Chapter 19
"Well then, Kenji-chan, I am Tael. It is your pleasure to make my acquaintance. You will call me Tael-sama!"
"Why?"
"Guh! B-because unlike you I have a level in a cla.s.s! Behold my power! Status!"
With that, a green triangular prism appeared in front of Tael as he revealed his stats to me.
Tael. Level 1.
Strength: 8
Dexterity: 24
Const.i.tution: 10
Mana: 50
Magic Power: 15
Luck: 9
Experience: 0
It's true, this guy actually has a level. Wait a minute... something is off...
"How do you have a level without any experience?"
"Oh it's probably because he's a half elf. Half elves naturally have an affinity for magic and some of them start out with a magic casting cla.s.s like wizard. Of course, full elves start with multiple levels."
Yimmie had snuck up behind us. She was crouched while also staring at Tael's status screen. Unlike myself, this seemed to be normal for her so she made a declaration in monotone.
"Yimmie don't spoil my surprises!" Tael shouted out. It looks like he's blus.h.i.+ng a bit.
"Sorry but you're giving him a hard time and I just wanted to give you one as well. Anyway I'm off work for now so I'll see you later!" She said as she headed outside.
"Ahem. Now that our interruption has left, show me your own status screen! Though you are a level 0, not all are created equal unfortunately. You can see by my superiority! Fufufu!"
While it would make me very happy to join another party and forget about this guy, I don't exactly have many options so I may as well go along with it.
"Status." I reluctantly spoke aloud as my green prism appeared.
Tael began to look up and down my screen while going "Hmm…" the entire time until he suddenly stopped at an attribute.
"Hey… you almost have as much mana as me… what the h.e.l.l, man?" Tael muttered.
"Huh? Why does that matter?"
"Eh? Did I say something? Don't mind me. I was just thinking out loud."
I put on as blank of a face as I could. This guy just wants to stroke his ego.
"Next I want you to swipe your hand from right to left with the screen open!"
"Why?"
"Just do it already!"
"O-okay."
Taken aback by his sudden snap at me, I swiped my hand from right to left and my status screen began to display new information.
"Ah-ha! Here we go. As a level 0 you may not have cla.s.s levels like myself, but you do have some mundane cla.s.ses in your collection!"
"Mundane cla.s.ses?" I repeated. I was never told about this. Yimmie never told me about these nor did G.o.d. What do these do?
"Yes. Mundane cla.s.ses are cla.s.ses that cannot be gained through experience points like combat cla.s.ses such as wizard. Mundane cla.s.ses are cla.s.ses that can only be gained through continued practice over a period of time. These don't give you levels or ability score increases like normal cla.s.ses do, but they provide you with certain benefits that can range from nearly useless to fairly useful. Let's see some of yours then."
He's right. I do have a few of these "mundane cla.s.ses" on this screen. Each of these cla.s.ses seem to pertain to certain things that I have done many times over my life.
The mundane cla.s.ses are as follows:
Shopkeeper Tier
+You are capable of stocking shelves faster.
Merchant Tier 1
+You find good deals easier.
Bookworm Tier 1
+You can read books slightly faster than a normal person can.
Cook Tier 1
+Your cooking tastes slightly better than a normal person's cooking.
These look mildly useful, but at the same time I don't see how they're going to really have an effect on my life. Wait, there's one more cla.s.s here…
"What is a Hikikomori?" Tael asked me.
Oh no. Please don't reveal my past to the whole room.
On my mundane cla.s.s screen, there is one more cla.s.s.
Hikikomori Tier 3
+You can function for longer without sleep than a normal person.
+You can function normally on half as much sleep as a normal person.
+You only need 2 meals a day instead of 3.
"Woah dude, this cla.s.s is actually pretty useful! What did you do to get this?"
"Nothing! Nope I never did anything. Wow that's crazy, it must be a glitch or something! Haha! Let's just forget we saw that, shall we?" Despite how much I am blus.h.i.+ng, I fervently denied ever having seen that cla.s.s. I must brush this aside as much as possible as quickly as I can. I can't afford to be found out by this guy.
"What's a 'glitch'?" He asked me perplexedly.
"I meant a bug."
"A bug? Where?"
"No not that kind of bug! Just forget it! I'll tell you some time later!" I decided to leave my problems to the future me as I usually do.
"Well… alright I guess. It's no big deal. To get to tier 3 in a mundane cla.s.s you probably spent a long time doing whatever it was. Let me show you my mundane cla.s.ses." Tael said as he swiped his own hand from right to left.
Tael's screen s.h.i.+fted and I can now see his mundane cla.s.ses. Albeit Tael only has one mundane cla.s.s, he still has one and it seems that it's on a tier higher than I have.
Bookworm Tier 3
+You can read books slightly faster than a normal person can.
+You can memorize details from reading far faster than a normal person can.
+You always flip to the page you want to while reading books.
"While you may have me beat in the mundane cla.s.ses category, that just tells me that you have spent your time doing things other than adventuring! Too bad for you!"
"But you have 0 experience as well. You've never adventured either."
"That's besides the point."
I kept a blank expression once again. Considering I have nothing better to do, I may as well just continue talking to this guy. The information he is giving me is fairly useful after all.
"Alright. Now that we've seen your mundane cla.s.ses, swipe from the left to the right twice for me."
Since the last time he instructed me to do this was beneficial to me, I decided to just go along with him this time without asking.
My screen s.h.i.+fted twice, from my default screen that showed my attributes and level to a new screen with a mult.i.tude of nodes on it. Each node had different words.
"Hmm… You don't have many cla.s.ses available here, but… Oh! Look at this, you have wizard as an available cla.s.s to level up in! Were you studying magic in your free time?"
Now that he mentions it, I did buy a book about magic and its fundamentals. It cost me an entire month's worth of allowance which was very painful to spend.
"I read a book on magic fundamentals, but it was really complicated so I didn't really understand it."
"Hm hm. That makes sense since you can't actually cast spells yet. Your grasp on magic is only in the most basic form currently. Behold my hold on magic!" Tael shouted as he swiped his own hand twice and revealed his cla.s.ses.
A single node was glowing brighter than the others. That node read the words "wizard level 1."
"Are you not amazed?" Tael asked me while looking for praise.
"That's… neat."
We both just stared at one another for a second. The atmosphere in this room is awkward to say the least.
Tael eventually broke the silence.
"W-well, not everyone can understand the greatness of being a level 1 wizard! Truly I feel sorry for you. Perhaps one day you shall be able to comprehend my greatness."
"..."
"Alright. I accept you as a party member! Prepare yourself because we are going on a quest today!"
Finally he said something I wanted to hear. I'm going on a quest today! Am I going to save a kidnapped person or hunt a legendary beast that resides nearby?
"What are we going to do?"
"Simple monster slaying. It's not really a quest but we get experience and payment for it."
"Oh I see…"
W-well, I shouldn't have expected us to do anything more. I'm still level 0 and despite the fact that this guy is level 1 I doubt it will make much of a difference.
"So when are we going to head out?" I asked.
"Considering it's already almost noon, I think we should gather our things and set out as soon as possible."
"Alright! Let's do this!"