I took Ralph’s adventurer’s card from him and immediately looked over his stats.
Ralph
Class Affinity: paladin
HP: 28
Strength: 10
Vitality: 31
MP: 10
Agility: 11
Unique Skills: divine protection
Normal Skills: divine strike, protector’s roar
His stats were good—not that that was really any surprise.
It was hard to believe that he was still out there hunting goblins every day with stats like these. If he started hunting other kinds of monsters in earnest, I had a feeling his stats would improve rapidly.
When I’d seen him fight, it had seemed like he’d been pretty low on HP, vitality, and agility, but I could tell from looking at his stats that it wasn’t a matter of capability; his knee injury was clearly holding him back big time.
“Well? If you’re done, then give it back!” Ralph demanded.
“Your stats are pretty high—though that’s not surprising, considering you’re a paladin. I’d better be careful not to fall behind once you heal that knee injury.”
“You think these stats are high...? My strength’s only 10, though. I thought that sounded pretty low.”
“I’ve only ever seen my own stats, so I can’t tell you if that’s objectively high or low. Let me see yours too, Hester.”
Next, I took Hester’s card.
I would have been pretty shocked if her stats were all higher than mine, but there was no telling what I’d find.
Hester
Class Affinity: mage
HP: 13
Strength: 7
Vitality: 8
MP: 41
Agility: 9
Unique Skills: MP recovery
Normal Skills: magic overflow
Unsurprisingly, all of my stats were higher than Hester’s except for MP and agility. That being said...if it weren’t for the poisonous plants, then she’d have had me beat in every stat.
“Not surprised to see that you’ve got an insane amount of MP,” I said.
“Well, I am a mage, so I’m relieved to see that.”
“By the way, were you told that you had your magic overflow skill at the Heaven’s Blessing Ceremony?” I asked. “You didn’t mention it at all when we were talking about our skills before.”
“I thought that was strange too. The priest at the ceremony didn’t tell me I had that skill. Maybe he just forgot?”
That was certainly a possibility.
It wouldn’t have been the only mistake made at one of those ceremonies, considering that I’d been told my skill was poison resistance when it was actually poison immunity.
There was a big difference between getting someone’s skill wrong and just flat out forgetting to mention a skill altogether, though.
Maybe she didn’t get the skill as a blessing from the ceremony... It’s entirely possible she was just born with it.
“Hey, Hester. Let me see your card too!” Ralph said, taking it and looking over her stats. “Yeah, I figured my stats were better. Does this mean my stats aren’t actually low, then?”
“Probably. They’re certainly a lot higher than mine,” I said.
“Let me see your card too, Chris. I showed you mine, so it’s only fair, right?”
“Sure. I don’t mind,” I said, handing him my adventurer’s card.
I thought he’d be smug after looking at my stats, but instead, he just started shaking his head.
“Wh-Why are your numbers all messed up? Like... Why does your HP say...1221?”
“It’s not 1221; it’s 12 and 21. They make 33 in total,” I explained.
“Why are your stats the only ones that are separated like that? It’s really hard to figure out what the heck they’re supposed to be. Is your adventurer’s card broken or something?”
“This is just a guess, but I think the first set of numbers are my base stats, and the numbers in parentheses are bonuses.”
“Bonuses...? What do you mean, bonuses?”
“You know how I eat those plants every day? They’ve got properties that increase your stats. Well—my stats, at least.”
“You mean all that dead grass you eat has given you those huge bonuses?! That’s not fair! Stop hogging it all to yourself and let me have some!”
“I told you, remember? They’re poisonous. If you want to die, though, then have at it.”
“Ngh... That is so unfair!”
If anything was “unfair,” then from my perspective, it was the fact that Ralph had won the lottery with his paladin affinity.
I’d only managed to grow stronger from the few hints I’d gotten about how to unlock my powers, but I would’ve much preferred to get stronger in the typical way, if I’d had the talent for it.
“Well, that’s the long and short of it. If you want to get stronger from eating plants too, then you’d better get my poison immunity skill,” I said.
“Yeah, but how am I supposed to get that?! Ugh... Who cares? I’ll just keep training so I can get even stronger!”
“Heh. I think that’s probably for the best.”
After a bit of excitement over our stats, we all headed back to the Shangri La Hotel and made our preparations before heading off for magic and swordsmanship training.
Getting a look at Ralph’s stats had given me a new appreciation for how much room he had to grow once he healed his knee injury.
I’d been spending my money on all kinds of things up until now, but going forward, I could focus on saving up for his surgery and only have to worry about the cost of supplies for my plant expeditions.
As Ralph and I sparred with our wooden swords, I felt like I had a handle on my next goal.