A month had passed since the attempted invasion, and life in Dryholm had continued relatively unchanged.
Though a new church had been built, nothing strange for the young city in the making.
Everyone had finally something approximating their own home, with the surrounding forests outside the walls of the hills being chopped down to make way for farm land for when the spring arrives.
And Utarou had been hard at work building up understanding on something of vital importance for his mission of making a new Tier 4 skill.
“So you gained XP when you petted your first dog, but you’ve gained experience every time you killed an animal…” Utarou muttered as he connected his conspiracy cork board like a man trying to prove that reptiles had infiltrated the government.
“Y-yeah…” Hope mumbled, she’d been the primary object of his study due to her having a much more narrow band of prior experiences, making it easier to test things.
“I can’t believe… you’ve never touched a dog before.” Julia coughed, she’d also been the secondary object of study for Utarou; Given she’d been born ill she’d never been able to gain a single skill point to use.
A ripe opportunity for Utarou, if could work out how to heal her, or more importantly, force her XP points to go towards unlocking more skill points, he could shape her skill tree however he liked, ripe for experimentation.
“There aren’t many small animals in the north…” Hope mumbled embarrassedly.
“Doesn’t matter, look-” Utarou declared, pointing towards his corkboard.
“- I’m classifying XP gain in 3 categories. New Achievements, Difficult Achievements and Hunting Achievements.” Utarou declared, pointing at the three lists he’d made from the last week of observing Hope and Julia’s XP gain very carefully.
“Whenever you do something for the first time, you seem to always gain XP, regardless of how mundane it is.” Utarou explained, pointing to his list of things Hope and Julia and their associated XP gains.
“From what I can tell, it’s only around 10 to 50 experience points. Though we’re limited by the fact you’re uh…” Utarou paused as he looked at the already anxious Hope and the gaunt faced Julia.
“Stuck in the village.” Utarou decided before quickly moving on.
“Whenever you achieve something difficult, relatively, you gain XP based on the difficulty. Julia, you've gained at least 8 skill points just from me making you walk outside of the house… but your XP bar just overflows and the skill points don’t seem to go anywhere…” Utarou mumbled as he pointed to his third category of XP gain, hunting.
“Yet Hope, once you’ve done a new task it stops getting you XP, except for slaughtering animals…” Utarou muttered as he pondered the situation.
“I-I never like it you know…” Hope retorted softly.
“Hmm, I think I have an idea.” Utarou smirked.
“W-what?”
“We’re going to put May on a diet!” Utarou declared.
“WHAT?!” Hope and Julia shouted in unison.
…
“You sayin’ I’m fat?” May snorted indignantly as she held Junior in one arm and stirred the large pot of assorted monster meat soup. Utarou was joining the family for dinner, and of course, discussing his future plans.
“Ye-” Utarou began before having his head punched off by Barney.
“Keep yer mouth shut if ya knows whats good for ya.” Barney barked.
“Muwah…” Junior babbled as he tried to grab a knife from the counter.
“Oi! Keep ya grubby mitts to yourself ya little vermin!” May chastised lovingly as she handed Junior to Barney.
“The wee man has a pension for sharp things like his old man it seems!” Barney laughed as he rested Junior on his lap.
“A fine warrior for the next generation, but May you haven’t gained any new skills recently, right?” Utarou asked seriously as she began pouring the meal.
“Can’t say I have, what’s it to ya?” May hissed, throwing the leftover monster parts to Rhiney who was sitting in his corner.
The pink and white dragon had been thoroughly tamed, with a small bed in the family's home and subsisting off of leftovers and the souls of the dead.
“Well I think you might have hidden in your skill tree the ability to heal Julia’s condition. We just need to figure out a way for you to grind out XP.” Utarou explained as May gave him the smallest and worst portion of the soup she could.
It was soup, so, this mostly consisted of the bits she’d scoop out and wouldn’t even give to Rhiney.
“I dunno what ya thinkin’, ya can’t just decide you want XP, just a thing what happens naturally.” Barney said, shaking his head.
“Oh? Oh! Really now? Tell me, May, how much experience do you get from preparing that soup you so lovingly prepare every day?” Utarou asked with a smirk.
“Nun, and you knew that already you little bastard.” May sneered annoyed at Utarou’s antics.
“And Barney, how much experience do you get from preparing the soup?” Utarou continued.
“Uh, I dunno, some?” Barney shrugged.
“Thus! We need to get May doing something she’s never done!” Utarou declared.
“Be carefully with ya next words boy.” May sneered as she stirred her soup.
“EXER-” Utarou began before being swiftly cut off by Barney. Specifically, his head being cut off.
“Thank you darlin’.” May sighed as Utarou regenerated another head.
“Fine, fine, but I need to figure out how to optimize your XP gain. You WILL cure Julia and we WILL save this town from the bastard Adam!” Utarou declared.
“Yeah… you better because we ain’t got nowhere to run if you mess this up.” May scowled.