“Why are you so low leveled? Only children have such a low Level,” Boni asked as we walked out of the gate.
Boni was my new employer. Technically, his father Silas, was. They owned a four-hectare piece of land a half-hour walk from the town. If I proved myself skilled enough, I would get two silvers per day. Or one silver per day if I resided in their compound in the town. Looking at it, the one silver a day plus lodging and food sounded like the better offer. But I still needed to work my numbers and see if they agreed. Which I hoped to do during the work. After I got the ropes of it.
“I don’t know,” I replied.
Given my circumstances, that seemed to me like the best answer that I could give. He still stared at me weirdly for a few seconds before looking ahead again.
“Carry one of them?” I asked as I pointed to the hoes he had on his shoulder.
He looked at me again before he said, “Why not?”
When I took the hoe he handed me, the first thing I noticed was its weight. It was considerably heavier than the staff I had been carrying around. I kept the staff to my right hand, and hefted the hoe to my left shoulder and continued my walk. It felt like I was back on old earth.
“You checked my Level?” I asked after remembering the question he had asked.
“Yeah,” he replied simply.
“Can’t tell if [Identify]’d?” I asked. It had been holding me back from going all [Identify] on everyone. But I hadn’t felt him [Identify] me, but I still needed to confirm.
“Normally, no. But there is a Skill that helps tell you if someone has used an identification Skill on you,” he answered.
“Oh…” I was both relieved and not. There was a risk of someone having the Skill, making it a gambling thing. I hated gambles.
“Honestly, it isn’t worth it. Unless you intend to pursue a career as a scoundrel or those secretive jobs like assassins and inquisitors,” he added.
“There is more than one identification Skill?”
“What?” he asked, taken aback by the question. “Yeah, I only know the two; [Identify] and [Status]. But I’ve heard there are others.”
As far as I knew, [Status] wasn’t a Skill but a function of the System. Or maybe the Daemon. It wasn’t even listed in the Skills sections of my information. I knew that [Status] gave me species, name and the three status values, while [Identify] gave the same information plus everything else. Levels, Attributes and Skills. But so far, on others, I hadn’t used [Status] and [Identification] only gave me name, species and a Level approximate. I decided to test the two with Boni.
“Use them on you?” It wouldn’t hurt to be polite, especially to someone who will be paying me by the end of the day. Well, starting tomorrow.
“Sure, I don’t mind. I think everyone expects everyone is using an identification Skill on them,” he answered.
‘[Status]’
‘[Human : Boni][Level 20-23]
Status:
[HP: 2800/2800]
[MP: 2100/2200]
[SP: 3800/4000]’
‘[Identify]’
‘[Human : Boni – Level 20-23]’
Something was off with his HP, MP, SP values. ‘Everything is an approximation.’
‘Yes.’
“You high level,” I finally said.
“Not really,” he replied with a shake of his head. “I’m pretty average for someone my age. If I was in the 30s, that would be considered high. In the 40s? That’s a whole new league.”
He then turned to look at me with a scrutinizing gaze, causing me to feel self-conscious and stare at my feet as we walked on towards his father’s farm.
“Where are you from, anyway?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
Silence stretched for a while, a quiet walk I highly appreciated. Unlike the questions. I had known I would have to answer them if I went searching for a job, but I still hated them.
“Is there anything you do know?” he asked.
I thought it through. I knew a lot of things. But most of those were in relation to old earth. In the Realm of Mesily, what did I know for sure?
“My name is Hartie.”
I could feel him staring at me for a few long seconds, then he bust out in laughter. A loud boisterous thing that made me cringe, regretting not leaving a hand free to cover at least one of my ears.
“I’m sorry. I’m not laughing at you,” he said, stifling a few chuckles as he finally calmed down. “It’s just… you got this serious look on your face, like you were trying to solve a world issue. And then you drop that.”
It took him a while to finally calm down. Then he asked, “How far back do you remember?”
“Three days.” I decided to give the time I had been in the Realm of Mesily.
“Nothing before that?” I shook my head at that. “Where did you stay for those nights?”
“First, forest. Then, tavern.”
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“On which side of town? The Riches, the Merchants, the Labors or the Shades?”
When I thought about those four groups, it was obvious where I had been. “The Shades.”
“Really? How was it?” he perked up at that. I had expected a very different reaction.
“Awful.”
“Really?” he asked in a doubtful tone. “I always thought it would be fun.”
“Why? It’s Shades.”
“You know, the…” he turned to me then. “What exactly does Shades mean to you?”
“Cutthroats. Thieves. Burglars. Assassins. Killers. Rapists—”
“STOP!” he shouted. “Just stop. Where did you come from?”
After remembering what I had already told him, he corrected himself. “Never mind, but I’m more curious than ever now. Here, Shades means where the things that happen behind closed doors occur. Still behind closed doors but more openly. I’m a man grown now, I think it’s time—”
“What took you so long?” a gentle voice asked.
Looking around, I found we had already made it to the farms. And by that address, to Silas’ farm. He was standing several tens of meters from the road, with a hoe at hand. He was as tall as his son, just barely taller than me. Same lean build and black hair. But he had a slightly darker tan and his face had wizened with age. That or the constant exposure to the sun all day, every day.
“You got a new person? What happened to the other one?” he asked after scrutinizing me. Didn’t he even know the name of the guy that had quit?
“He claimed to have found a ‘better’ job,” Boni answered as he began walking into the field. I followed a few steps behind. From what I could see, it was weeding season. The crops looked like the soybeans I had seen on televisions. And given that we were somewhere in the middle of the width of the field, they had been at it for a while.
“He wasn’t good, and I told you that.” He looked at me again before turning his gaze back to his son. And added dryly, “This one doesn’t seem like they will be any better.”
“They have agreed to work on probation today. If we don’t like their work, we can let them go with no pay.”
“That doesn’t make it any better. They could be worse than the other guy,” Silas argued.
“I think they might surprise you,” Boni didn’t let up.
“They seem to have already convinced you.” His voice was accusing then, but Boni just laughed it off.
“I’ve been walking with them since we left the town, and they have carried that hoe like someone who knows what they are doing.”
“It could have been luck,” Silas said, a slight mirth in voice.
“Yes, it could have been.”
This was a banter to them. I just happened to be the victim. Leaving alone the fact that they talked about me like they didn’t care I was standing right next to them, WHAT THE HELL WAS WITH... forget it.
“I’m Silas, his father,” he finally introduced himself.
“I know,” I didn’t even bother to hide the annoyance in my voice. And it didn’t bother him at all. “Hartie.”
“I know.” He threw back.
What? How? Right, he used an identification Skill on me. Maybe getting that Skill that helped tell when someone used an identification skill on me wasn’t such a bad idea.
“Let’s get on with it then. We are weeding, if you know what that is. This is how I like it done in my farm,” he began hoeing a little. Scraping and digging at the weeds, before earthing the base of the crops.
Looking at the disturbed ground, it was easy to tell which parts had been weeded the previous day and which Silas had weeded out that day. I looked up and watched as the rows stretched to the end of the field. Or what I assumed was the end. Just how long had he been at the field? Since before dawn? If so, how did he tell apart the weeds from the soybean plants.
It was easy, just what I had been doing any time we had rains enough to farm. What might prove a problem would be how my Attributes and Skills translated to this new Realm. I had met people who were pretty fast with the hoe, others slow enough that they had to be carried. Otherwise, their lines would be left behind.
Silas had begun from the near end weeding five lines concurrently. Him and his son took the outside two and I was stuck with the middle one. I was in a way glad for it. It would help me gain the necessary Skills while still keeping up with them.
Within the first half hour, I had already gained the [Weeding] Skill and leveled it up to four. I had been surprised at first, but Clare informed me that my previous knowledge and the efficiency of my movements helped in that regard. But my mood was crashed when I realized that even with my jumpstart, I was still several notches below the two familiars. Both in speed and technique. I knew trying to match their speed would be foolhardy, so I tried to imitate their techniques. Cutting off a movement that didn’t help much but make it easier to move the hoe, adding enough force to my scraps and digs to get the job done in one or two movements. Never three.
All those tiny adjustments had my arms sore by the time we made it to the end of the field. I had received a bunch of notifications, but I had turned off those for the time being. I wasn’t in a life or death situation, but I was going to earn based on my performance. It would determine if I starve or live to fight another day. I needed all my energies focused on doing the job right, not what Skills and Attributes leveled up from it. Those could be analyzed when the day was done.
When we turned, Silas looked at the field and then me. “I think we can take six lines now.”
I looked at him as if he had just sentenced me to death. It couldn’t have been worse than that. I had barely kept up, and they had had two lines while I had the one. If I get two lines too, I was sure to lag behind. And that, from experience, always ended up with weeds just covered up and the actual crops decapitated by the hurrying slacker.
“Don’t worry, we had been going faster than normal to see how far we could push you,” Boni tried to placate me. But it felt like salt on an open wound.
“You could have said.”
“And have you slacken way early?” Silas said as he began on his two lines, right next to the ones we had been weeding. Boni did the same on the outside, leaving me in the middle again.
I stared up at the rising sun, and then the far end of the field where I knew the water jerican was. My already patched lips throbbed in pain, and my throat closed up. Even swallowing saliva was painful. Were the two silvers worth it? One, if I took their offer of room and board. I bent my aching back as I began on my two lines, resigning myself to the hellish life I had thrust myself into.
I quickened up my speed a little, just to catch up with them. Though I did find places where they had scrapped on my lines. But I didn’t want to be carried, that meant I had to push myself to something akin to their standards.
“You know adventurers?” I asked them when I finally caught up.
They had been having their own conversation, but I decided to butt in. Maybe they were going slower. The first leg had been done in silence. If there was energy to talk, they were definitely going slower.
“Those are children stories,” Silas replied offhandedly.
“Huh?” I stared from one to the other, very confused. What had he meant by children stories?
“They are about these mythical figures, The Adventurers, who went around fighting monsters from a thousand years ago. They would get ridiculously high Levels that are just impossible to get to. They are meant to entertain the kids,” he then threw a glaze at me. “I thought you didn’t remember anything?”
“Things pop up. Best to ask,” I replied, with a huff of breath. Straining with the effort of having to produce those two sentences. It was also quite possible that the two lines were a tad bit too much for me. They were at least two times my Level.
Things went on like that. A steady pace from end to end. With the occasional water break. I tried to stay out of their conversations but Boni kept pulling me back in. Asking very complicated questions that required I form very complex sentences just to answer them. I really hated him for it.
When the day was done and Boni asked where I would be spending the night, I just told him to lead the way. With how tired I felt, I didn’t think I had it in me to go stumbling into town in search of lodging. The walk back was a blur to me, I didn’t even bother trying to study the route to Silas compound in the town.
I found myself in a modestly kept part of town. But the most surprising thing was the amount of animal noises I picked up. Looking around, I didn’t see any of them, but I could hear them; cattle, chicken, pigs, and others I couldn’t identify. I soon gave up, walking into the house with Boni and his father.
Supper, or was it late lunch, was a blur. I was sure there were other people but I saw nothing more than shadowy figures. Did they talk to me? What did I say in return? But my sore throat meant that I was too focused on swallowing the food on my plate. What was I eating? I couldn’t remember that either. Before long, the meal was over and I was shown to my sleeping quarters. I didn’t bother taking a shower before throwing myself on the bed. And I was out like a light before my head even hit the bedding.