"Let's just take it easy," I reiterated, "One zombie at a time."
By the way, I did equip Cook. The first skill for Cook is something called Collect. I don't know what Collect does, but it didn't seem like something that would help us survive. I still couldn't shake the feeling that there was something in Cook that could get us past our predicament. Thus, after casting a spell on her sword and stunning the monster with Harm Undead, I equipped Cook as the battle was ending.
I got Cook up two more levels, while her Swordsman reached level six. Her skills were still a mystery to me, but my own skills were Increase Food Drop and Basic Cooking. Basic Cooking wasn't really a skill at all. Rather, it was something passive that didn't need to be cast at all. Simply put, I had the knowledge to cook in my head. I already had some knowledge, but as I thought about ingredients, more knowledge came to me than I remembered I possessed, including details about food that didn't exist in my old world.
When I described this to Lydia, she nodded. "That's what happened to me when you gave me the sword. I suddenly knew how to wield it. I feel like if I keep using it, I can get even better!"
So, that's how it was. Jobs weren't just special skills, but the basic knowledge of the job too. There was probably a Moderate Cooking skill and an Advanced Cooking skill too. As I leveled up, even if it was done by killing monsters and not actually cooking, my levels would skyrocket. It seemed like every job had two means of gaining experience. Killing monsters was the most traditional way, and it benefited every job. The second way was job-specific. For example, a Cook gained experience by cooking. A Courtesan gained experience by… well, you know. The point being, in this world, one could bypass having to learn to do something simply by leveling the job.
That would seem really OP, but people usually only had one job, and could only get that job with the ability of a priest. It was expensive and difficult. Then, you'd need to pay a soldier to help you fight mobs. Meanwhile, you'd be at risk for your life the entire time. That's what it'd take to rapidly level up in a field with monsters. I could quickly see why this was not something most people did.
Still, the important thing was that I had learned Increased Food Drop. That meant that monsters we killed could drop food like they dropped other items. However, drops were rare, and we only found maybe 1 after an entire day of killing monsters. But… if that drop was edible, the level should be much higher. That meant I needed to find a monster that would drop some sort of food. Neither the Living Armor nor zombies would be dropping any food I'd want.
"We need to push on to the seventh floor," I told her.
Our only hope was that there was something in this dungeon that dropped edible food. I had abandoned the thought that we could complete the dungeon before we starved. Lydia nodded, and we continued to explore the 6th level, desperately looking for the staircase down.