ General Handyman class level 11 ]
[ Class feature obtained: Basic Brick Layer ]
[ Basic Brick Layer: better judgment of the horizontal while bricklaying ]
‘there must be what, a hundred children...’
[ General Handyman class level 12 ]
[ Class feature obtained: Basic Balance ]
[ Basic Balance: better balance during work ]
‘out of 150 citizens, no one is a combat class, understandable. There must be like 20 farmers, say ten teachers. Maybe five mages...’
[ General Handyman class level 13 ]
[ Class feature obtained: Better mortar ]
[ Better mortar: mortar you create has better quality ]
‘but not one person with a handyman class... ARE YOU KIDDING ME?’
[ General Handyman class level 14 ]
[ Class feature obtained: Brick Laying throw ]
[ Brick Laying throw: bricks thrown on mortar fit automatically ]
‘hmmm, that’s useful’
A rapidly leveling steve was interrupted by Joy, “Excuse me, Mr. Steve, right?” A busy nod from steve and Joy continued, “ I am going to mark plots based on your present plot size using chalkstone. Do you have any instructions or considerations for the job?”
“Yeah, how many houses do I have to build?” steve inquired while making his first bricklaying throw. “ten houses, I think,” Joy was well versed with lying.
“Wow, that’s a lot, especially considering that I had no experience in construction this morning,” Steve replied. Joy went ahead to mark the plots for the ten houses.
Faster brick laying due to brick throws resulted in faster construction of the outer four walls with space considered for the main door and several windows.
[ General Handyman class level 15 ]
[ Class feature obtained: Better mortar mark-II ]
[ Better mortar mark-II: mortar sets instantly on brick application ]
‘Very convenient timing for the ceiling. That.... that is good and bad, will have to hammer out my mistakes if any are made.’ Luckily, steve did not make any mistakes in bricklaying for the ceiling. Once the ceiling was done, steve got down on the ground, where Astria was waiting for him. “Quite the structure you have created in a morning. Also, your nose is bleeding,” Astria pointed out.
Steve checked his nose in surprise, had he overworked himself? The answer was red.
“Get some lunch at food stop and rest for an hour, you have no experience in construction,” Astria said.
Steve moved back to the food stop, tired out of his mind. What were these days of long labor going to do to him? The only reward he was considering in all of this was the leveling.
“Your back and your nose is bleeding,” said an enthusiastic Madilyn. “ I’ll have that roasted track fish now with the butter-jam bucket thing,” Steve said with a tired smile. “Coming up,” replied madilyn.
After lunch, steve hit the new pillow in his room like a sack of wheat. After an hour of napping, he felt extremely refreshed. ‘ok, to the unfinished house then.’
Steve was back at the station and constructing the inner walls in no time. Completing this house in a day was looking like a possibility. After the limited walls were raised, it was plaster time and for a moment the brickmaker felt relieved in the day.
[ General Handyman class level 16 ]
[ Class feature obtained: Faster plaster ]
[ Faster plaster: 2x speed of plastering ]
Plastering every surface took its time. It was then that Joy showed up for the wall patching trip. Leaving the newly made house for the day, steve accompanied Joy to the southern wall. This job was mostly plastering in the wall cracks and setting a few bricks into the larger fallen-off parts of the wall. The largest opening in the wall was due to the eastern river flowing through it. Steve also plastered across claw marks that he guessed were from the skeletons.
Returning to the station, steve dug the square for the net house and started bricklaying. He could not believe how good and fast he had gotten in a day at this job. It was the effect of the skills. The outer walls for the second house were made faster, the same for the inner walls. The second house was plastered when Astria showed up for a chat.
“Tell me your healer level and skills,” Astria enquired.
“I am level 5 with bandage and healer’s Aura,” Steve replied.
“Have you used the aura?” asked Astria.
“Nope,” Steve said.
“Sit down and concentrate for a bit in silence,” Astria said.
Steve followed, “Now, say these words, mana update”
“mana update”
[ mana: 100/100 ]
“Is it 100 on 100?”
“Yes, why?”
“That means you are normal, not gifted,” replied Astria. “that’s enough learning for today. Let’s go have dinner. You have to continue this house building after dinner too,” Astria said failing to keep a straight face.
After two fried trackfish dishes and two bowls of soup, Steve moved back to his job. Glen and his team walked towards the southern gate.
-------------
An unknown enemy, a larger threat, an uncertain time. Incoming aid, Incoming panic, incoming doom. Whatever the future held, they would face it. While a clueless handyman started plastering his third house for the day, the five stood at the southern gate, their weapons ready for war.