Looking at the darkening sky, he found that the light was finally disappearing. The sun had been gone an hour or so, but the orange sky and pink clouds were now turning navy blue and a dark purple. The fire he had gotten started was in full blast. Crackling of the wood announcing the heat for the bath would be at a good temperature. He had worked quickly to build the fire so he could catch Ceilie or corner her. There was a problem though. He couldn't quite figure out how to catch her alone. The fact that he was on punishment made things even more difficult.

"Lone! Dinner!" May called from a window on the window.

With all that's happening, his escape, the dungeon, the notifications, the new titles he couldn't read, and now apparently his ability to unlock skills for others. It was all driving him mad. It was then he remembered the notification after killing the rock beetle and opened up his window.

You have slain rock beetle experience has been deposited into bank

Congratulations

You have the first kill in a new dungeon

Higher chance for rare drop increased for this dungeon.

Congratulations

Subjugation of a monster before age requirements met. You will receive boosting stats.

Congratulations

You have discovered [Early Investment!] without prompting or previous information EXP. Dividend increased by 5%!

Another boost in stats? Experience dividends? Now this is looking interesting. Today was quite the lottery. The only thing though is he didn't know how much he actually won. He knew the step boost wouldn't be uncommon, or Early Investment, due to the rumors of Nobles and Rich men having their children killing monsters weekend or chained but the higher chance for rare drops seems like a bonus few would have.

"Lone! Get your scrawny butt inside!" May roared.

"I'm coming!" He replied

' I'm just going to have to figure this out later,' he thought.

He walked to the rear of the church where you can see the door to the kitchen kitchen and entered. There he saw May in regular clothes and an apron. The large woman only wore her nun garb when she left it Church. Seeing her in regular clothes made her look like a normal woman but a foot taller, with slightly more muscled arms.

Lone knew that she was of the Goliath race and that she was actually small for her people's size, but that only meant that she was larger human to him. He didn't know why they were actually considered a different race. May didn't like talking about it, and Ceilie told him, "If May won't say neither will I."

It looks like she made a stew. Not like he'll be having any. In truth, it was nothing more that boiled meat and some kind of vegetables. So he wasn't missing out on much.

May turned to him and looked at him for a moment then said "wash your hands and get to the table" she grinned and asked "you got the fire going, right? Should scrub your hands with warm water."

One thing that was good about this village was the cleanliness and personal hygiene. It surprised him the first time when he was asked to wash up. The church having soap and baths in a medieval setting in the mountains! was unexpected... Apparently, the story behind that is cleanliness is next to Godliness, and soap is a church sold potion of some sort. As many times as he's used it, all he could find out about the soap is that it's just soap. Incidentally, the water from the bath was gathered down south, and Aaron used a spell called cleanse on it before bath time.

Lone wasn't sure how that saying came to be in this world, but he did figure that it was very possible that it was a natural progression. Cleaning oneself was an easy way to avoid disease sickness and infections, giving it a religious aspect that made sure the populace stayed healthier just seemed like a natural progression.

Lone had gotten his bowl and personal cloth and walked to the bathroom. To get there he had to walk through the dining room and he saw the other kids sitting at the table talking and laughing. There he saw Malcolm and Thomas from earlier. Malcolm was a tall skinny kid who just turned 12 with light brown hair and eyes while Thomas was a little shorter with dark brown hair and light brown eyes and would be turning 12 in a month. Across from them three girls sat two of which turning 11 and one turning nine in the next few months.

Elena(10) Claire(10) and Maxine(9). Elena had long black hair with red eyes and was the tallest of the girls while the other two were roughly the same height. Claire had brownish yellow curly hair, which she usually just braided in one long ponytail and a pair of very green eyes. Maxine was the shortest of the three girls and youngest with short maroon red hair and a pair of purple eyes.

At this age, the girls didn't interact with him very much Maxine little more than the other two, mostly it was "girls are icky" and "boys are dummies" as far as he could tell. It didn't help much that when he ran into them, he would always be staring at some random worker like the blacksmith, butcher, or the carpenter, sometimes watching them for hours. He even heard the girls and the boys talking to each other about him, asking, "Why does he do that?" or "Did you drop him on his head?". Again, he didn't try talking to them either, so he couldn't blame them. He just never expected to get a good source of information out of any of the kids.

Lone walked passed the table when he heard, "Hey! Hey! Did you really go outside? Tell us about it. I wanna know! Did you see any monsters. How did you get passed the gate guard? Where did you go?" Maxine exploded with questions.

Lone almost continued walking but the room went silent when Maxine did. He stopped in place, feeling an eerie silence as all the eyes at the table turned to him. He turned around to answer only to feel even more creeped out as he saw all the kids were, in fact, staring at him. The usually loud and rowdy group of kids now silently waiting his reply. It was kind of scary seeing it from his point of view being the smallest of them.

He steeled himself and answered in as calm a way that he could, "Yeah, I did. No I didn't see any monsters. I got lucky, the guards didn't see me and just along the edge of the woods." He lied mostly. He didn't want to share anything unnecessary.

Then Malcolm questioned in an accusing manner. "Oh really... Then what's outside the West gate?" he and Thomas had recently been allowed outside the walls to help some of the Village men with work and get paid plus they also got to level. It was very telling that he wasn't trusting type. That being said, he was actually the most helpful of the children when it came to chores and helping the nuns. He definitely liked being the Big Brother type.

Lone answered. " Are you talking about the stumps and bushes around the walls, or are you talking about the fields and farmhouses further, Southwest?"

He watched Malcolm's eyebrows raise and his grin deepen "Noway! You little rabbit! OK, wait, what about the east side?"

Thomas broke in and asked his own question, "How deep did you go into the woods?" he asked, shaking with excitement.

"Not too deep, I always stayed within view of the village, and no, I did not see the Eastgate." Lone didn't feel like telling them the extent of his exploration.

It was then that Clare said, "You shouldn't be doing that. What if you had gotten lost. What if you really DID run into a monster? What would you have done then?" She glared as if she were going to start berating him some more.

Elaine grabbed Claire's shoulder, catching her before she could continue looking at her, giving her a knowing look. She then looked at Lone and said, "we're just worried you'll hurt yourself. You're still young and don't have your level unlocked yet. So do me a favor and try and wait for a little while longer before doing anything crazy, please?"

This caught Lone off guard. Elaine was acting like the big sister type? This girl was the first one to call him a weirdo boy, last one to talk to him and he thought she even was a little afraid of him. Now, out of nowhere, she's trying to be nice and sisterly.

Lone raised an eyebrow as he looked at her and said, "Um. No..." Everyone froze as if he cursed at her.

Her face had gotten red, her new approach failing to get a better reaction than the usual method. Ever since she turned 10 it was as if she was testing something with each new personality she tried. which she only did with Lone, everyone else got her know-it-all responses. Like her telling Thomas that he should try more vegetables for better stat increases or Maxine should play with the girls more if she wanted to be friends with this other girl. Always pointing out something they thought they were hiding from the others, or before they realized it themselves.

Then, as if a damn broke, Malcolm & Thomas burst out laughing. "You thought asking nicely would work? You think you got the skill to make men fall for your bull?" Said Malcolm laughing a bit more then continued. "I'd bet Loney here has a high enough stat in intelligence to put a stop to a dream-eater with how much trouble he gives the nuns." Maxine covered her mouth, trying and failing to not spit out water she was swishing in her mouth while waiting for the food. Claire laughed in an almost musical tone, which was pleasant for everyone. Elena was red in the face looking at the table embarrassed.

If there was one thing you wouldn't expect from her, it was Claire's laugh. It was pleasant and contagious for her being so up tight all the time. One of the more noticeable traits she had. She was very stern girl but when she was happy it made everyone a little happier.

Elaine though, she like to judge and gauge people. It wasn't that one look at some random point and she was set in stone on who they were, no it was multiple things from the person.

The thing was she was actually good at it. Some guards looked at some of the other men a little longer then most or the bakers daughter and the farm boy who would drop off wheat were easy for her to spot the first time, mind she didn't really understand right away but when she saw a merchant standing next to a small area between houses she found the closest guard and discovered that he was a thief trying to get into the smith's home. All in all it was decided that Elena had a sence for people, except Lone was the one she couldn't get a hold on.

Every time she would try to understand him he would throw her off somehow. Once she tried to bribe him with a rare sweet she got for helping the smith to get along with him only for Lone to turn it down and say "You earned that cookie, plus you need it more than me your still growing." He realized his slip of the tongue and quickly added "I mean girls like sweets and boys eat meats ha ha!" From then on she didn't know how to react around him knowing he had lied but couldn't figure out about what or why.

While the laughter died down Maxine asked Elaine "Was that you trying to level your Intuition skill? I wish I could do that now. Just a little longer and I'll be as fast and strong like you guys again. Unfortunately I'm stuck with Loney until my unlocking." She said with resignation

Maxine was the tomboy of the girls. She liked running and jumping around getting into anything mysterious with Elena or backing up Claire with any argument she was in with the boys Malcolm and Thomas. She even followed Lone around for a while but quickly got bored when he was watching the Smith make nails for horse shoes or the carpenter carving wood making a leg for a broken chair.

Mostly now she just played pranks on Lone, like jumping out from around the corner or playing games where he had to treat her as a commander of knight order and he was a squire. Most of the time he would find some way to skip out on play time but if he didn't it would be an hour or two of fetching a spoon for a sword or an empty cup that was filled with a magic elixir.

After a few more nonsense questions and a few words of discipline from Claire, Lone was finally able to go wash his hands and face. The water was at a good temperature and had been cleansed by Aaron. Something about the water magically clean made the dirt and soot come off easily, he came up with a few ideas to why but in the end just decided magic was magic.

By the time he finished getting cleaned for dinner it was on the table being served. He had the promised bread and water in front of him, but he didn't complain, the bread was fresh and water clean. There was something about what they made it with that really filled you with each bite. The wheat here was different, multi colored yellow, red, orange, and some purple after processing it still came out the white flour but it was filled with more nutrients than what was from his old world. Mostly just him guessing but he never felt like he need more that after eating just bread and the water was different too, he didn't have a dry mouth after drinking it. It tasted more satisfying than anything he got from a store or flavored at his old home. It wasn't five star by any means but it always gave him energy to work the next day.

He finished his food fast noticing that Ceilie had been missing this whole meal which wasn't unusual but this time he knew the reason and wouldn't let it go.

'Looks like I'll have to do this the hard way. I wonder how many more bread and water meal this will get me...'