Unchosen Champion

Jonah the waiter approached the table looking sheepish.

“...Sorry, I’m new here. I’d only ever seen her respond the way she did to him.” He gestured toward Derek. “Y’know, like trash.” Derek cleared his throat, like he was hoping to reclaim some of his long lost dignity.

“Don’t worry about it, Jonah, we’re all friends here.” Coop tried to make the guy comfortable and didn’t bother shielding Derek from catching stray shots. “Where’d you come from anyway?”

“I was visiting my grandparents when everything started. They were invited to join a settlement by that man,” He pointed out Emmanuel, “and I came with them. I hope that’s okay.”

Coop was surprised to hear that he was from the group of neighbors. “And you’re already working? That was fast.”

“I believe that was the deal, we could come if we would work, and my folks are too old to work.” Coop accepted Jonah’s explanation, but found a new thing to add to his to-do list. Some kind of program to make sure that all of the residents were able to get started on levels. The elderly would probably benefit the most from adding some attribute points. He remembered how Jones seemed to shave off a few decades with his initial progress.

“Well no worries, Jonah. You can let me know if you need anything. I’ll see what we can do.” Coop let Jonah get back to taking orders from the rest of the table.

He enjoyed his meal while the rest chatted and received theirs. They talked about their professions. He was curious about what they had been offered almost as much as what they had taken.

“I can’t help but feel a bit insulted at only being offered ‘Basic’ options.” Madison explained when he asked. The one thing all of their offers had in common was that they were Basic level, no matter what kind of pre-mana experience everyone had. Even Madison, who had a wealth of experience in the medical profession, had ended up with a profession called Basic Mender. Coop thought it was a smart choice, despite a few at the table disagreeing. She would probably have synergy between her profession and her class. If it didn’t help directly, she would definitely benefit from the attribute point gains.

Matching his profession to his class was an optimization Coop hadn’t been able to do when he picked his, but he was happy with how everything had worked out. Scavenging benefited a lot from grinding, and his class had been selected for its potential to grind. He had linked the two with his primary focus.

“It works for me. It should be easy to level up given our previous experience. We can still benefit from the attribute bonus from the free beginner levels.” Camila pointed out, revealing herself to be on the same wavelength as Coop.

“You guys didn’t even pick yours right.” Derek argued. “The world changed, but you still chose based on how it was before.”