The moment I checked the new job on my status window, I snapped my fingers.
"Mapper! Perfect timing!"
At a pioneer academy, once you have secured the basics of daily life, the early stage of pioneering, exploration begins. That means searching for places with useful materials, and scouting so the base can be expanded further.
There should be monsters and underground dungeons around here too, so it is also a stage for the combat-job students.
They go along as bodyguards while the mapper makes the map. In return they receive the finished map and use it for further exploration.
"I was planning to buy a map some other student made. But nobody is going to sell one to me now, so I was wondering what to do. This solves it!"
Fired up, I flew out of the house to start mapping the area. Then I stopped.
"Ah. I don't have anything to write with."
Students who become mappers are given a full set of writing tools as starting gear. I am unemployed, so I was given nothing.
"Without something to write with, there's nothing I can do..."
While I was stuck on that, a flyer blown by the wind stuck to my foot. I picked it up and read it. It was a wanted poster.
Like the portrait on my slave ticket, it was a drawing of me done in an exaggerated villain style. Under it:
"If this face rings a bell, run! This student is unemployed and has no ability, and he is jealous of us over that complex! He uses drugs to show hallucinations and make himself look like someone with power! Worse, he has a hold on the female students and makes indecent demands! There has been a string of victims, forced massages, kisses taken by force, and more!"
"Who's spreading this garbage?"
Still, now I understood why people kept coming after me. I was about to tear the flyer up when a scream carried from far off.
I looked and saw the same flyers scattered all around the entrance to the forest. Beyond them, a male student was being chased by Tom, the black panther.
Tom tripped him over and over and stomped him flat. In the end the boy was covered in paw stamps and fled back to the residential district.
I put it together.
"Hah. He was going to stick these on the wall of my house as harassment. Tom found him, chased him, and he dropped the flyers and ran."
Then it clicked.
"Right. I just got paper."
I gathered the scattered flyers. In no time I had enough paper for several notebooks.
Leopin's Wanted Poster
Quantity: 300
Quality Level: 2 (Material Level 12 + Stain Penalty 10)
A wanted poster made on fine parchment. It carries a warning about the person pictured. The text reads...
I did not want to read that smear again, so I closed the appraisal window before the end.
"The scribbling ruins a perfectly good sheet, but the back is usable enough. Now, if I had something to write with...!"
From there I did not need to hesitate. I turned straight back to the house.
"There should still be some ogre wood left from the scrap I was given."
I took the ogre-wood lumber from my pocket and, with the great boar knife, shaved it down to pieces about the size of a finger. I put those into the forest kiln I had made back when I was a potter.
Then I added burning firewood and waited.
Ogre-Wood Charcoal
Quantity: 30
Quality Level: 8 (Material Level 1 + Dexterity Bonus 4 + Processing Bonus 3)
Charcoal made by heating ogre wood.
"Charcoal's done! Ogre wood takes well to charcoal, so I got a processing bonus!"
Fitting, for a wood suited to it. The ogre-wood charcoal had no uneven burn, a clean lacquer black.
"Crushing this feels a little wasteful, but..."
I took the granite-clay mortar from my coat pocket. I had made it on the side when I made the mortar I gave Akemi.
I put the charcoal in the mortar and ground it with the knife handle.
"Then I add the leftover granite clay. The best ratio is about seven charcoal to three clay."
I had no scale, so I tore the clay by eye and put it in the mortar. I kneaded it by hand. The ocher clay was buried in charcoal powder and turned pitch black in no time.
"Tear this black clay into even little pieces. Then roll them into long round sticks."
I was excited, crafting like a kid playing with clay. Once I had about thirty sticks, I lined them on a wooden board and slid them into the forest kiln.
At the last stage of a first craft, I waited for them to bake, heart thumping. And then...
"Done!"
Ogre-Wood and Granite-Clay Charcoal Pencil
Quantity: 30
Quality Level: 34 (Material Level 30 + Dexterity Bonus 4)
A charcoal pencil made by mixing ogre-wood charcoal and granite clay, then heating it. Bonuses included, it writes cleanly on any paper.
I did not care that my hands went black. I gripped my first pencil and tried it on the back of a flyer. A solid black line stayed on the parchment.
"Yeah! A normal charcoal pencil doesn't get along with parchment. This writes perfectly!"
I could not sit still, like a small child handed his first crayon. My whole body itched to go, but I held it down and went into the last craft.
I class-changed to Woodworker in a hurry. I sliced one remaining gisu stump in the yard and shaved it into a rectangle.
Gisu Clipboard
Quantity: 1
Quality Level: 23 (Material Level 2 + Dexterity Bonus 4 + Job Bonus 17)
A clipboard made of gisu wood. Comes with a pen holder. Bonuses included, paper set on it stays fixed in place.
"That's everything I need! All right, off to make a map!"
I shot out of the workshop like a rabbit with its tail on fire. Tom came running with a scrap of trouser cloth in his mouth and rubbed his forehead against my leg, chirping.
"Oh, Tom. Thanks for guarding the house."
Tom chirped again.
"Right. You coming too?"
Tom chirped.
I decided to head into the forest to explore, with Tom beside me.