Chương 9

A week had passed since Sobelle earned her money, and she hadn't earned a single Lev since that fateful day. Men came to the river in small batches so there were always physical workers left available, which Sobelle thought was a bit unfortunate. She wanted to work some more but that was fine, she could always earn more coins in the future.

Sobelle shrugged off the thoughts of money and focused on what was in front of her, she had finished the rest of the Gods' daily tasks earlier and was about to finish the last few steps she needed to be done with her sprint. [+2 Strength!] [+1 Endurance!] [+1 Dexterity!] She stopped for a moment and eyed the stats had gained. It always took her a week before the Gods saw fit to reward her with new stats and what she had seen so far was always the same; she got 2 [Endurance] and 1 for everything else.

Things changed this time around and she instead netted 2 strength and 1 Endurance. Why? She wasn't sure. Was it because the Gods wanted to reward her with something related to the stat like last time? Possibly. Sobelle opened her system to check on her stats, which led her to the conclusion that she only needed two more points for her [Strength] and the Gods would reward her with another skill. The same went for her [Dexterity] as both sat at a comfortable 8....

Stats: [Stats] [Strength: 8] [Endurance: 10] [Dexterity: 8] [Intelligence: 5] [Wisdom: 6] [LeveL: 5] [Stat Points: 15]... It would only take her another week before her [Strength] reached the fabled 10 and she'd be rewarded with another skill. Sobelle wondered what it would be as she made her way back home. Her thoughts drifted to her first skill, which had made her incredibly tenacious. So much so that Sobelle trivialized every physical work she'd done after she got it.

So would the skill she'd get from her [Strength] stat be the same? Would she get even stronger as a reward? If so, then she may just have a chance at beating her older brothers in a fight! Especially if she had [Inexhaustible Vessel] alongside it like Sobelle hoped she would.

"Hey Sobelle, my wife needs some help carrying our clothes to the river. I'll pay ya some Shusks if you can carry two buckets there."

"How about a few fruits on top of that and I'd carry everything?" Sobelle stopped and decided to negotiate. She'd been stumped with work recently and she'd already memorized counting from 1 to 4 so doing any sort of work was welcome.

"Now you're forcing me to do nothing but accept that!" The words he spoke sounded harsh, but his tone was happy. Sobelle didn't know what to make of it.

"Okay, if you can bring all the buckets to the river, then I'll give you Shusks and fruits."

"I'll do it." Sobelle headed for the man's house, talked to his wife, and started her back and forth trip. By the end, she'd brought exactly 4 buckets worth of clothing to the river bank, and all the women who washed clothes there either gave her strange looks or nods of appreciation. Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

'Some of them are talking behind my back and saying how I don't act like a woman at all...' Sobelle didn't think this was a bad thing, if anything, this was exactly what she wanted them to think. If everyone thought that she didn't act like a girl then good, it was exactly how she wanted them to look at her. The women may shame her for not acting lady-like, and being shamed was fine. It didn't really hurt her physically so it might as well not do anything.

She came back home to Creyla nursing her belly, the woman had a small smile as she caressed a non-existent bump. Was she pregnant again? It had been a while since her last child so Sobelle assumed the woman had gone barren. She had thought wrong, it seemed.

"I got fruits and Shusks." Sobelle placed it on the table and left without looking at Creyla. And the woman hadn't bothered to acknowledge her either. Sobelle found more odd jobs around the village, though most of them didn't pay that much. She got a single fruit from handling a single bucket of water, another fruit when she gathered dead trees and dried weeds, and a few Shusks after she worked with a few people at nipping away weeds from a freshly harvested wheat farm.

The last one got Sobelle to do another stop back home before she finally left for her alcove. Today was the day the Gods would test her once more, and this time? She was ready. She had learned the sequence thoroughly and knew it intimately. She easily filled the questions and submitted them in record time. Counting up to four was instinct to her now, it was so easy that she didn't even need to think about it much when doing it. [Congratulations on completing the test in such a fast manner! It seems that this is way too easy for you so you will soon be tested with harder tests! This is a good thing, as it will mean you will grow much faster.] This was the Gods' response to her efficiency in answering, Sobelle smiled when she saw it. She was being acknowledged by deities, and they thought that she needed harder tests and trials. Which wasn't a bad thing at all! It meant that the Gods saw her as someone smart and competent, someone who was worthy in their eyes. [Calculating Reward...] Sobelle had also earned another reward from them, further proving that she was someone destined to be great. She patiently waited for what the Gods would give her and then paused when she saw it was another quest. Well, that wasn't a bad thing. They wanted to test her. That's all. [As of right now, you aren't growing physically fast enough. You need to eat more, and get more muscles, and ensure that you are ready for the upcoming war. To do this, you need to eat a lot of protein, your current meals are well balanced but they are not enough. You need an excess amount of meat if you wish your body to grow strong and healthy.] And this quest wasn't cruel at all, it encouraged her to eat more meat. The only problem was that Sobelle had no clue how to do that, her family couldn't even afford a single pig leg from merchants so for her to constantly eat meat was a bit too much. [+1 Intelligence!] [+1 Wisdom!] Suddenly, Sobelle's mind was flooded with knowledge she had never known or seen before. The foreign data blurred her eyes for a few seconds as her brain focused solely on processing it, then things cleared and Sobelle looked at her hands profoundly. She felt like a new woman. Snares, pitfalls, and fish traps were the things the Gods had given her. It was the answer to her problem. How could she eat so much meat when her family couldn't even afford a single pig leg?

It was simple, really; she just needed to catch that meat herself. And she'd love to, but Sobelle just felt so... Enlightened that she stood in place for several moments, she did nothing but stare at her arms. The Gods had blessed her once more, and while this wasn't a skill, it was still something important. Come to think of it, she'd rather have this than some skill. Skills were useful, but knowledge on how to gain food was priceless. No amount of work would have gotten her so much meat, fruits? Yeah.

But no meat.

'Okay, I need to get moving and start making traps. Hopefully I get something tomorrow morning.' Sobelle had heard of people who made traps before, and some of the men in the village had also tried to do it in the past. But her father's stories didn't feed her and the traps everyone made weren't effective and easily got destroyed. Sobelle hadn't ever heard of someone making a fish trap either, not from merchants or her father. So it was possible she was the first person to ever see it. The Gods were truly kind.

She mustn't disappoint them. For the next hour, Sobelle gathered materials. First, she searched the earth for the perfect set of stones.

"This looks good enough?" Sobelle muttered as she lifted a stone that felt lighter than the rest with one arm. And struggled carrying another rock on the other, "I can knap with these two I think?" She carried two other stones that felt light for good measure. Next up were the materials; she plucked dead, dried weeds from the earth, snapped saplings that had been for days, and collected other long, fibrous plants that had died and dried out in the sun.

The general rule when it came to making fiber was simple: if a plant could stand tall in the sun even after dying, then that meant they were hardy and tough. Perfect for ropes.