Chapter Four Hundred and Seventy-Five — Take Us to the Next Level
Chapter Four Hundred and Seventy-Five — Take Us to the Next Level A couple of things happened as soon as Booksie was done bonking the boss. First, I got a happy dinging from Mister Menu, who popped up in front of me with a message!Ding! Congratulations, you have cooked Sue-Chef, level 9!Due to combating as a team your reward is reduced!That was some good news! But I couldn't drop everything to focus on that just yet. While no new imps were appearing, those already in the room swooped down at us even as the boss started to fade away.It only took a bit of effort to clear them out, and that meant a couple more little dings from Mister Menu, though these were less important than the one I got the moment the last imp was cleared.Bing Bong! Congratulations, your Cinnamon Bun Bun class has reached level 17!Mana + 10Magic + 10You have gained: One Class PointA level-up! It felt like I'd just gotten one not all that long ago. Then again, that was a few days back, wasn't it?A few days between level-ups was a great pace, I figured. From what I understood, it was a whole heck of a lot faster than the average person. At this rate, assuming levels eighteen, nineteen and twenty didn't take too much longer to get, I'd be pushing myself way closer to the threshold of third tier, and with it, a third class!Dungeon Cleared!All adversaries with the Sue Chef Dungeon are defeated.All Bosses Defeated.Broccoli Bunch, Cinnamon Bun Bun, level 17, Wonderlander level 5 is awarded the Sue Chef class.All class slots filled.Replace current class with Sue Chef?Replacing your current class will reset your level to 0.I shook my head. "No thank you, Mister Menu," I said.Class: Sue Chef set in abeyance until Class Slot becomes available."Huh, a drop." I glanced over to discover Caprica bending down to scoop something off the ground. She raised it before her, turning it this way and that. It was a pan! A big cast iron one, by the looks of it. Caprica hefted the pan a little with a hum. "Heavy," she said.I smiled, feeling rather accomplished. We'd run a whole dungeon-albeit a small one-in just one morning. That was some pretty impressive work. And the level-up helped! I noticed Awen gesturing and smiling a little, so I figured she might have nabbed a level as well!I didn't notice the same excitement from Amaryllis or Calamity, so they probably hadn't gained a level from this, but there would be more chances! Besides, I think that Amaryllis might have a few levels on me with her main class while her second was falling behind a smidge.But the one that really interested me was Booksie. "Did you get the class?" I asked her.Booksie grinned until it looked like her cheeks might hurt. "I did!" she said. "Sue Chef! This is very exciting. Should I apply it right away?""I don't see the harm," Amaryllis said. "But there's also no harm in waiting until we're back at the Beaver.""Earlier will give her more time to level up her main class too," I argued. "Uh, what is your main class?""I was a Librarian," she said. "But I evolved it to Bookhoarder on reaching the levelcap," Booksie said.I nodded. Right, someone who reached the tenth, twentieth and so on level would be capped at that one until they got a second class, but that didn't mean that they couldn't evolve their primary class. It would just be stuck at level ten regardless. "I don't know if you'll be getting much book-related experience between here and the Beaver," I admitted. "But we might bump into another imp or something on the way out.""Better to take the new class here and now, then," Booksie agreed with a quick nod. I had the sneaking suspicion that the reason I just gave her was serving as more of an excuse than anything else."Sure," I said.Booksie pinched her tongue between her lips, a look of deep concentration on her face for a moment, and then... not much happened. There might have been a slight shift in the mana around her, maybe, but it wasn't like she sprouted a new set of ears or anything."Congratulations!" Desiree said with a clap. "We must celebrate this achievement! In my village, when a young kit gains a new tail, we festoon it with ribbons and parade them around the town. It's a celebration!" She inspected Booksie closely. "Due to your unfortunate shortage of tails, we will have to tie the ribbons around your ears instead."If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.Booksie giggled a bit nervously."We'll have to celebrate, yeah!" I said. I was feeling lots of warm fuzzies at the moment, and I decided to let some out by grabbing the nearest friend for a hug.That happened to be Calamity, who 'huh'd' as I grabbed him and gave him a proper squeezing. Then I bounced over to Awen and hugged her too! "You levelled, didn't you?" I asked."Awa, yes? My second class went up a level. I'm at five now," she said."Same as me!" I cheered. I wanted to give her extra hugs, but my arms were busy hugging her already, so Instead I leaned my head down and pat-patted her head with my ears. Awen giggled, lowering her crossbow to her side and giving me a one-armed hug in return."Oh, great, she's in one of those moods," Amaryllis said."A mood?" Booksie asked. "Ah... Buns have those.""Where you just want to bounce around and squeeze all of your friends real good?" I asked.Booksie blinked, then shrugged. "Sure, let's go with that."She got a hug too, but then it was about time we head out, and Amaryllis was already doing some plotting. "If you want to grow that second class of yours, then your best bet will be to get a strong first skill, something you can use frequently," Amaryllis said. "Maybe, if you plan on doing more fighting, you could pick up a skill like Baking magic?""Baking magic, that's what the boss was using, right?" I asked. "It made me feel all warm inside, but not in a fuzzy-nice way.""Baking magic is an offshoot of Fire magic, or perhaps Heat magic. It's not its own, actual classification of magic," Amaryllis said."It isn't?" I asked."There are major and minor magics," Amaryllis said. "Though those classifications are mostly arbitrary for the sake of easy categorization. The Sylph have their own system, whereas harpy and grenoil use a shared multi-elemental system that allows for more 'types' of magic.""Does that... matter?" I asked. "Is Cleaning a kind of magic to the sylph?""We'd consider it a hybridization of holy and... I suppose water?" Caprica said. "We divide things by the primary elements, and sub-elements by how much of each primary element they use. It allows a caster to know which magics are closer to each, though it's not foolproof.""It's more foolish," Amaryllis said. "But I won't drag you into an hour's long conversation about magical classification systems."Hadn't she just dragged us into that very thing?"Baking magic isn't an actual kind of magic the way Cleaning is. There's Cleaning-aspect mana. There's no such thing as Baking-aspect mana. It's merely Fire magic applied in a specific way."Booksie nodded, she seemed to be following along well enough. "And this Baking magic would be a useful early skill?""For offensive uses? More or less. It's very slow to work, but it will undoubtedly kill just about anything as long as it can break through that thing's natural magic resistance. It's a very potent kind of spellwork, and surprisingly mana-efficient. But without any skills to help you cast, you need to keep constant focus on the spell, making it... unfavourable for most mages," Amaryllis explained."It works at range?" Booksie asked."It did on us," Amaryllis said."Well then! Can you show me? If I get practising now, I should pick it up as my new class's first skill! It might be exactly what I need."Amaryllis nodded. "That's why I mentioned it. If you're planning on farming kills for experience with your boyfriend, then a long-range, low-damage spell with a constant effect might be exactly what you need to be marked as a participant in any kills."Booksie smiled, then gestured to the back of the courtroom. There's a door there, behind the spot where the Sue-Chef had been when we entered the room. "Is that the exit?""It should be," I said as I started to skip over. "I wanna check on the core real quick before we pop out!"I noticed Desiree giving me a weird look at that. She didn't know about roots yet, did she? We'd have to bring her up to speed on that, but it could wait. Just looking at the core wasn't a crime, was it?I couldn't help the laugh that bubbled out of me. Today was a good day! Now, if we could just get a nice party started, and make a few friends in the village, then it would be an even better one!
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Chapter Four Hundred and Seventy-Six — Begone, Troublemakers
Chapter Four Hundred and Seventy-Six — Begone, Troublemakers We exited the dungeon to find someone waiting for us. Several someones, really, but a large number of those someones were waiting further back and looking both nervous and rather irate. The main someone, standing closest with their arms crossed, was a big human man with muscled arms bulging out of the confines of a short-sleeved shirt. He had the look of someone that it wouldn't be smart to get into a punch-out with."Let me handle this one," I told my friends and I slipped ahead and to the front of our little group."Are you the... leader of this bunch?" he asked as he eyed me, then scanned over my friends."I am," I said with a nod.His gaze turned into a frown. "What about that man back there?" he asked, gesturing towards Calamity."I'm mighty flattered," Calamity drawled. "But the captain's the captain. I just kill things when she tells me to."I blinked. Had I ever told Calamity to do that? It didn't sound like me at all. Then again... I suppose I did take charge sometimes before a fight, and that might have counted a little. But it was only when we were fighting dungeon monsters and pirates and bandits! And it was never to kill just like that!Calamity was making me sound a whole lot more threatening than I was, basically."Sorry, sir. But yes, I'm the captain. My name is Bunch, Broccoli Bunch," I said. If I repeated my name like that, it made me sound cool and sophisticated. Like James Bond. But without sleeping with spies and shooting people."Right," the big guy said. "We want you lot out of here. You're not welcome in our town.""We... aren't?" I asked. "Oh, uh, well." I held back a wince. I didn't want to be kicked out of this village. I was sure that if I had half a day I could turn the locals into friends. But, well, a small pragmatic part of me piped up and reminded me that we were on our way out anyway."You brought a dragon to our town," he said."He didn't destroy anything while we were gone, did he?"The big guy's eyes narrowed. "His snoring set the goats to fainting across the entire region, and he keeps exhaling fire onto the field he's sleeping on.""Was anything growing there?" I asked."No, but fire's fire. It's dangerous. And so is a world-damned dragon! He ate two of Jim's prized pigs and an entire cow!"I gulped. "We paid for those?" I tried."You intimidated the farmer into selling them for cheap," he said.I spun and looked towards Amaryllis. She puffed a little. "What? I didn't lie. I merely said that if we couldn't get that livestock, then they'd have to deal with a hungry dragon while we were off. And that's a good sight harder to deal with than a dragon that's sleeping on account of a full stomach.""Rhawr is a little grumpy when he's hungry," Booksie said."Amaryllis, we don't... we don't steal," I said. "Unless there are extenuating circumstances!""It wasn't theft. I paid a fair market price," Amaryllis said. "No one was swindled. They're just angry because they could have gotten more elsewhere."I held back from waving my arms around in desperation. If they could have gotten a better price, then hadn't we swindled them? Wasn't that exactly how it worked? "I'm very, very sorry, mister," I said to the big man. "We just came to challenge the dungeon and... ah, we're done now. Again, I'm super-duper sorry. We'll be out of your hair right away? Here, for your troubles!" I fished in one of the pouches in my bandoleer and pulled out a handful of coins. They were mostly copper, but there were some silver and I even had a small gold coin in there. It was probably close to what we'd paid for the livestock already.The man grunted. "I'll escort you back to your ship," he said, his voice not far from a growl.That... wasn't ideal, but it was better than having to deal with a dozen or so pitchfork-wielding villagers.I was actually pretty confident in my friend's strength, but, well, if these villagers had easy access to an easy dungeon, there were good odds that at least a few of them had the Sue Chef class.Fighting wouldn't be smart, or nice, and probably not fun. Besides, all they wanted was for my friends and I to leave.Most of the villagers actually left us alone as we got close enough to the Beaver to see Rhawrexdee's sleeping form. It was strange, when I imagined a dragon sleeping, I always imagined a huge beast, curled around a heap of gold.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.Rhawrexdee was more like... a very large kitty cat right now. He was sleeping on his back, tummy exposed to the air, and one of his legs was twitching as he no doubt had a dream about something.Booksie giggled, then skipped over to the dragon's head. Before she was even close enough to touch, I saw Rhawrexdee's nostrils flaring and he sniffed the air a bit. Then he blinked awake, bleary eyes scanning around until he saw his fiance. "Booksie?" he rumbled."Hi!" she said cheerily. "Guess who now has a second class?"Rhawrexdee blinked with his nictitating eyelid,then blinked more with his normal ones. "Oh? Already? I'm impressed! To have conquered a dungeon so quickly... did you enjoy yourself?"Booksie nodded. "It was a little scary, at times, but my friends helped. I didn't get a scratch, don't worry!""Next time, I will take you to a dungeon fit for a dragon," he said. "And you will be safe, because I am a dragon."Booksie laughed and moved up to Rhawr, giving him a big hug. I could tell (because of my hugging expertise) that she was really putting her all into that hug squeezing for all she was worth. It barely pressed in Rhawr's scales, but I'm sure he felt it."Are we done here, then?" Rhawrexdee asked, his voice a rumble that shook the earth. Then the earth shook even more as he spun his bulk around and crashed onto all fours. I... was starting to see why that farmer was upset that Rhawrexdee had landed on his field. All over the field, there were deep dragon footprints crushed into the soft soil."We are," Booksie confirmed. "And it's only... hmm, midday? Broccoli, will we be able to head out?""I think so, yeah," I said. "Can't see why we can't leave now."It might even be for the best, before news got to Mattergrove's capital and they sent someone out to inspect. With the antagonism of the locals... it wouldn't have surprised me if they'd sent out a messenger already.We left Booksie to her hugging for a while. Getting the Beaver ready to fly again wasn't instantaneous, even if we didn't unpack everything when we landed. The Scallywags tossed down a rope ladder, and we climbed aboard and started making our pre-flight checks.For the most part, the Beaver was in tip-top shape. The short flight from Port Royal to here hardly taxed him at all. Once I made sure everything's ready to go, I sat by the figurehead at the front, giving Orange some much needed attention. The poor kitty hadn't had a good scritching in a while.It's impressive how much bigger Orange was now. I think she's well past the kitten stage and into the juvenile stage of spirit-kittydom. Soon, she was going to grow much bigger, especially if she kept eating as much as she did."Are you ready to come aboard?" I asked Booksie as she came closer."I am!" she called back, and I watched her climb up the rope ladder with a smidge of difficulty. "I really can't wait to get more points in stamina and flexibility," she muttered once she was onboard."Oh?" I asked."It wouldn't hurt, right? I see the way higher-levelled people move, and it always makes me envious," Booksie said. "Bah, it'll come. Are we going soon?""Yup! I think we'll be following Rhawrexdee for this next part, won't we?"Booksie nodded. "He said he knows a good hunting spot for gryphons.""Is hunting gryphons okay?" I asked. "What if they're endangered?"Surprisingly, it was Awen who came up and butted into the conversation. "Ah, I think it should be okay? There are lots of flocks of them along the Seven Peaks. They're a bit of a nuisance, actually. They're hard to hunt from the ground, and a threat in the air. There are stories of them swooping down and attacking people near the base of the mountains, and flocks will sometimes attack lone ariships.""Oh," I said. "Well, that makes me feel slightly less guilty.""It won't be a wasteful hunt," Booksie said. "Rhawrexdee will be eating what we kill, and if there's any extra, we can always bring it to Port Royal. I'm sure Cholondee and Rhawr's mom wouldn't mind a gift."I had never considered giving someone a corpse as a gift before!
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