Chapter 110: Heavy Laborer

Arthur forced himself awake early the next morning, beating everyone else to the meal area and beginning the day’s cooking. The others would have probably waited if he slept in a bit, especially in consideration of the day Arthur had yesterday. But he couldn’t take the chance that someone would take over the cooking. One barely edible meal a week was enough for Arthur. Eventually, there would be other cooks in this town, or enough time for him to give lessons on how to properly apply heat and time to food even without skills. Until that time, he’d cook. His professional dignity demanded it.

Arthur made a double portion of boiled grains, supplemented with bits and pieces of the various vegetables that Kout, the scavenger, had been able to find. The final result wasn’t exactly breakfast, but nobody minded. They were burning a lot of calories out here at the edge of the world, and the food disappeared just as fast as Ella’s cooking. Lily was the worst of all of them, in that sense. Arthur thought he could see her grow taller as she sucked down bowl after bowl of grains before drifting off on unsteady, over-fed legs.

The tea was strong, pepped, and overfull with boba. By the time both it and the food were gone, everyone had transitioned from looking slightly haggard to appearing ready to tackle the day. They went to grab their things and formed their regular groups. Arthur’s group was the only exception to the pattern. It was picking up an extra member whether he liked it or not.

“You really could just work on your wells, if you wanted.” Arthur tried to seem nonchalant in the face of Mizu’s obviously protective behavior. He wasn’t embarrassed, or so he told himself. He assured himself once more that he just didn’t like to put people out. “I really don’t need a guard.”

“Yes you do,” Mizu said. “Yesterday you didn’t have one and you made friends with a Prata.”

“I was fine!” Arthur said.

“You were. And you’re going to stay fine. We all talked about it. You’re the mayor. And the mayor gets an honor guard when he goes out into the dangerous wild, from now on.”

“It’s not that dangerous! And I’m only kind of the mayor. It’s not like I have a single responsibility related to that.”

“You should give up, Arthur.” Lily was running the empty cart hard over bumps in the terrain. “Mizu’s not wrong. And she wouldn’t back down even if she was.”

“But…”

“No buts. We aren’t going to let you get in Arthur-trouble for a while. At least until we have a wall, and you can get into safer town trouble.” Lily looked up at Mizu, who nodded. “That kind is fine. We all like that kind.”

Milo was way in front of the brick-cutting part of the job by the time they got there, courtesy of a new skill the system had given him during Arthur’s adventures. Mine, mine, mine! wasn’t a real mining skill, Milo explained, but gave him some perks in that direction and some bonuses to making things with materials he had processed himself. To Arthur, the skill sounded like it was a rabbit-trail away from his primary class, but Milo was pleased with it, and Arthur had to assume he knew his own business.

Meanwhile, the skill had allowed Milo to cut a truly astounding number of bricks.

“Easiest skill to level ever. Hands down. I’m at level five in it already. Watch this.” Milo brought his hammer and down on the chisel, splitting off five feet of rock wall in one go. He then dropped into the ever-widening trench Lily had suggested, threw out another several well-aimed chisel strikes, and in the space of less than a minute had produced dozens of bricks. “Start at the back of the pile, okay? Those are the bricks I cut first. You might have to shake them a little to break them apart if they’ve mended.”

With the demonstration of his new skill finished, Milo got out of the trench and got to carrying the rocks himself. Rhodia was hard at work in a visible way when they got back to town, working a half dozen large kilns at the same time as she baked brick after brick and laid what she could down into the rough outline of a road. The stamper was hard at work around town, compacting soil for both the roads and the buildings. Even just that was a big help, giving them flatter, more uniform ground to move over once they got back to town.

Midday, Arthur stopped and made everyone tea that had been carefully formulated to help with the task of hiking while carrying heavy loads. It seemed to help. Everyone else focused on their own tasks for the rest of the day, keeping their skills sharp and farming, smithing, and well-improving to not fall behind.

And so the days passed.

The Pratas did not make any more appearances, and the whole town got by on fish and scavenged vegetables as they spent most of their time carrying Slapstones back and forth from the quarry. At the end of the fourth day, the difference was staggering.

“I can’t believe it’s the same town.” Arthur gawked at what they had accomplished over their half-week of work. Almost all the primary residences had all the walls they’d needed, even if they were mostly windowless. Rhodia and Milo had assured them it would be easy to chip out the frames when she finally got time to make glass panes to stick in them. The better part of the houses had roofs, courtesy of the hunter and lumberjack working in tandem to make the best use of the wood the latter had cut. “My bet is that this will all be done tomorrow morning.”

“Not quite,” Lily said. “We need two more buildings. Big ones. That should take two more days.”

“Two more?” Arthur looked out at the town and finally noticed the two large building-footprints the stamper had carved out just a bit closer to the gate-side of the village. “I didn’t know about this. What are those for?”

“Well, one of them is a church. Not that we have a cleric yet, but every town needs one. We can use it for a storehouse until we actually need it.” Milo walked up besides Arthur and leaned heavily on his shoulder. “Man, I’m beat.”

“Not as beat as me.” Rhodia walked up, covered in clay and dirt. “Slapstone doesn’t need heat to mine. Try working next to big ovens all day sometime.”

“That’s my whole job, Rhodia!” Milo threw up his arms. “My entire class.”

“Oh.” Rhodia blinked. “Dammit, you are right. You win this one. And Arthur, you don’t know about the second building because we haven’t told you yet. It’s a surprise. Just get back to cooking, now.”

Arthur did. They still didn’t have a lot of variety in terms of available food, and that wouldn’t change until the first of the crops came in. But they did have plenty of food, courtesy of a fast-improving scavenger and a master fisherman working overtime to keep them fed. They had hard, defensible structures now, and it was looking more and more like the Slapstone would hold out long enough to give them a wall well ahead of schedule.

Everything was good. Everything was fine. And in that moment of perfection, Arthur even had at least a pretty good guess of what the surprise building would be. Before he could bask in the glow, a faraway scream sounded. It grew louder and louder, eventually filling the air before a whole section of newly-laid brick road suddenly sunk several inches deeper into the ground.

“Dammit, Karbo! I just built that!” Rhodia screamed, going to examine the new crater where her hard work had once lived. “Just today!”

“Oh.” Karbo scratched his head, dropping a much smaller infernal from one arm as he did so. The young woman plopped onto the ground face-first, then stood up and gave Karbo an unsteady, exasperated gaze as she tried to steady her terrified legs. Karbo grinned. “Sorry about that. Arthur, is that fish? It smells good.”

“Yes, Karbo. And there’s plenty. But shouldn’t you introduce your friend?”

“Oh, right!” Karbo clapped his huge red hands. “This is my niece, Karra. Daughter of my brother in the capital. She sent a letter saying she was coming to the frontier, and I knew just the place for her.” Karbo reached out and took an entire cooked fish from Arthur, who was suddenly glad the day’s catch had been plentiful. The infernal took a big bite, continuing to talk as he chewed. “And here we are. Didn’t take any time at all, did it?”

“No, it didn’t. I wish it had.” The girl brushed some dust off her clothes and did her best to make herself look presentable. “That was absolutely terrifying, Uncle Karbo. How do you not run out of majicka when you do that?”

Karbo looked confused. “It doesn’t use much. It’s just jumping, you know?”

“Just jumping…” Arthur said.

Karbo lived his life surrounded by lesser physical specimens, which was fine. Everyone benefited from his athleticism. It was the part where he seemed to regularly forget he was in a whole different class of superpowered that got frustrating.

“Anyway. I can’t stay long, so I’ll just sit back and eat while she introduces herself. You can vote on taking her or not before I go. That way, I can take her back if she doesn’t fit.”

Everyone was a bit quieter after that. New frontier communities were a fragile thing. The initial settlement was a free-for-all that anyone could join, but that was only until the first roads and buildings started to reach completion. After that, there was a grace period where the town could accept or reject new settlers depending on their situation, a measure meant to preserve the balance for settlements that had finished the hardest part of frontier life.

They were at that stage now, they realized. All the new houses and roads meant they could reject this girl if they wanted. And it wasn’t as far-fetched that they might have to as it would seem. Niceness was good, but it sometimes took a back seat to the realities of surviving. Arthur took a deep breath and got back to dishing up food for everyone, silently praying that the girl would have a useful class.

“Well first, don’t look so worried,” Karra said, not at all shy about speaking in front of a crowd of strangers. “I’m a big girl. If I don’t fit, I don’t fit. I’ll be fine. And to start off with the bad, I’m low-leveled right now.  I’m only at level twelve.”

“That’s not so bad,” Lily said. “I’m under level five.”

“You are a special case, Lily. Here from the beginning,” Mizu said, nodding awkwardly at Karra as she did. “But twelve isn’t that low.”

“It isn’t. I can still do plenty.” Karra lifted her arm and flexed, highlighting her muscle and veins. She was definitely not weak. “And my class is Heavy Laborer, which…”

“Oh, gods. Really?” Milo said. “You should have led off with that. We were all worried you’d be a Pencil Sharpener.”

Arthur looked around at the relief on all the faces around him, confused. Karra caught the look, and leaned over and whispered something to her uncle.

“Oh, he’s Arthur.” Karbo waved one of his hands through the air in some kind of gesture of resignation. “He doesn’t know anything. Just show him your screen. It’s faster.”

Karra shrugged, focused on the invisible for a few seconds, then flicked something towards Arthur.

Karra Workmaster

Level 12 Heavy Laborer

Stats:

STR 16

VIT 14

DEX 8

PER 8

WIS 4

INT 4

Primary Skills: I Can Do That, Hard Day’s Work, Living Wagon

Achievements: Living on the Sledge, Wrecking Ball, Oops, You Needed That?, Tools are for the Weak