Chapter 45

This cathedral looked like the biggest cathedral yet. It had a more ominous feel than the previous ones. However, the most notable feature was there was a stairway heading down right there. I already didn’t know how many floors down we were, and this lead down even more. I decided to ignore that for a moment.

“Let’s close the doors,” I said, “We don’t know how strong these mobs are. They could kill us in an instant.”

Lydia nodded, and the pair of us worked to shut and lock the stone doors. Only the ominous steps down were still open. As soon as we closed the door, I heard a gong sound.

Doooooong…

It filled the air was a warning noise. The blood drained in my face. I turned and grabbed the door, trying to open it again. The door did not open. Lydia and I used all our force, but neither of us could get the door open at all.

“What’s going on, Master?”

“Ah… I have a guess… but I hope I’m wrong.”

“Master?” Lydia was looking at me as if I held all the answers.

I could only sigh. “If I’m not mistaken, we’re on a boss level now. This cathedral is the entrance to the boss room, and by closing the door, we’ve initiated the boss fight. Even if we wanted to wait to be saved… it won’t happen.

“What do you mean?”

“These doors are shut. Even if someone fights their way down here to our level, they will be blocked. Those doors will only open one of two ways. We defeat the boss… or… it defeats us!”

Lydia didn’t cry or look scared. Rather, her hand tightened and a look of determination appeared on her face.

“This is… the last boss before we can leave, right?”

“This dungeon is young. I suspect so given the impressive cathedral size, but there is no guarantee this is the final fight.”

“Should we go?” Lydia asked nervously.

“No, we have time. Let’s start a fire, eat, and rest. We want to be 100% in this fight. With luck, it’s something undead and we can make short work of it.”

Thus, we sat down and started a fire. There wasn’t really any cooking when it came to the turkey legs, so I just cast Purify Food and then we ate right away. I was still feeling a bit restless though. We usually fought monsters until we grew tired enough we could barely move, and then set up camp. It had been a while that I didn’t need to worry about monsters around every corner. A good night’s rest would do well for both of us.

“This one has a new mural! Can you read it?”

I could only give her a wry smile as she sat expectantly. The mural was really just images, no writing. The story I told was entirely based on my interpretation of the images. She could just as easily look at the images and reach her own interpretation. Ah, whatever, her tail was swishing cutely and I was interested in the rest of the story too. This could be the last piece.

“This story doesn’t have the girl in it at all,” I said with a bit of surprise. “Rather, it fallows the brother.”

“The one who failed to protect his sister?”

“Yes…” I nodded. “It explains how he went to a powerful dark priest, who gave him the power to seek his revenge.”

“Dark priests are corrupted priests that deal in illegal jobs.”

“Illegal jobs?” I asked, curiously.

“Thieves, bandits, assassins, shadow mages, any job the church has ruled dangerous.”

“Necromancers?”

She nodded. “Those that have these jobs are considered evil.”

“You know… you have the Thief job.”

“Eh?” Lydia’s expression panicked. “That… it was one time! I was hungry… that’s…”

“Well, I mean, it wasn’t active. So, to become a thief, you must meet a dark priest.”

“Not exactly…” Lydia responded. “Every time you steal, you can increase your thief skill whether it is active or not. It is when it reaches a high level that it becomes set. However, if a priest sees you with a bad job, they might set it and punish you. It’s the equivalent of a life sentence. As a slave, it’d be ignored for me, but I may have trouble getting a job through a priest if I was free in the future.”

“So... for normal people, the highest-level job is the active job? That would mean, most people start out as a commoner. Then, if you steal enough that Thief increases over Commoner, you become a thief.”

“Yes… without a priest, that is how all jobs work. However, it is easier with a priest.”

Interesting. Simply put, the second form of leveling worked whether you equipped the job or not. While killing monsters only leveled your active job, if I cooked, Cook would increase on its own, albeit not as quickly. For most people, Commoner was always the highest level, seeing as they were born that way. It made it really difficult to switch your job. Even if you blacksmith every day, you were also a commoner and that had a major head start. The only way to bypass this was with a priest’s Job Switch skill, except priests wouldn’t touch certain jobs they considered evil.

“What about the story!” Lydia puffed out her cheeks.

“Ah… sorry… I was distracted.”