ALL NOVEL 014.1 - Speed Running
Chapter Fourteen
The next day was a repeat of the last, a long day of wiping out slimes to quickly hit level five for his waiter job by the early afternoon. Their return was once again spent with Garnedell improving his slime killing moves. Today, they only got six with the last one on the road. The return to the village was uneventful and Joe arrived in the afternoon to a rather strange sight. Surrounding his scribbled writing in the middle of the road was a fence, dividing the road down the middle. Why is there a giant fence in the middle of the road around my writing?
Status
Current Job
Available Jobs
Current Skills
Available Skills
Log
Joe McConnell
Magical Resistances
Status
Physical Resistances
HP
5.00
Physical:
MP
5.00
Piercing
0.00
Attack
5.00
Crushing
0.00
Defense
5.00
Slashing
0.00
Magic
5.00
Magic Defense
5.00
Strength
5.00
Dexterity
5.00
Agility
10.00
Waiter
5
IQ
5.00
Wisdom
10.00
Learning
5.00
Luck
0.00
Joe didn’t think too much of it, but did grimace with some annoyance about the whole thing. He dropped the boy off at the village before considering the priest. He had to head out to him again, but wondered about bringing some more alcohol. I already paid him, but… Joe waffled for a few minutes but then rejected it. Bah… don’t need to double pay him. I’ll bring another bottle when he gets ticked off again.
Joe lengthened his stride and loped to the priest. Pounding on the door brought the priest out, grumbling a bit, but still helpful. He didn’t return any greetings, simply opened the door and growled a bit before fiddling with his status with quite a bit more dexterity and closed the door, all in just a few seconds. Joe blinked with some surprise at the quick ease with which he did it all, but then thought nothing of it and quickly chose his next job… Bartender? Really? How would any of these guys be able to grow? They have no way to develop nor any useful combat skills! Joe sighed but then thought little of it and headed back out again, flipping to look at what his current ten percent bonus was.
Joe’s smile was quite victorious, a confident and casual smirk. He was now basically starting any job with a level five stats, albeit basic stats. Ha! In another five jobs, I’ll basically have doubled my learning once over again. I’m getting half a learning point per job I’ve got. Another five jobs will put me at seven learning and when I get whatever new job up to level one with just a single kill, I’ll have eight learning. I’ll have doubled my learning three times from its initial value and triple my leveling speed! Joe was getting a bit more excited about what was turning out to be a bit of a broken system. Granted, it wasn’t giving him much of anything at the moment since his best job, stat wise, was still the level twenty commoner. If I can start pushing another couple dozen jobs, though…
Status
Current Job
Available Jobs
Current Skills
Available Skills
Log
Joe McConnell
Magical Resistances
Status
Physical Resistances
Wind
1.50
HP
4.5 (138)
Physical:
Water
1.38
MP
4.5 (100)
Piercing
0.5 (48)
Ice
1.25
Attack
4.5 (181)
Crushing
0 (132)
Defense
4.5 (158)
Slashing
1.125 (39)
Magic
4.5 (100)
Magic Defense
4.5 (100)
Strength
5.5 (148)
Dexterity
5.5 (112)
Agility
6 (133)
IQ
4.75 (132)
Wisdom
5 (105)
Learning
4.50
Luck
0.13
Joe’s return home was actually with a bit of exuberance, jaunty and confident and led to a satisfied afternoon. He spent it with Garnedell practicing and training him before being joined, once again, by ‘slime guy’ for the evening wash. Seeing how much washing Joe was needing to do, he almost considered building a small wash house, but then realized the effort would cost him significant time, and settled for continuing his outdoor bathing until he had achieved his minimum stats. He only had a year to set himself up, and he wasn’t looking forward to the coming winter where he would need to continue his hunt.
The two bade farewell to their fellow bather and returned to the inn for the evening, enjoying another excellent meal and a very slow language exchange which was now beginning to leave Joe a bit exasperated. The language was alien to a degree that frustrated him. I am on an alien world… I just need to be glad I can communicate at all! Joe sent the boy to bed, but chose to take an evening stroll through village. He was a bit too wired, although he was only out for a few moments before he felt the pull of sleep, and Joe gratefully returned to his bed to sleep.
The next morning had them up again, but they stopped by the blacksmith to pick up the boy’s spoon spear. They returned to the forest shortly after to repeat the entire day. Bartender hit level five, the boy killed another six or so slimes on their return home with his new spoon spear which he wielded quite adroitly, and Joe changed to another new job when he returned. He was a bit surprised to find bartenders had a bonus to wisdom and strength, not quite understanding why that was, but shrugged the whole thing off. Little made sense here, and he was now at the point of just accepting what he found and trying to exploit it for his gain as much as possible. His new job was chef, and he really didn’t spend any thought on it before returning home to complete the evening as usual: training Garnedell, bathing with ‘slime guy,’ and retiring for dinner and repose at the inn.
The next four days seemed to blur into each other, each one repeating almost identically with only the change of jobs being the marked difference. He made his way through five levels of chef, day laborer, inn keeper, and reeve. He thought little of it, and powered his way through. He had to pay the priest another time for another set of changes by this time, and decided to bring another skin of wine to grease the priest’s irritable attitude. Each afternoon was spent in training with Garnedell and each evening was spent bathing with ‘slime guy’ and the boy, as usual. By now, ‘slime guy’ seemed completely capable of bathing himself without any help or advice from Garnedell, and the three were able to spend the time lounging in the spring with some companionable silence, although Joe found the silence annoying. He had tried to break it up with a conversation of his own, but the other two didn’t seem to share his verbosity and soon he found himself joining them in their somber quiet.
The four jobs, chef, day laborer, inn keeper, and reeve, didn’t add anything unusual, although he did gain a bit of the needed intelligence from chef and reeve, both giving two points towards IQ instead of the common one. Inn keeper did surprise him with giving just a little more luck, but other than that, none of the new jobs seemed notable in the least. Joe dutifully took notes of each of the jobs, marking down the basic stats he gained from each one so he could plan for his future growth and was careful to check for any job skills that may come, but was once again completely disappointed by absolutely nothing. How can I be disappointed by nothing.
Their hunting for his reeve job came to an end, and Joe called Garnedell back to him as they returned back to the road, once again letting Garnedell practice killing a few slimes. Maybe he’ll be able to do the whole thing by himself now. Even staking the slime to the ground? Joe considered, but decided to let it pass. He didn’t want to put the boy in danger, and the slimes really seemed to jump pretty fast and hard. Joe wasn’t certain Garnedell would be able to react in enough time.
On their return back to the village, Joe glanced over the stats for each of the four jobs he had just gained in the last four days, using his notebook to check. He had to extrapolate for the first three, being able to know their current level five values simply by multiply what he had written down in his notebook. Things weren’t so bad… but it wasn’t so… great either. He was plowing quickly through the jobs, but all of these jobs were…poor at best. He really needed to find something a bit more advanced, or he would be trudging his way through a depressing round after round of meaningless jobs.
Status
Current Job
Available Jobs
Current Skills
Available Skills
Log
Joe McConnell
Magical Resistances
Status
Physical Resistances
HP
5.00
Physical:
MP
5.00
Piercing
0.00
Attack
5.00
Crushing
0.00
Defense
5.00
Slashing
0.00
Magic
5.00
Magic Defense
5.00
Strength
5.00
Dexterity
5.00
Agility
5.00
Reeve
5
IQ
10.00
Wisdom
7.50
Learning
5.00
Luck
0.00
Status
Current Job
Available Jobs
Current Skills
Available Skills
Log
Joe McConnell
Magical Resistances
Status
Physical Resistances
HP
5.00
Physical:
MP
5.00
Piercing
0.00
Attack
5.00
Crushing
0.00
Defense
5.00
Slashing
0.00
Magic
5.00
Magic Defense
5.00
Strength
10.00
Dexterity
5.00
Agility
5.00
Inn Keeper
5
IQ
5.00
Wisdom
5.00
Learning
5.00
Luck
1.25
Status
Current Job
Available Jobs
Current Skills
Available Skills
Log
Joe McConnell
Magical Resistances
Status
Physical Resistances
HP
5.00
Physical:
MP
5.00
Piercing
0.00
Attack
5.00
Crushing
0.00
Defense
5.00
Slashing
0.00
Magic
5.00
Magic Defense
5.00
Strength
5.00
Dexterity
5.00
Agility
5.00
Chef
5
IQ
10.00
Wisdom
10.00
Learning
5.00
Luck
0.00
Status
Current Job
Available Jobs
Current Skills
Available Skills
Log
Joe McConnell
Magical Resistances
Status
Physical Resistances
Wind
2.50
HP
5.00
Physical:
Water
1.25
MP
5.00
Piercing
0.00
Ice
1.25
Attack
5.00
Crushing
0.00
Defense
5.00
Slashing
0.00
Magic
5.00
Magic Defense
5.00
Strength
10.00
Dexterity
5.00
Agility
5.00
Day Laborer
5
IQ
5.00
Wisdom
5.00
Learning
5.00
Luck
0.00
Despite the mediocrity of what he was finding currently available to him, his basic capabilities were exciting to him. He was now almost ten percent of the way to average. Hah… never did I think I would be so excited to just reach average! Most of his attack focused stats were still only at seven since none of the jobs he had benefited combat, but his other stats were seeing decent increases, with his strength almost already ten. Normally, he would need to get almost twenty jobs up before he had ten points in each stat, but because of how high commoner was and because of several decent boosts to a variety of his noncombat stats, he was seeing a decent improvement and he felt a strong hope. I really think I can do this. I’m not even a third of the way through the year, and I got my basic stats from two to ten in only fifteen days. As long as there are no more crazy bottlenecks like commoner level twenty… ugh… I should be fine!
The monotony of the days ended when he returned back home after leveling reeve to five. He was surprised to find many people coming up to him to shake his hand in a rather strange grip palm slide caress thing that left him uncomfortable. Some chose to bow, seeming to copy his poor bows from before, while others stayed longer to interact with him in ways Joe was completely uncertain of, although Garnedell seemed to take it upon himself to represent him, speaking to them and greeting them for him. He was left a bit confused by the whole affair, but didn’t do anything about it and didn’t concern himself too much about it. Maybe I’ve just been here long enough. Now they like me or are willing to accept me?
Joe shrugged it off, and turned up at the shrine priest to change his job once again, but the weirdness of the day continued as the priest came out, sober and eyeing him with a bit of purpose. Joe blinked in surprise because he hadn’t even knocked on the door yet. He waved at him with some confusion, but then asked him for his job changing service once again and the priest obliged, but seemed to stare at him with some suspicion. Joe seemed confused by the whole affair, but thought little of it before seeing himself now in the responsibility of a trapper. The evening ended as usual with training, bathing, and retiring to the inn for the evening.
* * *