It's me! Sorry for the long wait. I'm not dead (luckily), it's just I'm starting college so I may not be able to write as often as I do before. But I'll try my best to update this fic as often as possible.

Also, there's some changes on Fajar's abilities in chp 5. Go check it out!

Anyway, let's continue with the adventure of our quirky party of adventurers!

I arrive at the guild after a few minutes of walking. I push the entrance door and get in.

It's almost noon, and the guild is almost filled up with adventurers as always. I search our usual spot and found Kazuma there, reaching his hand out with an empty cup in front of him.

"Create Water!"

As he shouts those words, a spurt of water shooting out from his hand and into the cup. "Not bad Kazuma." I say, catches his attention. He just looks and me and smug. He took the cup and drink the water he just create and swigs it in a couple of gulps. "I really look like an adventurer now that I've learned some skills, am I?" He boasts with pride. I just chuckle, taking a seat in front of him.

"Kazuma! Fajar!" I turn around to see Darkness, wearing her now well-repaired shining armor since the armor took quite a lot of damage yesterday during the harvest.

"Look! I repaired my armors with the rewards I got for the cabbages, and it's so shiny now! What do you think?" Not gonna lie, she does look nice in those armors. If only she's a little bit... stable.

"Looks like some sort of armor some newly-rich aristocrat's son would wear." Geez Kazuma... You really not holding back, aren't you?

"Just ignores him, Darkness. I think you look great." I compliment her, trying to cheer her up.

Luckily, she smiles brightly at my compliment, almost looking angelic.

Sigh... If only...

"Thank you Fajar. I appreciate your compliment. That's so nice of you. Not like a certain someone..." She replies, eyeing Kazuma on her last sentence.

Kazuma just sighs while turning to his right. "I don't have time to pay attention to you right now. Do something about that pervert who's well on her way surpassing you." He says, pointing at someone.

My eyes follow the direction he's pointing at and see Megumin, "fidgeting" with her new staff.

"Irresistible. Irresistible!"

I start to feel both awkward and worried seeing her like that. Mostly because other people are watching. "Megumin! Oi Megumin!" I snap my fingers in front of her face, causing her to wake up from her reverie.

"Huh? What? I'm indulging the lustre of magical powers from my new Manatite staff!" she half-scolding me, just because I disturb her daydreaming. "Well can you do that another time! People are watching!" I say back to her, promptly her pout out at me.

"What was that?!"

Ugghhhhhh... What now? I look at the source of the voice, and guess who is it? Three hints. Blue, cries a lot, and useless.

Yup, it's Aqua.

"Hey you, what's the meaning of this?!" She shrieks at poor Luna's face. I look at Kazuma, and he just acts like there's nothing happens.

(Sigh) Well, understandable, have a nice day.

Since Kazuma wouldn't deal with that, then who else will do it but me. I approach the counter, where Aqua seems like she's ready to bite off Luna's head at any time. "Just how many cabbages do you think I caught?!" I try to hold her back before anything bad happens. "Hey! Calm down Aqua!"

I manage to pull her away from Luna, who's now almost as pale as a ghost from Aqua's outrage. After Luna regains her composure, she's starting to explain to Aqua. "W-Well-" "What?!" I can clearly hear an audible yelp from Luna as Aqua pressure her like that. "Most of what you caught is lettuce."

I struggle to hold my laughter.

Aqua, in contrary, looked both surprised and confused. She snatches Luna's uniform and shake her back and forward. "Why there's lettuces mixed in?!" "Th-There's nothing I can do about it!"

I guess lettuces have lower value than cabbages. It's kinda funny actually, how Aqua is so misfortune that she happens to caught lettuce rather than cabbages.

"I went through a lot of trouble, so do something!" Well, I think it's time to settle this down. "Aqua, she already said it. There's nothing she can do. She's just doing her job." I say, grabbing her on the shoulder.

Instantly, she turns her head around, looking at Kazuma. She leaves the counter and walks, or should I say skips? Skips to the table where Kazuma is sitting, completely ignoring me. Well, better get ignored than getting pestered by her. She can be troublesome sometimes (or maybe all the time I guess?).

"Ka~Zu~Ma~" Ughhh... there's something in her tone that raising red flags to me. Yes, go to Kazuma. Don't even try to bother me.

"About how much was your reward from the last quest?" Told you. Good thing Aqua didn't know I've already collected my rewards.

"About a million."

"HUH?!"

Damn... We're just speechless hearing that. That's around 100 cabbages, at least.

"Kazuma, you're joking, right?" I ask, pretty much dumbfounded.

"Hehehe... M-Master Kazuma, I've thought this for quite some time, but you're, um... fairy cool, you know?" Wow, Aqua didn't actually try to hide her sweet-talking.

"You're wasting your time Aqua. You think Kazuma would easily flatter? I can't even call that a flattering if you ask me." I say, while Kazuma just try to ignore the presence of the blue-haired girl in front of him.

Suddenly, she hops onto the table and grab Kazuma by his arm, crying and begging for him. "K-Kazuma! I thought my rewards for the quest would be quite hefty, so I used up all of my money! In fact, I expected to rake in a bunch of money, I ended up having a bar tab nearly 100,000 Eris!" She says, tears keep pouring from her eyes.

"What do I care! You're the one suggested we keep our reward for ourselves!" Kazuma pushes her away, the girl's behavior starting to irritated him.

"Aqua stop! People are watching! And also, don't spend the money you don't have!" I try to intervene, but she's keeping acting like a child.

"But that was because I thought I'll end up with a lot of rewards!" Aqua whines. Well, I tried. She's not my problem anyway. Let Kazuma deals with her since I have nothing to do with that girl anyway. Call me selfish, but I'm not the one who dragged her into this world. I leave them, and continue to watch their quarrel. I stand at the side along with Darkness and Megumin.

"(Sigh) I'm too old to deal with this shit." I complain, rubbing my temple.

"I think you're exaggerating." Darkness says, sweatdroped.

"Oh! By the way, Fajar? Where have you been? Aqua asked the receptionist earlier about you but she said that you already checked out from the inn." Megumin asks, while watching how Kazuma grasps Aqua's mouth in panic when Aqua starting to talking nonsense.

"Well, I checked out because there's a weird incident happened earlier." I proceed to tell them about what happened about the crazy mage guy.

"Using fire magic inside a room?! That guy has a loose screw!" Megumin says. "Huh, look who's talking." I say, rolling my eyes. "What do you mean by that?!" Crap! Didn't mean to say that out loud.

"I don't know how you could deal with that airhead goddess."

"Believe me, if I had a chance to ditch her, I would do it in a heartbeat."

With everything settles down, and by that I mean Aqua gets the money she need from Kazuma to pay her bar tab and I manage to save my head from an angry Megumin, both Kazuma and I have some drink while the girls going for a walk around the town. "So, any plan for today?" I ask him, taking a chug of my ginger ale.

"Well, since I've got quite a nice amount of money, I was thinking, maybe I should get some better equipment. Which also brings me to a question I've always wanted to ask you. How on earth did you have a complete gear set on your first day?!" He says, exclaiming the question part.

I just smirk at his question. I then tell him about how I stop the thief and how I met the old man. "If you want to get some fine equipment set, I can bring you to the old man's store." I offer him. He nods and accept my offer. "Sure, why not. I don't know where to start searching anyway." He says.

After we finished our drinks, we leave the guild, my rug sack slung over my shoulder, and we head to the marketplace. While we're on the way, occasionally my eyes will glance around, looking for any sign of any inn or motel. Sadly, Lady Luck wasn't on my side today.

"Here it is." After a while, we arrive at Mr. Millard's shop. Kinda impressed with myself as I manage to get us here without lost. "Wow, this shop looks huge." Kazuma was astonished by the size of the shop.

"Go on. Head inside. I'm sure there's something that will caught your eyes in there." I say, giving him a slight push. "You're not coming?" he asks in confusion. "I want to, but I need to do some searching for a place to stay. Tell the old man I send you and send him my regards." I say, leaving the shop. I wave Kazuma a goodbye, which he returns back before heading into the shop.

I wander around the town for a bit, asking townfolks and merchants about any inn or motel around the town, but apart from some sketchy inn near dark alleyway, there's almost no other place for I can stay.

(Sigh) I put the blame 100 percent on that idiot wizard guy.

For right now, I'm sitting on a bench in the marketplace while munching on some chicken kebab, thinking about my next course of action. The guild's inn is unavailable, and other inn that I found is either fully booked, or looked iffy.

"Excuse me?"

Out of the blue, a voice and a tap on my shoulder, startling me, almost causing me to drop my kebab. I turn around to see Wiz, the shop keeper I met earlier. "Oh, sorry if I surprised you! I didn't mean it, I just happened to see you here and decide to say hi." She quickly says as she sees I almost drop my food earlier.

After I regain my composure, I look at her and brush off her apology. "It's fine, Wiz. No need to apologize. What are you doing here anyway?" I ask her, eyeing a bag of things in her hand. She lifts the bag and says, "Oh, I am just looking around to replenish my stock at the shop. What about you?"

I just sigh and slouching onto the bench. "I'm looking for a place to stay actually. So far, everywhere I went is either fully booked or I just didn't have enough trust on that place." I explain my situation at her.

She ponders for a while before turning her attention back to me. "Well, Axel is a beginners town after all. Most of the adventurers would stay in the town for a long time before they decide to advance to the capital. So I see why you've a hard time finding a place." She says.

Well, that's just another twist of the knife. "(Sigh) Well, I think I just need to keep looking in that case." I say, get up from my seat. "Well, I wish you luck then. Some of the adventurers sometimes seek for part-time jobs since usually employer will provide a place for them to stay." Wiz say as I'm taking my leave, which straight away take my attention. 'That... might work. But where should I get a job-'Immediately, I turn around and look at Wiz with agape. "Errr... Why did you look at me like that?" She asks me, strained. "How about I work for you, Wiz?" I say, grinning from ear to ear. "Huh? What?" She seems a bit baffled by my suggestion.

"Well, I noticed earlier that you're the only one working at your shop. So, since I need a place to stay, and you seem short-handed, how about I work for you. It's a win-win situation." I explain to her. She seems a bit troubled on processing my proposal. "Well, I can't say I didn't need any help. To be honest, I really need someone to look after the store if I'm away. But..." "But?" "But I'm afraid that I may not able to pay you. You see... the thing is, my shop hasn't had a single profitable month since it's opened." she says, a bit ashamed to admit.

Wow. That's kinda both depressing and sad. Not that I lose interest though. In fact, it's likely the opposite. "Then I'll help you gain profit. How does that sound to you?" Now she looked interested. "How?" "Well... I'll think of something. I promise! Please Wiz, you were my last hope!" I put my hands together, begging to her while bowing my head. Some bystander notice us, since I accidentally speak too loud.

Wiz looks at me empathetically, before nodding her head. "Alright then, if you insisted. I'll accept your offer. Pleased to have you." She says tenderly. I quickly lift up my head as I heard that. "Really?" I ask with a glimpse of light in my eyes. Wiz just chuckles, looking at my reaction. "Yes, really. Now, as your first task, help me bring these to the shop." She holds up the bag she's carrying earlier. I take the bag with enthusiasm. "Yes boss!" Once again, a chuckle escape her mouth.

I carry all the bags and follow Wiz back to the shop. On our way, we run into some other townsfolks.

"Hey Wiz!"

"Good afternoon, Miss Wiz!"

"Heading back home, Wiz?"

Wow, I never thought that she's fairly famous among the townsfolks. And every time someone greets her, she will greet them back generously. "Wow boss, I never thought you were this famous." I say as we come across yet another townsfolk who's familiar with her.

"Well, I did own a store. People often to visit my store every day. Sometimes, they also come to seek for my help." She says. Well, now that's got me curious.

"What kind of help?" I ask her, arching my right eyebrow. "Well, many things. I'm a former adventurer as you know, so many people sometimes come ask for help. Sometimes I help people whose house are haunted by some spirits. Sometimes people ask me to help with their problems regarding adventuring such as yourself. And sometimes people, especially my neighbors just come by to check me out... And we're here."

Unnoticed by me, we've already arrived at her shop the moment she finishes explaining me those things. She helps by holding the door open for me since I'm carrying the bags. We enter the shop and I put all the stuffs she buys earlier on the counter. "Good work on your first chores, Fajar." I just sheepishly smile as Wiz goes to the back of the shop.

"Make yourself comfortable. I'm going to prepare some drinks." Her voice echoes from the back of the shop. I take the chance to properly look around the shop, trying to figure out what kind of stuff does this shop sells. The shop is quite spacious, with a wide space to move around. The counter where I put the stuffs on earlier is directly opposite of the front door. There's a table set near the counter, maybe to make the shop more lively. Several shelves and racks exhibiting the items on sale. I walk to a shelf where various glass bottles are placed.

"Cooling potion. Caution, use more than the suggested dose may freeze to death. Mana boost potion. Side effects, mana exhaustion for the next few hours. Super strength potion. May cause muscle to explode." Yikes, I don't know if these warnings are meant to be serious or as a joke. As I keep browsing and browsing, I see why Wiz claims she barely have any sale every month. The things she sells are either one, straight forward useless or seems useful, but with some stupid catch, or two, too powerful and expensive for a beginner town like Axel.

A sword that can kill in one swing, but that's it. Only one swing and then the sword is completely useless.

Some high quality manatite, which from what I guess is some sort of stone that give you mana, but too expensive for rookie adventurers to even afford.

"(Sigh) I didn't expect it to be this bad..." "What you're not expecting, Fajar?" I turn around and there's Wiz, emerging from the back, carrying a serving tray with two cups of tea on it. She put the tray on the table at take a seat. I do the same, taking a seat in front of her.

"The shop. Wait, sorry! I didn't mean to put it that way! What I'm trying to say is, the shop is in critical condition. Sooner or later, the shop may have to shut down if things keep going as it right now." I explain, kinda accidentally blurting out earlier. She just nods, sipping on the tea. I took my own cup and take a sip.

As the tea touches the tip of my tongue, my eyes widens in amazement. "Wow! Boss, this tea is superb!" I exclaim, and it's not exaggerating. The tea is too good, I never knew a tea can even taste like that. Wiz just giggles looking at my reaction. "You are too overreacting. My tea is nothing special." She says. "If I can drink this tea every day, I would be more than please to work for you." I jokingly say. We continue to enjoy our tea, while in my mind, I am constructing a plan to help this shop.

"Boss, may I look at your financial record? You record your finance, right?" I really hope she record it, otherwise it would be a big problem for the shop. "Oh, of course! A minute." Thank goodness. I exhale in relief. Wiz went to the counter and take a leather bound book. "Here." She hands the book to me and I took it. I open in and take a look at the latest record.

And it's full of red.

Damn... Just like she said, the shop almost never gains earnings more than the cost. And from the record, I can say that Wiz spent so much on the stock that in the end, she only manages to earn a small amount of profit. I just sigh, closing the book and look at Wiz. "Boss, let me be honest here. The fact that this shop is still standing right now is a miracle. The cost is way too high for the shop to gain profit efficiency. You spend too much on stocking the shop that the profit couldn't cover the overall cost." I explain to her. I really want to help her, since she's willing to take me to work with her. And the first step is to fix the shop's flow of money.

"If you allow me, I would like to manage the shop stock. We really need to refine the cost spent so that we make more money by the end of the month. Are you okay with that, Boss?" I say, asking for her permission. I don't want to sound like I'm trying to take over the business, but I really need to get my hand into the matter.

Wiz considers my request for a while. "Hmmm... Well, I don't see any reason why not. But are you okay with that? I don't want to burden you too much, since you're still an adventurer." She says, concerned. Damn, she's too kind. I give her a Cheshire cat grin. "No need to worry Boss!" I show her a thumbs up. She just smiles warmly.

"Well Fajar, as a part of our agreement, I need to provide you a place to stay. Follow me." She goes into the back of the shop. I tail her from behind. As I enter the area, I get a better understanding of the shop layout. If the front is the shop part, then the back is more like a home part. There's a kitchen and a dining table. There's also several doors, leading to different rooms. "That's the kitchen and dining space, where I usually cook. That room at the back is the storage, where I keep the stocks. That one is a mini library, where I keep my books for research and studying. Feel free to use it if you want. Oh, and this one is my room." Wiz explains briefly while giving me a quick tour around there.

She turns around the corner, which I discover there's a staircase leading to the next floor. "I rarely have visitors so this floor is almost untouched." She says as we climb up the staircase. We arrive at the next floor, which is quite smaller than the first floor. There's only two doors, leading to two different rooms. We go to the first door. Wiz opens the door and we're greeted by the sight of a simple room, with a single wooden frame bed next to the wall. There's a wooden wardrobe at the opposite site of the room and there's a table by the window. The window is covered by a dark red curtain.

"And this is your room. Nothing much, but I hope you comfortable with it." Wiz says. I nod, satisfied with the room. "This is more than enough. Thank you Boss." I thank her. "Well, today's business is kinda slow, so take your time to settle down here. I'll be waiting at the shop." Wiz closes the door, leaving me alone in the room. I put my rug sack on the bed and began to unpack, not like there's much to unpack though. The only stuffs I have are the adventurer gear I am wearing right now and my old clothes, which now mostly serve as my casual clothes/pajamas. I open the wardrobe and to my luck, there's some clothes hanger inside. I took them and hang my clothes.

"Well, that's all I guess." I just about to leave the room when I thought of something. I take off my outer coat and chest plate, as one, it kinda unpractical to wear it indoors, and two, it's extremely uncomfortable to wear it all the time. I just left in my long sleeve shirt and pants. I left the room and heading downstairs, where Wiz is waiting for me at the shop.

"Thank you, please come again." As I enter the shop area, it seems like a customer just leave the shop as Wiz bid them farewell. "A customer?" I ask her, averting her attention to me. "Oh, you're done. Yes, they are here to get some healing potion." She says. I nod in understanding.

I walk to the shelves which labeled "magic item". There's a few stuffs that giving the magic vibe. Pendants, orbs, dices, you name it. But, there's also some weird stuff, which I couldn't guess what is it. There's an odd kettle, with some weird dial on the side and wires around the base, some weird dagger with buttons and toggles, and many more other weird, frankenstein gizmos on display. 'What the heck is these things.'

The day continues, I help around the shop, and once in a while, customers come to buy stuffs and chat a bit with Wiz. She introduces me to her customers, which most of them wish me luck with my work. The sun finally set, and it's time to close the shop. Wiz asks me to sweep the floor while she's locking the shop and count today's sale, which not much but it's still money. After we finish closing the shop, I go back to my room while Wiz prepares dinner.

I take a bath and changes into my tank top and sweat pants, which I bought earlier before I meet Wiz at the bazaar. "*sigh* Guess this is my home for now. I really need to do something about the sales thought." I say to no one. My life in my world is tough, balancing between my social life, part-time job as a writer and student life is difficult, but life in this world? Guess life just keeps on going give us surprises, huh?

"Fajar! Dinner's ready!" I hear Wiz call out my name from downstairs. "I'm coming boss!"