“Safe travels,” the gatekeeper said as we left the city.
“Thanks, you too,” I replied. As a trio, we travelled to the Eastern Forest. The sky above was split into two. On one side was clear blue while the other was full of clouds that resembled ocean waves. The dirt path below was well-trodden.
“Do we really have to walk there?” Penrin complained. “Can we not hire a carriage?”
“Who’s going to pay for that?” I asked.
“We could have paid for one, if Penrin didn’t stop us from buying that scratchcard,” said Newmill with an accusatory tone.
“Are you still hung up on that?” Penrin said while dragging her feet and kicking up dirt.
“You prevented us from earning a huge payout. I am completely justified in being mad about that, right Yarm?”
“No, Penrin’s right,” I said. “We shouldn’t have bought those scratchcards.”
“We shouldn’t have?” Newmill was confused. After all, it was my idea to buy them in the first place.
“Spending all our money on scratchcards was my mistake. I accept responsibility.” I kicked a pebble on the road while walking. “We should have put our money into a more traditional lottery instead.”
The clouds above moved across the sky like tides.
“We should get to know more about each other, since we’re about to go into battle,” said Penrin.
“My name’s Yarm. I’m 45 years old and I like to play darts.”
“I’m Newmill. I like desserts and ribbons.”
Penrin groaned. “I meant we should learn about each other’s fighting styles. And when are you going to stop pretending to be an adult, Yarm?”
The only one pretending to be an adult here was Penrin. She acted like a spoiled brat a few days ago, but that arrogant girl was gone now. After being scarred, she made an effort to become more mature. I found it sad. A child should be allowed to be childish and immature. Especially considering that most adults were childish and immature too, me included of course.
“My fighting capability is quite low. I’m a level 9 mage, and my only skill is Fireball,” said Newmill, sheepishly. He opened his System up and showed us a green status screen.
[Name: Newmill] [Age: 12] [Level: 9]
[HP: 65] [MP: 470] [XP: 1902]
[Body: 2] [Mind: 3] [Soul: 9]
[Titles: Prince, Mage] [Skills: Fireball]
I couldn’t believe my eyes. This boy was 6 levels below me, but he had the same number of total stat points. This was unacceptable. My System was certainly rigged. Then I noticed another strange thing. “Your HP and MP don’t match your stats,” I said.
“Oh, that’s because I have the Mage title. It halves my HP and doubles my MP,” Newmill explained.
“Cool beans.” I thought I remembered seeing an Earthling having something similar. “As for me, I’m an acupuncturist.”
Newmill and Penrin were clearly hoping for me to say more. “What type of fighter are you? Melee or ranged? Sword-user or magic-user? Tanky or squishy?” Newmill hit me with a bunch of terminology that I didn’t understand.
“I’m sort of a jack of all trades, I guess?”
“Then does that mean you’re good at everything?”
“Sorry, no. It means that I’m bad at everything.”
Penrin squinted her eyes at me. She had seen what I was capable of in the duel with the duke. She knew there was far more to my combat skills than the System could show. “I suppose I shall go next,” she said.
[Name: Penrin] [Age: 10] [Level: 28]
[HP: 2630] [MP: 85] [XP: 91,912]
[Body: 22] [Mind: 4] [Soul: 5]
[Titles: Noble, Barbarian, Berserker] [Skills: Blood Bath, Decapitate, Eye Gouge]
Between the cute girl I saw and the brutal nature of her status page, the difference was striking. I shivered just from reading her skills alone. I did not want to see an eye being pulled out or a head being chopped off, and I certainly had no interest in seeing anyone bathed in blood.
Her investment in the Body stat caught my eye. “Is it normal for someone to put all their points into one stat, rather than increasing them all evenly?”
“Yeah, obviously,” Penrin stated.
It wasn’t obvious to me. “Why?”
Penrin did not deign to answer. Newmill on the other hand, happily explained, “Your skills and titles usually scale off of only one stat. Therefore, it’s best to put all your points into a singular stat and then choose skills and titles that corelate with that stat.”
“That makes sense.” I wondered if I should continue to increase my Mind at this point. It was my greatest stat and most of my stuff did scale with it. It felt a little too late to pivot to something else. Even if I was ridiculed for it, Mind was probably my best bet. Plus, I’d be complementing my other party members. We’d each be putting points into separate stats so we could cover for each other’s weaknesses.
“I’m glad our travel has been safe so far,” said Newmill. We had been walking for some time now.
“Oh no!” I stopped dead in my tracks.
“What is it?”
“I just remembered. When the gatekeeper wished me ‘safe travels’, I responded with ‘you too’. The gatekeeper wasn’t travelling anywhere so it made no sense for me to say that. I’m going to perish from the embarrassment.” I lightly slapped my face several times to distract myself. “I’m so stupid.”
“Don’t say that!” said Penrin. She prevented me from slapping myself. She was angered by my self-deprecation. “Don’t call yourself stupid, Yarm. Please allow me to do it instead, stupid.”
And for a moment, I thought she cared about my feelings.
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