"Are you there?" I called out into the void of my mind, waiting for a response.
"Hmm..?" The familiar voice responded when prompted.
"Is everything alright? You normally say something when I level up..." I posed the question I had been thinking of, the entire time while fighting and updating my status system had stayed silent. Somewhat unusual for the talkative personality.
...
"Mmm, yes well I suppose there is something wrong, but the oddest thing is I haven't the faintest idea what is wrong."
I had no idea what he was talking about, but then again I'm not very familiar with what kind of troubles a disembodied system could possibly have.
"What do you mean?"
"Do you remember how I told you that I could use gathered energy to enhance your powers? Well the issue seems to be stemming from there, I'm running out of energy for some reason. I would have thought with you killing monsters more actively we'd be seeing the opposite. Truly perplexing."
His words alarmed me. Running out of power? It couldn't possibly be that I'd lose my system just days after getting it.
"What happens when you run out of power, will I lose access?" I posed my only concern to him.
"No, I'm afraid that's not possible" This sounded like good news, but for some reason he seemed bitter. "Just like how I can't access your status, I can't interfere with your operation of the system either. Normally systems like me operate on an individual realm basis, gathering energy and staying within self-sufficiency, only at the very beginning or in exceptional cases do we ever have a need to take energy from elsewhere. Once we starting running deficits, we'll be taking energy from the other realms and I dare not imagine the Goddess will be too happy about it."
"When will that happen?"
"It should happen by the time you hit level fourteen, but I would ask you to put a hold on leveling while I figure this out. " The system spoke grimly while making a ridiculous request.
I scoffed at the idea, this was my power and he wanted me to ignore it.
The system seemed very concerned, but from what I understood this didn't seem like my problem. Although I understood enough about the situation to know that my doubled rewards were pretty much the culprit. System could tell it was linked to my leveling, but it seems like he still didn't know why it was linked. And I wasn't about to divulge that information quite yet.
I hummed to myself while thinking, skinning the overgrown muck rats one by one, and skillfully extracting the gall-bladders like Cal wanted. Sebast, Art, Kalm, and Orion did similarly to the hides, but weren't interested in the organs like I was. Taking about an hour even with all of us working in tandem. The over three dozen bodies proving to be quite a bit of work even with five people.
We each took a stack of the grey hides, rolling them up like rugs and carrying some in each arm as we trekked through the grassy fields back to the gate and then through the farmland and city, carrying our goods to sell at the adventurer's guild. The ample rolls of tough leather earned us roughly six gold this time in all, a gold two silver each which tracked pretty much onto what we had made per hide last time. Similarly I estimated that with Cal, the bloody bag of rat organs I was bringing to him would probably earn me an additional six silver. This would be enough to start furnishing our home, getting us a nice bed at the very least.
The party again agreed to a week's break before hunting again, something that made me frown. We waited a week to do an hour's worth of hunting, and now we were going to wait another week? I brought this up, but the votes were unanimous against me, they wanted a break and they had earned more than enough to justify a week's time off...
Something clicked in my mind, a flash of realization. This party wasn't something that was going to work long-term. Their goals were too fundamentally different from my own. We had mutual interests currently, yes, but I got stronger continuously while they were entirely reliant on wealth to buy better gear. They didn't benefit as much from hunting repeatedly like I did, since it was just an unnecessary risk and they were in no rush. Most of them probably didn't intend to become powerful adventurers, being content to make a good living as safely as they could in a dangerous profession.
I was on their level less than a month ago, now I was more than twice as fast, and twice as strong. From what I heard copper ranks stayed that way for a year, advancing slowly based on reputation and a record built up over time, gearing themselves safely before moving onto stronger foes... the state of it making me upset. There was no way I could put up with this slow pace for over a year. Slowly my eyes drifted away from the town and back towards the gate lingering in the distance.
I was going to need to start moving alone more often. Perhaps I could also join them when they hunted, but that didn't mean I needed to go back when they did, or that I couldn't hunt on the days they didn't. Resolving myself to become more independent.
Feeling the extra coins in my pocket I picked Belle up from the apothecary, intending to do a little shopping while the day remained young. We needed a bed after all, even though I was starting to grow accustomed to snuggling with Belle up next to the fire.
At the bedmaker's shop, we had an option to custom-order something or picking out one of those on display. The prospect of designing a bed ourselves was tempting to me, but many of the ones they had here were perfectly good looking. Belle tested each of them out, climbing onto one before sprawling out comfortably as I pressed down with my hand on the different wool, feather, and cotton packed mattresses to test their firmness. The mattresses were each built to the shape of the bed, so the type they had was the type you got.
We came upon one of the largest beds they have, able to fit the both of us with room to spare, and complete with a sturdy wooden frame, posts, and headboard. The mattress itself was soft at first, but unusually springy. The salesman explaining that only the top was filled with cotton, while the base of the mattress was manufactured separately and stuffed with Doa feathers. A type of marine bird monster with gigantic feathers, which apparently were what gave the bed its unusual feeling.
It cost an entire gold piece, more than twice the list price of the other beds. At first I was reluctant but seeing Belle lying on it, happily bouncing on the mattress while testing the elasticity, I became happy for another reason. Imagining all the things we could do together on a bed this sized.
Placing the order in with the salesman, we waited while they arranged shipment, loading the frame and mattress separately into a cart before offering us a ride to our home. The coachman talking to us about different types of beds while we sat alongside him near the front.
I decided to put the bed in the living room. We weren't expecting guests anyway, and the side rooms were cold at night, while this let us stay near the fire and made the house no longer look so empty. Seeing the cart driver off while taking Belle by the hand inside, we were going to try this bed out immediately.