The man named Tael sat down in the seat next to me in a grandiose way. His robe fluttered around as he placed his feet upon the table. Despite the fact that parties are supposed to be made up of people on equal footing, this guy is acting like they're the most important person here.
"Well then, Kenji-chan, I am Tael." He pointed to himself and closed his eyes. "It is your pleasure to make my acquaintance. You will call me Tael-sama!" He held a hand out to shake my own.
I looked at him for a second before I spoke. "Why?"
Tael lurched backwards in response to my terse question. "Guh! B-because unlike you I have a level in a class!" He smiled and stood up, fluttering his robe around in an exaggerated manner. "Behold my power! Status!"
With that, a green triangular prism appeared in front of Tael as he revealed his stats to me.
Tael. Level 1.
Strength: 8
Dexterity: 24
Constitution: 10
Mana: 50
Magic Power: 15
Luck: 9
Experience: 0
It's true, this guy actually has a level. Wait a minute... something is off...
"How do you have a level without any experience?" I looked over at him.
A voice spoke behind us. "It's probably because he's a half elf. Half elves naturally have an affinity for magic and some of them start out with a magic casting class like wizard. Of course, full elves start with multiple levels."
Yimmie had snuck up behind us. She was crouched while also staring at Tael's status screen. Unlike myself, this seemed to be normal for her so she made a declaration in monotone.
"Yimmie don't spoil my surprises!" Tael shouted out. It looks like he's blushing a bit.
"Sorry, but you're giving him a hard time and I just wanted to give you one as well." She turned away and began to wave. "Anyway, I'm off work for now so I'll see you later!" She shouted out as she walked towards the entrance.
Tael watched Yimmie like a hawk, waiting for her to finally step out so that he would not be interrupted. "A-Ahem... Now that our... interruption... has left, show me your own status screen! Though you are a level zero, not all are created equal unfortunately. You can see by my superiority! Fufufu!"
While it would make me very happy to join another party and forget about this guy, I don't exactly have many options so I may as well go along with it.
"Status." I reluctantly spoke aloud as my green prism appeared.
Tael began to look up and down my screen while going "Hmm…" and playing with his hat the entire time until he suddenly stopped at an attribute.
"Hey… you almost have as much mana as me… what the hell, man?" Tael muttered.
"Huh?" I looked at him. "Why does that matter?"
"Eh? Did I say something? Don't mind me. I was just thinking out loud." He waved his hand as if to dispel my suspicions.
I put on as blank of a face as I could. This guy just wants to stroke his ego.
Once he seemed satisfied with my stats, he turned to me and crossed his arms. "Next, I want you to swipe your hand from right to left with the screen open!"
"Why?"
"Just do it already!" He stomped his foot.
"O-okay."
Taken aback by his sudden snap at me, I swiped my hand from right to left. With a strange twisting motion, my status screen began to display new information.
Tael pushed me to the side. "Ah-ha! Here we go. As a level zero you may not have class levels like myself, but you do have some mundane classes in your collection!"
"Mundane classes?" I repeated. I was never told about this. Yimmie never told me about these nor did God. What do these do?
He nodded enthusiastically. "Yes, mundane classes. Basically, they're classes that cannot be gained through experience points like combat classes such as wizard. Mundane classes are classes that can only be gained through continued practice over a period of time. These don't give you levels or ability score increases like normal classes do, but they provide you with certain benefits that can range from nearly useless to fairly useful. Let's see some of yours then."
He's right. I do have a few of these "mundane classes" on this screen. Each of these classes seem to pertain to certain things that I have done many times over my life.
The mundane classes are as follows:
Shopkeeper Tier 1
+You are capable of stocking shelves faster.
Merchant Tier 1
+You find good deals easier.
Bookworm Tier 1
+You can read books slightly faster than a normal person can.
Cook Tier 1
+Your cooking tastes slightly better than a normal person's cooking.
These look mildly useful, but at the same time I don't see how they're going to really have an effect on my life. Wait, there's one more class here…
"What is a Hikikomori?" Tael turned and asked me.
Oh no. Please don't reveal my past to the whole room.
On my mundane class screen, there is one more class.
Hikikomori Tier 3
+You can function for longer without sleep than a normal person.
+You can function normally on half as much sleep as a normal person.
+You only need 2 meals a day instead of 3.
"Woah dude, this class is actually pretty useful!" He leaned over and looked at me. "What did you do to get this?"
I immediately closed my status screen as I nervously looked around. "Nothing! Nope I never did anything. Wow that's crazy, it must be a glitch or something! Haha! Let's just forget we saw that, shall we?" Despite how much I am blushing, I fervently denied ever having seen that class. I must brush this aside as much as possible as quickly as I can. I can't afford to be found out by this guy.
"What's a 'glitch'?" He looked at me as if I was crazy.
"I meant a bug." I waved my hand around.
"A bug? Where?" He looked around the room quickly.
"N-No not that kind of bug! Just forget it! I'll tell you some time later!" I decided to leave my problems to the future me as I usually do.
"Well… Alright, I guess. It's no big deal. To get to tier 3 in a mundane class you probably spent a long time doing whatever it was. Let me show you my mundane classes." Tael said as he swiped his own hand from right to left.
Tael's screen shifted and I can now see his mundane classes. Albeit Tael only has one mundane class, he still has one and it seems that it's also on the highest tier.
Bookworm Tier 3
+You can read books slightly faster than a normal person can.
+You can memorize details from reading far faster than a normal person can.
+You always flip to the page you want to while reading books.
He shrugged and shook his head. A smug smiled plastered itself across his face. "While you may have me beat in the mundane classes category, that just tells me that you have spent your time doing things other than adventuring! Too bad for you!"
"But... You have zero experience as well. You've never adventured either."
He waved a hand in front of his face as he kept his smile. "That's besides the point."
I kept a blank expression once again. Considering I have nothing better to do, I may as well just continue talking to this guy. The information he is giving me is fairly useful, after all.
He placed his hands on the table. I opened up my status screen again in anticipation of what he would request of me now. "Alright... Now that we've seen your mundane classes, swipe from the left to the right for me."
Since the last time he instructed me to do this was beneficial to me, I decided to just go along with him this time without asking.
My screen shifted twice, from my default screen that showed my attributes and level to a new screen with a multitude of nodes on it. Each node had different words.
He leaned forward and toyed with his hat. "Hmm… You don't have many classes available here, but… Oh! Look at this, you have wizard as an available class to level up in! Were you studying magic in your free time?"
Now that he mentions it, I did buy a book about magic and its fundamentals. It cost me an entire month's worth of allowance which was very painful to spend.
"I read a book on magic fundamentals, but it was really complicated so I didn't really understand it."
"Hm hm." He nodded enthusiastically as he cupped his chin. "That makes sense since you can't actually cast spells yet. Your grasp on magic is only in the most basic form currently. Behold my hold on magic!" Tael shouted as he swiped his own hand twice and revealed his classes.
A single node was glowing brighter than the others. That node read the words "wizard level 1."
"Are you not amazed?" Tael excitedly looked over to me, as if he expected me to praise him.
"That's… neat." I slowly nodded.
We both just stared at one another for a second. The atmosphere in this room is awkward to say the least.
Tael eventually broke the silence.
"W-well, not everyone can understand the greatness of being a level one wizard!" He crossed his arms and looked away. "Truly I feel sorry for you. Perhaps one day you shall be able to comprehend my greatness."
I just watched as he floundered in place.
"Alright. I accept you as a party member!" He turned towards me and held his hand out to shake once more. "Prepare yourself because we are going on a quest today!"
Finally he said something I wanted to hear. I'm going on a quest today! Am I going to save a kidnapped person or hunt a legendary beast that resides nearby?
I took his hand and shook it. "What are we going to do?"
Tael's excited and energetic face quickly shifted to a simple smile. "Simple monster slaying." He shrugged. "It's not really a quest but we get experience and payment for it."
"Oh I see…" I looked away.
W-well, I shouldn't have expected us to do anything more. I'm still level zero and despite the fact that this guy is level one I doubt it will make much of a difference.
"So when are we going to head out?" I stood up from my seat, tightening up my belt as I gave one last glance to my status screen.
"Considering it's already almost noon... I think we should gather our things and set out as soon as possible."
"Alright! Let's do this!" I hopped up excitedly. Finally, I'm going on an adventure!