Chapter 22:
The Inn and Advice

It was already dark outside when we left the Guild. I looked up, and saw that the sky was still relatively bright, but the sides of the crater cast a shadow over the city. It would probably become pitch black at night.

I looked back at the pathway as I began to organize my thoughts. We needed to have some semblance of an idea of what to do here. I was starving, but I didn't want to buy food here. We already had enough dried monster meat, and as much as I hated it, we needed to save up money.

As we walked further into the city, we passed by a large inn. Alek took one look at it, and shook his head. "This one is too expensive. We won't be able to gain enough money to stay here at our current rank. Let's find somewhere else."
He was really knowledgeable about this, which was quite helpful. We ended up wandering for a while, until I stopped in my tracks.

"That's…" I was looking up at the ceiling. The sun had set, and the inner walls of the crater started glowing a radiant turquoise; the light was growing brighter the longer I looked at it. I found myself entranced at the sight. Eventually, the entire city basked in the light blue glow of the walls.

"Ah, the illuminators. They're a sight to behold when you first see them." Alek explained.

"How do they even work?" I asked, tearing away my eyes from the lights. Alek scratched at his chin, and responded.

"...If I recall correctly, they're a variety of magic stones. They absorb light during the day, and release the contained light during the night. I've seen my share of stones like them in my travels." He explained.

So, they were glow-in-the-dark stones? I wondered why I hadn't seen something like this in Asura, considering how much practical use it could have.

Alek continued. "Today, the stones themselves are scarce and fetch hefty prices, but the Great Demon Empress was said to have brought them all here when she was at her peak. It was really only to illuminate her castle at night." He pointed towards a fractured black fortress at the center of the city.

This Demon Empress chick seemed to have an interesting personality. All of that just for aesthetics? Talk about priorities.

I sighed. "That's great. But honestly, when are we going to find an inn?" I muttered, looking up at Alek. I've been feeling sluggish for a few days now. I assumed it was just me being not used to traveling, and left it at that. But even when I slept for around ten hours, I was still as tired as I had been the night before. Stress, perhaps?

I really wanted to just lie down on a bed.

Alek finally decided on a place called the Wolfclaw Inn. It wasn't too crowded, and only had twelve rooms. The rate was five stone coins per night, meaning we could probably stay here for just over two weeks without doing anything but sleeping here. I wouldn't call the building pristine, but it was good enough for the price. According to Alek, if you threw in an extra stone coin, you'd get breakfast and an evening meal. I had to give it to Alek, he had a good eye at this stuff.

On top of all of that, they were pretty adventurer friendly. The inn's front lobby doubled as a small tavern, serving drinks and food to any hungry newcomer. I glanced at a group of three young-looking boys, seemingly rookie adventurers. They looked a little silly, sitting there scarfing their food down. I chuckled, and Alek and I faced the innkeeper.

Alek told the bored looking innkeeper a few things, and he nodded a few times.

"Lumina, would you like to have the meals?" Alek flippantly asked me. He honestly didn't look bothered about it–maybe Immortal Demons didn't have to eat.

"Yes, please." I'd prefer having to pay an extra stone coin than having to go out and buy meals every day.

Alek handed the innkeeper twelve stone coins, leaving us with one iron coin, eight scrap iron coins, and eight stone coins. In other words, we had 188 stone coins left. We could probably lean on that cushion for a while, if we wanted.

As Alek and the innkeeper converse, a voice came from behind me.

"...Girl…Adventurer," was all that I could make out. I was beginning to memorize a few key words of the Demon God language, but it really didn't help me much at all. I turned around to see one of those boys walking right up to me. I backed away, pointed at my mouth, and shook my pointer finger. It was the easiest way to tell them I couldn't understand them.

The boy had white hair, and a small horn protruding from his forehead. Some people would call him cute, but I personally didn't care for his looks. His two friends looked interesting as well. One had four toned arms, and looked a little rowdy. The other had a break for a mouth, and had feathers all over his head.

The white haired boy sighed at my gesture. A regular kid would have backed down by now, but this boy clearly didn't know about personal boundaries. He reached out, and grabbed my hood. He tried to yank me backwards, but I palmed him in the face.

"I don't know what the hell your problem is, but I paid good money for that hood." I said, despite knowing he couldn't understand me. I hadn't really gotten into any physical altercations before this, but this boy looked harmless enough.

The white haired-boy staggered back, and huffed. He stepped closer to me, but Alek stepped in, as always. Alek pulled the boy by the hair, and said a few words to him in a stern tone. I just sighed, glancing over at the other boys, making sure they didn't get any ideas.

"Hey, Alek. Let the kid go, and let's have some dinner. I'm starving right now." I said, motioning to the tables.

"...Alright." He set the kid down, and the boy made the stereotypical Tch… noise, and sodded off.

"Also, Alek. You don't need to come to my rescue every single time, you know? What are you gonna do when we're out doing monster quests? I can't imagine you'd just kill all of them without leaving any to me." I said.

"That…was my plan, originally." He said, sitting down at the table. I shook my head. "Nothing good will come from carrying me all the way through. Putting that aside from now, let's eat." I said, glancing at the food that was being carried to us.


After dinner, we headed upstairs. We were directed to a medium-sized room with two fur beds.

"Hmm…" I exhaled, taking a seat on mine and lying down backwards. Today was pretty tiring. At least we had finally made it to our first destination, right? The first of many, I suppose. I gazed out the window from my bed.

The light from the illuminators steadily grew dimmer as time went on. The shattered black castle nestled in the middle of so many buildings made for a picturesque view. I smiled, and looked back up at the ceiling.

I wanted to come up with a game plan, and share it with Alek the next morning. First came the boy we were supposed to be helping out, Ares. Once we had saved or helped him out, we would have to add another person to our party. Right now, it was only going to be ten stone coins a night; not much of an issue. But with Ares, it would be up to fifteen. Relatively speaking, that was quite the sum. We had to gain that or more daily in order to not sink into the depths of being broke.

Alek had told me that your average F-rank quest netted someone five or so stone coins. Even the E-rank quests, being the highest ones we could take, only paid around ten stone coins, or a scrap iron coin. F- and E-rank quests were just odd jobs one would do around the city, but D-rank quests were more fetch quest material.

For now, we can really only rely on the E and F-rank quests. Tacking on an extra five stone coins for lunch and day-to-day things would raise our daily quota to twenty stone coins. I can't imagine the noble boy who tried to bed me fifteen minutes after meeting me would be a hard worker, so we could feasibly get one quest done per day. … but we'd be losing much more than we'd be gaining, and we would go under.

Since we had 188 stone coins, we could probably only rely on it for three or so weeks until we would be screwed over.

Maybe if we split up… Alek was trustworthy enough, and he could probably leave me alone without issue. He'd done it a bunch of times before, after all. There was an issue with that, though. I was a ten year old human girl, didn't understand the language at all, and I looked harmless. That in and of itself posed a bunch of problems straight away. I didn't need to spell out the potential kidnappings, especially here in this city.

I also didn't want to go through all the effort of helping Ares just to have him be killed the day after because we split up. It was a bad idea.

On a more positive note, once we ranked up to D, we would be coasting along swimmingly. We could take C-rank jobs, and Alek would be excellent at those. That would get us in the desired gaining range, and I could practice my Curse Magic. We'd have to rank up within the next three weeks, though. I'd have to ask Alek about the ranking up requirements later, to gauge whether or not doing one job a day could work within that time frame.

But even if it was possible within three weeks, who knew how much money we'd spend on less common purchases. The clothes I had on right now were pretty durable, but I didn't know how long they'd hold up. I could also wash them manually, but using magic to do so harmed the fabric quickly. I knew that from some unfortunate occurrences from my time spent in Buena Village.

It's funny… me worrying myself sick about the pocket money of some noble brat and an immortal demon.

The thought amused me. In my previous life, I would have never imagined doing so much as thinking about the family budget. I would have much preferred looking at pretty boys on my computer screen and getting off to yuri.

Enough about that. Let's get back on track.

Easiest way to get money? The image of me wearing a ski mask and threatening a demon with a knife for their wallet flashed through my mind. Putting that thought aside, maybe we would be better off going out and killing stray monsters outside the city, selling the materials for profit?

Nah, that wouldn't be preferable. Alek said he had experience as an adventurer, and that you could buy items cheaper at the Guild if you were known as a high-ranked adventurer. That would help us immensely going forward, looking at the journey as a whole.

What about Ares? I had no idea if he could even support the party in any capacity. Would he even be able to help out?

This isn't working out… I closed my eyes, trying to rearrange things in my head. The added wild card that was Ares screwed a lot of things up. I couldn't find anything that worked before I drifted asleep.


I was dreaming. Not a regular dream. A "Divine Oracle," as I put it jokingly.

I looked down, and found my old, pudgy body. I felt myself grimace at the feeling of being heavier. I was in a vast white void, with nothing for as far as the eye could see.

Again? You sure came at a nice time. You're a god, so can't you summon some money to rain out of the sky for me?

An obscene looking pixelated figure appeared before me.

"Sorry, kiddo, I can't interact with your world directly."

I sighed. That's great.

"Anyways, my advice helped you out, didn't it?"

Yeah, yeah, whatever. I mean, Alek didn't seem to be the type of guy to abandon me even if I didn't trust him.

"Oh, no. He totally would, don't kid yourself."

I narrowed my eyes. Or so you say. Certainly seems like you're all-knowing. Too bad you're still shady.

"What's with the hostility? Well, it's not like it matters. I've got some new advice for you."

Whatever, Mister Man-God. Go present your speech at the front of the class, for all I care. Just spit it out, and quickly. I hate everything about this place. This body, my voice, and especially yours. It makes me feel like the decade I spent as Lumina was just a dream. If you were going to shove your advice down my throat, why couldn't you just say your piece upfront!

"It's just not my style. Anyways, you sure seem willing this time around."

Not like I can avoid becoming your puppet, anyways.

"Don't be like that. You have all of your free will intact. Again, you can choose to ignore me if you really want to."
Get to the point, cumstain.

"Sheesh… Listen, then. Stroll by the far western edge of Rikarisu. There, you'll find your new buddy enslaved, so you should help him out there. That's not all; After that, ask Alek to report the slaver, as that particular slaver is a pain in the ass… for a Guild official. Do all of this, and you'll find yourself with much less to worry about…"

Mister Man-God's voice echoed through my head, and I could feel myself slipping back into unconsciousness.


When I came to, it was irritatingly the middle of the night. There goes my beauty sleep…

Anyways, Mister Man-God sure knew what he was doing, showing up at the peak of my uncertainty. I had a real evil god on my hands.

I sighed softly. I gazed at the empty spot on the bed from which I had just gotten up from. I found my thoughts wandering, and Sylphie's face came to mind. The girl who I had gotten so close to, just to be torn away from her. I sighed as I came to realize my feelings too late. I was most likely in love with her then, a love that made me want to keep her beside me.

Now, who knew when the next time I would see her would be? I should have enjoyed the time I had with her more.

I felt a pang in my heart as I pictured my now shattered family. Where were they all now? I gazed out to the nearly pitch black city as I worried myself about my parents, about my siblings.

Please be okay…

Tears welled up in my eyes as I thought about the way I had run off that day. I didn't deserve to be sad. All of it was because of the consequences of my actions. Because I was being immature. Because I got caught up in the moment.

A stray tear rolled down my cheek, and I wiped it away. I shouldn't have… Regrets filled my head.

My thoughts continued throughout the night, eventually settling as I fell asleep once more.

Author's Note: Thank you for reading!

Sorry for the late upload, I had schoolwork to do and I wrote a mushoku tensei oneshot as a request. If you'd like to check it out, look up "Sieghart's Homecoming" on Ao3. Note that it is NSFW.