Chapter Six

It was day seven and he was level seven. Joe was pretty sure he wasn't going to be able to keep up this record. If the cost increased by five times every five levels, by the time he made it to level ten and tried to fight for level eleven, it would be costing him two thousand five hundred experience for that single level, and he would only be getting ten experience per kill. He would have to kill two hundred fifty slimes. Two and a half times what he needed to do at level one. Not too difficult. But at fifteen, he would be needing twelve thousand experience at fifteen experience per kill. He would need to kill a whopping eight hundred plus! This… it's going to get insane if it keeps going up like this. What am I going to do?

Joe sighed and dropped his head back to the headrest. It flipped back, and kept going as he quickly jerked his head back and remembered that he was now in the land of no headrests and if there were any headrests, he would likely not want to drop his head back onto it since it would likely be made of gold or some other metal or wood. That would certainly be unpleasant to drop his head back on.

Joe quickly prepared for the day, slipping back to his room to pick up his spoon spear and satchel. He came out into early morning light and jogged down the road, as he came out of the village proper and came into the field that stretched out between the village and the forest, he saw several young teens standing in a loose circle. They looked towards him and became excited, so he waved to them and gave them a cheery smile.

"Hello, boys. Good to see you."

They gave a quick and excited greeting back, each pushing and fighting to come to the front. Why do they want to see me so bad? Is the village really that provincial? He smiled, waved, and continued on his way, his walk turning into a quick jog. But even as he finished greeting the group of boys, his eyes came back forward and caught sight of another boy the same age as the group he had passed. He stood alone, further off the path and looked at him burning with much more than excitement. Confusion painted his face for a bit but he quickly replaced it with a friendly smile and waved and offered him the same greeting he had given the group of boys. Always one everywhere, right? Why is there always one who is excluded? Humanity is just... weird. Joe passed the lone boy and disappeared into the forest.

The next three days were a blur of slime genocide and ooze everywhere overlaid with a haze of sweat, blood, and exhaustion. He saw those boys every morning as he passed them and he would sometimes see them when he returned from the forest. He would always wave to them with a friendly smile and greeting, usually having to offer two greetings since the lone boy was always ostracized. They always responded quickly and excitedly.

At the end of his third day in the forest, he had finally hit level ten that day and was a bit worried about what he would find the next day as he started his journey into the teens. He had taken a look at his status to make sure and everything was exactly as he had expected. He took a deep breath in relief before returning home. He came from the forest and waved to the group of boys but decided to throw a bone to the lonely boy by stopping to shake his hand and clap him companionably on his shoulder. The boy obviously didn't know how to shake hands, an obviously Earth human custom, but he guided the boy through it and smiled at him over his success.

The boy seemed to grow more nervous throughout this process and he tried to reassure the boy that it was all OK. But then the boy did something surprising, a look of patent fear on his face as he did so.

"You don't need to be afraid, kid! It's fine. I'm not ... what the?!?"

Joe blinked in shock when he saw the boy had raised up his status. He blinked at the boy in surprise then eagerly looked at the boy's window. Ooh... red. Different color. Then what... wait, huh? He stared at the screen and saw that he could not read the boys screen, the lettering seemed to swim and wriggle across the screen in strange loops that would not stay still, each letter wiggling like a twisting worm. Moving letters? Why? Joe squinted a bit, then watched in shock as the squirming letters seemed to drum up into easily coherent words.