Chapter 16: s 16 + 17

For the first time since she was reborn, Fresh takes off her boots and sets them to the side, down by the door. Feeling a great sense of freedom and satisfaction coming over her tired mind, a yawn overpowers the smile on her face. Exhausted, she wiggles her toes and gets back to work, while humming a tune that she remembers from her old life to keep herself awake, as her head grows heavy and droops repeatedly.

It's been about two hours now, since they had gotten back. But Fresh still sits there, now alone. Jubilee had left silently, more or less, just after she had begun working. The girl rubs her eyes. She’s really tired. Her stomach growls again and she sighs, feeling a little worn down in general. Her eyes go to the mushroom powder that she has been crumbling. Three caps have already been shredded apart, to the best of her effort. But it’s hard without a mill or anything of that kind. Maybe just even a stone mortar and pestle. But with just her hands, it’s arduous, crude work.

What is she even doing, shredding these? She doesn’t have a plan or any idea of what to do with the shredded material. It just seemed like the only thing that she could do. She didn’t want to just sit there and do nothing. But even if she tears all of these apart, what will she do with them then? Maybe she just made things worse? Maybe they could have just sold the raw caps. Now the merchants for sure won’t want them.

She sighs, looking away from the mushroom-caps, opting not to eat any of it. She only has one health point left and doesn’t want to risk it. Besides… they aren’t hers to eat. She rips off another fistful with a shaking hand and begins shredding it. These are pretty much all Jubilee’s. All she did was carry them, hell, not even all of them. So, of the thirty some Obols worth of raw materials, how many are really hers? One? Maybe two. But not more than that, at least in her own eyes. She crumbles the last of the fourth cap apart into the snail-shell, which is now close to full.

Fresh looks up to the window, feeling a little pride despite everything, as she looks at it. This was her second crafting level now. So apparently taking raw materials apart gives her… experience, or whatever is used to calculate these sub-categories. So this means if she levels up again, that she’ll have two crafting ability choices to choose from now? She smiles and grabs the last mushroom-cap, her weak hands tearing into it as she thinks. She feels unwell.

“I guess I’m dying…” mutters Fresh to herself idly, laughing at the absurdity of that. She looks down at the cap in her hands. “Wait for me on the other side, Mr. Mushroom,” she says in a sad, defeated voice. “I’ll see you again soon.” Her head flops forward and she sighs in exhaustion. It’s tempting to go to sleep and the bed is right there, just across the room…

Fresh shakes her head, snapping out of it. “Let’s both do our best, Mr… Mush…” she quietly mumbles beneath her energy-less breath, as she continues tearing into the cap, her head sleepily nodding down forward as she reaches her limit.

“Stop talking to the mushroom, dumb-ass,” snaps a voice from just beside her. Fresh perks up, her low hanging head snapping upwards in surprise towards Jubilee, who she hadn’t even noticed entering back inside through her sleepy daze.

“Ah! Welcome home!” says Fresh, not sure why. It feels like the right thing to say in her tired mind.

Jubilee tenses up and Fresh thinks she’s about to get hit or poked again, maybe that was a too personal thing to say? But instead the figure just sighs and idly tosses her a small bundle that lands in her lap, walking past her towards the table. “Shut up. Here.”

Fresh looks at the small brown-paper wrapped thing in her hands. “What’s this?”

“I’m not going to dignify that with an answer,” says Jubilee.

Fresh looks at the paper in her hands and undoes the wrapping, revealing a piece of still hot, brown bread. Her eyes grow wide. “Is this for me?” she asks in surprise.

Jubilee looks back at her and shakes their head, before sitting down at the table to rest. “No, I bought it for the mushroom. Dumb-ass.”

Fresh laughs, feeling a bit more chipper now. “Thank you!” Jubilee just grumbles in return. She looks at the bread, her first ‘real’ food since she had gotten here. Her first… wait. Her eyes open wide. “Didn’t this cost a lot of money?” she asks, remembering the price of ten Obols. That was already a third of their haul.

“If you don’t want it, then give it back,” sighs Jubilee. Fresh pulls the bread back away and takes a loud, audible bite of it and her tired eyes light up. It’s deeply savory, the dark-brown bread still retaining a lot of oils and moisture from the seeds inside of it. All of it comes together with a thick, heavy rye flavor; the smell of which is carried up to her nose by the still warm air, rising up off of its crusted surface. Fresh’s fingers squeeze down on the sides of it in delight. It’s just bread. But it’s delicious. Far more so than Mr. Mushroom ever was.

She rips in to take another bite, it’s the best. It feels like the best thing that she’s ever eaten. Fresh wipes her eyes, feeling them grow wet. Again. She owes Jubilee for yet another thing. “Thank you,” stumbles Fresh out, doing her best not to cry as she takes another bite. Her fingers scratch against the black, oven-charred end of the bread.

“It’s just bread, shit-head,” sighs Jubilee. “So? Did you figure anything out?”

Fresh gulps, swallowing a large piece of it that she hadn’t finished chewing yet and looks nervously towards her party-member, who still hasn’t raised their gaze to look at her. Something hurts in her gut as she looks back to the bread in her hands. Her fingernails idly scrape against the char. The room is quiet.

The girl looks at the black spot on the bread, scraping against it again with a fingernail, as she watches a bit of it flake off, the black crumbs falling into the mixture of mushroom powder.

Fresh takes in a sharp breath, the idea coming to her. She isn’t sure where it stems from exactly, her own imagination, or the faint sound of water that she hears come in from the outside world. Though she isn’t sure from where that sound could stem from. “I need to see an alchemist!”

“Huh?” asks Jubilee, looking over now, after raising their head an inch.

Fresh jumps up to her feet, almost knocking the snail-shell bowl over as she jumps up. “Jubilee! I have an idea!” she exclaims with a wide smile.

“Let’s go!” exclaims Fresh, her eyes gleaming with excitement.

“Uh…? Like hell? Sit your pasty ass back down,” snaps Jubilee back at her. “You aren’t leaving this room until you have more than one health point.”

“Huh?” asks Fresh, somewhat let down.

“Do you know the looks I’d get, if you stumble over a chicken on the road and just die right there? No thanks,” says Jubilee in a deeply skeptical tone as they shake their head.

Fresh holds the air in one of her cheeks and makes an audible groaning sound. “I’m perfectly capable of walking through town on my own!” She turns towards the door to leave, taking another loud bite of her bread in protest, as if that was supposed to make a point. She doesn’t want to waste her time just sitting around here, she has a debt to pay back. A life to earn.

The girl grabs the door and pulls. It doesn’t budge.

“Ahem.”

Fresh turns her head and sees the key swirling around on Jubilee’s finger, as they lean back on the chair and spin it rather theatrically. “Sit down and heal fir-”

“Ah! Kidnapper! Pervert! Let me out!” yells Fresh, pointing at Jubilee, her eyes growing wide at the realization that the stranger had locked her in a room with them.

“Huh wh-?” The remaining chunk of bread slaps against the forehead of Jubilee’s mask and flops down to the dirtied floor at their feet.

&"% / ($§%)

[(Fresh) hits (Jubilee) for 1 PHYSICAL DMG with {Dark-Seed Bread}(Normal)]

The spinning key stops. The room is quiet. Jubilee now grips the key so tightly in their leather glove that Fresh can hear the straining creak of the material, from how tightly they clench their fist shut; even here, all the way across the room. Fresh stops and freezes, her arm is still outstretched from the throw, as she just now realizes the incredible rudeness of her act. She really did it now with her thoughtlessness, notices Fresh, now that her thoughts had finally caught up with her actions again.

“I’m sor-!“

“You…” Jubilee bends down to pick the piece of bread, their voice hissing as they look at it.

“I’m sorry!” says Fresh, staying where she is, lowering her gaze.

“YOU STUPID JERK!” yells Jubilee, slamming the piece of bread down onto the table, the legs of the other chair across from them rattling from the impact. Fresh winces as Jubilee jumps down from their chair. “What is your problem?!” The sound of their boots thuds out as they march straight towards her.

“Ah, wait-“ says Fresh, raising her hands. “I wasn’t thi-“

“Yeah! You weren’t thinking, dumb-ass!” Jubilee grabs the cuff of her robe and pulls Fresh forward down to face them, their other hand held back aloft and Fresh winces, expecting to feel the slap to come.

Nothing happens, Jubilee hisses between clenched teeth and lowers their gloved hand. “Can you even think?! Because I haven’t seen it happen once!”

“I’m so-“

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They yank Fresh closer, their spring-tone eyes contorted with fury behind the slits of the mask. “Don’t you get it?! If you die, that’s it! The end! If you just wanted to die this whole time, then you should have said so before I got involved!” yells Jubilee. “Which I only did because I was trying to do the right thing, by the way! So fuck me, right?!” Fresh flinches as they tighten their grip around the fabric of her robe. “This is what I get for that! If I knew you were like this, I would have saved myself the money and just bought you a rope, so that you could hang yourself!” they bark at her. “Then all of us would be better off!”

Fresh pulls together, feeling her throat become tight. “I’m so-“

“SHUT. UP.” Fresh’s eyes grow wet. “I don’t know what cow’s uterus you slipped out of, but I’m not your mother. So grow the fuck up! Your actions affect other people too!” Jubilee lets her go, pushing her back upright as they turn around to walk back across the room, stomping loudly over the wooden floors as they fume away.

“I’m sorry…” says Fresh, sniffling and doing her best not to cry. A loud metal clanging rings out and something hits against Fresh’s boot. The key.

“I just wanted to go check something…” says Fresh, rubbing her eyes, feeling her legs shake. “Because- because I’m just trying to do it right!” Fresh clenches her fists and leans forward, stepping towards the small figure. “Because I’m trying to live right! I’m trying to pay you back for helping me!” She leans forward, crying now. “Because I’m trying to become happy!”

The room is quiet apart from the noise of the girl’s attempt at suppressing her sobbing.

“What the fuck?” Jubilee watches her from the distance. “Are you seriously crying?”

“No!” yells Fresh, clearly doing so and turns around, rubbing her eyes with her arm to wipe away the wet.

“Why did YOU even want to become an adventurer?!”

“B-because I’m useless!” yells Fresh, gritting her teeth. “I always was and I still am! But I don’t want to be! I’m trying! I’M TRYING!” A strange, wet, squeaking sound escapes her throat, as she tries to gulp her emotions down and returns her gaze to Jubilee. “I’m trying…”

The room is quiet, Fresh rubs her eyes again.

“You need to speak to a licensed trainer,” sighs Jubilee, who is leaning back on the chair with their arms crossed, their gaze pointed upwards and away towards the ceiling. “You need to be level five and then go to a trainer. They’ll teach you about whatever particular class they’ve learned.”

“Huh?”

Jubilee is quiet for a moment, Fresh looks at them confused.

“Pragmatically speaking, with your health, you need to do something with magic or distanced-combat. Wizardry, priesthood. But… we still don’t know if you have any soul points to begin with. Healing would be ideal, but we can’t let you near the church. Maybe something druidic?” they think. “Though I don’t know if there are even any around here… but they can heal an-“

“What about a crafting class?” says Fresh, stepping towards the table, her voice still breaking.

“Huh?” Jubilee looks towards the girl, whose bright eyes stare back at them with the usual headstrong determination.

“I want a crafting class! So that we can work together!”

Jubilee tilts their head, quiet for a moment. “You won’t be much of an adventurer if you want to just craft. You’ll be next to useless inside of the dungeon. Which… well, you know, is what you are now.”

“I know I already am! But are there any?!”

“There are. But, you can do some basic crafting without a specialized class.”

Fresh clenches her fists. “But if I have one, then I can learn to make better things! Then I can be useful!”

Jubilee lifts a finger, pointing at her. “Once you choose a class, there’s no going back. It’s a right pain in the ass to undo, to the point that it’s basically impossible for schmucks like us,” they explain. “Once you choose, you’ve chosen for good.”

“I understand!” Fresh grabs Jubilee’s gloved hand and pulls it towards herself. “Please take me to the dungeon again tomorrow, so that I can become level five! So that I can choose a crafting class!”

“Are you sure you don’t want to try finding some magic cl-“

“I’m sure! Please!” begs Fresh, pulling the hand closer to herself.

Jubilee’s eye twitches beneath the mask, but their posture loosens, as they let out a long, protracted sigh. The tension in their arms and shoulders lessens. “Fine.”

“Thank you!” Fresh howls as she pulls the, in-protest flailing, figure into a hug.

A muffled voice comes up from her chest. “Easy there. Let’s keep it professio… are you still crying?”

“Nooo~” cries Fresh loudly, squeezing the figure tighter so that they can’t see her tears.

Razmatazz

-) Crazy! This story has hit the trending list in spot 32 (On RoyalRoad)! Thank you all so much! As a little 'thank you', I've combined chapters 16+17 into today's chapter, making it double length! =)     (Patreon advance chapters will be adjusted later today accordingly)

-) If you like the story so far, pleeeeease consider rating or even reviewing it! It would really be a big help! 

-) Early, low-level paths raise really quick, but the exp cost gets higher each time. Just like with levels.

Thank you kindly for reading!

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