Father Graham was at the pulpit again, conducting a service. He looked pretty surprised to see me when I walked in.
From the way he’d cautioned me before about the possibility that my stats wouldn’t have changed, I had a feeling that there probably weren’t many others who came in for ability assessments as often as I did.
To be fair, he didn’t know my master plan, so it must have looked to him like I was just throwing money at the church for no reason.
I gave him a slight bow as I passed the pulpit and entered the room with the crystal; then I rang the bell and took my seat, waiting for someone to come in.
I usually had to wait a few minutes, but today, Father Graham practically came running in from the service he’d been giving as soon as I’d rung the bell.
“Same as last time, please,” I said.
“Another ability assessment...? It hasn’t been very long since your last one. Are you sure you want another one already?” he asked me.
“I think I said this last time too, but I don’t mind if my stats are still the same.”
Father Graham must have thought I was insane—but it didn’t really matter what he thought of me.
Even if none of my stats had increased, that was every bit as valuable a result as if they had.
“Very well,” he finally said after a long pause. “One gold coin and your adventurer’s card, if you please.”
“Sure.” I took both out of my bag and handed them to him.
Every time I came here, I was struck by what a hefty fee the assessment warranted. Was it because it required copious amounts of MP, or just because of how rare the opportunity to get an assessment done was for most people?
I couldn’t help wondering, as usual, if there was any way I could conduct one of these assessments myself.
“The assessment is complete. Even if there hasn’t been a change in your abilities, please note that it isn’t an indicator that the assessment was faulty,” Father Graham warned me.
“It’s okay, I know. I don’t need disclaimers every time I come in.”
“I apologize if my cautions have felt overbearing. Now then, please excuse me.”
With a deep bow of his head, Father Graham left to finish the service.
He must have thought I was overdoing it, but since I at least seemed aware of how strange my behavior was, he didn’t give me too much trouble.
Once he was gone, I checked my stats on the back of my adventurer’s card.
My base HP and strength stats had each increased by one point, but there was no change at all to the numbers in parentheses.
The increase in my base stats probably reflected the growth I’d undergone in the past month of monster hunting. It was a little sad to realize I could achieve the same results from a whole month of hunting all kinds of monsters as I could from just eating a few plants. That was a pretty unflattering reflection of my potential.
To put it another way, though, it said a lot about the power of these poisonous plants that they could have such a dramatic improvement on someone with as little potential as me.
Basically, I could take that to mean that the only meaningful benefit I’d get from fighting monsters was to gain more combat experience—because it certainly wasn’t going to get me far in terms of stat growth.
I could also conclude from this experiment that there were no performance-enhancing plants mixed in with the fifteen samples I’d eaten earlier.
What worried me was the possibility that drying the plants had ruined their effectiveness, but I quickly dismissed that thought. There was no point thinking about that now. I’d just have to eat the other fifteen samples and do another ability assessment.
If I could pinpoint the exact plants that raised my HP and vitality stats, then I could get more of them during my next trip to Patia Forest and increase my stats even further.
I left the church feeling satisfied, because even though my stats hadn’t improved, I knew that everything was going according to plan.
After stopping by my usual stall to buy meat skewers for three, I headed back to the hotel.
The second I walked into the room, though, I was pulled up short by the sight of Hester and Ralph facing me as they sat seiza-style on the floor.
“What are you guys doing?” I asked.
“Hester made m— Ow! What the hell was that for?!”
“Quiet, Ralph! Ahem... Chris, we can comfortably slay a goblin now, so please form a party with us!”
At the beginning of their adventuring career, they’d been coming back every night absolutely beat, but lately, they seemed to be taking care of their daily quests pretty handily. They’d even been having strategy meetings every day. I’d kind of figured they were getting close to meeting the benchmark I’d set for them, and I guess today was the day.
Their timing wasn’t bad, actually. Things had just come to a natural stopping point for me—temporarily, at least—but... This announcement had still come a lot earlier than I’d been expecting.
“Yeah? Well, I did make a promise, so... Sure. Let’s form a party.”
“You mean it?! Thank you!”
“I’ve got just one condition: Before we officially form this party, I want to see for myself that you’ve met the requirement I set. Let me accompany you on a goblin-hunting quest tomorrow,” I said.
“Of course! We really appreciate you teaming up with us,” said Hester. Then, turning to Ralph, she added, “Go on, Ralph!”
“Yeah, uh... What she said.”