Testing My Luck in the New World

               We ran straight back to the Lazy Cat Inn and dropped off Yua’s luggage in my room before heading straight back out. Thankfully, the innkeeper wasn’t posted at her counter to see us up. I really couldn’t afford to be charged for a second person staying in my room right now. For this reason and a mountain more piling up behind it, we left as soon as we came.

                Yua made sure she didn’t lag too far behind while we walked, but she also made sure to keep her distance. Nevertheless, she followed me dutifully, looking annoyed each time I looked over my shoulder to see if she was still there.

                No idea why she didn’t used my distracted state to just run away and save herself. It’s not like I gave her an order to stay beside me. There may be a magical contract binding us now, but I couldn’t think of a reason why she wouldn’t want to high tail it out of here after Alphonse’s threat.

                I was sure my worries must have been plastered all over my face, because everyone we encountered did their best to swim away from me while I passed through the ocean of people milling about like I were a shark’s fin through the water’s surface.

                Arggh! Enough with the similes and metaphors.

                What the hell am I supposed to do?!

               The simplest answer to my new money troubles was to head to the dungeon, even if the things I found in it were worth more than what I found from regular forest animals, there was no way that we could beat enough of them and do so fast enough to make up the absurd price of her contract. Not to mention that, unless there was a huge number of enemies on the first floor, there were likely other adventurers already progressing through it, killing everything before we even had the chance to get there. For all I knew, everything on the first floor was already dead. Then I also had to consider the time it would take for the enemies to respawn the next day.

               God… Goddess, I never even considered asking what Yua’s actual price was. For all I knew, he lied about that too. And now I only have three days before she… and I…

               I gulped and felt for my neck as if there were already a rope coiling around it. Which, for all intents and purposes, there was. Even if I could callously push aside the gruesome fate he had in mind for Yua, I’d be forced into slavery for failing to pay him what I owed. From there, I would most likely be sold off as a fighter or laborer, forced to toil in the hardest jobs imaginable until the day I died.

               “…”

                We didn’t have time to spare. We’d just have to do what we could today and be the first ones in tomorrow. I didn’t really want for her to fight and needlessly risk her safety, but now I had no choice but to beg for her assistance after seeing her capabilities in a fight.

                After a while of neither of us speaking to one another as we made our way through the city, Yua finally quickened her pace to catch up to speak to me. I managed to find in myself some semblance of calm in the cute way her the cat ears atop her chestnut hair twitched curiously, though there was no matching amusement in her expression.

                “Hey, Master, where are we going?”

                She asked just as we entered the city’s shopping district. I wasn’t too sure how I felt about her calling me “Master,” nor did I have the time to consider the tone she used when she did, but I didn’t complain. I was much too busy worrying about what to do next. While I didn’t know exactly where to go, I did have at least the beginnings of a plan cooking up in my head for how we could start.

                “I’m taking you to a blacksmith. We need to head straight to the dungeon if we want to have any hope of making some coin. And I don’t have a sword for you to use. Hopefully the coin I have left will be enough for you to at least get a knife.”

                While I could make use of my Fire Ball spell and give her my sword, I was apprehensive to do so. I could only use Fire Ball about five times before my mana would run out. While my mana seemed to have recovered completely since I torched the rabbit, I hadn’t seen how long it’d taken to do so. So, relying too much on my magic right now would be a mistake.

                “… Master?”

                Then there was the idea of potions. I had one health potion already and its existence in this world and the existence of mana itself suggested that there might be mana potions as well, even if I didn’t start with one. For now, though, I should probably just stick with buying health potions to keep us in the fight longer. Hopefully they won’t be too expensive.

                I’ll just make use of my Increased Mana Recovery trait where mana is concerned. It may have recovered what I used in the forest already, but it’s going to require some more hands-on testing so I don’t end up running out during a fight.

                “Master?”

                There was also the Adventurer’s Guild to consider. Thought that wouldn’t be an option for a while. I imagined that they paid more handsomely for completing quests than I’d get selling off item drops. But there was the level restriction barring entry into their ranks to worry about.

                Then again, killing just three animals on the way here did net me a fair bit of experience. And the monsters in the dungeons were supposed to be tougher, right? That should mean even more experience for our efforts, right? Yua was only level three, but the strength she threw around as she man-handled those thugs earlier should mean that fighting in the dungeons wouldn’t be too terrible. I hoped.

                We could level up together and hopefully get to know each other doing so.

                Was that too much to ask for? I hoped not. I missed my chance with the jogging girl, but unlike with her, Yua and I were stuck together. For at least three days, anyways. For the next three days, we would be forced to interact. Forced to talk to one another. I had no real combat experience, but it was easy to say that keeping my mouth shut out of embarrassment in the middle of a fight could lead to one or both of us being killed.

                “Master!”

               Yua shouted and grabbed me by the sleeve before yanking me back to stop me from taking another step.

                At first, I thought she’d stopped me because I was walking straight into one of those carriages I spotted earlier or maybe something more dangerous I wasn’t even aware of, but when I picked my gaze up from where I apparently left it at my feet, I saw that there was nothing in front of us but people.

                “Huh? Oh, sorry. I’m sure that the blacksmith will have something used and cheap for you to use. Please bear with it for now. I’ll get you something better as soon as I can.”

                Yua put her hands on her hips and sighed.

                “Master, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. I don’t need a weapon.”

                “What do you mean? We’re going to fight in the dungeon, you know?”  

                She smirked, the closest thing to a smile I’d seen on her yet, and held up her fists. She looked oddly proud of herself as she flashed a toothy grin.

                “I have the Monk class. That means I fight with my fists. Or fist-like weapons, which I don’t really like. I don’t even know how to use a sword.”

                “Oh…”

                I remembered reading that in her status page, but it didn’t quite click because of the stressful situation we were in.

                In video games, the Monk class I was most familiar with was usually a holy man that specialized in light and healing magics. Thinking about it now, I do remember there being some games with warrior monks that either used martial arts or maces. Maybe that’s what hers referred to.

                “I see… Then, what about armor?”

                “Don’t need that either. I don’t plan on getting hit.”

                “What do you mean you don’t plan on getting hit? Have you been in the dungeon before?”

                She shrugged, then grimaced.

                “Several times. I made it down to the third floor.”

                “Really? But you’re not an Adventurer.”

                Yua cocked her head and raised a brow at me. The look she gave me was nothing more than unbridled confusion, the sort where she might actually be questioning my very sanity, but coming from a beauty like her, that little gesture felt like a dire insult towards my intelligence. And given how I got us into this mess, I couldn’t say she was wrong.

                “… You don’t have to be an Adventurer to go into the dungeon. Anyone can. Whether or not they choose to take that risk is entirely up to them.”

                I did my best to suppress a sigh. That should have been obvious, but my only knowledge of the dungeons came from Alphonse, who only spoke of them in terms of Adventurers making gold by fighting in them. Somewhere in all of that, I must have just assumed only Adventurers were allowed in.

                I suppose that with beast-kin being stronger than the average human, they might even make it a habit to venture into the dungeons for some easy money. Or, maybe, it was just easier to earn what they needed rather than buy the spoils of other Adventurers?

                “Right… Er, Yua, could you tell me what kind of monsters we will meet on the first floor, then?”

                Monsters was a vague term that could mean anything. I’d learned about a fair few fictional beasts in my time on Earth, but all that knowledge, meager as it may be due to my laziness, was based entirely on fiction. Even if the basis for this world was made using my knowledge, things here could easily be different. I’d been in a fight already, but if we were talking about real monsters, not wild animals then I at least wanted to know what we were up against.

                “Sure, if I must.” She shrugged, like the info was nothing to brag about. “The first floor contains only wolves and slimes. Nothing to worry about.”

                Wolves, eh? Maybe I should be happy about what happened in the forest then. Now at least I know I have a little experience before jumping into danger.

                “Do you know how much the items they drop are worth?”

                “Nope,” she answered, again with a shrug. “Well, I suppose I can tell you that the wolves may drop either their fangs or pelt and the slimes drop either oil or slime. I don’t know how much they are worth, though.”

                I mulled this over.

                Wolves and slimes are fairly common as low-level enemies. I had already beaten two wolves at this point, but the ones in the dungeon were supposed to be tougher. Then again, they did only take one hit each, maybe these new ones won’t be too much harder to beat.

                Trying to keep my optimism alive and well, I clenched my fist, only to realize something was off.

                “Wait, if you got to the third floor, then why do you not know what the items are worth? Were you just collecting them for your personal use?”

                Yua did mention she came from the northern “tribe” of cat-kin. As generalizations go, maybe her people were actually a bit more on the tribal side of things and favored fur and leather clothing. She might have gone in, and judging by the fight I saw earlier, wiped the floor with the wolves and hauled their pelts back home to turn them into clothes or anything else fur and leather might be used for.

                And as for the slimes, oil, regardless of what kind, surely had a number of uses. It may not be that valuable, dropping from a low-level enemy, but I could come up with a number of ways for her to need such a thing.

                The question was why she never bothered to sell any of them. Was the number of monsters in dungeon so low that she never had enough of a surplus of them to warrant selling? If so, that could present a huge problem for us.

                We needed as much as we could get our hands on.

                “…”

                When I asked, Yua’s curiosity died out in an instant. Her ears drooped along with the corners of her lips, but then rocketed right back up and pointed somewhere else. It was almost like she intentionally started focusing on another conversation somewhere miles away just to avoid answering.

                Whatever her reasons, she really didn’t want to say. So, I let it be. It really didn’t matter just yet. The amount of gold we needed to pull in was so much that a pelt or two wasn’t going to make a difference anyway. It’d be best to just collect everything we found and sell it. Hell, if I could get away with it, I’d rip up the dungeon floor and sell that as well!

                “If you don’t need a weapon, what do you think we should do first, then?” I asked, deferring to the more experience party.

                She sighed, exasperated and said under her breath, “such a useless master,” then put her knuckles to her chin. She looked away for a moment to think.

               I tried not to get angry with her. If we were going to work together, I couldn’t allow anymore animosity between us than the sprawling gulch our master-slave relationship started us with. After all, her life will be on the line in the dungeon as well as outside it.

               If she really did hear Alphonse’s threat, she was good at pretending she wasn’t walking around with a knife at her throat.

                “I think it would be best if Master buys a backpack or two first. That way, we can carry more loot and make fewer trips to the market.”

                Right, we wouldn’t be able to fight if we tried juggling a bunch of pelts while swinging a sword or throwing a fist. We’d be asking for the monsters to kill us.

                While I could just use my item box and save some money like my inner merchant was telling me to do, I couldn’t deny the possibility that Yua might be taken away from me after revealing its existence to her. And we haven’t exactly built up enough trust for me to be sure she wouldn’t tell anyone. If I were enslaved with that knowledge out in the open, I’d no doubt reluctantly bring Alphonse a boat-load of gold and be forced to ferry around his crap for the rest of my life.

                Considering how that was an option I already thought of for myself, it didn’t sound all that bad, but the lack of free will could easily go wrong if my hypothetical master turned out to be a tyrant that wouldn’t let me rest or if I ended up abused.

                “I agree. What about potions?”

                “If you can afford them, Master. But since master is so broke, you might not be able to.”

                “… And where can we get potions and backpacks?”

                She snorted and crossed her arms under her ample bosom. Her thin brown tail gave a quick flick. The condescension in her gaze was so palpable, so blunt, that nobody in Amoranth would have expected her to be the slave here.

                I’m starting to wonder if Alphonse lied about her taking lessons to better serve her future master, too.

                “Obviously you buy potions from the Apothecary’s shop, where else? It’s this way.”

                Without waiting for me to give the okay for this change in our game plan, Yua walked off in a completely different direction than the blacksmith I heard earlier. This time, I had to keep pace with her so I didn’t get lost.

 

                We made our way through the city, through the dwindling sea of people leaving the public square in favor of the safety of their homes as the sun began to set for the day. Neither of us said a word to each other. It wasn’t because we needed silence, the crowd around us was noisy enough as is, but because we just didn’t know anything about each other before getting lumped together and forced to take on this impossible task.

               More importantly, I knew nothing about her. Getting lumped together may have been what I was after at first, but the circumstances were entirely too different to consider such things now. Which was probably for the best anyways.

               Still, I had to wonder about her. Why was she enslaved in the first place? I was so immediately infatuated with her that I didn’t think to ask. From the way Albert and Alphonse spoke on the subject, people were only enslaved if they did something wrong or owed an impossible amount of money. Which was it for her? Did I even have the right to ask?

               Well, I am her master, so technically yes. But that didn’t mean either of us were okay with me probing into things she may not want to talk about. Regardless of the reason, a denizen of this world that fully understood its ways most likely found the memory to be traumatic to some extent. Even if she was at fault, I doubted she’d want to think back on it.

               However, if she used to be a wanted criminal with her picture posted everywhere for anyone to see, only to finally be brought down by a group of Adventurers she may well have once fought alongside with in the dungeons, shouldn’t I be allowed to know?

               Was I working with a career criminal?

               Not that I could take him or his word without enough salt to dry up the ocean, but the way Alphonse told it, the slave contract was iron-clad. It had no chinks that could help a slave to screw over their master. But what if there was? What if there was something someone not from this world couldn’t have known about her contract? A loophole to exploit to ruin me in any way that would allow her to steal her freedom? It’s not like I read and signed a physical document. It seemed to be almost entirely verbal and I didn’t have a lawyer on my side to explain to anyone interested on why that was bullshit.

               I could see it now. She’d fight with me in the dungeons, killing monster after monster. Slowly but surely, we’d come to tolerate each other. Maybe to me, it might seem like something more than “tolerate” was budding between us.

               Oh, hell, who am I kidding? I probably would think that.

               Anyways, we get closer and closer until bam, she’d find a solution to her problem by intentionally not letting me know when an enemy was sneaking up on me. Or maybe when I was about to walk into an insta-kill trap. I’d die and she’d be seen as innocent and could run off scot-free without a shred of sympathy or teary regret to shed over my corpse.

               And those legs of hers look like they’d be good for running, too. Slender, but with just enough thickness to her thighs to render a man speechless. Then there were the hills in the seat of her pants that shifted alluringly with each step she took. I wasn’t the sort to say that I’d want her to squish my face between her thighs, but the sight of them definitely made me wish I was. If she…

               No. No!

               I shook my head.

               I literally died last time I let myself get swept up in ogling a girl’s ass out on a walk! I could say it was worth it as a joke only once. Dying this way a second time would just be depressing!

               I quickened my pace to walk beside her to avoid the temptation. She glared at me out of the corner of her eye, not deigning to even fully look at me as if she’d noticed my gaze, and continued.

                My shoulders slumped, but I didn’t let myself fall behind her. I wanted to at least walk beside her while I had the chance. I didn’t know what sort of impression I wanted her to have of me, but it should be of someone that was at least competent, not some perv that would check out her ass on the way to gear ourselves up to go risk our lives.

               We reached the end of a street filled with merchant stalls in the tail end of the merchant district and stopped in front of a small building with dozens of plants I had never seen before growing in flower beds in front of the shop. Several more were hanging in the store windows from planters suspended from the awning shading the front steps. Smoke billowed out of the tall smokestack on the roof and I could smell something strange, but not all that unpleasant, coming from inside.

               I didn’t have to guess that this was the Apothecary’s shop. Where Albert’s place and The Lazy Cat Inn had wooden signs with the names of their establishments carved into them, this shop instead painted the name “Bubbling Cauldron” in arcing letters on the front window, just below some moss draped over one of the many planters likely growing ingredients for potion making.

                Despite the situation, I was beside myself with glee.

               A potion shop. A real potion shop! Presumably with potions that actually worked, and not some pseudoscience nonsense thought up by a teenaged free-spirit with too much time on their hands, with good intentions but with no idea how the medicinal world actually worked.

               Would I find more health potions like mine here? Or maybe ones that refilled mana at the low low cost of a quick drink in the middle of battle? Would I find others with unknown effects, ready to either buff me up or cure some rare disease?

               Aside from the mention of an Adventurer’s Guild and my own magic, this was my first real proof that I was in a fantasy world. In a world. Not on my own. I wasn’t special here. Nobody was going to offer up pointless congratulations for my lack of effort. Others could do what I do and most could probably do it better.

               I couldn’t suppress the joy I felt at getting to step inside this place for the first time. I never thought a simple potion shop would be so exciting. They were usually fairly bland in the games, offering little more to the player than a scant line up of potions and ingredients propped up on the counter to tell the player hey, you, see these potions? Yea, this is proof that this is a potion shop. But here I was. In the games, where potions served their purpose but they didn’t actually affect your person, places such as this were easily forgettable. Stepping into this shop was definitely going to have to be something I remembered for the rest of my life.

                With a huff of annoyance, Yua quickly climbed the steps up to the door and held it open, turning to me with a hand on her hip. A plume of the same unpleasant smell from earlier wafted into our faces and I was forced to blink several times to regain my composure. Her tail flicked again and somehow, I got the impression of impatience from it.

               Apparently, holding doors was going to be her duty now. It felt like our roles in this case were reversed, but hey, it’s not like she was my girlfriend in the first place. I’ll just thank her properly and say there’s no need for that next time.

                However, when the toe of my boot touched the first step up to the shop, someone got in the way. It was a woman.

               This woman had long black hair tied into a long pony tail that dangled over the shield that she hung on her back. Hung over her shoulder was a short spear of what even a novice like me could say looked like it was made from an incredibly skilled craftsman. She didn’t seem to be paying any active attention to it, but she ducked accordingly to avoid letting the spear’s tip scratch the door frame as she exited the shop. At her curvy hips was a black leather belt with several, higher quality pouches than the one I carried. As she descended the steps, seemingly unaware of my existence, she stuffed a few small vials into it while she walked.

                This was fine and all. I didn’t mind moving out of her way. The problem, however, was the scandalous outfit she was wearing. Or rather, what she wasn’t wearing!

                The minuscule pieces of metal that adorned her body was essentially a set bikini-armor. Her smaller, but shapely breasts were packed tight into a black metal bra that seemed to actually amplify the amount of cleavage she was capable of showing. Meanwhile, down below, below her toned but not overly muscular abdomen, she wore an equally skimpy, equally black set of metal underwear that might as well have been a thong for all it hid of her. The only other coverings she had on her body was a chainmail skirt that didn’t exactly hide anything in the front, but it at least kept her rear safe. The only logic to her armor was the pair of metal gauntlets she sported. In fact, as she moved down the steps, I had to question whether or not I was catching repeated glimpses of something I wasn’t supposed to be seeing each time her thighs shifted apart.

                The woman paid my distracted gaze no mind at all, probably didn’t even notice me gawking as she fiddled around with her potions. She passed me by without so much as a word of rebuke. I did a double take as she left and saw that her chained skirt barely covered her ass at all.

                Strangest of all, nobody in the surrounding area seemed to think anything of this outfit. Even back on Earth, where bikinis were common enough to say it wouldn’t be strange to see a woman wearing one at the beach or pool, if a she was to walk around a modern city wearing nothing but a set a slick fabric that covered no more of her body than her underwear normally would have, everyone would look. Or least they’d pretend they weren’t. But nobody seemed to care except me. The second she stepped out of the shop, she might as well have been on the beach.

                “Master…”

                Oops.

                I flinched. I just promised myself I wouldn’t ogle Yua like a piece of meat, only to then do exactly that to the next attractive woman I saw. No wonder I managed to die doing this.

                “I-I wasn’t looking! It’s just… How can she walk around dressed like that?”

                “Like what? You mean that Adventurer? What’s wrong with the way she’s dressed?”

                “What do you mean what’s wrong? She was practically naked!”

                I whispered as loud as I could to make my point without antagonizing the woman in question. She was already a fair distance away, but her info box still said her numbers were much higher than ours. Not someone I wanted to insult openly.

               Yua rolled her eyes and crossed her arms again, keeping her foot in front of the door to keep it from closing on us. The longer she kept the door open, the more of the nose-tingling smell from inside came wafting out. She twitched her nose with no small amount of discomfort.

                “Geez, just how dumb is my master…? That woman was just wearing some high-quality enchanted armor.”

                “How can an armor that barely covers your body be considered high-quality?”

                While I was all for such armors in video games, in real life all it did was leave most of your body exposed to nature and, more importantly, to enemy attacks. It may look sexy, but it’s a death wish waiting to happen.

                Wait… did she say enchanted?

                “Master… I take it you have never seen enchanted armor before, so let me explain before you make any more of a fool out of yourself. Enchanted armors don’t just provide the physical defense from the metals they are made of, they are enchanted with protective magics that absorb most of the damage taken in the wearer’s stead. Meaning they don’t have to cover your whole body to protect you. Not only are they sturdier than a set of full plate mail armor, they are also significantly lighter. And that’s not even considering the other enchantments it may have. I’ve seen at least a dozen other Adventurers wearing something like that on my way to the dungeon in the past. Oh, and males can wear them too, by the way.”

                Men can wear them? That’s… a thought I wish I didn’t let enter my mind.

                “So, that skimpy armor actually makes you tougher and faster?”

                “Exactly… At least you could figure that much out for yourself.”

                I rubbed at my eyes, not to remove the image of that woman from them, but because of Yua. Her snide remarks were starting to get to me, but I tried to ignore it. Thief or not, she was stuck in a position just as messed up as my own. She was probably just mad about being bought land treated like an object. I could hardly blame her for that. I needed to be patient.

                “Another thing,” she continued. “Most people consider armor like that to be a testament to their social status. Not only are they worth a lot of money, you have to either be incredibly rich to buy them or exceedingly lucky to find them in the dungeon. So, you would do best not to look down on her, just because you can’t keep your male eyes to yourself.”

                “S-Sorry?”

                I apologized without fully understanding why I needed to. What man in their right mind wouldn’t check out a woman dressed like that while walking around in public like all she’s doing is running errands? It may be rude, but come on!

                Yua huffed again and whipped her chin anywhere but in my direction, unwilling to even look at her pervert of a master now.

                “Are you coming in or what? The fresh air is going to ruin the potion I’m making.”

                Another feminine voice that sounded incredibly tired and on the verge of collapse shambled through the door Yua held, asking us to come inside. I spared Yua from having to hold the door any longer by jumping up the steps and going inside.

                Apparently, miss bikini armor was the only customer in the shop before leaving, as once the door shut, Yua and I were alone. Almost the very second the door cut us off from the fresh air outside, my nose was assaulted by a colorful assortment of smells, none of which were pleasant. I hadn’t minded the stench when I was outside, but now that we were trapped with it, it seemed to become even more of a health hazard. So much for a memorable trip.

               I had to wonder how Yua could stand it when it nearly made me wretch. She already showed a bit of her extra-sensitive hearing, so shouldn’t her nose be stronger than a human’s, too?

                “How does this smell not bother you?” I asked, holding my nose shut.

                “Hmph. When living in a human city as a beast-kin, you have to get used to weird smells and sounds, or you won’t be able to make it a day.”

                Choosing to take her snarky remark as advice, I let go of my nose and forced myself to withstand the pressure and tried to shake off the sensation by looking around at what the store had to offer to distract myself.

                Potions of various kinds of colored liquids lined the shop in neatly organized rows of transparent, perfectly-shaped glass bottles and vials that could have easily passed for something made by a machine. Every table in the store was well stocked with potions, empty glass bottles and even wicker baskets and boxes full of ingredients I couldn’t have hoped to name if I tried. Without the aid of my ability to see their info box, of course.

               Along with them, as Yua promised, were a few small backpacks and other types of bags, all likely meant for carrying potions and ingredients when out and about. There were even a few belts with pouches that looked specifically made to give quick access to potions in the middle of a fight so you didn’t have to rummage around in your bag for what you needed while someone was swinging a sword at you. They looked similar to what miss bikini armor was wearing around her hips.

                I figured the general store or somewhere else more focused on these sorts of things might carry a larger bag than any of what was offered here, but at least getting both potions and bags from this place would save us some time. For now, we could make use of these things and, like I tried to offer Yua, buy something better when we had more gold. It would be a small set back, but it would help us in the long run.

               “But where’s the shop keeper?”

                As I said, the shop was empty.

                Did she accidentally drink a potion that turned her invisible thinking it was something to temporarily mute the nerves in her nostrils? Why call out to us if she isn’t even here to take our order? I looked to Yua, thinking she might know the answer since she’d been here before, but all I got from her was a yet another flick of her ear.

                “I’m coming. I’m coming.”

                That same wavering voice from a minute ago called from the back of the shop. After opening a door and letting about a ton of purplish smoke fly into the main storeroom a small, child-like girl proclaimed herself as the owner of the voice we’d heard as she appeared from the shop’s backroom. She turned and slammed the door shut, like she was trying to keep the smoke and whatever caused it from leaving the room. Leaning onto the door, she let out a long, tired sigh before moving over to the counter to greet us. Though, before that, the tiny girl hefted herself onto what I assumed to be a stool hidden behind the counter to save us the trouble of looking down on her.

                She was a short, cute girl whose smooth skin betrayed more of her age than the heavy bags under her eyes tried to ruin. She didn’t look too much older than I was now, if anything, her slim frame and tiny stature made her look more than a bit younger. But the main issue at odds with her age was with how she carried herself with the sort of almost-defeatist manner only someone experienced in the ways of the world would. Almost like I did back on Earth.

               She clearly hadn’t been getting much sleep recently. Apart from the bags under her eyes, her long dark green hair was so frizzy, likely due to the smoke, that it nearly lifted the pointed witch’s hat off of her head. As if that wasn’t enough to portray her fragility, she was almost painfully thin. Her body straddled the line between emaciated and petite so hard that it was genuinely difficult to tell if I needed to run out of the shop to buy her a sandwich before she keeled over.

               And, of course, as if miss bikini armor wasn’t enough, she was wearing a black dress so tight, it seemed to perfectly show off the figure hidden beneath it. The collar of which was so low cut that it quickly became apparent that she wasn’t wearing a bra, or anything but the dress for that matter, over her petite, budding breasts.

               To be frank, she was the type of cute little girl you just wanted to hug and protect from the woes of daily life, but you equally couldn’t be sure she wouldn’t lash out at you for assuming she was anything less than a fully grown woman.

                I leaned in to whisper to Yua.

                “Is that an enchanted dress?”

                She scoffed. “No, idiot-Master. That’s just a dress.”

                Just a dress? What the hell are the fashion standards of this world?!

                “Good afternoon you two. I am Madam Turquesse. How may I help you?”

                This petite witch gazed up at us with a tired smile before she pushed her half-moon glasses, which I was immediately convinced she only wore to make herself look older, back up onto her sweaty nose after they slid down.

               I took a peek at her info box and saw that she was actually not a child or even a teen, but a twenty-five-year-old woman. Other than this shocking revelation, the only other information I got worth knowing was that she was indeed an Apothecary. However, her second class wasn’t a Merchant like all the other shop owners I’d seen up until now. Instead, she was a level 32 Witch. I wondered if “Witch” was just a female only variation of the Mage class or if the class was simply something different in this world. Unfortunately, I couldn’t ask without revealing how I knew what she was.

                “Erm, um… Well, Madame, we would like some health potions,” I said, stuttering over my words. “And that backpack over there.”

                I pointed to the first backpack I noticed upon entering the shop. I was really beginning to think that my confidence trait really did have something to do with a person’s level. Even in the face of a woman so short, her head only reached up to the lower half of my chest, I felt I was no match. Then again, maybe it’s just because she was cute. I did have more trouble with women than I did men, after all.

                She smiled up at me sympathetically, as if reading my mind and rejecting the notion of my interest with just that.

                Or maybe she was just too tired and had to use a great deal of what dwindling energy she had left to smile politely for her customer.

                “Well, that small backpack will be 2 silvers. But which potions would you like?”

                “Health potions,” I repeated, thinking she was just too tired to remember.

                Again, with a sympathetic smile, she spoke.

                “I know, dear customer, but you didn’t specify what quality of health potion and how many you’d like.”

                “Oh… There are different qualities of potions?”

                In response to my honest question, Yua scoffed and Madam Turquesse tilted her head as though deeply confused that I didn’t know that already, but was apparently too kind to say it. And again, thanks only to the late helping hand that was hindsight, did I realize that the “low-quality” health potion I already had suggested other qualities would be available.

                “Yes, there are others,” the tiny witch said. “Please allow me to demonstrate for you.”

                She disappeared behind the counter, though I suspected she just slid off the tall stool she was sitting on too quickly and her knees buckled from the force, dropping her out of sight. However, I heard no crash indicating she hit the floor. Instead, she rummaged around there, unseen, but making more than a little noise. The clanking of glass bottles and the sloshing of unknowable liquids filled the silence. Concern swelled in me, hoping she wouldn’t end up breaking her own products only to make me pay for them. I had enough debt.

                She didn’t do this, however. Instead, she came back up, using all the strength her little arms could muster to carry three differently sized bottles. Each contained a varying amount of what looked to be the same partially translucent red liquid. She set them down on the counter and once more expended the effort to climb back up onto her stool.

                With a weak, but gentle smile, she drew in a deep breath, which seemed to renew her life force as her smile brightened right after. She began her demonstration by pointing to the largest bottle, the one about the size of one of those giant beer mugs you’d see people drinking from all the time in movies, but never in person.

                “Contrary to its size, the large potion is actually the weakest of the three. This is because it requires more to do the same job.”

                “So, it’s watered-down, then?”

                She tilted her head, like she didn’t think her explanation would be interrupted so soon.

                “What’s watered-down mean?”

                Or was I wrong and just misunderstood yet another part of this world’s missing basic knowledge? I’ve put my foot in my mouth so many times today that I don’t know if I’ll ever get the taste out.

                But seriously, is that not a common thing here? If people are capable of cheating you into a contract you were only barely aware of, I imagined someone like a bartender or this little witch could easily get away with watering down their products.

                “N-Nothing. Sorry, please continue.”

                The smile quickly returned to her face once she got going again. I got the impression she really enjoyed educating the public about her potions.

                “The middle one is smaller, because it’s more powerful. Similarly, the smallest one is the strongest because it is a health potion in its most concentrated form. What it lacks in quantity it makes up with sheer healing power! Their small size means that they are also easier to carry on your person. Perfect for the Adventurer on the go! You know, sometimes small things can be good too.”

                She held up the smallest bottle, more of a vial, really, while looking extra proud thinking that I didn’t notice the reference to her height. It was a diamond shaped bottle that looked like its cork stopper had more mass to it than the potion itself. It didn’t look all that powerful, but what other choice did I have but to believe the expert? Until I saw the thing in action, I was still on the fence on if these things worked. The only reason why I was taking this seriously was due to Yua suggesting it.

                “Okay, I understand now. Do all potions work like this?”

                She shook her head and her glasses slipped further down her nose. She seemed to not notice this as she raised a teacherly finger into the air.

                “I would say most do, but some of the more advanced potions don’t actually produce a lot per mixture and, therefore, a larger bottle would be wasted on them. Conversely, there are some liquids thicker than that of the health potion line that wouldn’t fit in the smallest of vials, even though they aren’t very strong. Oh, and…”

                Seconds into her rapid-fire introduction into all things potion, she happily went off on a tangent regarding the cultivation of certain ingredients whose names I didn’t know and weren’t available here in her shop, simply because they were vaguely related to the potions we were asking about.

               As she rambled on, I noticed the shadows created by the sun’s light reaching through the window to caress the leaves of her plants slowly started to move as the daylight dimmed into early evening. Since I didn’t have to do much talking and she was clearly enjoying herself, I wanted to let her continue, but we were already short on time. So, I decided to cut the exposition short and wrap this up.

                “T-Thank you for the explanation, but we really need to go. Can we buy one small health potion and the backpack, please?”

                She had to stop mid ramble to pout, but the little witch recovered quickly. Very professional. For her, stopping to talk about potions was likely a relaxing way to take a break from making potions.

                “Of course. The weakest health potion is also 2 silvers. That brings your total to 4 silvers.”

                I was about to reach for my item box when something clicked in my mind. There was no way to say for sure how it was that I even noticed or made the connection, but given our financial situation, I couldn’t let this chance slip by.

                Time to try some bartering.

                “Wait, the health potion is 2 whole silvers? What a rip-off! The general store had the same thing for just 1 silver!”

                Taken aback by my sudden outburst, Madame Turquesse withdrew her chin, but only for a second. When I pointed an accusing finger at the bottle of crimson life juice, her brow deeply furrowed, her lips grew taught and any sleepiness she held in her expression vanished.

                “What on Ternia are you blathering on about? You dare compare my potions to the swill that lard imports from Guerraway?! Guerraway! The only thing that sea-side ditch knows is fish! You’d be lucky if that sewage could cure even a paper cut! I lovingly brew my potions to cure nothing less severe than a stab wound that might someday be aimed at that thick head of yours!”

                I blinked, awed both by her fury and my misstep. Yua, on the other hand, palmed her forehead and sighed.

               Apparently, I’m just as bad at bartering as I am speaking. Suppose I should have seen that coming. I’d hoped to bring up a lower price to get her to lower hers, but it came out all wrong.

               Aside from the best of my experience involving real trade consisting entirely of complaining about how slow the cashiers at my local supermarket were, most of the time I went to the store, I made use of the self-checkout lanes specifically to avoid conversation. I don’t know why I thought I’d be able to whittle down the price just because I saw something similar somewhere else. Similar, just similar. Not the same. Thinking back, the potion at the general store was actually just a cure for ear aches. It being red too wasn’t a good enough reason to bring it up. Not exactly the same thing.

               I really need to level my Merchant class to avoid making these mistakes again later.

               Still, how did I even remember that? I only glanced at the potion in the general store for a second or two until I shifted to something else because of how uninteresting it was. I mean, while they weren’t exactly potions, we had cures for that on Earth, too.

               “And for your information,” the furious witch continued. “Basic healing potions such as this are mainly only useful to lower-level Adventurers, or low-income commoners specifically because they would never be able to afford them at any higher a price. And in case you didn’t know, which I doubt a block-head like you would, but only Apothecaries can actually brew potions. Of any quality. So, we set our prices based on the amount of work put into our craft and the availability of ingredients. Thankfully, since I am close to the dungeon, I can keep the price as low as it is due to fresh ingredients coming my way almost daily. So, if you have a problem with the price, ship yourself off to Guerraway and buy their crap. But trust me, that stuff will get you killed.”

               I threw up my hands when the tiny witch leaned over the counter to yell in my face, but she backed off almost as soon as she did this. With a heavy, tired grunt, as if that one movement took every ounce of stamina she had left, she plopped back down on her stool and glared over her glasses at me.

               “Geez… I can’t believe my idiot-master managed to piss off the only Apothecary in the city five minutes after meeting her.”

               Ignoring the way my eye twitched at Yua’s comment, I bowed my head to the tiny witch.

               “S-Sorry, I didn’t mean you or your potions any offense,” I started. “I’m just… Bad with words, you see? All I wanted to do was try and haggle your prices down a little and I fully apologize for failing and for insulting you. We’re just really low on coin and we need to save as much as we can”

               Madame Turquesse’s glare seemed to last an eternity, but she turned away, notably to a rack of unlabeled potions she no doubt knew the effects of by heart, and let some of the anger slip away as if they were a painting of some beautiful flower garden meant to soothe her nerves.

               “Whatever,” she said with a sigh. “I don’t have the energy to yell anymore. I’ll let you off just this once, but you better train that tongue of yours. Doubt my potions again, and I’ll bar you from so much as entering my apothecary in one piece ever again, understand?”

               “Y-yes, Ma’am!”

               Given the level of her Witch class, I didn’t doubt that she fully meant that little threat, so I apologized again.

               “Hmph.”

               She slid the bottle over the counter towards me, her eyes practically demanding I pay up now that I caused her trouble.

               “U-um, sorry to continue to be so rude after all of that, but would you consider lowering the price a bit, please?”

               The difference of 1 silver was nothing compared to our debt, but instead of remaining pessimistic about this, I decided it best to think of every coin we managed to save as just another step towards our goal. Well, my goal, anyways. Yua was too busy shaking her head for me to see if she at least understood where I was coming from. I did whip out 100 gold to buy her, after all. She may be wondering why I was complaining over something so insignificant by comparison.

               However, the tiny witch shook her head as well.

               “I can’t. Like I said, the price is dictated by the number of ingredients and by my time. I can keep the price low due to the number of Adventurers coming here to buy my work, but moving it any lower could cause me issues. Not to mention the trouble I’d incur if claims of my offering you favoritism if word were to get out.”

               At her clear-cut rejection, my gaze fell to the bottle. The light coming through the shop windows was growing dimmer by the second and the bottle’s contents were starting to look a lot less vibrant. Were we in the dungeon already, we may well have been able to make up the cost of this damn potion by now.

               I thought to just leave it be and reject the potion on the grounds that Yua’s experience fighting in the dungeons would allow us to keep safe for a while, but seemingly by coincidence, her ever-swaying tail happened to brush up against my forearm.

               Right. This was for her, not me. I can’t let myself be stingy now.

               “The backpack is worth 2 silvers because they are last winter’s leftovers from a local leather craftsman,” Madame Turquesse added. “Normally, they cost more. I can’t change their price either, because I bought them myself so that my customers may come to enjoy the collecting of potion ingredients themselves. You know, many plants growing out there can be used for…” sensing the tangent she was about to leave off on, she cleared her throat. “And, if you treat the bag right, it can last you years, saving your purse in the long run.”

               “Okay. Okay. Sorry for trying to haggle with you. I’ll just… I’ll take both, please.”

               “Of course, dear customer.”

               Feeling defeated, mainly by myself, I accessed my item box through my pouch and took out the 4 silver coins. When she saw them, she set the bag and bottle on the silver tray resting on her counter and pushed all of it to me. I set down the coins and an apparently impatient Yua snatched up the bag and made for the door. She didn’t hold it for me this time.

               I guessed that, like with the door, she assumed she’d be the one carrying our luggage.

                Probably happy to be rid of me, Madame Turquesse gave us a limp-wristed wave goodbye as we left her shop. After a brief delay of being unsure whether or not I should wave back and before I could make up my mind, she turned her attention back to the door she slammed earlier and pulled it open again. Nowhere in her renewed sleepy expression did she show any reluctant to face the purple cloud and the stench lingering in that room before dragging herself in.

               Yua was already back on the street where she waited with her hands on her hips and her tail flailing through the air in annoyance. I guess she wanted to rid herself of the apothecary’s stench as soon as possible.

                I moved to join her, but the second I left the shop’s premises, another notification popped up that nearly made me trip.

               [Apothecary class acquired.]

                What? Why? How?

                I didn’t even do anything that time! All I did was listen to the tiny witch’s lecture on potions for a few minutes, then I got yelled at. How does the class feature of this world even work? I suppose I did have the Easy Class Gain trait, but I really didn’t do anything this time.

               Unless… I gained the Merchant job from buying something, right? Or maybe it was because I sold something? Regardless, maybe I got the Apothecary job because I bought a potion? Hard to believe since I already had one locked away in my item box. Just owning one couldn’t have been the prerequisite. Buying and selling to get the Merchant class made sense to an extent, but I felt I should’ve had to do something a bit more substantial to become an Apothecary. Even as a novice. Then there was the fact of how neither class took effect until I left the shop to consider.

               I mean, these classes are supposed to be earned at least in part by birthright, aren’t they? There’s easy and then there’s just cheating.

                I hung my head, confused, and complained both to myself and the Goddess above for neither of us having had the idea of giving me a guide on how this world works.

                This was a world based on video games, right? Video games come with guides, dammit! Help menu, do your job!

               With the image of the Goddess waving cutely at me in mind, my shoulders slumped. Now I only had 4 coppers to my name. Would that even be enough to buy us both food?

               My outlook on our future was growing dimmer by the second after I was forced to take into consideration how we’d have to buy food on top of potions and gear, just to keep the fight going.

               Thinking back, ignoring her skimpy armor, that Adventurer from earlier was actually carrying several of what looked like the highest quality potions on her belt. I had no idea what they were for, but she must have been loaded to carry that many of them. Also, Yua did say that armor was super expensive.

               Maybe she got super lucky and struck it rich in the dungeon? Probably best not to put too much hope into that happening to us as well, but it was a comforting thought to know it might be possible.

                “Hmph.”

                As if noticing what, or whom, I was thinking of, Yua huffed and turned on her heel.

                “Wait. Yua, take this, would you?”

                I held out the new health potion for her and she eyed it dubiously, before her expression went blank. She came back at me with the same accusatory glare as before.

                “Master… It’d be a lot safer if you kept the potion on yourself during battle. I may not be able to ferry it over to you the second you get hurt.”

                Yua rolled her eyes in my general direction again and shot a heavy breath out her nose, as if the gesture had somehow insulted her. I knew she was right, but was that just an excuse not to carry it?

                “I didn’t buy it for myself. It’s for you. I already have one.”

                I patted my leather pouch for effect, though it was perfectly empty. Yua’s ears twitched and her expression softened into the same beautiful face that so enraptured me and what held no small part in getting me into this mess reappeared, however briefly.

                “Erp… You bought it for… I-I won’t need it. I don’t plan on getting hit. Unlike you, I know what I’m doing. You don’t seem like you have much experience in… anything.”

                Anything? She hasn’t even seen me fight yet. Not that I expect to make any sort of heroic demonstration in front of her.

                Or did she maybe mean that kind of experience? But she hasn’t either!

               Honestly. Even if I regret the way we met, I am your master, you know! I’m trying to treat you like a person and take care of you, here. You could at least show a tiny bit of gratitude if not respect!

               “… Just take it, please. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

               Her ears twitched cutely at this, but her expression remained guarded. Freely able to ignore all of the complaints I kept bottled up, Yua turned her nose up and away from me, but held out both her hands all the same. It was a terrible example of servitude, but more than I needed. I set the bottle in the palms that appeared just as smooth and delicate as any other girl’s, in stark contrast to how her earlier brawl against the thugs suggested they’d have been covered in calluses. I half expected the bottle to shatter on impact with her palm, but all she did was toss the thing into one of the front pockets of the backpack.

               The bag was only about the size of a high-schooler’s bookbag, but made of much sturdier material. It didn’t even bulge when the fairly heavy bottle was dumped into it. I noticed she seemed to purposely leave that pocket only half closed, but she didn’t elaborate on why.

               “Thank you, Master. I will… do my best to make sure I don’t need it.”

               She bowed to me out of nowhere and I threw my hands up to stop her once a couple passersby took notice.

               Where was this coming from? Her sudden lack of hostility somehow made it even harder to approach her. Did masters not usually buy things for slaves, not even health potions for those meant to fight for them? Weren’t the conditions needed to own one partially to ensure they be kept healthy? I was buying it for her safety, not because I was under any obligation to do so, I didn’t see why this would change her attitude all of a sudden.

                “We should go,” she said, as though her bowing to me in public were no big deal. She turned her attention to the fading sun. “At this point, we’ll be lucky if there are any monsters left in the dungeon.”

                Before I knew it, Yua started towards another part of town I was unfamiliar with. I let her lead the way awhile before realizing that she was leading us further and further away from the city gate.

               From what I could tell, the Great City of Amoranth was shaped similarly to a four-pointed star with each tip pointing towards the four cardinal directions. Based on my memory, which was a tad afflicted since I was in the back of a wagon under a tarp when I first entered the city, the main gate was at the southern corner, southern tip, of the city wall. The slave house was in the east. The general store, inn and apothecary were all near the center of the city in the merchant’s district.

               That much I was able to map out on my own, but after checking my compass, I saw we were heading towards the city’s western tip, not towards the south.

                “Um, Yua, where are you taking us?”

                Her feet ground to a halt and she drew in a deep breath through her nose as she tilted her head back to point it towards the darkening sky, as if trying to quell her anger.

                “Please tell me that my Master, an Adventurer like yourself, at least knows where the Amoranth Dungeon is.”

                I hesitated at her tone, but at least this time I had a proper excuse.

                “I’m not from Amoranth. This is my first day in the city. Are you saying that the dungeon is actually somewhere in the city, not outside it?”

                She chewed over what I said, her cat ears twitching in obvious irritation, but I could tell she understood my reasoning. Maybe she was just looking for a way to use this bit of info to shoot another barb at me.

                “Yes, it is,” she said and started walking again, seemingly unable to find a passable insult. I hurried to follow and listen. “Because of the dangers they present, most cities with a nearby dungeon build their walls around it to both claim it as a source of income and to claim to provide protection over it. And before you ask, since Master seems to know nothing other than how to breathe and stare at women, this is for the sake of safety. Not for the safety of the people in the city, but of the world.”

                I took the shot about my ogling on the chin and said nothing of it. I really couldn’t say she was wrong.

                We continued walking, turning down street after street as she talked. Soon there would be no more sunlight for us to see by, but before the sunlight fully faded from the sky and before I had the chance to ask about finding us a torch, the clock on my HUD showed that the time had reached 6:00PM. The very second it did, dozens of street lamps lining the streets that I hadn’t even noticed before started to glow. Not with the fluorescent din of a light bulb, but a bright blue flame that cast its cool color over the cityscape, mingling with the warm glow of the dusk to create a breathtaking sight that nearly stopped me in my tracks.

               All the nearby buildings and the people took on what should have seemed a melancholy hue, but the sight of the city suddenly blooming with enough of these lights to make it seem as though it had been submerged by the ocean itself was so wonderous that negative emotions seemed outright impossible to conjure up while looking at it.

               Yua continued, apparently unphased by the sight while I took it all in.

               “The city’s adventurers wipe out the monsters in the dungeons, but if the Adventurers were ever unable to accomplish this, the monsters would break out and the city walls would all shut their gates forever. Then from what I was told, a powerful spell would be cast by the nobility’s best casters to create a newer, stronger barrier around the entire city. The wall is a part of this barrier. This way, the monsters that escaped would at least be delayed in being set fully free, so that the king can have time to send his armies to put them down.”

               I imagined an army of fully armored knights, cavalry, rows and rows of archers drawing their bows and siege equipment setting up against the city, all to hilariously face off against a horde of slimes, before I came back to reality.

               “If there’s a barrier that strong, why not just cast it over the dungeon itself and be done with it?”

               “Because, the barrier prevents all living things from passing through it. In or out. This includes humans, beast-kin and so on.”

               And so on? This was a fantasy world, so other races were likely to appear sooner or later, but to the best of my knowledge, I hadn’t seen anything other than humans and beast-kin yet.

               “This new barrier isn’t unbreakable. Eventually, the monsters would break through, but putting it up now would just prevent the Adventurers from entering it in the first place. Its only purpose is to trap the monsters in the city, force them to focus on devouring the people and smashing everything in sight, all to give more time to those coming to stop them. The city and all its inhabitants would essentially be sacrificed to save the rest of the world. Or at least prevent its total destruction. This is part of why the high-level adventurers fight exclusively on the higher floors. To prevent the stronger monsters from breaking through into the lower levels and then into the city.”     

               “But if the monsters can break through to the upper levels, why doesn’t the boss at the bottom floor just move up through the weaker levels and break free?”

               “I don’t know. Nobody does, really. Everyone just kind of assumes it’s because the doorways between floors can only be opened by defeating the boss monster guarding it. Several have tried just rushing the door, only to have the boss stab them in the back when it didn’t budge for them.”

               Then the dungeon creating the bosses is also blocking the bosses from achieving their goal? That makes no sense.

               I didn’t want to call out the flaw in her explanation, though. If she’s from a “northern tribe” then she’s probably not from the city herself. She likely heard all of this from someone else and either misremembered the details or something got lost in translation along the way.

               And in the end, I was just happy she finally talked to me without tacking on an insult to every other sentence.

               “Is there any proof of that?”

               Yua shook her head and purposely stopped her tail from swishing about to prevent it from being grabbed by a drunken man that shambled past her. He fell on his face after the attempt and seemed to pass out on the spot. The further we walked, the fewer people I saw.

               “It’s impossible to know,” she said. “But everyone assumes that, because new monsters only appear once a new floor is accessed, the final boss just hasn’t appeared yet. So, it isn’t a threat for now. Nobody’s made it down to the final floor and it’s possible nobody ever will.”

               It wasn’t a very good excuse, but I knew I was right to buy her. If for any reason at all, she was chalk-full of knowledge about the world that I desperately needed to know. And she had a compelling reason to share it with me; our survival.

               The fact that I did buy her still left a sour taste in my mouth, but it was reassuring to have a source of worldly information so I wasn’t starting life here on a blank canvas.

               “I see. So, how far down have the Adventurer’s gotten?”

               Yua side-stepped a few human children running about in the streets playing and accidently bumped into me. Regardless of whether or not she realized this, she continued sharing.

               “Last I heard, they made it down to floor forty-two.”

               “Out of?”

               “Can’t say. Again, the assumption is one-hundred. But it’s really just a guess. Nobody’s ever cleared a dungeon, so it’s impossible to know how deep they really go.”

               “So, they might not even be half-way…”

               “Yup.”

               With that quick, succinct answer, the conversation dwindled away into nothingness, just like the sounds of liveliness we were leaving behind us in the city as we ventured into a more secluded, but not empty district. The street lamps didn’t even offer the soft hum I had become so used to back on Earth and now missed without even realizing it. There were still the sounds of city life off in the distance, but since my ears lacked Yua’s hearing sensitivity, they would soon fade for me too.

               It always happened like this. Through some means or another, I end up in a conversation with someone out of the blue, we get going and enjoy the subject for a while, only to reach a point of stagnation I can never seem to recover from. I would be able to add to the conversation at several points, but at the end, I realize I have nothing more to say and the thoughts just cease. I’d want to keep going, but my mind just blanks. And then the air between us suddenly becomes awkward, as if we only realized after the fact that we never should have tried in the first place.

               As if she hadn’t noticed this and was fully prepared to let the conversation die out, Yua continued walking unabated.

               Those conversations all in the past were just time fillers. Quick breaks with co-workers that started, usually, by them making a comment on one thing or another regarding something I was actually familiar with. I would enjoy the conversation to an extent, but in the end, I suppose I wasn’t actually interested in talking with them.

               Yua, however, was someone I wanted to talk to. Even if it meant putting up with the occasional insult. Her circumstances and my pervy greed earned her the right to be a little brisk, didn’t they? All I know is that I didn’t want the conversation to end here. Even just another minute would be enough to satisfy me. So, I kicked my brain into overdrive and after the hamster running laps in there realized it had not one, but two whole sets of feet to run on, I made a connection that by all rights should have been ridiculously obvious from the start.

               “You must really like fighting in the dungeons to know this much.”

               Yua glanced at me before turning right back to focusing on the walk. She stayed silent for a long while, leaving me to feel as though my effort failed on launch, until she came back with, “I like fighting in general.”

               She went silent again, her lips pursed as if trying to decide how much of herself to divulge.

               That, however, was all I got from her on the subject. I tried again.

                “… H-How long has the dungeon been here? I mean, it’s been here long enough to build a giant city around it, right? It must be pretty old.”

                It may be due to the slight crack my voice made when I forced out another question, or maybe it was just her showing me a bit of pity as a reward for my efforts, but she chuckled slightly.

                “It’s been around way longer than anyone still alive today could say. And that includes the long-lived races.”

                “So, nothing but guesses there, too?”

               “Yup… Master, why do you not know any of this already?”

               “Oh, uh, I come from a place where there are no dungeons. So, I never had the chance to learn about them.”

               “Really? That’s strange...”

               “Yea, right, so I hope you don’t mind teaching me the basics.”

               Feeling sweat start to drip from my brow, I put up my best smile and Yua stared intently at it, her left emerald of an eye acting as a chisel and her right as a hammer, both ready to chip away and my crumbling façade. Who would have thought chatting about dungeons might end up with her on the trail to finding out where I was really from? Her ear twitched only once before she gave it up and continued.

               “… Here we are,” she said, apparently willing to drop the subject to point ahead of us. We seemed to have reached our destination.

               So much for a rousing conversation. This at least counted as progress, right?

                According to my compass and a pretty basic mental map of the city, Yua brought us to the corner of the western quarter of Amoranth and stopped in front of what looked like a large, domed fortress built so close to the city’s main walls that it looked as if they were slowly swallowing it whole.

               Its walls were just as thick as the cities and unlike the rest of the city’s borders, it was entirely undecorated. This place’s sole purpose seems to be keeping its inhabitants safe, or if Yua was to be believed, keep them trapped inside. Therefore, its appearance didn’t really matter.

               Although, thinking about it, I had to wonder why they built the fortress right next to the wall if they were trying to prevent the monsters from breaking out. The wall may be incredibly thick, but surely it was still breakable.

               They even continued to build houses and other buildings up to less than a quarter mile away from the fort’s entrance. That puts the civilian population right on the border of the hypothetical conflict zone. Did they design the city layout around Yua’s explanation of the backup plan in case the monsters got out and purposefully built housing close to it to act as cannon fodder until the mages put up the new barrier? If so, I hoped I never meet the man that put that plan together.

                Dozens of armed and armored knights littered the grounds both in front of and on the upper floors of the fortress. Archers with bows at the ready peered down on us as we approached while those guarding the main gate itself kept a keen line of sight on us and kept their hands on the hilts of their swords. All of their levels were in the upper 40’s. I had yet to discover if that was actually considered high in this world, but at least they weren’t leaving the most dangerous part of the city to be guarded by weaklings.

                I had a hard time trying to understand why we were being eyed like trespassers trying to walk onto an active police crime scene, since Adventurers and other people had to come this way all the time, but I chalked it up to it just being their job to be wary of anything and everything. So, I rallied myself to have to deal with it for at least the next three days.

                Under the weight of their gazes as we approached, I was almost positive that they were going to stop and question us, but Yua kept walking like it was nothing. Considering that people wishing to enter here would be doing so at their own peril, they likely didn’t mind much who did as long as they didn’t cause trouble. They were probably just on guard for anyone trying to break the barrier or for any fights amongst Adventurers that might break out.

                We entered under the dome of the fortress and instead of finding the interior of some kind of miniature castle like I was expecting, all there was to see was a large pointed rock that was about as tall as the city wall itself and around a hundred feet wide at its base. It immediately justified the sheer height of the fort’s walls. To the best of my knowledge, there were no other stones like it anywhere near here. The thing would have stood out so openly before the city was built that it was almost like it wanted to be found.

                In its center at the base of the miniature mountain, the shape of a doorway was carved directly into it. Be it by human hand or otherwise, I couldn’t say. What I could was that this entry way was presumably the entrance to the dungeon. If the assumptions of its depth were at all true, and the reason why light seemed to twist and bend the closer you get to it, then it tunneled far enough underground that even the shadows cast by the fort’s lighting seemed to be swallowed alive by the purest darkness within. Nothing past the first step could be seen.

               Standing next to it with the nonchalance of a supermarket security guard, was a lone knight. Checking his info box told me that he was actually a General in the king’s army named Bertol and that he was some 10 levels above the next highest knight.

                There was a small line of other Adventurers in front of us waiting to enter, so we lined up behind them to await our turn. The one in front stepped forward and a sudden burst of blue light appeared beside the General. The man walked through it and both he and the light disappeared almost right after. The line moved forward and then the next men stepped up, this time a pair, and another burst of blue appeared. The line moved again and the process repeated itself like a finely-tuned machine.

               Who would have thought that a bunch of people who lived and supported themselves through violence could be so neat and orderly?

               Since my earlier conversation with Yua seemed to be done with, I went ahead and scanned the other adventurers in line to see what sort of people we might be dealing with, but it was mainly to pass the time. Some were close to, but above my level. While others were as high if not higher than the General guarding the entrance. However, all those that were so high level were all older looking men and women in their late forties. Most didn’t look all that powerful, but I had to guess that there was just some of that frail old man is actually a badass energy going on here.

                Just how long did it take to level up in this world if it took them until now to reach this level?

                “Next.”

               The General called and the same bikini-armor woman from the apothecary shop stepped up to him. Yua eyed me without actually turning my way, which kept my gaze planted firmly on General Bertol. He was just as much a man as I was, but he didn’t so much as bat an eye when he saw how she geared herself.

               Do people really not mind? I can’t be crazy about this one.

               Instead, he just spoke to her. It was the first time I was able to hear what he asked.

               “Which floor?”

               “Thirty-two,” the woman said, like it was nothing to brag about, but I noticed a jealous twitch to Yua’s brow.

               I quickly checked miss bikini armor’s info box to remind myself of what I saw earlier before she went in and saw that she was only level 32 herself. Did that mean the floor you are capable of fighting is the same as your current level?

               No, that sounds too simplistic. She must have another reason for going there.

               “Alright,” the General said. “Please wait a moment.”

               He held his open palm up to the door and started chanting a spell.

               “Dimensional Step.”

               When he said that, a thin, almost transparent blue wall of light appeared in front of the dungeon entrance and, as soon as the light stabilized, the woman walked into it and vanished.

               And, as she left, I caught the General turn his head just slightly to watch her ass as she went.

               I fucking knew it!

               More importantly, did I just witness teleportation magic being used as an elevator? I understood why one might want to do that, but wasn’t that kind of a waste of some really cool magic?

               “Next.”

               Once Miss Bikini Armor was gone, the General called for the next person in line like everyone present didn’t just catch him in the act. Or maybe they were just used to him. Either way, when he started conversing with the next man in line, a notification popped up in front of my face.

               [New Spell Acquired: Dimensional Step.]

               Suddenly, and just like with the Fire Ball spell, my mind was flooded with all the knowledge and intricacies of how the spell functioned. It was an incredibly jarring sensation, enough to almost make me dizzy, but it faded almost as soon as it came.

               Oh, right. I have the ability to copy spells. All I’ve gotten from it so far was a spell whose primary use seemed to be just a sleep aid. So, I almost forgot about it. Definitely going to have to try this one out, though. Hopefully I have enough mana to play around with it later once we’re done fighting for the day.

               However, if a Dimensional Step can carry you thirty-two levels underground, which I had to assume was about the same depth as a thirty-two-story building would be tall, how far can it actually take you? For some reason, what I very suddenly knew about the spell didn’t readily give me the answer, but there had to be a limit if it could be used this way. I mean, there’s at least twenty people in line and the man was bound to run out of mana eventually.

               Hopefully, in the future, the spell’s limit wouldn’t stick you on the fiftieth floor and force you to have to fight your way through the last ninety-nine just to reach the final floor.

               Not that I planned on taking the dungeon that far in the first place. We’d get the gold we needed, maybe train up some inside if we feel like it, and then never bother with it again. I was just curious about my new spell.

               “Next.”

               We continued to wait patiently for our turn while I tried to think up a number of ways I could test my new spell against our situation when the General finally called for us. We stepped forward and from what I could tell, I was the only one that clenched up.

               “Which level?”

               I was surprised that he didn’t so much as ask if we were even adventurers, but then I remembered that anybody could enter the dungeon. He also didn’t bother to mention our poor equipment or the fact that Yua looked unarmed. He must get new people entering the dungeon all the time.

               “Uh, um, we’re going to the first floor, please.”

               He nodded and I guessed he figured that would be the answer because he didn’t so much as raise a brow at me. My surprise notwithstanding, he just turned to the entrance and called forth his spell again.

               “Dimensional Step.”

               I thought we’d have been able to walk right in, but apparently the teleportation wasn’t just to let people skip levels they weren’t interested in. It must be to get around the barrier. No living creatures in or out, right?

               The blue lights that appeared before us swirled around in the air like a whirlpool in front of the entrance before settling into the same thin, slightly transparent wall I saw from before.

               We were out of time. Confronted with the reality of being so close to actually entering the dungeon, I started checking what I had on hand, only now concerned that we might not have enough supply to survive and keep us going for as long as possible when an impatient Yua pushed me into the wall of light.