198 Chapter 144: Getting Amy to Decide on a Job

It had been a couple of days since they had gotten back to the hub city and returned to doing their own things for the time being. They decided to take a five day break and get everything organized and settled that they had to before heading back out to go explore one of the new territories in the mountain range area that they had all to themselves. They weren't sure how strong the monsters in the area would be, but they knew that it would be challenging considering the fact that the territories seemed to be getting stronger the further away from town that you got.

Before leaving James Town to head back they did set up a few things that should be arranged by the time they got back. Henry was able to start the process of designing an underground piping system that he would talk over with some experts during the break. Since Lilly had the little baby prairie dog in Nibbles to help out it would be a lot easier for them to get the underground structures set up without disturbing anything else. They needed the plumbing if they didn't want their entire town to smell like crap after a few months of people living there. Of course the system had quite a few interesting things to get rid of waste without damaging the environment that they'd have to look into. The last thing they needed was for another set of purple haze to envelope the area because they weren't taking care of the environment.

Lilly was also able to set up the four giant lizards around the town as gate keepers. Of course on their own they wouldn't do much but stall for time against powerful or large groups of adventurers, but they were of a far higher level than anything else in the area so their presence helped keep away any beast brave enough to try to come and inspect the area from a distance. They had already found a few dead insects that the turrets had shot down on the edge of the territory, but more protection could only be a good thing. There was one lizard for each gate and they seemed to just spend the time lying there in the sun until it was time for them to go get a meal.

Ever since they had come back from the town Joshua had been training in his spare time and had made sure to keep ahead of his leveling pace so that when he went back out there to grind for more levels he would keep getting full potential out of them. He also spent a lot of time going over the notes that his mother had given him back at the hospital. Joshua was certain that after his next expedition he would be high enough level to get a sub-job of his own and he wanted to be in perfect condition to get the most out of that job right away. Depending on how much you knew in the subject for the job before you decided to take it you could get a different evaluation.

Early on there were only two levels of evaluation for a beginner to get. You could either get the novice level which didn't really help you in any way, shape, or form. With this designation you were basically just learning things and getting the smallest amount of boost in the things the job was supposed to improve for you. A good example was with the cook job. If you were just a novice then anything you cooked would only get a small boost in effects. The cook job is supposed to help you make food that will give the group a timed buff after eating it. A novice could cook something and not even get so much as a single benefit out of the food, or if they cook it bad enough then the food might just poison those who eat it. However the experienced tier that comes after novice will always have a decent boost even if it's not the best.

That's why Joshua was so busy studying up on everything that he could so that he could skip the whole process of being in the novice tier. He didn't expect to get in the same tier as his mother, Naomi, or Nathan were with their jobs at the moment which were all worker tier. In that tier the system would allow you to actually make equipment or start hospitals, it all depended on the job but the point was the system had full trust in you to handle anything and make a business out of it at that tier. It took each of them years to get to that point and Joshua knew that even if he had been studying in the medical field before the whole world changing event happened he still had a lot to learn and it would take a while to get to that point. The experienced tier was more than good enough for him under the circumstances.

So Joshua pushed himself in his studying whenever he wasn't training and he planned to spend a lot of his time like that during the break. Sadly he wasn't alone at the moment or able to completely focus on his studies do to the person that was sitting across from him and constantly tapping the table in between them with a board look on her face. Amy was usually a ball of energy, but at the moment she seemed to have no direction to point all of that energy at and that was the main reason she was slumped over in her chair and just staring at the table. It was unsettling for Joshua and the annoying tapping was starting to make him reach the end of his patience.

"Amy, would you stop with the tapping." Joshua said without looking up from his notes.

"I need something to do brother, everyone is ignoring me." Amy said as she started to tap her foot under the table instead of tapping her hands.

"Well then figuring out something to do without them." Joshua said with a frown as he was trying his best not to get angry at his little sister. Usually she would have been off somewhere else to annoy either one of her friends or more than likely Naomi, but unluckily for her today Naomi kicked her out since she was focusing on building a new type of equipment and didn't want anyone to annoy her the entire time she was trying to put the thing together. Most of Laura and Madalyn's members were out on an expedition so she couldn't go mess with them for the time being and the rest of their group were off doing their own things.

"Isn't their anything I can do right now?" Amy said as she turned her head to look up at her brother while staying laid out on the table. "I mean I love training, but there's got to be something else I can do for a change of pace."

Joshua finally took his eyes off of the notes he was reading and stared directly at his sister that was looking at him with hope in her eyes. "How about you finally get the sub-job that you should have already gotten the moment we got back. You know you have to take a test for it and everything so you might as well get it over with before we go back on our next expedition."

"But what type of sub-job should I get. Outside of martial arts I don't really think there is any job out there that I could get where I wouldn't be in the novice tier for months on end." Amy said with a small frown on her face. "Honestly I don't want to spend all my free time over the next few months trying to get good at something that I don't even care about in the end."

"Then what do you care about enough to work at?" Joshua asked to try to get his little sister to focus on things that she might actually find an interest in doing during her free time. "How about black smith work like Naomi and Adrian, you like to spend time with Naomi anyways so you could work with her in your free time to get better at the craft."

"That sounds fun and all, but I don't really use weapons at all so I don't see the point in spending so much time making them. It would be fun to hang out with Naomi more, but I think I'd just end up getting in her way most of the time. She's really serious when she's busy forging materials and although we get along I don't want to take up all of her time." Amy said as she waved off Joshua suggestion before her eyes brightened up. "How about a cook sub-job like Aito then, I mean mom could help me learn how to cook and everything and it would be fun."

"Little sis…I don't know how to tell you this, but you have absolutely no talent in cooking whatsoever. " Joshua said with the most stoic face that he could manage. Over the years living with his family Joshua had the unfortunate responsibility of tasting his little sister's food at a few points in his life. The first time was when she had tried to make lemonade to sell in the neighborhood on her own to prove to him and their father that she could make her own money without her allowance. Sadly Joshua being the good older brother that he was decided to be her first customer and well…he nearly vomited the stuff back up instantly after taking a large gulp. At the time he thought it would just taste either too sweet from the amount of sugar she had dumped into the large container or to sour from the overabundance of lemon juice that she had put in from having too much fun squeezing the lemons. What Joshua was not expecting was the taste of highly concentrated salt water mixed with lemons.

Joshua spent the next few minutes gagging on the floor after that and his sister just glared at him as if he was making a joke. When he finally settled down he went over to look at the bag she had used to pour sugar into the container and found that it was indeed a bag of salt. He chugged so much water down the rest of the day to try to get rid of the taste and was afraid to so much as touch any drink his sister tried to give him for the next few weeks. His parents got a good laugh out of it, but it wasn't funny to Joshua. A few years later when their mother tried to teach Amy a few tricks in the kitchen the entire family was treated to a meal of burnt chicken and rice… Joshua still couldn't figure out how she managed to burn the rice almost black without noticing it and for some reason the food was beyond salty. It was at that moment that Joshua had given up all hope of his sister ever becoming decent at cooking so he took up the mantle himself to learn from his mother in the area so that all of her recipes wouldn't just disappear as time went on. Maybe his kids might want to be cooks one day, but his sister should never even think of it.

"Hey now that's just rude. I can learn how to cook just you wait and see." Amy said with an angry tinge to her voice as she raised up from her chair.

"Well you can try if you want to, but I won't be tasting any of your food. Why don't you let Naomi or Nathan try it out if you're so confident?" Joshua said getting his sister to shut up and sit back down in her seat with her arms crossed. That alone made it clear that she knew that Joshua was probably right. It was at that moment they both heard the door to the entrance open and watched as their father came in with a sweaty set of gym clothes and a towel to keep his wet hair from dripping on everything.

"What are you two up to?" Their father asked as he made his way over to the table. "Going for another spar soon?"

Joshua rolled his eyes at that comment before responding. "We're trying to figure out which type of sub-job Amy should go for. Cook is off the table." Their father busted out laughing at that for a moment before calming down and looking at them both like they're idiots.

"Why wouldn't she just go for combat instructor as a sub-job? It goes well with what she does already and it's something she'd be good at anyways." He said before shaking his head and heading upstairs to get a shower. Joshua and Amy both looked at each other for a moment after he left before they face palmed at the fact that they hadn't realized that at all.