After a short unintended nap I managed to wake up in time to not miss dinner. The last time that happened Ryuu-san came to check up on me, which led to that whole embarrassing incident I'd rather forget. Feeling thankful that I managed to avoid a similar fate, I grabbed my rent money and went down to get dinner.
I was a bit scared that Mama Mia would somehow find out my business transaction with Chloe and chuck me out in short order, but I've found no indication of that in the end. Chloe was milling around too, not showing more than the barest signs of her hangover anymore. Her Abnormal Resistance ability must've helped her out somewhat, or maybe higher level adventurers are just naturally that bullshit by themselves.
Today I had more than plenty of social interactions, so instead of people watching I went up to my room as soon as I finished eating.
With no other pressing business I went to sleep the sleep of the still-mildly-high-strung-but-quite-done-with-today.
Next morning my biological clock woke me up at the same time as usual, so I had some time before leaving for the various shops I planned on visiting today. Doing so right now would risk me arriving before they even opened.
Still, I had an entire day ahead of me, ready to be spent on various self-mandated fun activities, so I should decide on the rest of my agenda. In all likelihood, if I was still back home I would've simply spent my entire day sitting in front of the computer, but that is patently impossible here.
I could ensconce myself in a library at the Guild, or even in that larger one I remember from the Sword Oratoria novels, but for some reason I don't feel like it right now. It seems the substantial amount of physical activity I've been doing every day since I got here left me a bit too wound up for that. Not that I'm complaining; feeling energetic like this is leagues better than being barely able to master the motivation to get out of bed before noon.
What I really feel like doing is going for a fly once again, but I don't know if I can risk it. Last time I was very careful to avoid detection, but even so I honestly can't be entirely sure that no one saw me. It's better to not tempt fate with that for now.
In exchange I used the first half of morning to play around with artificially lessened effect of gravity on my body and another useful application of telekinesis, unseen panes of force.
In recent days I didn't really have much free time to experiment in earnest, but the telekinesis staple ability of creating invisible walls was something I've kept in the back of my mind for later. In theory it works very much the same as my Shell, only away from my body and not the same shape obviously.
I've already tried to do this once or twice on a small scale, but the walls became more like half formed ethereal hands, which is not optimal for several reasons. First of all, the touch sense on it was too detailed, which I won't need in most cases when I need a simple pane of force. In case I do, I can always modify it on a case by case basis. Second was the high cost of that particular method.
My theory for that is since I'm using the ethereal hands method to achieve the wall effect, it has too much of an overhead by itself for it to be suitably efficient. Aside from the simple telekinetic blast, this kind of usage method should be the next most simple one.
My inability to immediately use this new method leads me to believe that my Absolute Territory Skill is not as easy to use as I assumed. Well, it should be more accurate to say that it's easy to use, but hard to master. I also have a sneaking suspicion that the three main techniques I'm using are kind of freebies from the Falna, or from whoever gave me the Falna. My main reason to believe that is because they are much too easy to use.
Ethereal Hands, complete with sense of touch, a defensive Shell perfectly molded to my body, with no need to even think about making it follow my movements, the ability to fucking Fly with a thought.
Those three are abilities that would be valuable as all hell even if an adventurer only possessed one of those as a Skill or Magic, and these are nothing more than the tip of the iceberg for my Absolute Territory. A kind of project samples, if my suspicions are right; templates to showcase just what can be achieved if I put the effort in. And to help me survive in the short run of course, since they neatly cover the offense, defense, escape categories.
In fact, considering my Absolute Territory as a developer platform for creating various applications from the basics of my power shouldn't be that far from the truth.
I really hope I'm right about this and I'm not just inept as hell with this particular use method.
I let out a sight after trying and failing to decouple things from the Ethereal Hands stuff.
Whenever I'm manifesting additional arms I always imagine them connecting roughly to my upper back muscles. I think it's easiest for my brain to handle the presence of additional limbs this way.
The reason must be because the first time I used this method I imagined the creation of the panes of force in a similar way to how Neo in the Matrix 2 did it. Hand up, palm out, bullets stop in the air. But in my case all it did was associate this method with the hand creation method a little too deeply. That's why the resulting pane of force had too much in common with the Ethereal Hands.
I need to go back to basics on this one.
I let out a sigh and did just that.
What do I need to define one single pane of force? Three plus points to define the 2d shape in 3d space, and a vector for the direction of force for now. There are a multitude of ways to complicate it for later, but for now I need to start with the simplest implementation.
The whole points and vector stuff reminded me of the very first way I tried using my Territory on my first day here, the manipulations of force vectors in the wire-frame representation of the real world in my mind. I really should've made the connection earlier, but this should indeed be the simplest method for defining how this new technique should work.
Double and triple checking stuff in the 'developer mode', I manifested the pane in the real world, much like I did with vectors on the first day.
Similarly, nothing happened. However, this time that was the expected output. Since the force pane is invisible it can only be detected when something physically interacts with it. For example the trusty valis test coins I prepared for this.
Even without seeing the force pane I was wholly aware of its position thanks to my Territory so I was able to accurately drop a coin on it.
The result was eerie as shit, because the coin impacted and rolled over the invisi-surface as expected, but didn't produce a single sound when interacting with the surface itself. For a moment the thought that I went deaf flashed through my mind as I saw that, but then the coins rolled off the surface and impacted the floor, which produced a sound as usual. It was still freaky.
Setting aside a buttload of potential uses going through my mind for that sound inhibiting effect for now, I kept testing the surface for potential problems. For example, the two dimensional nature of the surface could conceivably mean that anything impacting the surface edge on would be cut apart on the atomic level, at least. That would both be incredibly useful and unbelievably dangerous.
For better or worse the testing showed that it wasn't the case here. The surface acted very much like a simple invisible table-top in every test I could think of. When an object entered through an edge the only thing it did was push the object with moderate force in the specified direction. No easy molecular cutter for me.
In the end I spent more than half my morning testing and practicing with the method of creating panes of force, which I decided to call Barriers for simplicity's sake, and jotting down notes for future review. Before I noticed I even quietly started humming some melodies from my usual work playlist. Though when I recognized this I stopped humming and fell into a shitty mood since music was another thing I've lost by becoming part of this world. Yet, after a few minutes of quiet I decided to resume it. If I kept shoving everything that reminds me of home into the depth of my mind, one day I might just forget it all for real. That's not something I want to happen.
The testing produced some useful results too.
The Barriers are generally pretty cheap, probably because of the simple mechanic behind them, but can be fairly brittle if I don't pump more than the minimum amount of fuel into them. It wasn't that hard to punch through an unreinforced one, even bare handed, but at the same time it could easily carry my weight. If nothing else, those basic Barriers will be useful as footholds.
Reinforced ones though can take quite a bit of punishment before dissipating, and by that I mean I couldn't punch through it, at least without risking injury to my hands.
Another great thing about the Barriers is that I can replenish them in real time too as long as they are within my Territory.
There is only one possible drawback to this method, which I'm not entirely sure about just yet, so it needs to be verified, but I think the fuel used in creating Barriers is always lost, even if the Barrier in question remains unused in the end.
Therefore, I need to accurately guesstimate the incoming force I wish to block if I don't want the Barrier to either fail at once if I undershoot it, or waste a bunch of Mind if I overestimate.
That will require a lot of fine tuning and practice, that's for sure.
Easy to use, hard to master.
All in all, I was able to spend the morning in an unexpectedly productive way, even though I just wanted to kill some time before going shopping. Oh well.
Looking through my notes one last time, my gaze stopped on the reminder I wrote yesterday about testing what's up with me sensing magic stones even when left outside my Territory for much longer than the expiration time for any other objects. Since I was about to leave my room for much of the day, this should be the perfect time to test it.
With that in mind I dug up the very first magic stone I got from a monster and placed it on the windowsill of the open window.
I know that simply marking the stones proved to be harmless so far, but I don't want to learn otherwise with it still in my hands if the experiment manages to somehow contradict my previous experience. After all, these magic stones serve as the fuel of the magical technology in this world and fuel means potential explosion if something were to go wrong.
So the magic stone stays on the windowsill.
Still not perfectly happy with the precautions I carefully set up a box made of Barriers facing inwards around the stone. It was a crudely made box with some overlaps, but I'd rather overkill on this one in the name of safety.
Perhaps I shouldn't be treating this nail sized stone as the equivalent of a hand grenade, since if it was that unstable then the dungeon would be a smoking crater by now. Meh, rather safe than sorry.
With the magic stone safely ensconced in the makeshift Barrier box I started out by simply marking it. Since nothing happened I made a note of the lack of notable things and continued on.
The marking method eloquently described as 'putting telekinesis juice in stuff and moving them with it' is something I use nearly constantly on a daily basis, but still understand little of it. I think that's perfectly reasonable since I was mainly interested in getting it to work well enough to be used in combat, anything more could wait until I had adjusted to this world a bit more.
Also, I think the stuff I started calling telekinesis juice may very well be what they call mana here. When casters run out of fuel it's called Mind Down, so the resource mages use when casting spells is called Mind. At first glance mana and Mind may appear to be the same thing, but that's not entirely accurate. Mana is what fuels the spells and allows the desired effect to manifest, but the Mind of the caster is what controls the process.
So the Mind Down status can't really be called out of mana state, because it simply represents the fact that the caster's brain is too exhausted to regulate the usage of environmental mana.
Or at least that's my current understanding of the whole thing.
Back to the topic, one aspect that I was wondering about was what would happen if I kept pushing mana into an object. So far I kept the objects I moved to slightly above the threshold where I could start to move them, because I was wary of what would happen if I overcharged them. However, this overcharge is exactly what I'll need to do to test my theory.
Taking the plunge I started imbuing mana into the magic stone in a slow and steady manner.
It took a few minutes to notice something about the stone. Step by step, I was able to tell more about its makeup. Apparently magic stones only have a crystalline outer shell that covers a more or less liquid core. Its shell is not much harder than simple glass and that's why it's easy to destroy it with basically any kind of weapon. All you have to do is break the shell a little and the gooey insides go poof accompanied by a neat light show. Even the shell sublimates in that case. Although I know that from experience and not what I'm getting through my Territory right now.
Slightly increasing the flow rate into the magic stone I let my thoughts delve deeper into the exploration.
It's... interesting. And very meditative too. It's kind of like I'm inspecting the patterns of some intricate artwork. I was never too much into art appreciation, but sometimes one or two just grabs my attention.
An unknown time later I woke from a near daze and realized with a start that I never stopped feeding it mana, and yet still nothing noticeable happened. Well, aside from the enhanced perception into its structure. I could feel my for now maxed out Magic stat's worth of Mind reserve steadily decreasing, well on its way to actual depletion. I didn't think a small magic stone like that could take that much. Maybe it's because it's a magic stone that it can take it. Or maybe the amount I can pour into it is just not that much. I have no way to know for now.
A few minutes later I was about to give up when something interesting happened. I started experiencing a kind of resistance to the mana flow, so afraid of something drastic happening I let off on the flow rate. Pushing against that resistance will have to wait for another experiment.
Although my head was getting a bit fuzzy, I still noticed when the magic stone felt full to my senses. Getting up from my sitting position I walked closer to take a look at the stone, still suspended inside the Barrier box. What really grabs the attention is that instead of the usual flame colored light swirling inside the stone like corona ejections from the sun, the lights are tinged in the color of the rainbow. I quickly jot down the observed results. I wonder if the colors go away if I drain the mark from it.
As a further test I try to move it as gently as possible inside the Barrier box, but I didn't really notice any difference from before. Its small size could be the reason for that though. I haven't tried to move any truly large object yet, so I don't know if I would feel the strain of moving it even after marking it and if overcharging the mark would alleviate that possible problem. Another question for later.
Still, the color change is all well and good, but I expected something more from a fully overcharged mark. Exactly what, I don't really know.
Dispersing the Barrier box I note that indeed, I didn't seem to recoup anything from an unused Barrier. In light of my previously mentioned theory about the relationship between Mind and mana this outcome seems perfectly reasonable, yet it's still good to have confirmation.
With no Barriers in the way anymore I call the magic stone to me, leaving it hovering over my open hand. I smile a bit at that. It still feels absolutely incredible to be able to do that. A few weeks are nowhere near enough to get used to it.
With a slight twitch of my fingers the stone started to rotate in place as I watched.
A few moments later I furrowed my brows since I noticed something weird. Stopping the rotation I took a closer look, but it seemed it wasn't just my imagination. The stone was a lot rounder than before, its edges dulled and its flat sides started to bend outward. Suffice it to say, a magic stone should not do that at all, and certainly not from a simple spin. Very interesting.
Keeping the phenomenon in mind I once again looked deeper into the stone with my Territory provided senses. Now that I was looking for it I can somehow tell that the crystalline shell of the stone became somewhat malleable to change via my Territory.
Now that's a discovery that's worth spending my entire mind reserves for. I hope this works on other objects too, but even if it doesn't, being able to shape magic stones like that should be useful in the future.
Concentrating on it for a while I molded the magic stone into as close to a perfect sphere as I could. I've found that closing my eyes and focusing entirely on my Territory given senses makes the process easier and more precise.
Eventually a beautiful glass-marble like magic stone was the end result of the process. I'm not ashamed to say I spent a few minutes admiring and playing around with it. The time also served as a way to, if not recover, at least get used to the nearly depleted Mind reserves I was currently sporting.
Still, even after a few minutes of relaxation I deemed my brain still too hazy to be comfortable venturing into the city, so I crawled back into my bed and did my best to fall asleep.
The next time I opened my eyes was to the sound of bells, which I learned do indeed ring at noon in this world everyday. Eyes still bleary, I sat up and looked around my room. My gaze gravitated towards the small spherical object I managed to create this morning. It was partly because of its vibrant and shifting contents, and partly because I was able to feel its location especially prominently through my Territory. This boded well for the actual question I wanted to answer with the experiment, namely if magic stones lose their mark slower than other ordinary objects and whether I can use them as a kind of locator beacon. Those would be useful for all kinds of stuff.
To that end I pulled the magic stone to me from the stacked up upside down chair I left it on and placed it on my pillow.
With that done I got up and got ready to finally leave the room and hopefully check out a few shops I've wanted to visit for a while now.
After getting ready I opened the window and defenestrated myself. A Barrier surface at my landing point even successfully reduced the noise I made to the rustling of my clothes and equipment.
Shutting my window with telekinesis I set out for my day out in the city.
I honestly don't know what I expected to find in those shops that sold magic items, but I felt let down nonetheless. I only went into a couple of them, but they mostly sold pretty basic appliances that would be powered by electricity back home, like stoves, fridges, lamps, space heaters and such.
Though I guess if this single dungeon has to supply most of the world's need of magic stones, then I guess I can understand why delving into the Dungeon can be fairly lucrative.
The first thing that actually caught my attention was a display of some cool looking necklaces. Some of the gems somewhat reminded me of the charged magic stone I left back in my room, so I decided to wander into the jewelry store I would ordinarily stay far away from.
The exact reason for my decision was because I could still feel the location of the filled up magic stone in my room with no real indication that the charge would be going down, so I thought fashioning it into some kind of necklace that I could hand out to party members so I can keep track of them down in the Dungeon might be a neat idea.
I don't really like to think of the possibility, but there may come a time where Lily may ditch me down in the Dungeon, so it can be a bit of insurance for that as well. It's unlikely she would do it without reason, since she only did it to Bell due to a misunderstanding, but for one, she might be different in this world, and for two, it's possible that some kind of miscommunication may happen with us as well. In that case I would like to be able to find her and clear things up.
Though that's only possible if she doesn't know of the tracking feature, so I'll have to hide that from her for now. Argh, tracking her movements without her knowledge feels hella skeevy, but until I build up enough trust with her, I'll have to bear it.
I just hope that when I finally tell her, all that built up trust won't disappear with it.
Still, all this pondering about the morality of such actions may end up for naught if the filled up magic stone ends up depleted in a few hours or something. Or maybe not, since reexamining my morals on various things after such a drastic shift in my circumstances might be for the best either way.
I took a look around the shop, expecting the shopkeeper to give me a stink-eye for just standing still and staring at stuff for a while, but she was unexpectedly cool with it. On a second look, the shop didn't seem to be that opulent, so instead of the hedonistic Divines, the shop's target audience might exactly be the moderately successful adventurers like I might be.
My appearance was of a young girl right now as well, so someone thinking that I might be saving up for some kind of jewelry would be understandable.
As I was looking for a simple chain which I planned on somehow attaching the filled up magic stone to, I saw something else that could very much come in handy in the future.
And those were some cool full face masks. They were even voice distorting ones! Just what an aspiring semi-kidnapper like me needs.
There were a lot of designs as well, like standard skull ones, various monster ones, some artistic ones. Since they didn't seem to be actual magic items, but magic stone powered magic tools, they weren't even that expensive. Though five thousand valis a pop wasn't cheap either.
I haven't heard of any kind of carnival happening in the near future, so they were also most likely out of season right now. Though it might just be that I haven't caught anyone speaking about it just yet.
I was contemplating which one to choose when I noticed a stylized kitsune mask. Heh, that might be appropriate to wear to the kidnapping of an actual renard.
In the end I bought three as insurance, the aforementioned kitsune one, an oni one, and one with an awesome looking skull design. Together with the generic necklace for the tracking pendant thing, it cost seventeen thousand valis.
It was not much more than half of what I managed to rake in yesterday, but in light of my one million valis promised debt I already managed to tie myself down to, actually paying still left me with conflicted feelings.
After leaving the shop to the wide smile of the cashier, I decided to go upwards since I was just one floor away from a viewing platform of Babel. Before I managed to work out how to fly, it would've been very unlikely for me to visit this place, but now that I don't really need to worry about falling off the side of Babel, I can push down my unease enough to actually enjoy the view it provides.
I visited all four viewing platforms in the four main cardinal directions and tried to remember as much of the city as possible. This was the first level in Babel with observation platforms that let people see out to the city, but it was already higher than most buildings. Around the same height as the walls around the city, actually. Orario was far from the size of an ordinary city from back home, but it can no way be called just a town. Although its size is inherently constrained by those huge walls surrounding it, the population density should be quite high for a pseudo-medieval city.
After checking out the view from near the edge, with my flight on a hair trigger of course, I sat down on one of the stone benches to admire the scenery for a bit longer. This kind of made me want to go flying again, but I don't want to risk anyone noticing me more than I already did. Though I'm really looking forward to when I could just jump down from here without needing to worry about unwanted attention.
Some time later I got up to leave, partially because I was about to hit my boredom threshold, and partly because a couple took a seat at the other end of my bench and were acting obnoxious as hell. Since they reminded me of the fact that it would be exceedingly unlikely for me to find myself in a similar situation in this life, it kind of soured my more or less relaxed mood. So I decided to drown my sorrows in some jagamarukuns.
On the way home, I once again checked the feeling I was getting from the filled up magic stone, like I did periodically during my outing, and just like every time it still gave the same kind of feeling as when I left. I could perfectly tell the direction and kind of the distance of where it currently was in relation to myself, so I was more and more optimistic that it could be used for what I was intending it to. The distance part was much less exact than the direction sense, but it was still very useful to have.
I started walking faster to get back as soon as possible so I could start working on that necklace-pendant thing I was thinking of.
It took me quite into the night, but I was able to put together a beta version of the pendant. As it turns out, by filling up other items to the brim with my telekinesis juice, I could, with significant difficulty, manipulate the shape of those as well. In this case that meant my first goblin fang drop, my first kobold nail drop, and my first war shadow finger blade. By the end I felt like my eyeballs were about to roll out of their sockets and my brain was one minute away from spontaneously transforming into pudding from all the Mind I used, but I still managed to create an approximate shape of a celtic triquetra. The three different materials weren't interlocking together quite well enough just yet and the setting for the suped up magic stone was missing as well, but I was very satisfied with my progress for a single evening.
Deciding to shower in the morning, I just flopped back on my bedding and was out like a light.
Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to stay awake that late, since I managed to oversleep and make Lily wait for me almost half-an-hour. Lily was distinctly not amused, even though she tried to hide it. Still, I just couldn't leave it half finished. Well, it's technically still half-finished, but closer than it would've been if I had stopped earlier. Kind of reminds me how I kept staying up late before all this because I just had to read/watch/play something just a bit more. I guess I've found a way to fall into the same bad habit here as well.
I really need to curb this one though, because going down into the Dungeon half-asleep is aaaaall kinds of a terrible idea. Right now it's not that bad because I've slept late yesterday and spent my usual Dungeon time mostly relaxing, but I need to watch out for this in the future.
Most likely owing to my tardiness, Lily seemed to be in somewhat of a bad mood under her jovial facade today, so our interactions were limited to what was needed for coordination and some minor small talk during lunch.
All in all, it may have been my first day in the Dungeon where I somewhat felt that this was indeed a kind of job. Significantly different from my former desk job, but still a job.
At the end of the day when I got my share from Lily, somehow the around 30.000 valis felt decidedly less than it did before due to the million valis debt I managed to accrue in the meantime. In contrast, Lily looked much happier with her share. I guess it reminded her that she's getting very well paid compared to any other party she was part of so far.
Good, she deserves a bit of a break from her hardships.
After saying goodbye to her, I hurried back home to continue working on the necklace. The charged magic stone I could still perfectly feel in the distance, however the drop items lost their charge not long after they left the confines of my Territory. I hoped they would last longer, but even though they were filled enough that I was even able to alter their shape, it didn't even take half-an-hour for all of them to lose all of it. That also meant that I will need to fill them up all again, but at least it will be good practice. Even if my Magic stat has already maxed out at 999.
I grimaced at the thought. I really hoped I would be able to transcend that limit, but I guess I'm not protagonist-y enough for that.
I would've liked to compensate for my missing 'battle-sense' or some such that protagonists usually have in droves to explain their ability to catch up to much more experienced people in short order as the story requires, but it seems it's not on the table anymore.
Still in a gloomy mood, I reached the Hostess of Fertility and, not wanting to meet anyone just then, I moved around the back and entered my room via the window. I was glad that I only used my flight power to adjust and boost the trajectory of my jump, because a few minutes later there was a knock on my door from Chloe, who must've noticed my arrival.
"Hello Avrora," Chloe greeted me while checking if anyone else was nearby. "Can I go in? I would like to discuss some things about your request."
Chloe seemed to be in serious mode, so I nodded, opened the door enough to let her in, then closed it behind her.
I think I caught something like a flicker of surprise on her expression as she took in the room on her way to the window, but then it went away so fast I couldn't even be sure I saw it right.
I did not know what she wanted to talk about, but seeing her close the windows and leaning against the windowsill as the first thing did not fill me with confidence. I was fairly sure that she wouldn't do anything to me, especially right here in the Hostess of Fertility, but seeing her sealing off one possible escape route right away did not bode well.
"There. Now it's less likely people could overhear us," she declared, perhaps seeing my apprehension.
"Okay, what is it that you wanted to talk about, Chloe-san?" I asked, still staying close to the door, however futile it would be if something were to happen. I know logically that the odds of something like that coming to pass is exceedingly low, but I can't help but be on edge anyway.
"Not that I doubt you or anything Avrora, but snooping around the Ishtar Familia is serious business," she started her explanation. "Since you agreed to my price, I would like to think you have the means to pay me, because let me tell you, trying to stiff someone of my former profession is not a good idea." I shivered a bit at her tone. Even knowing I had no such plans and I had no need to worry about that point, she was still kind of casually terrifying just then. "So, Avrora. Thankfully, I still haven't started my investigations, so if you want to withdraw your request, we can still forget-"
"No! No, I can pay! I will get the money!" I hurried to reassure her. "I can give you what money I have now as a down payment. Please."
I moved to quickly get out the money I had next to my cot and even added my income from today. I already organized the money I had into neat pouches of equal value, so it was fast to add all of it up. Since most of it was 500 valis coins, the three hundred thousand valis I managed to scrounge up weighed quite a bit.
"Here, take this please. I will be able to get all of it, I promise," I said as I shoved basically all my money at the cat girl, who looked a bit stunned to me.
"Did...did you get all this since you started living here, nyaah?" Chloe asked me, probably to determine how long it will take for me to cough up the rest.
"Yes. I should be able to get the rest in about three weeks at the latest."
According to my calculations, it would take about twenty four days the same as today for me to gather the remaining money. However, today's tempo was not my current maximum, so without even counting any improvements via my stats increasing, I should be able to make enough to pay her.
"I can pay, so please..."
Damn that stinging in my nose. I will not tear up right now. This smaller body is very inconvenient sometimes.
If I want to have any kind of chance of removing Haruhime from that environment, then Chloe's expertise is indispensable.
Chloe seemed to alternate her gaze between the bags of money and my face, then with a barely audible 'damn, nyaah' coming from her, she pushed away from the windowsill.
"Ahh...okay, nyaah..."
She started slowly walking towards the door, then she straightened up, cleared her throat and got back to her business mode.
"I can see that there should be no problem with payment, so...I will look into things and check in when I have something. Okay?"
I jerkily nodded, not really trusting my voice at the moment.
"Okay then...Bye for now."
And with that she left the room, with all my funds in tow.
Honestly, I kind of panicked when she tried to call off the deal, so I just shoved all my money at her in hopes of changing her mind. I wanted it to be a somewhat round number, but that unfortunately meant that the three hundred thousand valis I handed over was very nearly all my money. And by that, I mean I'm currently at a 'I only have about 160 valis I got back as change when I bought some jagamarukuns one time' level of no money right now.
Thank fuck that Dungeon delving pays day-to-day.
With that stressful interlude over, I flopped down to my cot.
"Ow, fuck."
Only to bang my head on the wall. It didn't really hurt that much, partly due to my increased Endurance most likely, and partly because the lower part of the wall was covered by a decorative wood thing, whatever its name is.
I lay there motionless for a while, trying to organize my chaotic thoughts. Since Lily and I had progressed deep enough in the Dungeon that it's getting somewhat dangerous already, I had some thoughts about buying some armor after asking the opinion of Eina and Lily, just to be on the safe side. However, that will need to be put on the backburner for now I think. As Chloe just said, trying to stiff an assassin of their pay is a plenty dangerous thing to do, so I want to avoid any and all impressions that I might want to try doing that. For that end, getting her money as soon as humanly—or pallumly— possible should be my next move.
I spent the rest of the afternoon revising my plans for the next few days in light of the new situation.
I only remembered the next morning that I wanted to continue shaping the pendant parts, but I ended up totally forgetting about that last evening.
Since I kind of wanted to finish it up as soon as I could, I decided to take them with me to the Dungeon and just keep charging them up slowly throughout the day, then work on them after I get back home. I'm curious if that will make any difference in how difficult the materials will be to shape.
I picked up my breakfast and lunch sandwiches and hurried to meet Lily, aiming to get there earlier than our usual meet up time, just to be sure after my tardiness yesterday.
Lily seemed less grumpy today, which was good, but not all rainbows and sunshine either. That's also kind of good, since that means she's not keeping up her cheerful facade that much anymore around me. Or I hope that's the case.
I almost, almost decided to move down to the seventh floor, instead of the currently scheduled sixth, but Eina would've tanned my hide when she heard that I went down another floor before she gave her okay, and I wasn't jumping for joy at the thought of even more Killer Ants in my murder-diet just yet. I needed to prepare myself for it spiritually for one more day.
So, another normal workday has passed in the Dungeon's sixth floor, with only my continued charging of the unfinished pendant being out of the ordinary.
I hoped to get a bit more money for the day, but once again my share only came to about 30 thousand valis. At least I now have enough money to pay my rent today. Yesterday when I realized I didn't even have that much money after Chloe's visit, I even skipped dinner so I didn't have to tell Mama Mia that I couldn't pay the day's rent. It left me a bit hungry, but I think I will make up the deficit with a few jagamarukuns on the way to the Guild.
I paused in front of the Guild's entrance until I nommed down the rest of my food, then ducked under the saloon doors and entered the building.
It was immediately clear that all open reception desks were pretty busy, including the one where Eina was standing, so after our eyes met and I communicated my desire for a meeting with some gestures, I decided to check out the notice board as I waited.
The request posted on it were still above my current competency level, like bringing various drops or minerals or such from the middle floors, so I ignored those, but there were also some tidbits of information that could come in handy in the future, so I jotted down those into my notebook, just in case.
I just finished double-checking if what I wrote was correct when I sensed Eina leave her desk and walk towards me.
I turned around while putting away my notebook and greeted Eina.
"Hello, Eina-san."
"Hello, Avrora. I did not expect you today. Did something happen?" Eina inquired as we started walking in the direction of the private rooms.
"Nothing too bad," I assuaged her worries. "It's just there was something I needed to talk to you about."
After taking our usual seats behind the closed door, I started to explain my current predicament. I thought about what to share, from nothing at all to even coming clean about why I need all that money for, but I quickly discarded both of those extremes. So I just told her that there was some kind of Familia related business which left me pretty much destitute, with some additional debt as well to boot.
"...so I would like to ask for permission to go to a lower floor," I asked with a wincing expression, already expecting some raised voices from Eina. Sitting here in front of her while she has that stormy expression on her face makes me wonder why I expected this to work at all.
"Avorora..." Oh that does not sound good. "I distinctly remember telling you last time that you shouldn't come to ask for permission to go down another floor in four days."
Oh shit, that's...that was really four days ago. That's a weird coincidence. Also... fuck. Now I expect Eina to give me permission even less.
"Ah, sorry..." I verbalized my contriety, which did not seem to faze Eina at all.
"I understand that Familia matters can be difficult, but I just can't give my permission this time. Nearly every floor in the Dungeon is more dangerous than the previous one, and the seventh floor especially belongs to this category. The seventh floor has a significantly larger concentration of monsters thanks to the Pantry on it, which makes it much, much more dangerous than the sixth," she looked me in the eyes as she emphasized her words. "Not to mention that you've only spent three days on the sixth floor so far, since you had a day off since you started with it."
"I...I have more than enough stats for it, so perhaps..." I stopped speaking because Eina raised a hand to interrupt me.
"Even if you do, I still can't allow you to go further down." She paused and leaned forward to look me straight in the eye again. "Avrora, you need to understand that you need to slow down. The speed you are advancing is already phenomenal and trying to push for more than this is simply too risky. I understand that you have some advantages that most others don't, but that only makes you more vulnerable to overreaching like this. I need you to trust me on this and wait at least a few more days before you brave the next floor, okay? If your Familia gives you problems over it, then tell them to speak with me and I will try to make them understand as well."
The real problem was that she was right, dammit. This was a really bad idea. Even though the sixth floor doesn't really provide a serious challenge anymore, it's still essential to gather more experience, and not the Excilia kind, before venturing forth. The money problem is also less pressing than our safe...ty. Fuck, I didn't really think about Lily's safety. I felt my face go pale with the realization. Or I guess I just concluded that she would be fine no matter what happens since she frequently visited even lower floors than that, but can I really guarantee that? No, I can't. Having no significant difficulties while going through the floor on average is one thing, but any number of possible incidents could crop up I could be unable to deal with even there. I tried to be mindful of the things I do after landing here, but I really failed to think things through this time. Thankfully, I came to Eina before doing something ill-advised.
"I understand, Eina-san. We will stay on the sixth floor for now."
"That's good to hear, Avrora," Eina said with apparent relief.
The rest of the meeting was the usual status report, which ended pretty fast. Although I did not achieve what I set out to do by coming here, I got what I really needed, I think. I always hated when in stories similar to my current situation the MC proudly held the idiot ball so the author could get them into a tense situation for the drama. Almost falling into a, though not quite to that degree, similar state of affairs is very disheartening.
I need to clear my head and rethink my immediate goals and planned actions.
With thoughts like that swirling in my mind, I went home to the Hostess of Fertility.
Since it was still only afternoon I kept on shaping the necklace-medallion thing while thinking about things. Oh, and paid my rent as well, thankfully without much fanfare; Mama Mia did not pry into the reason why I skipped yesterday.
I was a bit afraid that Chloe would visit me again, but nothing like that ended up happening until I went to sleep.
"If you could change to any Familia you wanted, then which one would you choose?" I asked Lily during a lunch break the next day. We were still on the sixth floor despite Lily's light protest that we can handle the next one. When I told her that my Advisor did not give her permission she was mildly shocked and tried to argue for going down to at least try for a bit, but then relented when I was less than receptive to the idea.
Lily looked a bit startled at the question, then her expression changed that seemed to indicate that she was thinking about her answer.
"I don't really know, Avrora-san," she finally said. "I can't say I never thought about transferring to another Familia, but I always excluded the high ranking ones from that. To keep it at least a bit realistic you see."
"I understand. But, just as a thought exercise, which one would you choose?"
Since she didn't speak up for a good few moments I decided to start with my own opinions.
"Well, I personally would never want to join the Freya Familia. Their members sound like they are all dangerous zealots devoted to Freya above all else."
"Indeed. Lily agrees with Avrora-san on that one. Even though they are the highest ranking Familia of Orario based on strength alone, Lily would not like to be one of them," Lily bobbed her head in agreement. "I guess the next one is the Loki Familia. Lily heard better things about it compared to the Freya Familia, leaving aside Goddess Loki's occasional shenanigans, but...Lily can't really picture herself among them either. They seem kind of...untouchable or-"
"Like they are the protagonists of a story book?" I asked with a wry smile.
"Exactly! They live in another world from us! Ah, I mean from Lily of course; if it's Avrora-san, then I'm sure you could-"
"Don't worry about it. I know exactly what you mean," I cut off her relapse into her simpering persona she uses with other adventurers. "I saw them leave for an expedition just the other day and I felt the exact same thing. I mean, I heard on the same day I arrived in Orario that Aiz, I mean the Sword Princess just hit Level 5. That's honestly amazing; Level 5 as a 13 year old."
"Talented people are sure something," Lily spoke wistfully, but with a kind of underlying bitterness I could only detect because I kind of expected it. If I was in her current position, I would also be very much envious of someone like that, maybe even more than Lily is right now.
"Well, in her case I think her success is more due to a somewhat self-destructive single-minded obsession rather than pure talent. She also had a good support base behind her and started out very young."
I noticed Lily looking at me weirdly after I said that. Oh shit.
"A-at least, that's what I heard from my Goddess," I tried to obfuscate my unintentional slip up. Dammit, I got too comfortable there talking to her and blurted out something I shouldn't really be aware of.
"A-anyway, I think a smaller and kind of cozy Familia would be the best, but information about smaller Familias is not as available, so it's a bit hard to judge which would be the best."
"Lily thinks she would prefer a larger Familia. They are much less risky to be a part of than small Familias that could lose a significant portion of their members in one go if something goes wrong."
"I guess that's also true," I conceded.
It's no wonder Lily would prefer safety and stability more after having to scrape by tooth and nail all her life.
Her shapeshifting magic would likely make her a valued member of the Hermes Familia for example, but they tend to travel a lot on various semi-shady business trips and their largest presence in the original story was accompanied by a bunch of their members dying, so I very much hope she wouldn't try to join them despite that. My heavy dislike of the god Hermes may also contribute to my opinion regarding that though.
"The Hephaestus Familia sounded like a good one, actually. If I had a choice I might've tried to join them, I guess. Though I don't know if they accept people who don't want to actually become smiths; maybe supporters at most?"
"Lily's not sure, but it might be possible."
The conversation and lunch break ended soon after, so we got back to work. There was still a twinge in my stomach whenever we came across a Killer Ant, but being able to dispatch them without them being able to do much to me allowed me to freak out a bit less by their presence at this point. Another good reason to wait a bit more before going down to the seventh floor, since that one has a lot more Killer Ants roaming the corridors apparently.
The start to my next day after that turned out to be less than ideal. Not due to something external, but because when I woke up when it was still dark out, I started pawing for my phone to check the time. Which I of course didn't find for understandable reasons, but the realization of my current circumstances hit me a lot harder this time than most mornings.
Fearing that I would oversleep, or maybe get shitty dreams due to my current mood, I stayed awake to further plot possible contingencies for my future in this world.
Still, my mood was several degrees worse than usual when I reached Babel; I wasn't even in the mood to eat the bunch of jagamaru-kuns I bought to try cheer myself up.
As for Lily, she was as far as possible from the bright eyed and bushy tailed descriptor as one can be. She had deep bags under her half closed eyes and she was slightly swaying with her giant backpack, looking like she was seconds away from falling asleep on her feet.
Wow, I guess she won the unscheduled contest of 'who had the shittiest morning' between the two of us.
Owing to her disheveled appearance, I tried to suggest skipping today to her, but she very adamantly refused.
Honestly, I would've been delighted to move the upcoming day off to today, but seeing Lily's insistence I gave up on it. I think she might be having financial difficulties as well. I hope it's not her Familia members robbing her again, because then I might have to break some bones.
I made sure to keep an eye on her for the rest of the morning so her tiredness doesn't get her into a sticky situation, but it quickly became pretty obvious that this wasn't the first time something like this happened to her, judging how accustomed she seemed to be to operating on little to no sleep. Not to mention that it's highly unlikely that those previous instances had any kind of accommodating adventurers accompanying her.
All-in-all, the only difference was that Lily became all but unnoticeable while we were roaming the sixth floor, keeping silent and only doing what was minimally needed as a Supporter. Seeing her with the power-saving mode on, I kept silent as well and tried to avoid any routine breaking actions so she could continue on auto-pilot.
Finishing a particularly annoying group of Kobolds, Frog Shooters, and one War Shadow, I decided that the room we were in was suitable for having lunch, even if it was a bit early for it yet. Lily looked like she would disagree at first, but then she seemed to have changed her mind. Taking off her backpack she sat down next to me on the sizable rock that convinced me of the room's suitability of consuming food in.
I took out my sandwiches from my bag, intending to do the usual swap with Lily, but Lily was just wringing her empty hands.
"Ah, Lily did not have the time to bring any food today. Don't mind Lily though, just enjoy your meal!"
She then turned her back to me, and started rummaging in her backpack.
I looked down at the sandwiches in my hand, wondering what to do, then I remembered I still had the jagamarukuns in my bag, so I didn't even have to split my sandwiches with her.
"Hey, Lily." She looked back over her shoulder at me. "Here, you can have these," I held out the box for her.
Lily looked startled and started heavily gesticulating with her hands in denial.
"No no, Avrora-san, Lily can't accept it! An Adventurer like you needs it much more than a Supporter like Lily!"
"Ah, but I have something else here for me, see?" I showed the packed up jagamarukuns in my bag to Lily.
"Still, it's not Avrora-san's responsibility to-"
"Even if it isn't, which I disagree with, I still want to make sure you don't go hungry." I cut her off.
Lily looked conflicted for a few more seconds, but after another nudge from me she gingerly accepted the sandwiches. It was quite obvious that she was pretty ravenous by now, so without further ado she started putting away the food fairly expediently.
The sight made me smile, which Lily noticed, making her blush and turn away from me again.
It didn't take long for Lily to finish the whole thing, so much so that I was only half-way done with mine. Not having any other choice than to wait until I was done as well, she slid down on the rock and sat down on the ground, her back to the rock and rested her head on her knees.
It didn't take long at all to hear the rhythm of her breathing change, signifying the fact that she fell asleep. With how tired she looked, it was no wonder she would doze off after filling her stomach like that.
I just smiled and continued eating at a slow pace.
Although I kind of need to maximize the income I can get from the Dungeon with that large debt over my head, I'd rather let Lily sleep a bit, just to be safe.
When I was done with eating, Lily was still asleep, so I started practicing sensing with my Territory. It encompassed a good portion of the corridor outside the room on its maximum, but there wasn't much to sense there, so I focused on smaller things instead, like what was inside my bag. I contemplated checking out what Lily had inside her bag, but I decided against it. I'd like to keep the creep factor to a minimum as much as possible.
I was jolted out of my focus when I felt Lily's head bumping into my knee. I barely managed to not jump at the unexpected contact.
It seems my smol Supporter was napping deeply enough that she didn't notice that she leaned on me in her sleep. Even her hood fell back somewhat, freeing a good portion of her brown hair.
I had both of my hands in the air, not knowing what to do suddenly in this situation. Slowly, I lowered them down, with one gently starting to pat her head. I more or less expected her to wake up to that, but instead she just reached out and hugged my leg below my knee with both arms.
After that unexpected turn of events, things calmed down again. I kept an eye out for any incoming monsters or adventurers, while bestowing a generous amount of headpats upon Lily.
I felt kind of happy that she felt safe enough to fall asleep next to me, but that may just be more indicative of her sheer lack of sleep than any sign of increased trust in me.
Not long after, a group of four monsters disturbed our tranquility, or they intended to at least. Instead of emerging from the walls of the room, the group was roaming the corridors. As they intersected my territory my hand stilled and my eyes snapped to their direction despite the fact that there was only a wall visible there. According to what I felt, they were all kobolds.
I did not want to wake Lily just yet, but if those kobolds get in here, they will most certainly rouse her.
So, to avoid that I concentrated as much as I could and wrenched them all into the air and shoved them against the wall. The fact that there were four of them made it difficult but not insurmountably so. Truthfully, I even expected it to be harder than it was; I guess my maxed out Magic stat is good for something at least.
I kept pushing them against the wall high up enough that their legs were dangling in the air and kicking against the wall without much success, then I felt out their throats with my Territory and applied at first a small amount of pressure, then a whole lot at once. On the other side of the wall their barely audible snarling voices cut off in a blink of an eye.
My expression twitched a bit. I was still not entirely used to doing things like that, but I guess I'll need to get acclimated sooner or later.
Lily let out some sounds in her sleep, making me resume my ministrations.
I kept the Kobold corpses on the wall while I searched for their magic stones, then tore them out once I found them. It went substantially faster than the last time I tried it, which was more than a week ago I think. Since then I maxed out my Magic stat and got somewhat better with my Territory as well, so it's an understandable improvement.
The four stones I pocketed myself; maybe I would experiment with them at home or something. If my work on the locator pendant pans out, maybe I will make more of them some day. Though I don't expect I would have any opportunity to give it to someone anytime soon. Maybe if I manage to get Haruhime out, I could give her one to keep an eye on her, just in case.
The first indication that Lily was waking up was her fingers digging into my leg for a moment, then she hurled herself off into the other direction from me.
"Av-av-avrora-san! You should've woken Lily up if you were done already! Let's hurry up and continue on already!" She looked pretty shaken up and red faced as she wrenched her backpack up from the ground and hurriedly walked towards the exit of the room.
I finally moved my right hand that was still in the same patting position and picked up my smaller bag so I could follow the rapidly leaving Lily. It seems it was indeed only her lack of sleep that caused her to let her guard down like that after all.
After that Lily noticeably avoided my gaze for the rest of the day, so I respected her distance and did not bother her anymore. Although she was able to take a short nap, it ended less than ideally, so it was for the best that I did not make her expend more energy on frivolous things.
At the end of the day's excursion to the Dungeon, another less than ideal news awaited us.
"Lily is sorry, Avrora-san. It's because Lily was too tired today that Lily slowed down our exploration," Lily tried to take the blame with downcast eyes. "Lily even fell asleep on the job."
"Nonsense," I tried to placate her. "That nap did not take any longer than our usual lunch breaks do and not even once did you waste any time either. I wasn't in the best condition either today, and we bumped into more adventuring parties than usual as well. It's perfectly understandable that we did not make quite as much today as usual."
We only made around twenty six thousand valis per person today, which was still reasonable due to the aforementioned factors. It wasn't even Lily trying to skim off the top, because I kept track of how many magic stones we got, and it was less than what we managed to get in the last few days.
That's what led us to stand around and take turns apologizing to each other like a bunch of canadians.
Still, the back and forth ended shortly and we bid each other farewell.
Since I was pretty tired after today, I had an early dinner and closed myself up in my room.
Back home this would've been the time I would've checked my emails and read any new chapters for stories I was following. Nothing quite like that was possible here anymore, which only served to bring my mood even lower.
Finally I took out the unfinished medallion and started working on it. The first part of the process was simply charging up its constituent parts, which allowed me to shape them after. Nothing drastic though; I could only make minor changes with the help of a fuckton of Mind, but thanks to their small size, that was enough still to mold them into a somewhat aesthetically okay shape.
Slowly the three drop items finalized into a triquetra with an inset for the circular magic stone I dubbed an Iris. I managed to mold the Kobold Nail, Goblin Fang, and War Shadow's Finger Blade drops into one object, with no chance of them coming apart from average handling.
Some time later I was holding up the finished accessory with conflicted thoughts. On one hand I was pretty happy with myself that I was able to finish it, despite the fact that I stayed up too late once again, but, on the other hand, the fact that I'm planning on giving this to Lily reminded me of my less than ideal conduct today. Why the hell would I just start patting the head of Lily like that!? Dammit, I should've just waited in peace instead. Maybe she would've been able to sleep a bit more that way even.
I let out some inarticulate noises as I flopped on my back, trying to survive the cringe I once again inflicted on myself.
After this incident, I don't know if I have thick enough skin on my face to just give this to her. Still, with the pendant basically done, it would be a waste to not use it to keep track of her location. If anything were to happen, I would rather have the option of being able to find her than not. Though I can't even guarantee that she would keep it on her, or even keep it at all if she could sell it.
Still, even if she were to sell it, it would most likely be after we parted ways for whatever reason, and it would still allow me to find it and possibly get it back.
Now I just have to think of a way to gift it to her without causing any misunderstandings, or coming off even more creepy than I did so far. Also, there is that 700 thousand valis debt to think about too.
Joy.
AN: Last one for now. Hopefully the next one won't take another 4 frickin years.
