Once we finished lunch, I could see Emily’s mind still churning over what I said earlier about helping her out. That being the case, I decided to try and open the conversation back up.

“So what do you think about my offer?” I mused. “For both of us, it seems like a great idea since I get to keep learning and you get some help around the store. Also, I’m not looking for any pay...maybe lunch but that’s all for me.” 

“Look,” Emily said. “I just don’t want to ruin our friendship because of this. From my side, I want to keep being your friend and hopefully even your best friend. If I start letting you work for me...it just feels awkward. I...I just don’t know how I should approach this. On one hand I know you could have a talent for aether crafting based off earlier this week, but I also don’t want to use you. You already can tell my business isn’t doing too great and honestly, I can only keep going at this rate for maybe another year. I’m just uncertain what to do at this point.”

Emily slumped her body over the desk looking a bit defeated. Wanting to comfort her some, I reached my hand over to hers and held it softly. 

“I don’t feel like this is using me in any way,” I said gently. “For me, I just want to help my friend out since she’s done so much for me. Like I said earlier, I’m really happy you are letting me learn here so I’m definitely getting something out of this for me too. Also, I can tell this place means a lot to you from how much care you take in everything you do. The smile you had helping the customers this morning and the detail you took tidying up the store for the few customers you had really stood out to me. So please, as your friend let me help you and let me keep spending time with you.”

With a sigh, Emily picked herself back up and smiled gently at me.

“Thank you…,” she said softly. “What you just said means a lot to me. I honestly don’t have many friends so knowing how much you care for me really means so much to me.”

“So are we in an agreement for me to come help you out?” I asked, smiling back at her. 

“You’re not going to let me say no at this point so yeah,” Emily said. “You can do what you want and help me when you are over. I’m still going to feed you though since I don’t have enough funds to pay you anything.”

“That’s perfectly fine with me,” I told her. “Like I was saying, learning is it’s own payment for me. I’ve spent so much of the last few months not being much use to anyone so I’m more than overjoyed to have something to work towards. Who knows, maybe once I get better I can try and take a commission.”

“That would be awesome, but baby steps,” Emily said. “Let’s get you started with just remembering what everything around the shop is before we jump too far ahead.”

With that, Emily hopped up from the table and started cleaning up. After lunch was put away we made our ways back to the front end of the store where Emily stood in front of me with a new found vigor.

“I hope you’re ready for this afternoon,” she said. “Since we don’t get many customers after lunch I’m going to be spending it showing you everything on the front end side so you can gain some familiarity with common aether items.”
 

And so we spent the next few hours with Emily running back and forth grabbing different crystals and parts from her shelf to show me and explained their uses. With each new item she showed me, a pop up message came up showing up that the item and description are now added to my encyclopedia. 

Once we noticed the sun was starting to set and the evening bell chimed, Emily told me it was time to close up shop and she’d walk me home. 

As we were walking home, Emily and I made plans for the upcoming week to meet up regularly. Since I didn’t want to miss out helping my family, we decided on a schedule so we’d meet up every other day. 

It turns out in this world, the standard week is 8 days and a year is 360 days. Instead of months, there are 4 main seasons of 90 days with the first and last day of the seasons being reserved for festivals and religious observances. I guess even the goddess needs some respect for her world so people go visit the local temple for the 2nd and 4th seasons and hold new beginnings and harvest festivals for the others.

Also, it seems like my accident took place sometime in the 2nd or Summer seasons as we are now in the early part of Autumn. I must have missed the festival during recovery, but this season I get to hopefully go to the temple with my family and give thanks to the goddess who brought me here. 

Chatting about our plans to meet up the day after tomorrow morning, we quickly make it home where Emily sees me off. 

As I walk through the doorway, I hear someone in the kitchen so I head in and see my mother getting out ingredients for dinner.

“I’m back,” I say to mom as I set my back down.

“Hi sweety, looks like you had a pretty good day from that grin you’re wearing.”

“Yep,” I said giddily. “I finally have something to work towards so I’m super excited and I get to help my new best friend out at the same time.”

“Oh?” she questioned me. “Doing what?”

“I managed to talk Emily into letting me help her around her shop in exchange from teaching me about aether working. We spent the whole afternoon with her showing me all the parts around the shop and I spent all morning reading about things. I don’t officially work for her as an employee since I don’t get paid except in lunch and knowledge, but if things go well hopefully I can start helping out again with the family.

“That would be great dear. Don’t rush things too much though. You are still getting back on your feet after the last accident and you definitely have earned some rest time after what happened.”

“I know, I know” I said. “I’m just really happy to do something new. I promised Emily I’d still help out here every other day so I can rest and recover.”

Mom and I chatted a little bit more about my day with Emily at her shop and we came up with plans on how I can help out with shopping at the morning markets some days with Emily.

With that my evening flew by and I fell asleep forgetting to check on all the info that had been added to my encyclopedia today.

autumnrayne92

Thanks again for all your support! This chapter took a bit longer to write due to college starting back up, but I will continue to try and get one chapter a week. I'm enjoying writing this story and the developments of the characters together. I'm still debating the supplemental chapters for those interested in the more technical details. Once again thanks for all the comments and support!