Chapter 22

  Rooms

  "So this is a gun?"

  I've already unloaded and emptied the chamber of the weapon before passing it across the carriage to Leuke, and now he's examining it from every angle.

  "That's right," I confirm. "The one and only in all of the Furinshao Empire. Probably even all of Toleste."

  He slips his hand around the grip. "It seems so small, but it's heavy for its size."

  I nod. "That's because the barrel and chamber have to be up to handling an explosion going off inside. The smaller the bullet, the lighter a build you can get away with."

  "Messing with explosions in your hands," the fighter muses as he looks down the sights. "It sounds like a good way to get hurt ..."

  "Only if you handle it incorrectly or don't take good care of it," I counter. "Like any other weapon, really."

  "That makes sense," Leuke agrees readily as he passes the firearm back to me.

  He immediately grins widely, though, like he's a little kid that just got promised candy. "I can't wait to see what you can do with it! I can't believe it was there all along! We totally missed out on seeing you in action!"

  "Ah, it's really loud," I excuse bashfully. "It would have scared all of the nobles and maybe distracted the rest of you." I motion toward Ayre, trying not to look desperate for a save. "Ayre's always complaining about the noise."

  The elf nods in agreement. "When she does it inside caves, my ears have a low ringing and light pain in them that lingers until I receive healing." He frowns at me. "It's entirely possible the noise alone is capable of causing physical damage."

  "It's called tinnitus," I provide, ignoring the look Ayre gives me, "and you're supposed to be wearing hearing protection, but I haven't seen anything that would do the job. Not to mention, by design, it would reduce how well you hear. Y'know, in the middle of combat."

  The elf shakes his head. "Remmi, you even have a name for the injury. Should you really be taking it so flippantly?"

  I lean back in my seat as I cross my arms behind my head. "At least healing magic clears it up. We should be grateful it's such an easy fix. I can pat you on the head, and away it goes!"

  "Whoa, hold on," Leuke interjects. "You have healing magic? Like Sei?"

  "In a few different flavors," I admit, rubbing the back of my head, "but none of it's going to be as good as what she can do. I actually picked up enough magic to get the Hedge Witch trait."

  "Wow, really?!" he asks, leaning over the table. "I haven't gotten any new traits yet!" He catches himself, though, and leans partially back into his seat. "Er, not that I'm complaining. The ones we started with seem really good all on their own, and it's not like I intend to do much else than hit my problems with a sword, anyway, I guess, so being better at that works for me."

  I feel bad enough for him that I'm not about to tell him about Jack of all Trades, but Ayre has no such scruples.

  "Oh, she's actually gotten two of them! She picks them up disgustingly easily ..."

  I facepalm at Leuke's crestfallen expression and mutter to the elf, "I wasn't going to say anything about that, Ayre. It's obvious he wants one of his own."

  Ayre goes beet red at that, ears twitching in nervous embarrassment. "Oh, gosh, I'm so sorry, that was insensitive of me!"

  Leuke recovers quickly, however, and smiles as he waves a dismissive hand. "Don't worry about it, don't worry about it. She was taught a whole bunch about a lot of stuff, right? It only makes sense that she'd end up digging a lot of wells."

  I blink, taking a moment to realize that was an idiom. Especially since I did, in fact, dig a well. "That was part of it, yeah," I confirm once I get my wits about me again. "The other is Jack of All Trades, and it's for doing a bit of everything with general skills. I built my own house, even. Twice, because I decided the first time wasn't good enough."

  Leuke looks impressed, but Ayre sighs and tells on me again, crossing his arms with another shake of his head. "She still doesn't think it's good enough. The thing's big enough for a small family, but she won't be content until it's got what she calls a living room."

  "... What's a living room?"

  "Apparently, it's a big, entire room dedicated to sitting around."

  But Leuke's face lights up. "Oh! Like a tea room!"

  Ayre narrows his eyes at the other Hero. "That's not how you use a tea room."

  But I chuckle at the comparison. "I'm probably going to need one of those, too, huh? And a rock garden."

  "Remmi," Ayre whines, "your house is going to be sprawling if you keep adding rooms like that!"

  "Not if I make it two stories," I counter. "I can put the bedrooms upstairs, and places for company and the kitchen downstairs!"

  "Bedrooms, plural?" Leuke asks.

  I shrug. "Gotta have room for when friends visit. And teammates. Right now, Ayre and I sleep only separated by a divider."

  "That's normal," Ayre insists. "If you have a big enough house for guests, that's what you use the tatami room for!"

  That bewilders me. "You have an entire room for storing tatami? And you want to shove guests in there, too?"

  "It's not for storing tatami. The floor is all tatami mats! It's an all-purpose room that you can shuffle around to be whatever you need, or just lay out bedding in for guests."

  "Enough about rooms," Leuke finally dismisses the topic with a shake of his head. "Tell me more about these traits!"

  I take a moment to gather my words. "Well, like I said, Jack of All Trades is for general skills." I pull it up and flip it about for him to see as I explain the contents. "It required me to learn and display at least ten different general skills, which would be pretty steep for a non-Hero, but it increases how much I pick up and can figure out about the skills, and increases the quality and speed of my work."

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  "Plus an increase in point gain from it," he observes. "That's amazing! And what's Auto-Mode?"

  "Ah, Auto-Mode is a little trickier to explain," I say as I try to explain it, anyway. "I take a penalty to the points I would gain for crafting and the rate of my growth in understanding the skill, but in exchange, I go through all of the steps without having to think about it. As near as I can tell, I always produce the best result I know how to get, too, so human error is completely removed."

  "Wow," Leuke breathes. "I know so many people that would love to have a skill like that! Farmers, smiths, carpenters, seamstresses ... It would change lives!"

  I nod in agreement, even if his enthusiasm is a little overwhelming. "Auto-Mode's description suggests there may be other ways to earn it, like just getting really, really good at one repetitive task. That might be an easier way to gain it than mastering ten separate general skills."

  "It would also mean a much more limited Auto-Mode, too, though, wouldn't it?" Ayre asks. "After all, if it's only for one kind of task, then you can't automate anything else, right?"

  "What's far cooler, though," I insist, "is that Auto-Mode is an entirely different kind of skill called a Hidden Skill. It doesn't consume any points; you just get it automatically the moment you meet the requirements. But that's the only way to get it, even for a Hero, and there's no way to know what the requirements are ahead of time."

  "How is that so neat?" Leuke asks, his face twisted in confusion. "That sounds like they're all but impossible to get!"

  "Sure," I agree, "but that also means there's an unknowable number of them just waiting to be discovered! You might even get one just for defeating, I don't know ..." I flounder for a moment. "... ten thousand enemies with your sword!"

  He rubs his chin as he considers that possibility. "That's a lot of enemies."

  I nod in agreement. "Enough that nobody's likely to do it outside of exceptional circumstances, which sounds like exactly the kind of ridiculous thing a Hidden Skill might be waiting for."

  "Maybe," he relents, but changes topic slightly. "Still, as incredible as Auto-Mode sounds, it's really just a crafting skill, isn't it? How does it help you as a Hero?"

  "Well, mostly in that I maintain and upgrade our gear," I admit. "It's not a combat skill, but all of the general skills I picked up help me support my allies better off of the battlefield. Better weapons and stat-boosting foods improve our overall performance and boost morale."

  "Stat-boosting foods?" Leuke repeats, almost simultaneously with his stomach growling. That's right, the guy is a big eater. Probably the sort that's always hungry.

  I reach into my bag and pull out a sub sandwich. The meat, like most that I had to work with in Dabun, is rabbit, but the vegetables are all Essence crops, and the topping is mayonnaise, something the Empire, as far as I have seen, doesn't have.

  "Eat up," I say as I pass it to him.

  He stares at the sandwich, looking between it and my bag. "You just had this stuffed in there? It's longer than the bag!"

  "Oh, it wasn't in the bag," I clarify. "I have an extradimensional storage space that's tied to the bag. It was a reward for destroying a Heart of Corruption outside Dabun Village. There doesn't seem to be an upper limit on space, and time is halted for everything in it. It lets our food remain as fresh as the moment it went in!"

  "Fresh food, all the time? That's a quest reward I could get behind!" He tears into the sandwich and immediately begins making sounds of approval.

  I take the relative silence, minus the violence being inflicted upon my cooking just across the carriage from me, to move the topic along. I make a mental note to get it cleaned before the crumbs draw mice.

  "In terms of direct combat ability, Hedge Witch is far more beneficial. It basically gives me some of the benefits of being an actual mage, increasing the mana I get from my Intellect, increasing the potency of my spells, and decreasing their mana cost."

  I open the window for Hedge Witch and share it in place of Jack's window. "The bonuses are good, but probably only half of what an actual mage would have, let alone what Benarou must be able to do."

  "Why are you inveshting sho much into magic, anyway?" Having a mouth full of sandwich clearly doesn't give Leuke pause in speaking.

  "Well ... I'm not, really," I answer awkwardly. "It's just utility stuff, like Spark and Cleanse, and I picked up Heal, though I think my Healing Bullets are better. Oh, and Diagnose. Using it and Identify on the same target unlocks Identify Level Two."

  This time, Leuke swallows. The sandwich is mostly gone already. "I guess that's not that much, when you spread it out like that. Didn't you at least get anything for combat?"

  I nod. "I did, and I didn't get Hedge Witch until then. Ayre taught me Spiral Shot, which increases the potency and penetration of ranged weapon attacks, and a retired Platinum-rank adventurer advised me to pick up Empower, since I actually have the mana for it. With Hedge Witch, it increases all of my physical abilities by seventy-five percent, but burns through mana as long as it's active."

  "Phew," he declares, wiping the last of the sandwich off with the back of his hand. "Now that sounds powerful. I wish I had the mana for something like that. How much are you working with now?"

  I grin as I back out of the trait and share my actual status window.

  NAME: Remmi Lee

  RACE: Human (Outsider)

  AGE: 15 (24)

  LEVEL: 15

  CLASS: Gunslinger

  HP: 400/400

  MP: 300/300

  SP: 400/400

  STRENGTH: 100

  TOUGHNESS: 100

  INTELLECT: 200

  AGILITY: 200

  POINTS: 17,520

  TRAITS:

  Hero

  Gun Nut

  Jack of All Trades (General)

  Hedge Witch

  Suspecting Leuke may not be the best at math, I provide, "With Empower active, that would boost my Strength and Toughness to one hundred seventy-five, and my Agility to three hundred fifty. If I'm not casting anything else, I can keep that up for two minutes straight, but I normally toggle it on and off as needed to extend that."

  In fact, that puts me nearly to Zeiya's level, that retired Platinum-rank adventurer. Not that I'd assume I was on her level even if it allowed me to match her, as I'm sure she has just as many ways to go beyond her base stats, if not more.

  Leuke nearly jumps out of his seat with a look on his face of pure glee. "Wow, you've made amazing gains since we started! If you'd had this status then, you'd be the most powerful Hero summoned! And you're still only level fifteen?!"

  I can only rub the back of my head at his returned enthusiasm as he continues to rave while the carriage rolls on toward Giri Village. He genuinely seems happy just for the sake of someone else doing well. He doesn't even bring his own stats up for a comparison, even though he's no doubt grown, too. I feel like he'd have cheered me on even if I'd only made half the gains I have.

  The System really chose well when it picked him to be a Hero.

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