After I said, “No more questions,” to the baron, our trip was much more pleasant. While the carriage was rocking a little, it wasn’t as bad as I expected. I guess this might be a premium carriage for the nobility. I mean there are two nobles in this carriage. Does a child of a noble count? Well probably not, but it counts for me.
I was looking out of the window and saw teens walking around on the plain. Some were leading the boars to different areas and others were picking up the gabo fruits from the trees. Didn’t Laura tell me that those fruits taste awful? What do they use them for?
“I hope they don’t eat those.” I say in a quiet voice. Alice sitting next to me does catch it though.
“Are you really worried about that?” She asks.
“Well Laura told me yesterday that they taste awful. I just hope that even junior adventurers have access to better food than that.” I responded. It’s not like you would know anything about bad food Alice. You are the daughter of a Noble. Not that I have major experience with bad food either. I have had some MREs and those are mediocre at best, but they are still edible. Well I guess there are foods that I would throw up trying to eat, but that is just because of my palette. Some people still enjoy those foods.
“They split the fruits to remove the seeds and the fruits get fed to the boars. They might taste bad to humans but the boars love them.” The baron explains. “The seeds get planted in hopes of new trees growing.”
“So no gabo fruits for adventurers. I guess that’s good.”
“This town is considered one of the best towns for beginner adventurers. There are very few high ranking beasts that make their way to these plains. There is also a good amount of work to do and the food is affordable.” The baron explains.
“Yeah, but there is not much exp available.” I say back.
“What is this exp? I don’t think I have ever heard of it.” The baron said.
“I haven’t either.” Henry said. So even the butler doesn’t know about it. Actually how does exp work? I thought you would gain exp after taking down monsters. I mean I leveled up after killing the dungeon as well as after killing that bison. Yeah, that also would confirm that I gain exp from things my summons kill.
“Actually I’m not really sure how it works. Give me a second, I’ll ask Laura.” I mean I do have an idea, but with access to system support, I would rather not theory craft.
(Laura, can you explain exp and level ups?) I ask her.
(All beings gain exp from killing other beings. Exp is used to level up. Level ups can grant new skills. Exp can also be gained from things like studying and practice.) Laura explained.
(And what is the difference between study and practice?)
(Study is mental work and practice is physical. Mages study and swordsman practice.)
(Sounds simple enough.)
“According to Laura, you gain exp when you kill things. Exp helps you level up. You can also gain exp from studying and combat practice.” I repeat what Laura told me to the other three.
“So killing monsters makes you level up faster?” Alice said with her eyes shining.
“Yeah, apparently.” I answer.
“Dad, let me be an adventurer.” Alice immediately attacks her dad with a beg attack. Official source is novel★fire.net
“NO!” The baron yelled. “I will not let you do that. You are a proper lady after all. You don’t need to level up.”
Wow. Overprotective much. I can understand trying to prevent her from taking on high ranking quests but banning everything is a bit much. And she is only the daughter of a baron. What will you do if you can’t get her to marry? Then the levels she could gain might just be useful.
“Lord Brian, do you think this would explain why members of ‘Prime Rib’ are stronger than other adventurers in town?” Henry asked me.
“I fail to see the connection between exp and them being stronger. I mean higher level people are stronger than lower level people, but how would that connect anything? Prime Rib might just train harder than others.”
“Prime Rib is the main party that takes part in the euthanization of the town's boars. Wouldn’t that make them level up faster?” Henry gave his theory.
“Yeah” I guess that makes sense. “It could be. But I think the difference would have to be fairly large to be noticeable.”
(Master, you are not considering it taking effect over a large period of time.) Laura said to me.
“Or they would have to have that advantage for a long time.” I continue with what Laura told me.
“Due to that vampire girl's ability to drain blood, the town’s people love the meat they butcher. That gives them more money to buy boars with.” The baron says.
“How does this entire buying boars thing work?” I ask.
Henry is the one that answers. “The adventurers guild manages the number of boars and sells the boars to the adventurers when they are going to be killed. The adventurers then take them down and butcher them. After that they sell the meat to places around town.”
“And with Lucia’s blood draining skills, Prime Rib gets better prices from the highest payers. They can then use that to buy more boars, right?” I confirm my idea.
“Yes.” The butler answers. “The adventurers guild does limit it but it still isn’t perfect.”
“Wouldn’t it be better that the guild just hire Lucia to work for them on the blood draining? I mean the guild does have William working as a butcher. That way they could just have Lucia drain the blood of all the boars that are euthanized.” I say back. I mean it makes sense in my head.
“The guild can’t do that. Dhampirs are not allowed to work for the guild.” The baron answers. So she is not a true vampire, but a half-blood. But why the racism?
“And why is that? Are Dhampirs that dangerous? I mean I get it that they are half vampire, but at least Lucia doesn’t seem too dangerous.”
“It is bec.. Actually it’s better that you just ask her.” The baron was about to tell me but decided against it. I mean I could just ask Laura, but that would just be me cheating. And I don’t mind asking Lucia.
“Yeah, I’ll do that at some point.”
Our trip got a lot more shaky after we left the road. I guess that even a high class carriage can’t go off road without shaking. I really hope this thing won’t break.
Thankfully our off road trip passes fine with no broken carriages and no monster sightings.
As we make it to the edge of the overgrown forest, the carriages stop and we all get out.
After getting out, all of us are stretching. I guess a two hour carriage ride will make you a little stiff.
“Alright. We’ll have a small break here and after that we will move out.” The baron gave orders. As he said that, Henry brought a small table out of his item box. On it he laid some sandwiches and tea. How large is that item box? Well I guess a table and snacks isn’t that much. I mean he didn’t bring out chairs.
I grab one of the sandwiches and munch on it. It is similar to the bacon ones the baron and I had this morning but this one has some cheese and spinach. It tastes good.
Zay of Prime Rib is currently talking with the baron. Based on his hand movement he is complaining that the baron brought his daughter along. I was against it as well, but I’m not going to go against the word of a noble. At least not on something like that. It’s not my job to keep her safe.
I decided to take this opportunity to speak with Lucia a little. She was standing next to Alex, sipping from that blood flask. I hope she has enough for the day. I doubt that she would have drank all that bison blood already though.
“Lucia, can I ask you something?” I ask her.
“About me drinking blood?” She asks.
“Not that exactly, but yes. More like why are Dhampirs hated so much that you can’t work for the guild.”
“How do you know?” She seems slightly scared that I know her secret.
“That you are a vampire? Or half vampire really.” I say. “I realized that you are most likely a vampire when I saw you drinking from that flask at the guild. I also had a talk with the baron and his butler about the boars around town and he let it slip that you are a dhampir.”
“Loud mouth.” She seemed only mildly annoyed. “Well it’s not really a secret. Most just don’t like beings that need blood to survive. But the reason we can’t work for the guild is the dhampir blood curse.”
“What is that?” I ask.
“It comes from our origin. After the original vampires died, the curse began to show itself. At first we could deal with it with a secret technique, but eventually that was lost to time and all dhampir children born after that were cursed to crave for blood. To the point that some would attack anything that moves.” She gave a quick explanation. “That is why a dhampir can’t hold any position of power, because some of the first cursed ones used their positions to force people to let them drink their blood.”
“I see.” I wasn’t expecting that. “I’m sorry that I asked.”
“It’s fine. For me it’s normal. I get by with this blood.” She says and shows me her flask. “I mix a few drops of human blood with large amounts of animal blood. That way I can have good tasting blood, without having to drain people much.”
“So just a bit of blood can make animal blood taste better?” I ask.
“I see. If you ever need a little you can ask me. I can give you some of mine as an apology for asking about these personal things.” I offer her.
“It’s not necessary.” She rejects my offer.
“We’ll head out soon! Everyone, prepare!” The baron yells out his order.
I quickly make my way back to the table before Henry puts it away and down a cup of tea. Thankfully it was cold so no burning throat for me. I really need to buy some kind of water bottle. Or maybe a water skin. Well, that will have to wait until we make it back into town.