Chapter 50: StatusUnfortunately, Rutina tched onto an interesting topic.

  “How many wives does Der Swearte have? I’ve heard that humans gather quite a few.”

  “No, that’s not common. Maybe some nobles or wealthy merchants.”

  “So, have you kept the same wife all this time or do you swap them out? Maybe that’s why you have Alina and Sherry.”

  “Demoiselle, what happened to acting like a noble? These questions are…”

  My normally dependable party members started giggling and soon broke into rowdy ughter.

  Humiliated, Rutina hung her head and muttered, “Sorry for making such a fool of myself.”

  “No, they were just ughing at the situation. I’m actually 19 years old, not 40 or whatever you imagined.”

  With a little frown from me, the giggling stopped.

  “No Sweart. Please don’t tell silly lies just to protect my feelings. I went too far. It’s just that you’re the first human man I’ve ever spoken to.”

  I asked Marcus to show my card and he performed the chant. Instead of looking at my card, Rutina stared at Marcus — I guess she hadn’t noticed his Defense chants. Eventually she turned my way, saw my card and her jaw dropped.

  “You really are only 19?! What was all that nonsense about my age? Why did you have me call you ‘teacher’? No, that’s not it. How can you already rival Gosr? Oh, so this is your deep secret. Why would you burden me with this?”

  “Wow. That was certainly a major reaction. I wasn’t trying to keep my age a secret. Captain Gosr has already seen my card. In fact, so have you. You saw it at the first duel, remember?”

  “It’s impolite in elven society to check someone’s age. Besides, your status as a freeman was shocking enough. Even if I had seen your age then, I would have ignored it. So, does everyone know?”

  Alina softly expined, “My Lady, humans show signs of aging much sooner than other tribes.” [1]

  “Oh, I thought Vale was a special pce for the elderly. I’m so na?ve.”

  Rolf arrived sometime during this awkward exchange and wisely stayed back until we were done.

  “Is My Lady ready to head home?”

  “Yes, let’s go, Rolf. And Swearte, your new name will be ?Jungar?. See you in two days.”

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  At home. “Alright, Alina, what did Rutina call me?”

  “Um, it’s just ‘young man’. As teasing goes, it’s milder than ‘The Dark One’.”

  “Meh, I do look rather dark compared to her so I don’t mind.”

  “No, it’s not really about your appearance.”

  Sherry added, “If it means ‘dark’, it probably refers to your name.”

  “Well, ‘Moreau’ does originally refer to a dark-skinned people, but how would she know that? Wait, how do you know that?”

  Sherry continued, “It is rather close to the Brahim word.”

  “Does everyone think that about my name?”

  “No, not from the way you say it. It’s only noticeable in writing.”

  “I guess I say it in English but use the French spelling. What if I say it in French: ?David Moreau??” [2]

  “Yes, that’s closer to how it’s written.”

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  Changing the subject, I spoke to Alina and Sherry about the new sword and how it could be improved to match Alina’s upcoming job.

  “As mentioned, the Assassin job has some benefits for triggering status effects. Um, I mean, better chance to make the opponent fall asleep or whatever.”

  “OK, what are my options?”

  “The basics are stun, sleep, and petrification, which means turn-to-stone. We already have Stun and Sleep in the party but more would be fine. Petrify is very powerful and hard to trigger, at least for someone without the Assassin job.”

  “Well, petrification sounds pretty good. Any other options?”

  Our resident expert, Sherry answered, “Poison, damage, chant interference, elemental…”

  “OK, that’s good Sherry. This sword can hold two skills. Petrification could be added first. If it rarely triggers, we could add sleep or stun. If it works well, we could go with Bee or whatever. Sherry, are there any skills that are known to csh?”

  “Not that I know of, as long as they’re different. Of course, two skills on the same item aren’t all that common so my information could be incomplete, especially since other people wouldn’t know if a second skill should be possible.”

  “The sword wasn’t painfully expensive and we have a lot of money so it’s worth the risk to try. It’s all my responsibility anyway.”

  Sherry and I go up to the storage room to pick through the leather goods she’s crafted for us.

  “This is fantastic, Sherry. Enough of these have free skill slots that everyone could have your hats and mittens. We’ll keep some of the normal ones for casual use and sell the others, if that’s alright with you.”

  “Can you really tell all that just with a gnce?”

  “Yes, it’s really convenient.”

  We came back down as dinner was being put on the table.

  “Everybody, Sherry made leather hats and gloves, which can ter be enchanted.”

  We all got the same sort of hats. Marcus and Sherry took mittens while the rest of us took gloves. We had a nice, meat-heavy dinner and I decided to just prepare baths instead of going out again. Maybe an entire floor in a day was enough. Sherry enchanted Alina’s new sword for petrification as pnned. Afterwards, Alina asked, “Need help going up the stairs, old man?”

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  Day 53

  “OK, folks, we’ll be starting a new tier of Curatar’s Labyrinth today. Sherry, what do we know about the first monster?”

  “A Gummi Slime is a monster that uses earth magic and its normal attack is to capture to slowly eat you. It’s said to be nearly impossible to kill using normal weapons. Fortunately, it doesn’t resist any type of magic.”

  Marcus quickly announced, “Sounds like we can leave it up to you, Boss.”

  “Ha ha, yeah, sounds like it. Of course, if it gets too tough, we’ll just warp home to come up with a different strategy.”

  Sherry added, “Also, I’ve read that this is the first floor where monster magic can hit the whole party at once.”

  “Oh, like my storm spells. I have Priest spells ready and if needed, I can switch Alina and even Sherry to Priest as well. Everyone, besides me, has a shield too. Would it be weird for me to use a shield as a Mage? Maybe I could try using a small one, though a tower shield would be pretty cool too. I could crouch behind it and fire off storm spells without looking.”

  “David?” In a sweet voice bordering on impatience, Alina snaps me back to the conversation.

  “Present! Um, OK, let’s get ready to go.”

  Here on the 23rd floor of Curatar’s Labyrinth, I fired off sandstorm after sandstorm. I thought there might have been some mistake, but the slimes didn’t seem to resist earth magic and it did wonders on the remaining cms and mermaids. After Sherry’s vivid description, nobody had to be reminded to stay back. The down-side was that the monsters were free to form their magic circles and bst all of us. My fancy, mythril armor gave me partial resistance and the others had shields. This wasn’t ideal but not bad.

  It was good to have Sherry right in front of me since the guys are too close to my height. Her water mittens also helped protect her so she did manage to poke a few that got too close and one actually got petrified. Its stone-state was still sensitive to magic so it was bsted away with everything else.

  We ate a light lunch at home and returned after a short rest. When we found an all-slime squad of monsters, I tried using wind magic. This turned out to be notably more effective than earth magic. Besides not resisting magic in general, slimes seem to be weak to wind. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were sensitive to everything besides earth. I didn’t bother to check since cms resist the other types anyway.

  Following the map and being careful, we reached the waiting area with no one else there. The door opened soon after and we faced the very simir Jelly Slime along with two attendant cms. Surprised by the extra host, I performed my reflex move of wall first, ask questions ter. This time, the firewall actually helped a bit since it fully blocked the boss.

  “Boys against left cm, girls on the right, I’ll start with the boss!”

  Not sure that was the best deal for me, but I’ll spam wind spells from a distance. The Jelly cooperated by coming after me alone. The guys managed to stun their cm and seemed to be close to killing it. The gals were doing well with Sherry easily tanking the attacks and Alina sshing it from behind. Just as the guys’ cm was reduced to smoke, Alina managed to petrify the other — I wonder how many strikes it took to trigger the effect as a Warrior.

  We all kept our distance from the boss while I pounded it with fireballs till it too finally vanished. Now, only the ‘stoned’ cm remained. I switched to my high-DPS Durandal and destroyed it after just a few hits. This wasn’t enough to fully replenish my MP but it sure felt good. Actually, I should check if the rod can absorb MP from a petrified monster.

  Sherry recovered the slime drop. Oddly, it was a little packet of starch which evidently could be used in some sort of alcohol production. I didn’t ask why she knew that little detail. Satisfied with a job well done, we left the boss room and warped home. Sherry was kind enough to carry the drop.

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  After changing clothes, I just rexed in the common area while the others cooked or did chores of some kind. For these floors, having a second Mage might actually be a good idea. Basically no chance of any Mage coming to my party voluntarily and I really don’t want to drag Rutina down to my social status. Hmm, maybe I could ask my favorite sve trader to look for fallen nobles or really any former noble who failed to become a Mage. Success wouldn’t be guaranteed but certainly more likely than the general popuce.

  Time to stop fantasizing about ensving former nobles and go eat dinner. Alina bragged about turning the monster to stone and thanked me and Sherry profusely for the upgrade. Sherry also praised her slime-enhanced shield, which made me feel a bit guilty about doing less for the guys. Oh well, I guess I’m a bit biased. The next enchantment should be for one of the guys, preferably me.

  “Sherry, how do you feel about enchanting my robe? Do you feel ready?”

  “Yes, David. I really do.”

  Upstairs, Sherry used Slime and Kobold crystals to enchant my robe to a Sacred Robe of Dissipation. I may look like a high priest wearing this thing but this some damn good armor. As confident as I am in Sherry’s enchantments, I’ll hold off from asking her to add a second skill. This is just too valuable to me at this point and it’s hard to say if I’ll ever manage to get a repcement.

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  Day 54

  Terribly unlikely for Gosr to come to Nordselm again, especially with hidden agents. Of course, I still prepared for it, just in case. Thankfully, it’s all clear — either that or he found better agents. Soon after reaching the vilge, Rolf brought Rutina and her guards. As usual, he departed almost immediately after seeing us.

  “Good morning, Demoiselle, you’re early today. Be careful not to arrive before us.”

  “Yes. Can we speak privately for a moment? It’s important.”

  We walked to Bernhard’s room, which basically served as our remote office.

  “Lord Moreau, how is it that you have a Knight working for you?”

  “Considering your formal tone, I probably shouldn’t answer. Can you expin why you’re asking?”

  “Because the Knight job is tightly reguted. All Knights must be associated with a noble house, town guards or other official organization. The issue doesn’t come up often since it’s impossible to be granted this job independently. Even if it’s obtained from the Temple of Helene, the attendants won’t let you leave without some sort of affiliation.”

  “Oh, is that so? What about the so-called errant knights?”

  “They are either on long-distance missions or have abandoned their duty.”

  “Well…”

  “Please stop. I sincerely do not want to know the circumstances. More importantly, unless you can prove that you have the status to have a Knight working for you, being found out would be a serious problem for both of you.”

  “Are you going to report me?”

  “Of course not. If pressed, I can simply say that I was afraid of you — anyone would believe me even without suggesting that you threatened me.”

  “Good pn! Fortunately, that will not be necessary. I’ll take care of it.”

  “Rather than use another of the orbs you ran out of, [3] please allow me to offer an alternative. I ask only that you trust that I making this offer in good faith.”

  “Oh, you want him to work for you. Sounds like a big disadvantage for me but I’ll hear you out.”

  “I have the authority to start recruiting. As soon as I gain my title, no one can question his status.”

  “Will that be at the end of the year?”

  “No, I’m a summer. So, about four weeks away.” [4]

  “Elf weeks are ten days, right?” [5]

  “Um, yeah, same as everyone else. We’re not that weird you know. So, what do you think?”

  “I can only accept this solution if Marcus agrees and he will almost certainly insist on bringing Theo.”

  “Both? That’s even better, though I’m not sure if I can afford both immediately.”

  “We can work out a payment pn. Most important is how they feel about going.”

  “Really? I thought that was just a negotiation tactic.”

  “No, it’s just another weird thing about me.”

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  [1] Elves, etc retain their youthful appearance from te teens to middle age (v1 c3), which seems convenient for a story about demi-human sve girls. [2] Basically, it’s DAY-vid MORE-oh vs da-VEED moh-RO.[3] The gimmick Rutina believes facilitated her job change (chapter 22).[4] Rutina is currently 14 (chapter 17). On day 120 in the LN, she’s considered complicit in her father’s crimes but her younger siblings are not (v11 c5). So, she’ll turn 15 in the summer.[5] The LN defines a ‘week’ as ten days (v3 c3). Without the push to seven by religion, they kept the ten-day week of Pharaonic Egypt.