He wonders idly if he'll get free stat points if he starts working out. ...then he wonders less-idly which of the Fitness-requiring jobs can be accomplished substituting grim determination for Fitness, which is probably not the optimal way to start working out but will at least definitely get him over the hurdle of not conceptualizing himself as the sort of person who does that sort of thing... and, after all, he does have access to a powerful restorative, or will once he extracts her from that hotel room...

He takes another look at the list of odd jobs with that in mind.

On closer examination, the roof-sawing job has a little doodle of a girl with a staff surrounded by snow-flakes, and a scribbled line of text that reads, [Free Chilled Water Every Hour!]

It pays 15 Lake an hour.

You know what, he'll take it. Off to the roof-sawing job he goes.

He is surrounded by burly guys wielding saws!

The cute ice mage almost freezes his hand because she is so busy watching the sweaty, bare-chested, burly guys work that she's not paying attention to the water barrel!

After four hours, he has earned a single 50-Lake coin. Which is enough to buy the cheapest meal on the menu at the guild hall.

That absolutely counts as succeeding at his goals! He takes his 50-Lake coin to the guild hall and buys food and eats the food.

Okay. Now he is going to check on Coventina again, and if she still isn't done, he is going to knock on the door as politely as he can manage. And if it turns out he has the wrong door, he is going to focus on the fact that the goddess is missing so as to ignore the crushing weight of social anxiety.

The sex sounds do seem to pause when he knocks.

After a few moments, the door opens to reveal a naked, sweat-drenched and glistening Coventina with blissful half-lidded eyes. She smiles at Laurent, then blinks, noticing the sweat-stains on his own clothes. Then she glances at the window.

"How long were we fucking?" she asks.

The naked couple sprawled exhaustedly across the bed giggles at each other and shrugs.

"About six hours. I didn't want to interrupt, but I do want to get us a room before tonight."

Coventina lets out a delighted little incredulous laugh.

"Six hours!"

She turns to the couple.

"I think you owe me a bonus."

They both nod languidly and agree, giggling to each other again.

In the end, Coventina leaves with 45,000 Lake and a new outfit: A green bikini top and a pair of black leather booty-shorts. "I am way too relaxed to struggle back into my regalia right now."

As they leave the inn, her stomach growls like its dying. "Holy fuck, I'm hungry. Holy fuck, I'm hungry! Foooooooooood!"

"Let's get you fed and then find somewhere to stay the night which will hopefully also double as a place to privately discuss strategy?"

"Sure sure." She divides the money she got in half and gives half to Laurent. She wouldn't be a very good cheat item if she kept it all for herself.

Coventina ambles into the guild hall and orders a large, hearty meal.

She reacts to the first bite quite similarly to how she reacted to grabbing her tits the first time. It's been two-hundred years since she's been hungry or been able to enjoy the taste of things. She moans loudly.

Eventually her food stops being the entirety of her focus.

"So," she says, chewing. "It turns out that Nectar of Sin and Flesh for Flesh synergize really well. Since, y'know, anyone I'm fucking is basically bathing in divine-quality healing potion..."

"I see. That does explain some things."

"Doesn't it just."

Coventina finishes her meal and lets out a very satisfied sigh.

"Any preferences about where we stay? We can afford a decent room now, and have plenty left over to get you armed and armored."

"In that case we might as well indulge. I bet you'll make such delightful noises if we get a room with really nice bedsheets."

She grins at him approvingly.

"Alright. Let's go find a place."

If they're willing to put up with a bit of a walk to reach the guild hall, they can find an inn offering clean, two-room apartments with ensuite bathroom and pantry for 3,000 Lake a night.

That seems within budget given Coventina's demonstrated income potential. "Let's take it. For tonight, to start with, and we can keep coming back if we like the place."

"Sure."

After checking in, the room they end up in is actually pretty nice, even by modern standards. Table and chairs in one room, with stands for armor and weapons and cabinets for other adventuring paraphernalia. Large, luxurious bed in the other room with plenty of pillows. The bathroom lacks a recognizable shower, but it has hot and cold running water and a large stone tub.

"...all right, I like the place. How are the bedsheets?"

Poke poke. "Feels pretty nice, I think."

At the moment, she's more interested in the bathroom, though, and heads straight in once she's poked the bed. "I think we could both use baths. Wanna share?"

"As long as you're all right with talking strategy in the bath."

Giggle. "Sure, why not."

She flips the hot water lever and strips out of her new outfit without preamble, and starts searching for soap and stuff. The room does seem to come stocked with some.

Laurent also gets out of his clothes and into the bath. He's not particularly self-conscious about his body, at least not in any obvious way, but he's also not particularly flirtatious.

"I want to hear about the design principles that went into this world," he says as he helps her find the soap. "Did I correctly pick up on the implication that you designed it all yourself?"

Coventina sinks into the water and slips down until her head is resting on the molded edge. The bath is wider than it is long, so they're sitting sideways relative to the flow of water, which is coming out of a wide slot rather than a round spigot, and the tub is just large enough that, facing each other and stretched out, their legs meet at the shins. She idly notes how visibly aroused Laurent is, but doesn't act on it either way.

"I didn't design it all myself," she says. "I only did the magic system. And," she winces a little, "I kind of half-assed it? Like, the underlying thaumophysics is mostly a straight copy of another world that I barely tweaked, and the class and skill system I just outright stole. The only thing I actually came up with myself was the adventurer card stat-spread."

(Visible arousal levels are negligible.)

"I quite like the stats," he says with a slight smile. "An interesting set of attributes to pay attention to. Do the numbers go up on their own as we get better at things? I had occasion to wonder that while I was looking into working for my lunch."

"The numbers track your actual state, so yes. But it's impossible to exceed a value of twenty without spending stat points or actually being superhuman. And if you're already above ten, then leveling up will be faster than training. Also only some of the stats respond to training at all. Fitness, for example, is the most responsive to training, but like, aerobic endurance or muscle size are only small parts of it, and the number takes the average across the whole domain."