But for a Slime

Chapter Twenty Seven

Joe woke refreshed, if unsatisfied. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to these annoying beds! Joe took a moment to stretch out his back, the ache in his back unkinking as he worked his back. As always, Garnedell woke with his movement and the two were out the door a bit more quickly than yesterday, another routine settling in modified only slightly from the village inn routine although he made sure to pick up his language notebook and a different cloak from yesterday. Need to figure out bathing, though… His hair proved frustratingly difficult, and while he spent a good amount of time practicing once again, he needed Garendell’s help to finally tie it correctly and tight enough. Stuffing his embarrassment down, Joe sighed and stood, choosing to ignore the situation as he headed out the room door.

Joe took the lead in ordering the breakfast, and was able to do decently well, albeit in an obviously halting simplistic way. The young woman taking the order actually smirked with some humor and seemed to hide her chuckle and smile behind a hand covered fake cough. The meal came out as Joe wanted, though, and he felt a bit relieved to know that he was at learning the language well enough, although it was still at the three word sentence phase. They enjoyed their meal and Joe spent a bit longer at breakfast to focus on language learning, especially considering that reaching level ten took just a bit less than a day now. Joe focused on learning more vocab but struggled to find the words he was looking for in regards to forming some kind of party. I really need to start Garnedell growing, but it’s so… ridiculous when we can’t work together very well…

When they headed outside, Joe made sure to stop by the inn’s stable and took Garnedell inside. He looked around for someone but only found a young boy in there. Obviously a stable boy… I need the groom! Joe looked around, then grimaced and tried to see what he could do without the groom present.

“Garnedell. What this…,” Joe asked poorly in the local language while pointing at the horse.

“Horse,” Garnedell responded with practiced and bored ease.

Joe flipped open his notebook and jotted the word down while continuing, “Man clean horse. Man help horse. Man watch horse.”

Garnedell nodded his head and smiled with understanding, “Yes?”

“What man job name?”

Garnedell cocked his head and seemed a bit confused, so Joe flipped open his status page and pointed at it while simultaneously repeating himself, “What man job name?”

Garnedell’s eyes opened wide in understanding and he said the name. Joe listened carefully and wrote the word down in his book.

“So, horse man job name… groom?”

“Yes, groom!”

Joe smiled with some satisfaction as he sighed in some relief. One job name down, one done, and two to go. Joe closed his notebook and carefully put away his pencil before turning back to Garnedell, ready to start their day.

“Garnedell. Joe new job.”

“OK. Zhoe.”

“Go market first.”

Garnedell blinked a bit, a bit confused and Joe tried again. I must have said ‘market’ wrong, “Go market first!”

Understanding flooded his eyes and Garnedell nodded in understanding before turning to lead Joe through the streets back to the market area where they’d been yesterday. When they reached it, Joe began looking around for the three jobs he’d need names for and searched for a butcher first.

They came upon a butcher and Joe stopped Garnedell excitedly, once again going through a similar set of mimes and questioning as he had back at the inn’s stable to learn the job name for the groom. Garnedell seemed to quickly understand Joe was writing down the job name of the butcher within a few moments, repeating it carefully with Garnedell since the word seemed particularly tricky to catch. Huh… some kind of new letter or sound I’ve never learned? Kind of a ‘g’ of some kind… but different. Can’t really hear it. Joe worked the word a few times, but was never really able to quite catch it and could only hope that Garnedell would be able to understand what Joe wanted when he tried to change jobs later at the temple square.

The last job name came a bit quicker as Joe pointed out all the markets in the square, making sure Garnedell understood that it wasn’t a specific kind of job. But with the repetition, Garnedell quickly understood what Joe was doing and was able to give Joe the appropriate word for merchant. With the three jobs now known, Joe redirected to the temple square with his new cloak now pulled over his head.

Garnedell turned to Joe on their way to the temple square, “What job, Zhoe?”

Joe considered for a moment then replied with a question, “What job priest say for speak?”

Garnedell nodded and replied quickly with a word that was not in Joe’s vocabulary. Joe considered for a moment before replying, “OK! Garnedell say job one time!”

Garnedell nodded in understanding and when they reached the temple square, Joe led them to the next temple in line. The layout was different, but followed enough similiarities that Joe was able to find the information slash help desk easily enough. Joe asked for his job change quite excellently in the local language and the priest initiated the hand waving before Garnedell gave the job name for the one recommended by their old friend, the drunken priest back at the village. The local priest attendant waved his hand and then frowned, a sad look of commiseration on his face when Joe suddenly saw a popup in front of him.

Your attempt to change your job to Specialist has ended in failure. You have not reached the necessary requirements.

· Unlock Citizen Job

· Grow Citizen Job to level 20.

Well, that was both a disappointment but great to know! I can learn all the requirements if I need to! It’ll be expensive though… or I’ll need to unlock the priest job myself! Joe flipped open his notebook and jotted down this note in his language notebook, written lightly on his scratchpad page so he could remember to transfer it to his job notebook. Need another page for the job! Joe then turned to Garnedell and shook his head sadly, trying to play the part of a long denied dream. Garnedell nodded with a much more natural sad look on his face and Joe then turned back to the priest.

“Job change, please.”

The priest looked a bit shocked, uncertain how he should respond since Joe had already failed his attempt. He considered for a moment then shrugged since it was the man’s wasted money. The priest replied with something outside Joe’s current vocabulary but Garnedell interrupted quickly. The priest blinked with some surprise but then nodded in acceptance but seemed to hide derision behind his neutral face. Garnedell looked towards Joe to ask for a job name and Joe considered his options. Running the numbers in his head quickly, he came up with something like twenty five days, maybe even thirty, to get citizen to the necessary level twenty. My numbers might be a bit off… might only need twenty days! But my other three jobs could get ten in one day each… three days to get them up. The extra learning might be helpful? And it’s only four days!

Joe decided to go with burgher and get it done, flipping his book open and finding his notes. He fumbled saying the job name a bit until Garnedell understood enough to translate it to the priest. The priest accepted the new job although the derision seemed to grow on his face as he waved his hands. A few seconds later, Joe saw the pop up for a successful job change and handed the coin to pay for the change. When he paid, the priest grew agitated and Joe looked to Garnedell.

“Why priest…” Joe flipped to English, “… angry, Garnedell?”

Garnedell didn’t quite understand Joe’s English but quickly understood the question from the context and replied, “Zhoe change job two. Zhoe pay two.”

I pay even if the guy fails to do his job? Well, had to try… Joe didn’t let the smirk show on his face and slipped another couple coins to pay for two job changes then turned to leave. The priest said little and the two turned to leave, heading out the door and to the dungeon once again. The day went quickly and Joe found himself once again at level ten with a particularly useless job that only gave him a single point for each stat. Why are there so many useless jobs? An audible sigh slipped his lips but he said nothing and focused on learning the language during supper once again, but seemed to hit a wall with anything regarding party mechanics or sharing of experience. He just didn’t have a good enough example to show from real life and he didn’t have enough of a foundation in the language to explain. He even tried to bring up the two adventurers he’d followed on the first day in the dungeon but that only seemed to confuse Garnedell more and left Joe frustrated.

By this time, Joe was quite pungent and spent time to explain to Garnedell his need for some form of bathing. Asking for water proved easy enough and they soon had a basin and water in their room. Explaining that they wished for new water every evening proved a bit more difficult and costly, as Joe had to add another couple coin to pay for having water delivered to his room. But, being able to wipe the sweat of the day off, if only with a wet wash cloth, brought a sense of satisfaction to Joe that was quite a bit more than he thought it would. Despite the clean feeling, Joe still swore to find some form of bathing in the town.

Finished with his poor bath, he draped his clothing to dry and slipped into bed, although he did take some time to write down the new information about specialist in the job notebook as well as the details of burgher, which was even more worthless since he didn’t even get a skill from it.

Joe woke the next morning and prepped for the day, pulling out another robe to cover himself while looking through his language book for the… heh… word of the day, huh? Joe practiced the word a bit as he prepped and when he went down to breakfast, worked on it with Garnedell with the morning language practice. They spent a good amount of time enjoying breakfast while practicing and Joe left ready to leave language struggles behind him for a more violent and physical one. They then made it to the temple square rather quickly, changed jobs at a third temple in a third cloak, and were well on their way, this time to help Joe learn how to be a groom.

The three days followed the same pattern, although Joe did stop by to pick up his extra cloaks on the last day on the way home from the dungeons. In those three days, he was able to get groom, butcher, and merchant up to level ten and realized he was now stuck once more, all jobs currently at ten, except for the two gateway jobs of commoner and metropolitan. Although, merchant’s two IQ per level and infinitesimal amount of luck was a pleasant surprise, as were the other jobs enhanced stats with a couple other things, such as strength and endurance. The skills, on the other hand, were as banal as possible. Both the groom and merchant got a skill to calm horses, while the butcher got the butcher skill. But burgher had nothing, even at level ten. So… why!?

Status

Blessings

Current Job

Available Jobs

Current Skills

Available Skills

Log

Joe McConnell

Status

Physical Resistances

Magical Resistances

HP

10.00

Physical:

MP

10.00

Piercing

0.00

Attack

10.00

Crushing

0.00

Defense

10.00

Slashing

0.00

Magic

10.00

Magic Defense

10.00

Strength

10.00

Dexterity

10.00

Agility

10.00

Burgher

10

Speed

10.00

Endurance

10.00

IQ

10.00

Wisdom

10.00

Learning

10.00

Luck

0.00

Status

Blessings

Current Job

Available Jobs

Current Skills

Available Skills

Log

Joe McConnell

Status

Physical Resistances

Magical Resistances

HP

10.00

Physical:

MP

10.00

Piercing

0.00

Attack

10.00

Crushing

0.00

Defense

10.00

Slashing

0.00

Magic

10.00

Magic Defense

10.00

Strength

20.00

Dexterity

10.00

Agility

10.00

Groom

10

Speed

10.00

Endurance

20.00

IQ

10.00

Wisdom

20.00

Learning

10.00

Luck

0.00

Status

Blessings

Current Job

Available Jobs

Current Skills

Available Skills

Log

Joe McConnell

Status

Physical Resistances

Magical Resistances

HP

10.00

Physical:

MP

10.00

Piercing

0.00

Attack

10.00

Crushing

0.00

Defense

10.00

Slashing

0.00

Magic

10.00

Magic Defense

10.00

Strength

20.00

Dexterity

20.00

Agility

10.00

Butcher

10

Speed

10.00

Endurance

20.00

IQ

10.00

Wisdom

10.00

Learning

10.00

Luck

0.00

Status

Blessings

Current Job

Available Jobs

Current Skills

Available Skills

Log

Joe McConnell

Status

Physical Resistances

Magical Resistances

HP

10.00

Physical:

MP

10.00

Piercing

0.00

Attack

10.00

Crushing

0.00

Defense

10.00

Slashing

0.00

Magic

10.00

Magic Defense

10.00

Strength

10.00

Dexterity

10.00

Agility

10.00

Merchant

10

Speed

10.00

Endurance

10.00

IQ

20.00

Wisdom

20.00

Learning

10.00

Luck

2.50