Honey, I've Leveled the Kids [Family-Focus, LitRPG - COMPLETE]

BONUS CHAPTER

French fries were less fried than how my brain felt at the moment. It had been one long day into another with classes. It was midterm season, so the weekends became bootcamp 12 hour learning sessions. I just wanted something mindless in the background as I helped clean the house.

Something calm and not heavily engaging.

But after ten minutes of scrolling through Spazim, I felt like I was a mindless hamster on a wheel, hoping to see something around the bend. What I really wanted to do to unwind was play Seconds-Over, but that was out of the questions as I was miles from my gaming rig and was determined to help my mom.

"Aiya," I said and stretched, my back popping, "I need to get moving before mom wakes up."

Nothing appealed to me on the top streams for the game. All the popular streams were about fighting. I did enough of that in the game. I wanted to see the crafting part. But not weapons, or else I'll want a new one. Right now, I was trying to level up the spear. Finally I typed in, "Artisan Seconds-Over" into the search.

It was a new game that was gaining more popularity. I found an artist painting happy clouds, a player trying to do woodworking for toys instead of weapons, a dancer that was dressed in a bikini gear. Based on how easily she played with the chains and straps, it wasn't high gear.

"Mom would smack my head for watching that if she caught me," I told her cat, Dragoo as he walked into the room.

He sat down right before the ramp into the living room, a small flick of his tail in annoyance at me.

The next channel talked about baking and making bread. My brow crossed at seeing the logo of the channel, a red cherry shrimp. "I've seen this somewhere before."

Ah well, I saw the time again and watched it. The recap video played from yesterday in the background. While the two guild members did gardening, I cleaned up the medical boxes and trash that gathered in this room. It had been only a few months since I was last here and the pile of broken down cardboard boxes was already over two feet tall. It needed some twine.

I glanced at the stream. The guy landed a meeting with the priestess of the church. "What do you think, Dragoo? Do they get a legendary hoe of reaping? A rake of rows? Trimmers that don't Simmer?" I joked with the cat.

My humor was beneath him as he scratched at the tall pile of boxes, which knocked them over. That was the actual goal of the cat. I sighed and walked into the garage, a mess I hadn't solved yet. As I weaved around looking for the twine, my headphones blinked out of connection of my phone.

I squeezed past the mower and snowblower that sat idle this whole year. If I was closer to home, I'd be mowing this spring break, but with the lawn care service mom pays for, it would be pointless. Selling everything here for Mom would be a better use of my time. I reorganized the cleaning supplies. The twine wasn't in the gardening supplies section.

Dragoo clawed at the door, yowling to hang out with me.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"Hold on!" I called back.

Out of random guess, I went to the toolbox. "Esh, why keep twine in the toolbox?" I took it and a random pair of scissors back to the house to tie the cardboard boxes together.

By the time my headphones connected, the loudest screaming was going on. "Stupid ads. At least make them match the content."

To avoid listening to shouts about throwing seeds, fighting, and something about frogs, I muted my headset until the boxes were together and out of the house.

Dragoo preferred the twine to play with instead of the boxes. He took off with the end.

"Give it back!" I hissed at him as he unraveled the spool around the front doorway.

With the cardboard boxes out on the curb, I turned the headset back on and looked at my phone. It was back to the Shrimp Guild. The old guy struggled to knead bread. I laughed at watching him, but with his tongue sticking out in the corner, deep in thought. The other guy, Kryz, was lecturing him how to do it, not to just punch and smack the dough.

I dusted the room while they talked away, organizing everything, tightening the door handles for mom, fixing the chairs. Seeing their progress to mine was refreshing. Like what I did wasn't handyman work, but an art, something with love and care.

The loaves went into the oven, and Kryz shared the gorgeous breads and cinnamon twists he created earlier. I could smell the yeast, or my imagination did. It was enough for my stomach to grumble.

"Mi hijo, you work too hard," my mom called to me. She shuffled, using her cane for support. "Let me make you some food."

I took out my headphones and hit the subscribe button to the channel. I wanted to watch more tomorrow. "Mama, I'd love that. Let me help you."

"No, you sit down and tell me about school. Your grades are good, yes?" Mama made her way to the fridge, pulling out frijoles and some chiles from her garden.

I didn't dare argue with the proud woman who raised me to be the same.

"Yes, yes." I grabbed a glass of water and sat down, telling her how great school was. How I would make her proud by opening up my own business when done. We ate lunch together and when we finished, she stood up and made way to a flat round ceramic container, carefully unwrapping the towel that protected the goodies inside.

"I made these yesterday before you got home." She handed me a soft, flat tortilla. "Let me get you a bit of cinnamon sugar."

Later in the day, while I harvested the garden and destroyed some weeds in the early evening light, I had an old notification on my phone that Boulder of the Shrimp Guild was streaming again. Excited, I turned the stream on, curious to see what we learned today. It would be cool to garden along with the guy.

Instead, he and the younger player were screaming at each other. I recognized the imps from my holy crusade quests. The annoying owl monsters flew in the sky as lightning flashed around.

I checked my subscription again… yeah, this was the baking channel from yesterday. I bit my lip, not sure if I wanted to listen to this chaos or try again later.

"There had to be something else in here beside a single flower?" The young archer screamed at her guild member.

Flowers, so another… more intense gardening? I removed a dandelion sitting next to the zucchini plant somehow. I found a three-pound zucchini hiding under a leaf next to it. "Oh dear," I whispered as I put in the stack with the other monster size vegetables.

The yelling didn't stop in the stream. I didn't get why only two members, neither a paladin or demonic user, would even risk going into hell in the first place. I shook my head, annoyed. With a quick button, I turned off the stream, listening to the sound of bugs around me.

The next day, the stream turned on, and it was just the older guy. Still in hell. I had oil on my hands from doing the oil change on Mama's Toyota that I couldn't stop listening to the constant fighting. I gritted my teeth.

Things had to change. When I got back to college, I would start up my own handyman crafting channel. That way viewers like me could enjoy it and not get tricked by this Boulder guy anymore.

I unsubscribed the moment my hands were clean, leaving a 2 star review saying "This was because I enjoyed the bread making."

That's what I would start first, a channel on how to make bread in Seconds-Over with ingredients from a personal garden.