I awoke to Grendel nipping at my face. Brushing him aside, I rolled over, my face greeted by the mid-morning rays. Wiping the grogginess from my face I was pleasantly greeted by the smell of breakfast wafting in from elsewhere. I almost forgot that Fanny’s dad has livestock. As I opened the guest bedroom’s door, Grendel sprinted out. Someone’s in a hurry this morning… it must be the food. Grabbing hold of my pack I lifted a dented can of tuna flavored cat food and set it in my pocket. The small metal tin weighed down the side of my borrowed pajama pants as I walked toward the kitchen.
Fanny was already up. She sat at the table flipping through her new book on herbs while sipping some hot morning tea. Her father stood over a mid-range stove, occasionally swooping over to add more fuel to the fire that powered it from beneath. This family sure is ready for anything it seems.
Taking a seat across from Fanny, I brought up my skill points. It looks like I have seventeen skill points that I can apply for now. The only skill I’ve been able to level up through use is fiery aura so perhaps I should use some of them. After what happened last night, I really don’t want to find myself in a situation where I could be one-shot like that. I tried to press apply to strength but nothing changed. Pressing the button a few more times, a system error message popped up.
[System Error: You may not apply skill points towards skills that are higher than the player’s level. A lower level may be increased given that the player’s level is higher than the current level of the skill or attribute.
Giving my head a slight bang against the table, I resumed looking through my stat window.
“Uh… Sel? Are you alright?” Fanny asked as she took another sip from her tea.
“The leveling system is so weird…”
“Oh, that. It’s not that hard to understand. If you’re level two you can raise all of your stats to at least level two. However, you can still level up skills just by using them, but the higher the level the harder it is to raise, so you can raise them artificially instead through points.”
“Well, I didn’t know that…”
“Have you really not raised your level?”
“No…”
“Sel! You could’ve been killed last night. I’m currently level five, and you’re still level one? How shameful of our guild master,” she tried to hide a smirk behind her mug.
“Girls, please refrain from talking about dying at the breakfast table. I get worried enough about you two as it is," her father said before flipping a pancake on the skillet.
Pouting to myself, I quickly leveled myself up to level ten. Nine points down, what else can I upgrade? That’s when I saw it, the inevitable point increase. Level eleven would cost me two points rather than one. Huh, so it is like a game. I wonder if once I reach level twenty it’ll increase again…
“There. I’m level ten now.”
Fanny just stared at me. Her motherly scold felt as though it would soon burrow through me. “Did you really have enough points for that?”
“Yes. There was a wave of monsters a few days ago in the city, so I picked up some experience. Where’d you get your skill points?”
“Some were from last night, which I haven’t spent yet, but the rest I got were from dealing with monsters around the farm. We get some higher-level ones out here occasionally, but I haven’t seen many of those yet. Most have been in the single digits.”
Scanning over my skills I decided to add four skill points to strength, bringing it up to level ten. I also added two points for both luck and dexterity, bringing them up to level four and level seven respectively. I can’t depend entirely on that dodge skill, if I’m in real danger I need to know I can get myself out of it.
"Any plans for today?" I asked as I stretched my arms up towards the ceiling.
Fanny took a sip of her tea. "I was going to help my dad out in the fields. There's still a lot to do since it's only the beginning of the growing season."
"You're still planning on farming? With monsters around? What if you, I don't know, accidentally spawn a giant corn monster or something?"
"Sel I don't think that's how that works."
I pointed towards her with a fork that was sitting at the table. "You don't know that," the fork twirled around in my hand, "This whole world is brand new. If something unexpected like a parasitic were-moth can attack us in the woods, just think of the possibilities for other weird stuff. I mean, aliens! Right? Who knows what's normal where they come from."
Mr. Tillman sat two plates of food before us. "Eat up! Sel if you're bored trying to figure out how the system works you can come help out on the farm with us. Fanny mentioned that you like to box, getting some physical exercise would be good for you."
"Well yeah, when the gym wasn't converted to a sparring ground…"
"Well you know where to find us," he trailed off, returning to the stove to finish cooking.
Finishing up breakfast I joined Fanny outside in the barn near the fields. She was brushing one of the cows her family owned. As I entered she turned to greet me. Her bright smile had returned once more, returning her face to a more familiar one.
“Are you just taking care of the animals?” I asked.
“For now, Eric and Dad went ahead to work on the crops. They have to check the whole field for any weeds and insect damage. My dad doesn’t like using a lot of pesticides so a lot of our pest deterrents have to be done by hand. I just nodded without really knowing much about what she was going on about. Farming sure does take a lot doesn’t it. In Holy Wars Online there were some farming options if you had your own land, but most of those processes were pretty straight forward and could even be automated to some extent if you knew the tricks to doing it. I’ll give them one thing though, the Tillmans definitely put a lot of heart into their farm.
Suddenly a gust of dust sprung up through the barn entrance. Eric stood where the dust had settled. Huh, so maybe he does have some abilities after all.
“Sis! You have to come quick! There’s a bunch of monsters attacking the farm!” he sounded panicked. I hadn’t heard him speak much since I had arrived at the house, his voice was still so high pitched and awnry.
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