Chapter 4: Side Chapter Planet 1: When Life Was Normal

Side Chapter Planet 1: When Life Was Normal

Another normal day onboard the Johnext Vessel QM206, working for NextEdge Spaceline & Delivery!...

Haaaa, I want to sleep…

Currently, three of the company’s ships were stopped at a large central station. To drop off and pick up additional cargo. The bad part, this was a long workday. The good, it let me meet up with some other employees who I didn’t get to see often.

Glancing at the stars as ran past the window. I was just a little behind schedule. But I couldn’t afford to be late. Had multiple things planned and I didn’t want to miss any of them.

I wouldn’t say I enjoyed my job. It was just something I did. Made some good friends though. More importantly, I got a front-row seat view of the beauty that was space. 

With work finished up for the day, I went to the canteen for dinner and some social chatter.

Upon entering I could see my friend Rosa in the distance working in the small kitchen with the new employee. Rosa the ship’s only [Chef], was currently teaching Henry the new recruit how to use the equipment in case she wasn’t around. 

When I walked to the table my friend was sitting at.

“I See Ella! What took you so long.” Yelling out, Kylan ‘greeted’ me. 

He was putting his plates away, thank the stars! I didn’t have to deal with him. I respond with slightly visible disdain, “Nothing. I did my job on time.” 

“Well, what’s wrong today?” 

“Quiet. You know,” I replied, the displeasure evident in my tone. What wouldn’t I give to smack him across the face.

“Ehh, whatever you say.” He didn’t care, but he left to continue his shift. So life was 10% better.

Look I love my parents but damn, couldn’t they have given me a slightly better name. 

I dislike my name for mainly two reasons. First was ‘See Ella’, a saying based on my own name–strengthen due to my nickname ‘Ella’. Once a moment occurred where it clicked in someone's head after they said ‘see Ella’. I’d never been able to escape it. Kind of funny the first–one time. But now it was the plague that haunted me  

Kylan and Mia (another coworker) were thankfully the only two who made that joke at work.

The second–lesser–but still relevant issue. My mother Tella Stella, really found the “ell, lla” combo–let's just say fun. So much so that she gave it to me, my sister and brother. Mella and Tyell respectively. Personally, didn’t like it and found the combo annoying when I or someone else said my full name. 

Sometimes I wonder if my mum married my dad just so she could take his last name.

“Tired Benard?” I sat down at the table across from my work friend. 

“Nope!” He cheerfully replied, “Just tried Rosa knew blend, I don’t think I’m going to sleep for another thirty hours.”

“God dammit Rosa.” I laughed.

We just chatted about some small issues we had today as we waited for everyone else.

Four plates flew onto the table, being thrown by someone with immense skill… pshhh.

“Lateday Ros–” I tried greeting Rosa, but she gave me and Benard a massive hug.

“Lateday to you two as well!” yelled Rosa. She stood a head taller than me, with short pink hair, red eyes and a calming smile. Rosa Rewolf was nice but she could be a little loud… still she was a good friend and five years my senior. I was also the shortest member of the crew, at 1.79 metres tall. Going from slightly above average on my home planet to the shortest on the crew felt weird. 

“I hope you like what I cooked today!” Her eyes quickly darted back and forth between us and the food on the table.

“New food?” I asked

“Not exactly,” Rosa did a spin, sitting next to Benard and then pointing at the dish on the plate directly in front of her. The large green jelly-like ‘muffin’ wobbled, “Tada. Today’s dinner.”

“Yeah, what flavour is it?” Benard asked.

“Steak!”

Oh… I liked the flavour but… It's weird. It tastes like steak but it feels like jelly. All the foods Rosa made had this problem to some degree, whether it felt like jelly or dust was the only difference. Personally, I still haven’t got too used to meat flavour goo yet.

While I tried to hide my disappointment. “Hey.” Rosa spoke, clicking her fingers, trying to grab my attention, to which she succeeded “Watch this!”

The green blob in the shape of a muffin? Underwent a drastic change. It glowed, stretched upwards, bounced and then flatten itself on the table. Slowly changing into.

“.... It is an actually steak?”

“Hehe,” Rosa chuckled, “It's a new Skill I got! [Transformative Presentation] finally I can make my food look and feel how it should!”

Rosa was certainly excited… and so was I.

“Really?! That’s amazing.” I unconsciously give her puppy dog eyes, “We can start now right?!”

“Of course!” She quickly steals my plate, cuts the ‘steak’ into digestible pieces and returns the plate with the fork.

I quickly started to eat and it was amazing. The tenderness, juiciness, everything. I was in heaven. 

Skills can really do wonders!

I continued to eat while Rosa watched laughing. 

“Couldn’t wait for me huh.” A new voice introduced itself behind me.

“Don’t blame her too much,” Benard spoke, “Rosa can do wonders.” I only just noticed he hadn’t started eating. At least Rosa started, so… I still had an ally.

“Lateday Beatrice. Come sit and try Rosa's new dish.”

“Ha, heh.”  Beatrice sighed and laughed, “better be good, for you guys to start without me.”

Beatrice was only slightly taller than me and had a smooth white face. Definitely spent way more effort than I did on taking care of herself. With long purple hair that was tied at multiple points as it extended down her back–no idea how it got passed the safety inspections–and sharp dull blue eyes.

Beatrice worked on another transport ship but briefly me, her and Rosa worked on the same ship for half a year. And became good friends during that time. Now we try to eat dinner and chat together whenever the ships reconvene.

“Yep, this is good," said Beatrice.

“See!” I said.

“I will still be cutting off your hair in your sleep.”

“You monster!”

“How would you get into her room?” Benard questioned.

*
*

“Benard, when are you going to shave that beard?” Rosa smugly asked.

“It’s barely a millimetre in length!”

“Hey! Don’t blame the messenger. I distinctly remember someone asking me to remind them to shave.”

*
*

“Beatrice, how’s Simon?” Rosa asked, as the thought clearly just popped into her head.

“Still alive, but he is thinking of quitting and moving back to Earth for a more grounded lifestyle.”

“Already? Thought he said he’ll keep working in space for another ten years.” I asked.

“Hmm, opinions, plans. They can always change.”

“When is he going to quit,” Benard asked.

“Probably next dexal cycle.”

“Guess were won’t see him at work again this year then,” I said.

*
*

After half an hour of mostly fun chatter. Everyone was feeling it was time to wrap up the conversation soon.

“Could you please leave Benard?” Beatrice asked. 

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Benard understood she wanted to talk about something sensitive with her friends, “All good, you three have a wonderful day,” and left without issue. They had only interacted three times in total at this point.

“What’s the problem Beatrice?” Rosa concernedly asked.

“Haaa,” she seemed nervous. “I’m thinking of changing my Vocation… or trying for a upgrade…” mumbling the last part, she still was able to get her point across.

There was a lot about Vocation I didn’t understand but I knew as much as the average person should.

Changing one’s Vocation was easy to do but the consequences were large. At any point, one could choose to remove their Vocation if they completely willingly wanted to. The key part was it had to be completely their free will, even threatening someone's life if they didn’t remove it wouldn't work. 

I honestly didn’t understand the nuance behind it, but that was how it work. After that it would take a month–which they could cancel anytime during that period–then their Vocation would be gone. Along with all their Skills and Levels. 

Besides the hard reset. There were two other ways to ‘change’ one’s Vocation. A Vocation upgrade or divergence–both were used as terms to describe the same phenomenon–was a moment when one was given the opportunity to change their Vocation. Sometimes they were only given one option, others many. 

This phenomenon was rarely seen and seemly didn’t have anything to do will Levels. The majority of the times recorded the change was an upgrade–to a Vocation inaccessible or unknown before–but also there were enough instances where in some people's eyes the change was a downgrade.

“You sure?”

“Yes.” I could hear the confidence smeared with a tinge of pain. “Whenever I see those who chose their Vocation through passion–the one their heart wants–they seem so much happier.” 

Beatrice’s current Vocation was [Porter]. Probably the most common of the (Carrier) type/classifications of Vocations.

There were five categories of Vocations. Created by the initial organisations who researched Vocation. As a person levelled their soul’s size increased. They also grew stronger in other ways–most importantly mana–which was dependent on the Vocation they chose.

(Mage) Vocations had a very high increase in the development of one’s mana. The type also made up of Vocations that involved the manipulation of, well something–energies, mana, stuff really.

(Carrier) Vocations were very utility based. Most had good advantages for the general public and their daily life, also quite a few had storage abilities.

(Enhancer) Vocations. Just think physical body, combat, and all that fun stuff. Pretty simple.

(Crafter) Vocations were involved in the construction of specific things. Also very simple.

(Scout) Vocations were… stupid. A little bit of exploration, espionage, deception, traps, sensing, thieving… Very dumb. It just had a lot of crossover with some of the other ‘classifications’–mostly Enhancer.

Hybrid Vocations even existed! I’m getting off track… but couldn’t they have chosen a better name than ‘scout’?

Hybrid Vocations classification while rarely used did exist as well. But the important bit of information was that 90% of people either chose (Mage) or (Carrier).

Why? Mage thanks to its larger mana development. When every second item being powered by inputting one’s mana and you don't have to pay to use it. Even the military mostly chose Mage Vocations. With their armour and weapons, why even pick a combat Enhancer when supplying more mana into your suit can do the job better.

Now (Carrier) was the Vocations that was good for daily life. Or labour. [Porter] was one of the easiest Vocations to choose if you wanted an easy job. One person could single-handedly carry more than one supply ship.

On the other end (Enhancer) and (Crafter) didn’t seem as good for the average person.

(Enhancer) was only chosen by those who just wanted to be physically stronger. Or wanted to hunt monsters and couldn’t afford military-level gear. To be a successful (Crafter) you needed to be really good at it. Which took a lot of time and connections.

Unlike me who chose a Vocations because manipulating fire sounded cool, and being in space was cold… and I planned to work in space in some way since childhood, to be closer to the stars. Beatrice picked hers purely for job opportunities.

“I don’t have anywhere near enough money for a VC Ticket…” She sighed, “So I only have those two options.” Beatrice could see my face as started to speak, so she interrupted, “I thought for a long time. And I really don’t like my Vocation”

I was about to ask about just keeping her current, but she seemed adamant about her decision. 

A VC Ticket (Vocation Change Ticket) was an item that allowed one to change their Vocations… and that’s mostly all I knew. One suffered 50% loss to level and some skills disspeared but it was a pretty good deal. Besides it being so ridiculously expensive.

This topic wasn’t something I had any experience in, I always liked my Class. Yes, there were other ones I was interested in, but I was happy with what I chose. Still, I understood the problem, one's Class was extremely personal in a way. Heck, it affects the growth of one’s soul.

“Hmmm,” wanting to help, I thought hard about what I needed to say next. “Okay, then do it,” she didn’t look up from her plate.

““Beatrice?”” Me and Rosa both ask worryingly, while I also tapped her shoulder. I felt a shake when I did.

“55 levels will all be gone… Everything I’ve done till now.”

“And? You're only thirty, you still have a long life ahead of you. You’ve made plenty of money so far, you can get a new job not reliant on your Vocation and pick something fun for it.” I said only what I thought was right and tried to spout some philosophical nonsense, “Just let your passion empower your next one, and you be past level 55 in no time.”

“Come on girl! You should totally become a [Chef] like me! I can teach you everything I will eventually know!”

I could see a smile forming, “Thanks Elly, Rosy” she looked up.

“I knew asking your simple self would help,” She laughed and Rosa joined in.

“Heyy… rude,” I couldn’t keep a straight face and began laughing. 

 

---

“Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaa,” I yawned.

I finally reached my room, today had been long. Oh, I wished I could fall over and then bounce onto a bed. My room was pretty small with an upright sleeping device in the corner and a desk with a wall mounted-computer. 

For the moment, I sat down waiting for the time to call my folks. I checked the time, 065:45 Bleight-GT. It should be around 7 pm on Metous.. I’ll call in a minute.

Most places ran off a 24h-ish clock–my home planet had 27-hour days–because that worked well with the human body and the majority of habitable planets rotated near that time. 

In space we had longer ‘clocks’. The galaxy I was in ran off a 96-hour one. The reason for this was simple. Space big. So each galaxy had its own galaxy time. This was mostly used by people who spent the majority of their activity in space.

Dun, Dun Dun, Dun, Dun Dun, I pressed the call button, it took a couple of moments to create a connection but thankfully being parked at the station enhanced connection.

After the screen pulsated, it jumped to a rectangle image showing two adult figures.

On the left was a short woman with curled black hair and eyes. Her head reached the shoulder of the man to her right. A tall tanned brick of a man with brown hair, pale gold eyes and too many muscles. These were my parents who I loved dearly. I had my dad’s eyes and also his hair which none of my other siblings received.

“Deary, I see Ceella!” My mother started to wave, she was always excited to speak to me when given the chance. “How have you been, it's been over two months since your last call?!”

“Lat–Afternoon mum, dad. Yes, I’ve been fine,” a large grin plastered across my face as we talked. “Hope everything has been well for you four, have the little ones caused any more trouble?”

“HAHAHA,” my father laughed, “no. But Tyell is going to be annoyed you still call him little.”

“What? Just because he’s seventeen doesn't change his littleness status compared to me.” I’ve called my brother and sister the ‘little ones’ since forever, and that wasn’t going to change soon.

We spoke a bit about how my work was going. Which wasn’t much to talk about, so I tried to dig up any information on what my siblings had been up to. Apparently, my brother had been going to parties more often. What a naughty boy! Psshh haha. It will be too much fun to mess with him when I come back home in five months.

After five months my current employment contract will be over. I could continue it but I figured I might as well try another job. After I stay with my family for a couple of months.

During our conversation, with a loud yell, a figure jumped in front of the camera, “SISTER!”

“MELLA!” I returned the excitement.

My little sister Mella was eleven years old. She basically looked like a mini version of my mum, but with more rounded checks and my dad's nose. And she was adorable, I would pick her up and give the biggest hugs whenever I could!

Mella had climbed onto my parent's laps, purposely putting herself half on each, “Sister, sister! When are you coming back, I’ve got so much to tell you, I’ve made a new friend named Irene, I won first place in my art contest, and more importantly I beat dad in a staring contest!”

Excitable as ever… I tried to wrap my head around everything she was spewing up, “Wow good job. I've told you I’ll be home in five months.”

“Hehe, I know. I just wanted you to come back SOONER!”

“Haha, you little,” I went along with my sister’s antics. Getting distracted by them and even forgetting the conversation I was having with my parents.

Don’t worry, I’ll be home soon.