But for a Slime

<continued 3/3>

* * *

Joe woke the next morning with the sunrise and was quickly out of the inn and into the fields. Over the next nine days, he was out the door and into the fields before the sun was fully over the horizon. Every morning he ran through the fields, he saw the boy and waved at him on the way by, and every evening saw the boy waiting on his return. He took supper with the boy each night as well and the boy was always gone before he came back down with his bathing equipment.

Over those nine days, he was able to make it to level fifteen, taking a total of almost twelve days to make it to level fifteen. Almost three days for level eleven, a little over two for twelve, another two days to thirteen, just under two for fourteen, and just under two to make it to level fifteen. On that last day after he had made it to level fifteen, he was able to come back a bit earlier than normal and found himself back at the village fields with the sun still well up. He once again saw the young boy and invited him back to the inn for the meal again, the boy quite happy to see him.

The meal and Joe's trip to his room happened the same as before and he found the table empty when he came back down to wash himself. Today, however, he came out and found the sun still quite high in the sky and was able to see the back of the young boy in front of him heading towards the stream. Joe said nothing as he saw the boy stop by the small bridge arching over the stream and scramble down the back beside the river. Joe was a bit confused but said nothing as he turned up stream a bit closer towards the lake. He took his bath at the same location, cleaning himself thoroughly before once again drying off and changing into clean clothing. Today found him cleaning in the brighter late afternoon and he looked up to find a small crowd watching him. He waved jauntily and smiled before packing his materials in his arms to head back.

As he came back down the stream side towards the main road, he noticed an odd nest-like construction under the bridge and stopped. I didn't see the boy come back up… is he…? Joe stopped and slid back down the stream side to look under the bridge and saw that the nest now looked like nothing more than a pile of trash. He looked in it but found nothing much and looking around didn't reveal the boy anywhere so thought nothing of it before turning and heading back home. The kids gotta have a home, right? They wouldn't just leave him hiding out under a bridge? Right? That evening, he had more time before the sunset and decided take a look at his status before he headed to bed.

He lay in his bed as he flipped open his status but found what he expected to find. Each of the values of the initial stats had been multiplied by his level. At level one, all his stats were one point each, except for luck. Fifteen times one, simple math to reach his current stats of fifteen. Still a long, long way to go until he was at a comfortable one hundred, which would still put him at a significant disadvantage compared to everything he had back home on Earth. Granted, he would break even on the magical stuff, although he still wasn't sure what that meant. He hadn't seen anything magical yet, except for maybe the shadow creature. But he wasn't sure how he had appeared since he hadn't seen it arrive, nor did he know how he flew since he couldn't see it.

The main status page and the current job page both were as expected, showing fifteen points for the basic stats and one point five for the three resistances he had gotten for the commoner job. Why does a commoner get resistance for wind, water, and ice. It's not like they… oh… right. They are usually out working in the fields or in the elements: wind, rain, and snow. HA! Clever! Ah, well… looks like my Earth stats didn't change either. Exercising doesn't help? Hmm…

Joe had been working hard for the past three weeks, and while it wasn't near the overwhelming effort that he had been subjected to in his youth; his parents had been quite extensive in his physical education, it certainly had trained several muscle groups he'd never put much effort into before. Fighting slimes is a really unique experience, heh. He felt the soreness in them, but saw no growth in his stats to reflect this.

On a whim, he flipped to the available jobs page and found it empty as usual, but when he punched up current skills, he was very surprised to see a listing. He flipped back and forth between current and available skills quickly, and saw it on both pages, so he wasn't sure what that exactly meant but then settled on a single page and 'clicked' on the skill.