Chapter 9 - The Festival(2)

"They told you?" I half nod to Liam, I'm not really paying attention but I'm still listening.

"Hmm, so it wasn't a girl?" 

"It is a girl. We're just not together. The entire town knows and I don't want to end up like that deadbeat." What's his face isn't at the table today. I honestly couldn't care less where he is.

Am I hiding my true feelings and pretending to not care about the hurt I feel? Of course! Am I going to do anything about it? Probably not. Is this gonna hurt me in the long run? Stay tuned to find out. Sigh, I'm already imagining I'm in a pre-awakener sitcom.

"Liam. He is still your father." 

"No, he's not." Liam is firm and I stand with him. What kind of father would abandon their children and wife for another man's wife who's playing with him and a bunch of other men? Wait...

"How many families did Amber ruin?" Liam and Mom look at me before they start connecting the dots. She's a serial homewrecker. I never met one of those before. Should I ask for an autograph?... That was sarcasm by the way.

"Gods. This happens every few years, doesn't it? Once she gets them to leave their families she cuts off all contact and they come crawling back to their original family!" The look on all of our faces is of disgust. I'm not gonna lie, I have a smidge of respect for her tactics, she's a great con-woman. Hate the game not the player and all that bullshit.

"Are you gonna take him back?" 

"I may be desperate but I'm not that desperate." Liam chokes on his breakfast. He did not expect that to come from our mother. I didn't expect it either. We just nod and silence dominates the room. It continues until we're done with breakfast. 

"You're going to the festival?" Mom asks me as she puts the dishes in the dishwasher. 

"Festival?" 

"You've lived here your entire life and suddenly forget about the festival once you enter the Academy?" Liam, brutal as ever. I wrack my brain trying to think of the festival but I can't remember any of them being during the mid-year brea-... It isn't mid-year. It's the third month. 

"The festival of Inari." 

"Atta boy." I forgot about that. I'm not used to doing anything out of my regular schedule like I have since my Awakening. Did I have a slight case of OCD before? Nope, I was inconsistent with a lot of things.

"When is it?" 

"In three days. You're staying here for a week and a half. What are you going to do?" 

"I'm thinking about getting some quests from the guild or hunting monsters." 

"Hmm, not a bad idea. Be careful though, the death rates increased in the forest. It seems like the monsters are getting stronger." I nod at her. I stay in the house until they are both busy before leaving. Mom is on her laptop writing her latest dark romance or dark thriller while Liam is gone to school.

I have absolutely no fucking idea how she writes that shit. Don't get me wrong, she's my mother and I respect the hell out of her but damn, these dark romance MC's are just different. They're more like criminals and stalkers that protagonists. Can't say anything about it though, I have a love-hate relationship with those types of novels.

I walk to the guild and find a few people there. Weird, this place is suppose to be bustling with adventurers trying to make it rich and wealthy or just looking for strong partners. When I open the door a few people look at me before going back to their drinks, some of their eyes linger on my sword. I walk to the guild receptionist and show him my ID. He doesn't look that interested in me and points to the wall with all the quests.

Surprisingly, it's not a cute receptionist with huge tits that would of explained everything I needed to know in great detail and developed an unhealthy love at first sight complex. 

"Holy fuck." What the fuck kind of quests are these. Kill 50 boars, goblin subjugation, a pack of wolves. These quests are mostly for B ranks and above. No wonder the guild is empty, the forest is a lot more dangerous than I remember and the quests are a lot more demanding. There's no way beginner adventurers can take on this many monsters in a single day.

Yes, I am, for the record, a newbie adventurer. I have a bit of a cheat though. My Ability is more OP than most adventurers so I have an edge on them when it comes to hunting.

For the record, this is not the same woods I walked through to get to Ciethy, this is the forest behind the city. It leads to the ocean but that's half a day's walk if you run, avoid split paths, know exactly where you're going and have no monster encounters. It seems like the monsters are growing stronger and a lot more adventurers are dying. I walk back to the receptionist. 

"Didn't pick anything?" His attitude isn't the best. I don't think much of it, I don't know what he's going through, maybe he's getting a paycut or something.

"Can I hire a spatial bag or ring?" 

"You can. We have rings that start from 1 cubic meter all the way up to 100 cubic meters. It starts at 100 credits to hire and increases by 50 for every extra cubic meter." 

Hmm, that would mean the 100 metes is 5050 credits. That isn't steep, I expected to pay no less than 10,000. The question is how much space do I need? I'm still newly awakened so I can't hunt a lot of monsters before running myself to the ground. 

"I'll take the 20 cubic meter one." 

"Right, that will be 1050 credits." I take my guild ID and pay the man. I know I said you couldn't use the Guild card like a normal account but there are exceptions. One of them is transferring between guild cards. The only other exception is when the amount of in the guild ID exceeds a million credits. Once that happens your Guild ID can be upgraded for more benefits, meaning you're a priority guild member and will be treated like a VIP in most guilds that conform.

"Status" 

===============

Name: [Seth]

Level: [3] 

Experience: [184/200]

System restore: [1/10]

Experience: [3/500]

Ability: [Passive Collector - CON(1/10)]

Currency: [113]

Guild ID - 2987 credits|

Savings - 10 962 credits

Status: [Physical: Rested/Mental: Exhausted]

Health Points: [29.4/15]

Mana Points: [10/10]

Strength: [1]

Dexterity: [1]

Constitution: [1.76] +0.01 

Intelligence: [1]

Wisdom: [1]

Charisma: [1]

Mana: [1]

SP: [9]

Skills: [Unlock: 5]

SP : [6]

Inventory: [Unlock: Level 25]

[1/20]

Quests: [Unlock: Level 10]

Shop: [Unlock: Level 50]

===================

"Better than what it was, my CON is up by close to an entire point. My ability is broken." 

I don't think I explained my ability before. Well, I didn't have a chance with everything happening so damn fast. Annnnyyyyyyway, my ability is a bit of a cheat if I do say so myself. It allows me to passively gain stat points. It happened when I restored the system to level 1 around three days ago. A '+0.01' appeared on my Status screen and I had no idea what it meant. It was only after an hour I realised what it did.

Every hour my stats or stat will increase by 0.01. Since it's still level one this only happens for CON. I'm sure when I restore the system more options will appear. It also looks like I'm able to upgrade how much I earn each hour however, it takes 200 currency. I don't have that yet. My ability gave me a rundown. It basically said every time I increase the rate I receive stat points, the price will increase by 50%. That means if it's 200 currency for the first level it will be 300 for the second level and the third level will be 450 currency. It will keep increasing in this pattern. 

The only problem is the way to obtain currency. I can only get them by killing so at some point I'll have to destroy an entire city and it still won't be enough to upgrade my rate of absorption. But that's for the future. I just need to focus on improving my battle experience and earning more credits. 

__________________________________

Heyo. How's everyone doing. Thought I'd leave a little note for everyone. 

So I applied for a contract a few days ago and am waiting on a reply. I'm going to try and make some sort of income from this since University has been hectic lately and I don't have a bursary. I might not be able to post everyday for now, hence posting a chapter every two days. 

I'll try posting a chapter every day in the near future but since there's a less time to post everyday then the quality might be a bit worse that it usually is.