If I were to combine the heights of all the boss rooms, we had been at least six stories beneath the surface of Amoranth, if not more. The relatively short walk between the dungeon floors didn’t suggest we’d gone so deep, but it was hard to argue with what I saw and what I felt. When the teleportation portal created by my Dimensional Step spell formed, a strong breeze that could never be present so far underground blew past us, ruffling Yua’s long chestnut hair and cooling my sweat-stained body. Feeling its sweet embrace relax my muscles, which apparently had been tight with tension for a while now, it alone was enough to win the argument of whether or not we needed to stop fighting for the day.

                The second we set foot in our room back in the Lazy Cat inn, I felt a powerful urge to just call it quits for the day, plop down on the bed and shut my eyes. Unfortunately, we still had work to do.

                “Could you turn around? Sorry, but I need to put some stuff in your bag. With all we need to carry, I doubt we’ll be able to pretend you’re actually carrying it all at once, like we did earlier. It’d look too suspicious.”

                “No problem, Master. Carrying the loot won’t be a problem for me!”

                Still in a good mood herself, she did as I asked and, braving the need to step closer to her swishing tail, I unlatched the belt holding the bag shut and dropped all of our pelts into it before fastening the Proud Great Wolf pelt on the top like last time.

                “Master, we won’t be able to fit it all in there, will we?”

                “No. I’m not even going to try and cram it all in there. After we make our first trip, I’ll just refill when I have the chance.”

                “Understood!”

                No point in making her carry all that heavy crap, anyways. She may not look it, but she had to be tired on some level too. She did all of her fighting with her body, after all. Her stamina bar may have completely refilled itself by now, but given how our health bars were a little finicky in that they didn’t seem to directly tie themselves to their owner’s overall health, just their current physical condition, I had to assume that it was the same for our stamina bars. Yua may well be putting on a brave front.

                She may have spent most of the third floor just walking around with me, but after that last boss fight, I decided to keep an eye on her condition as well as her numbers.

                As if wanting to share in some friendly solidarity with us, the Sun was starting to show its own fatigue by basking the city in the early night’s comforting mixture of orange and red hues. The blue magic torches acting as Amoranth’s street lamps weren’t quite lit yet, but I knew they would be soon thanks to the hour displayed on my HUD. People still filled the streets despite the late hour, so at least we weren’t going to be alone out there as we hurried through the city to finish our errands.

                We sold off all the pelts easily enough, if anything, the shop keeper was happy to have another Proud great Wolf pelt so soon. According to him, most Adventurers don’t repeat that particular boss fight. And most choose to keep its pelt as a sign of their own strength and their success at beating the first floor. I would have liked to do the same, but we could always go back once everything was settled.

                After this we stopped by the Apothecary shop, dealt with her snide jokes, all of which were naturally aimed at me, and sold off all of the ingredients we earned today. There was no point in keeping them if I didn’t have what I needed to make use them right now. They didn’t exactly take up much space in my bottomless item box, but I’d rather turn them in for the coin for the time being. In all our time in the dungeons, we never managed to find any more of that Green Moss, but since Madame Turquesse managed to keep a good stock of potions, I had to assume that there really was some sort of farming level in the dungeons. Unless there was some other ingredient you could substitute for that specific brew, there was simply no way to keep up her stock if the main component was so rare.

                Lastly, I filled Yua’s bag with as many of the Goblin weapons as it could fit. Due to their length, we were forced to let the spearheads jut out of the bag’s top, which made it visibly uncomfortable, if not dangerous, to wear. I was weary of the sharp ends of the spears accidentally cutting someone as we walked by, but we didn’t have much choice in the matter. We couldn’t exactly flip them around, or the bottom of the bag would get cut to ribbons.

                Regardless of how it looked, Yua didn’t utter a single complaint from the weight or the uncomfortable position of the spears. She actually offered to carry the rest of the goblin swords in her hands since they couldn’t all fit in the bag despite their small size, but I decided to hold onto them myself. And I was glad I did. Even if she was stronger than me, it would have been unnecessarily cruel of me to make her carry all that steel on her own.

                Given how we had to sell off our goods to those that would actually use them for the best profit, Yua took me straight to the blacksmith she used to sell to before I could so much as suggest another shop. Not that I knew any. As we closed in on it and I heard the familiar clanging of a hammer on steel, I was reminded of my very first visit to Amoranth. Even though it was barely more than a day ago at this point, it felt like a distant memory when I compared today’s fatigue and my earlier hopes for the sights this fantasy world was supposed to impress upon me. Unlike that first visit, however, this time the clanging was accompanied by a cloud of black smoke billowing up into the amber-colored sky from what looked to be an overworked furnace.

                The smithy itself consisted of a building whose aesthetics were of about the same quality as the rest of the surrounding buildings, being that it was made primarily of neatly-carved stone, but it had the notable difference of a large furnace sitting beside it painting the side wall black with its smoke, along with the several scraps of bent and twisted metals, tools, and weapons, scattered about, all of which looked like they would be a gigantic pain in the ass to clean up every night before closing.

                “Welcome ta Amoranth’s one and only Smithy. We don’ sell enchanted items, but we can make ya a set of plate mail just as strong if ya got the gold.”

                The second we set foot within range of the Blacksmith’s shop, a human woman wearing a pair of dirty, oily and very baggy pants and a plain white tank-top began her sales pitch right from her seat only a few feet away from the large, burning forge that took up almost the entire storefront.

                Vaguely confused by this sight, and assuming she might have actually been the blacksmith’s wife or daughter, I checked her info window and found that she really was a blacksmith. Not just in name or profession, it was her birth class.

                Usually, the blacksmiths in video games were muscular men or heavily bearded dwarves that were capable of swinging a massive hammer non-stop, but the only thing massive about this woman was her breasts. While she, this greasy red-head named Larloll, indeed held such a hammer, likely the very same that had been making all that noise, her arms were about as thin as Yua’s. I knew Yua’s strength firsthand, but seeing it on someone else was a little jarring.

                And, as if that wasn’t enough, given the situation after noticing the condition of her body as she used her forearm to wipe at a smudge of grease on her cheek, I couldn’t help but notice that her white tank-top had become a little see-through due to the excess of sweat permeating her body. No doubt, the heat of the forge behind her had something to do with this. There beneath the fabric of that thin top, were two pink tips that almost looked like they were trying to poke through to introduce themselves. With the light of the forge at her back and her upright posture lifting them, they were as noticeable as the lamp of a lighthouse on a foggy day. I literally could not help but notice them as they noticed me.

                Noticing where my gaze was aimed, Larloll looked down at her own breasts and back to me with an expression that was more confused than annoyed.

                “Why does everyone always look at me like that when they come here? Is there something on my shirt?”

                Starting from her stomach, she peeled the sweaty fabric away from her body to inspect it, thereby ending its translucent effect. Instead of being upset at me for staring at her chest, she showed an impressive amount of naivete. From how honestly confused she looked; I got the impression she didn’t know what happens to white clothes once they get wet.

                Immediately more concerned with how Yua would react if she noticed that I noticed, I quickly apologized. Yua, however, just smiled throughout the interaction as if nothing was wrong.

                “S-sorry. I didn’t mean to stare.”

                “Eh. It’s alright,” she said with a shrug and a casual flick of the heavy-looking hammer in her hand. “What can I get ya? Like I said, I don’t sell enchanted armors.”

                “Thanks, but we aren’t here to buy. We were looking to sell the things we found in the dungeon.”

                “Oh. Why didn’ ya say so, kid? Show me what ya got.”

                Trying not to let my line of sight fall back onto Larloll’s chest once she let go of her top, I had Yua set down her bag while I dumped the swords, including the Hobgoblin Greatsword at the woman’s feet. It felt a little rude to do so, but since she clearly didn’t mind the dirt and since they were made of metal, she probably wouldn’t count it against me. And, I mean, they were made of metal. A little dirt wasn’t going to hurt them.

                She picked up one of the goblin swords first, cast Appraisal on it, nodded to herself, then picked out one of the thirty-two spears we brought. When she looked it over, she sighed way too dramatically, like we handed her a hefty bill she forgot she needed to pay, instead of a cheap weapon. Without showing the slightest hint of decency towards her customer, she made her disappointment known with a furrow to her brow that the bandana she wrapped around her head couldn’t quite hide. Then, as if that wasn’t enough, the way she lazily tossed the spear back into the bag was more than anyone would need to say that she didn’t like what she saw. Then without pause, she picked up the Hobgoblin Greatsword almost as easily as Yua did. This time she gave a moderately impressed nod.

                “Alright, I can give ya 50 gold for the Hobgoblin Greatsword, 45 silvers for all the Goblin Swords, but I can only give ya 1 silver each for the spears. That’s a total of…”

                “Wait, what do you mean only 1 silver for the spears? I had them Appraised for 2.”

                She raised her hands up to stop me, as if preemptively trying to calm me before I got as heated as her forge, and continued.

                “I can only give ya 1 silver because these spears are useless and can’t be resold. I can sell the Goblin Swords as short swords just fine after a bit of sharpenin’ and cleanin’, but these spears are way too short for anyone but a child ta use. They also can’t be made into arrows. The heads would be too big and they wouldn’t fly right. Meanin’, I have ta cut the spear heads off, smelt them down and reforge them into something more useful. I’m sorry, but all that extra work is gonna cost ya.”

                Doing some quick mental math, that meant that everything we’ve sold today would add up to only 53 gold, 64 silvers and 15 coppers instead of the 79 silvers I was expecting. Not all that much of a difference, but we needed every penny… er, copper of it.

                I drew a deep breath through my nose and reached behind my back to make it look like I was pulling out a sword from a sheath on my back that was clearly not there. Yua looked concerned, but the Blacksmith just tilted her head with a condescending smirk.

                “Kid, the guards would be all over ya the second ya tried.”

                “No, I’m not trying to threaten you. I just wanted to add these to the bundle.”

                Using my item box, I drew my bronze sword out and turned it so that the hilt was facing her. She took it, eyeing me all the while. I pulled out my new steel longsword for her to inspect next.

                “Master, you can’t! Those are your only…”           

                “Yua, stop.”

                I hated shutting her down like that, but if selling all this would get me what I needed, then I was perfectly fine sticking to just my magic for the time being. My Mage class was already significantly higher than my Swordsman class, so I didn’t really need it. Having the protection of a blade in the event I ran out of mana while fighting would have been reassuring, but I had so much mana by this point that the time between fights was usually all it took for it to refill anyways. Might as well try to make a profit while we could and while we needed to.

                The blacksmith flipped the new blades over in her hands one at a time, examining the metals they were made of as thoroughly as the clothing store owner did the pelts. After casting Appraisal on each of them, she set them down with the rest of the swords.

                “I can give ya 10 silvers for the steel one and 1 for the bronze.”

                Furrowing my brow, I crouched down to check the bronze one myself after hearing the price, as I only just realized I never bothered to check. After a silent Appraisal of my own so she didn’t know I was doubting her, I saw that the price she gave was actually accurate and honest.

                “That’s a pretty big difference between bronze and steel.”

                “Yup. Bronze ain’t as durable and it bends easy. So, it’d be damned useless in a real fight. Only low-level Adventurers and Swordsmen would even bother ta look at it,” she shrugged again as if to say that’s how it is. As if the gift of a literal Goddess wasn’t even worth as much as what she herself could forge in a few hours.

                I couldn’t argue. I knew the price as well as she did and she had very compelling reasons to back it up.

                “Ya gonna take my offer or what?”

                Fed up with my indecision, Larloll slovenly rested her chin in her palm. She looked up at me like she was already bored of my very presence and was waiting for me to leave so she could get back to hammering. Not the best customer service in this world so far, but not the worst either.

                “Yes. Thank you.”

                With a huff, she shot up out of her seat, which was apparently just a small barrel, and headed inside the shop. She came back a few minutes later carrying a bag resting atop the same silver tray every other major vendor in the city had, except where hers was regarded, I had to wonder if she made it herself.

                She nearly tossed said tray at me when she offered it, causing the bag of coin to drop off and fall into the dirt. Not surprised by her poor business manners in the least, I cast Appraisal on the bag to make sure it was all there and picked it up. She clearly didn’t want us there and if it would get us back to the inn where we could relax faster, neither did I.

                Then again, if she was going to act like this, maybe she did realize what I was looking at earlier. If so, then I suppose I deserve her rudeness to an extent.

                “Thanks again.”

                “Yup. Feel free ta come by when ya need some steel and I’ll fit ya with the best gear in all of Vierre!”

                I was about to turn away when I remembered I actually had one more thing to sell.

                “Excuse me. Sorry, but could you tell me where I can sell a magic staff?”

                “Master…”

                I ignored Yua’s small voice of concern and stood firm. I didn’t need it to cast magic. Even if it tripled my power output, the gold we’d get for it was of much greater use right now.

                Instead of happily checking my wares like before, the Blacksmith laughed and crossed her arms in front of her breasts. Apparently, she was unaware of how this further accentuated them.

                “Pfft, ya got a staff? A kid like ya? What are ya, level 2? If I ain’t armored ya yet, ya can’t be strong enough to get that far inta the dungeons to get yerself a staff… Unless ya stole it. Ya ain’t a Thief, are ya? I don’t do business with thieves.”

                “No, I didn’t…  But, speaking hypothetically, if I had one, where could I sell it?”

                “What’s hypertheticly mean?”

                I pinched the bridge of my nose to suppress a rising frustration.

                I had put the staff into my item box so I didn’t have to carry it around town and now I realize that might’ve been a mistake, since I couldn’t just magically equip it out of nowhere to prove I was telling the truth of its exsitence. Still, I was this close to finishing out work for the day and after all that fighting, this woman was about to give me a headache that I would really rather avoid since I was sure aspirin hadn’t been invented yet.

                Hell, maybe it’d be fine if she did. Might be nice to see if Yua’s Healing Punch worked on headaches as well.

                “It just means that I want you to pretend I had one,” I answered, trying not to sigh. “If I did, where could I take it?”

                “Oh, okay. Why didn’t ya say so? Just take it ta the Mage’s Guild down the road. Them book lovers might want it. Now if you ain’t gonna buy any steel…”

                “Yes, yes. Thank you. We’ll be leaving now.”

                I stuffed the bag of coin she gave me into Yua’s backpack before covertly pushing it into my item box for safe keeping. The moment we turned to walk away, the clanging of metal on metal returned to Amoranth. I wondered if Larloll’s forge was a sort of magic item like a cauldron, as she didn’t seem to heat anything up before hammering away, but I didn’t want to stop her again to ask a pointless question.

                As we made our way through the gradually darkening city, Yua turned a pair of downcast, emerald eyes in my direction more than a few times. I may not have been much of a conversationalist myself, but even I wasn’t so dense that I wouldn’t realize she had something to say. So, I decided to ask to prevent her from having to stew in whatever was on her mind.

                “Something wrong?”

                “Master, why did you sell all your things?”

                “… Because we needed the money.”

                “But, the staff aside, shouldn’t you have at least kept one of your swords?”

                I shook my head.

                “No. I’d rather have you by my side and if selling my weapons is how I get to keep you there, then I don’t care. I can always just use magic without the staff anyway.”

                Yua gulped and out of the corner of my eye, I thought she might have blushed a bit, but the sky was flushed with enough of the dusk’s amber hue to make it impossible to really tell.

                “But Master, it’s not safe to go into the dungeon without a weapon. Even if you have magic.”

                “Then where’s your weapon?”

                “I… I’m a Monk. I use my fists.”

                “And I use my magic. For now. We’ll save up some money once all this business with Alphonse blows over and replace my sword as soon as we can. How’s that?”

                Yua chewed this over as we walked for a minute or two, her ears twitching all the while. I had no doubt that she was mildly concerned that me entering he dungeon without an actual weapon would only weaken me and therefore make me more of a burden to her, but it shouldn’t matter too much. For the most part, I barely used my sword to being with.

                “If that’s what you want,” she said. “Then I’ll handle all of the fighting until you can get a new sword.”

                I laughed a bit at her show of bravery and how she pounded her chest to show it. She may have been concerned, but I could tell that the thought of actually handling all the fighting herself had excited her a bit. A tiny bit. Just enough to leave a small, perky smile to her peachy lips. Gone was the girl that complained over me potentially using her as a meat-shield. She had been perfectly replaced with this girl who loved fighting more than anything else in the world.

                “Then I will be in your care.”

 

                Unfamiliar with it herself since beast-kin had no need to visit a place focused on magics, Yua wasn’t able to guide us to the Mage’s Guild, so we had to stop and ask for directions a few times. Eventually, after following the directions we got and after only getting lost once, we came up upon a small building made, shockingly, of stone and wood nestled between two much larger buildings. I was about to say we messed up the directions we were given, but the sign hanging from the building in the middle did indeed say “Mage’s Guild.” This podunk little building was not what I was expecting in the least.

                The building itself didn’t look all that bad. In fact, it actually looked to be well made and well maintained, almost like the stone it was made of was cleaned and polished monthly, but with it trapped between two buildings of obviously higher quality, I had to wonder if the Mage’s Guild in this city was something people looked down on. Like, maybe most people didn’t like magic? It was hard to imagine, if not because of my own love for magic, but because the people relied on it to keep the monsters in the dungeons and because enchanted armors were status symbols. Still, hopefully I wouldn’t have to deal with any sort of “S*lem witch trials.”

 

                Still, Mage’s Guilds were supposed to be large, elegant buildings that could be easily mistaken as small universities or cathedrals or something else grandiose when viewed from a distance. And they were always in the nicest parts of town, save for the ones that were meant to be hidden or that taught more evil-inclined magics, of course. But even those still looked impressive in their own rights. This place, however, looked like it could pose as your average middle-school library.

                So many of the little things that I’ve seen since coming to this world left me feeling an almost childish sense of awe, but this was just disappointing. And right after I swore to Yua to rely heavily on my magic for the time being, too. The hopes I had in starting some magic-themed questline here had been stomped into the dirt upon arrival.

                “Well… let’s go in.”

                Tired and ready to be done with walking for the day, we went inside.

                Like opening that portal connecting the dungeon to our room back in the Lazy Cat, as soon as we opened the Guild’s front door, a rush of refreshing wind chilled both of our sweaty bodies enough to make the hairs on Yua’s tail stand on end. Not only this, but the air inside felt impossibly cleaner. Coming from a city where smog was a constant hinderance to my lungs, I could say for certain that the air quality here in this world, where smoke-producing machinery was nowhere to be seen, was perfectly clean, but the oxygen that filled my lungs now was noticeably purer.

                It was like stepping into another world. Not only was the interior of the building much cooler than the temperature outside, but the interior of the building itself was impossibly large. Circling around the building was a large staircase that wound up into the sky by at least five stories, yet the outside of the building suggested that, at best, it was only supposed to be tall enough for two.

                The width of the building also surpassed expectations as it was nearly three times as wide as its exterior counterpart. I couldn’t see how far back the building went, but I could see people on the same floor dozens of feet away from the entrance.

                “Amazing,” Yua said for the hundredth time today and this time I had to agree.

                Almost as the building’s name would suggest, along with the impressively elegant décor, there were dozens of people, all labeled Mages by their info boxes, that were wearing either expensive-looking sets of light armor or leatherworks cloaked with a robe. None of them looked to be wearing a pointed hat like the Apothecary shop owner, but all those that weren’t talking to one another or doing some other sort of work were reading thick, beautifully bound tomes. Going by the runic bindings of the books, these were no doubt spell tomes.

                Except, not all of the Mages presently reading were hunched over their books at a table or sat in a comfy chair in front of a cup of tea. Some were stopped here and there in the middle of the room, where they stood stock-still, unmoving except to occasionally turn a page. Each of these Mages were pouring through one tome or another, but they looked to have stopped moving and started reading wherever they happened to first open their books. It was almost like they ceased all other non-essential brain functions, including those needed to move their bodies to somewhere comfortable to study, all so they could pour every ounce of focus they had within their bodies entirely on their books.

                With some of these people just a few feet away from what looked to be the Guild’s designated reading area and more so looking tired enough to fall asleep the second they closed their books, I had understood why Larloll called them “book lovers.”

                I wanted to say this was just the sort of diligence I failed to exert for anything in my old life back on Earth, but the only word that popped into my mind after seeing this was “fanaticism.”

                I hadn’t even seen a book since I got here, let alone someone reading one with this much dedication. In this world, one that I doubted had a printing press, just owning one such book seemed like a luxury the vast majority of people couldn’t afford.

                Maybe that was why Yua looked so impressed when I showed off my magic?

                “Can I help you?”

                From behind the desk at the center of the massive room, stood a woman with a sharp nose and even sharper eyes wearing a plain black robe. While her hands were placed patiently on her desk, her eyes did not look so calm. Judging by the open tome on her desk, I guessed we were interrupting her reading time.

                “Uh, yes. Sorry. Could you tell us where I can sell this?”

                I handed her the Elderwood staff and this time, Yua didn’t protest.

                The woman’s half-lidded eyes stared at me instead of the staff for a moment as I held it out for her to take. I was starting to get the idea that this was the wrong place to try and make a sale, but she eventually sighed and took it.

                “An Elderwood Staff, yes?”

                “Yea… Wait, how did you know that without casting Appraisal?”

                Checking out her info box, I saw that she was indeed both a Mage and Merchant named Beth. But she sighed, as if offended I needed to check.

                “If I couldn’t tell and Elderwood staff from a simple stick, nobody would trust me to run this place.”

                “R-Right. Then, would you be willing to buy it?”

                “Buy it? You should keep it. It may not be a very powerful staff, but its rarity alone makes it a collector’s item.”

                A collector’s item? Wouldn’t that mean it’s worth comes more from its rarity than its power? Happy to finally have some good news, I turned the idea down.

                “Thanks, but I’d rather sell it.”

                “Well, if that’s what you want…” Beth held the staff up to the light of what looked to be a magic chandelier that worked like the magic candle back at the inn. With a diligent eye, she examined it from knotted tip to pointed end, probably looking for cuts or dents left in its wood after fighting in the dungeon. While I was certain no such abrasions should exist, I felt a little antsy until she scratched her chin and spoke again. “I can offer you 53 gold for it.”

                53 gold? Wait, then the rarity of an item like this increases the base value? Then why didn’t my own Appraisal reflect this? Was she adding to its worth herself, instead of going with what Appraisal said? More importantly, shouldn’t I have gotten more for the rarer item drops from regular monsters, then? Not that I’m really in a position to complain at this point. If she’s willing to take it off my hands now, and for more than I was expecting, then who cares?

                “53 gold sounds fine to me.”

                “Alright, then. One moment please.”

                When she disappeared into another room to collect the money, I gave Yua a thumbs up and she responded with a weak smile, still apprehensive to let me unarm myself. Especially after enjoying the power up the staff gave my magic. But that extra three gold was more than enough to make up for what I lost with the Goblin Spears.

                The woman came back with the same silver tray as everywhere else and five stacks of 10 gold coins with the extra 3 tossed carelessly beside them. Thanking her, I put the lot in my pouch. Figuring now was my best chance to get some more information, I went ahead and asked before she could get back to reading.

                “If you don’t mind my asking, could you tell me where I can learn some more spells?”

                She practically glared at me for once more interrupting her reading time, though she hadn’t even gotten back to it yet.

                “You’re a Mage, then?”

                “Yes, ma’am.”

                “And you just sold a valuable staff without a moment’s hesitation?”

                “Er… Yes?”

                The woman pinched the bridge of her sharpened nose and sighed. Looking at me like I were just some child trying to do something way beyond my capabilities, she answered, “If you want to learn magic, you must read and memorize a spell book like this.”

                She pointed to the thick tome I had stopped her from reading and I understood a bit of why she was so annoyed. She wasn’t reading, she was studying.

                “I have to memorize it? The whole thing?”

                That must be why Yua was so impressed at the sight of my magic. Even if she can’t perform magic herself due to her race, she must have known a little about how it works. But, memorizing an entire book? Regardless of whether she meant word-for-word or just memorizing the concepts, that one book looked to be over four-hundred pages long!

                “Obviously,” Beth said. “If you can’t memorize how the spell works, how are you going to use it?”

                “Right, right. Sorry. Then could you tell me where I could buy spell books? Do you sell them?”

                “…Yes. If you’d like, I can show you…”

                She was about to stand up again, but I quickly stopped her.

                “No, thanks, but right now I’m just asking for information. Could you tell me more, please?”

                “I see… The only ways to use a spell are to either memorize its spell book in its entirety, or use its corresponding scroll.”

                In its entirety? Damn. There goes my hopes for just memorizing the summary of a given book. No wonder why all the Mages here seemed are so focused on their reading. In order to increase their magical repertoire by just one spell, they have to spend, well, who knows how long just to memorize one damn spell. This does not bode well for me. I really should have studied more back on Earth, because I am sure as hell not experienced enough to spend that much time on a single book.

                Hopefully my Memorization trait helps me out some. I may not want the easy way out, but if it’s for the sorts of magic that I was going to need to survive after surrendering my weapons to my coin purse, then I needed all the help I could get.

                “Spell books come in three different difficulties,” she continued. “Novice, Intermediate and Master. The more difficult a spell is to learn, the thicker the book. The book’s thickness is the easiest way to tell how difficult it is to master, so you don’t have to dirty its bindings by picking it up. A scroll, however…”

                “Then if I get a Master level spell book, can I learn its spell right away?”

                Usually, in games, spell availability was based on your character’s level, just like enchanted gear. This may just reflect in what spell vendors have for sale or were automatically unlocked by leveling your character, but either option stopped you from obtaining super powerful spells right off the bat. For the same reason as the Life Regeneration Ring, having something like that too early on would just break the game. However, she made it sound like the only thing holding a Mage back from learning something overpowered was their ability to read and memorize a large book. But with my Memorize skill, I think I might have an easier time with that.

                I have been pointlessly memorizing all sorts of useless information since I came to this world, from the exact contents of the crap on Albert’s counter the first time I stepped in his shop, to the exact number of people on the street between De Grave Imports and the Amoranth Auction House during our walk between the two. I hadn’t been putting much stock in memorizing these little details, but I might be able to master new spells at least a little faster than was considered normal here.

                Beth, however, was not so amused by my prospects.

                “Young man, please don’t interrupt when someone is answering the question you yourself posed.”

                “S-Sorry.”

                “Ahem… Yes, if you are able to manage memorizing such a spell, then you should be able to use it as long as you have the necessary mana such a spell requires. But I very much doubt you can. If you don’t know how spells work in the first place, how do you hope to learn Master level spells?”

                “I’m just asking questions, ma’am.”

                I wasn’t about to reveal my little cheat ability to anybody in here. If it worked the way I thought it did, I’d have a building full of jealous Mages after me. And with a world full of magic I hadn’t had the chance to explore yet potentially being used against me, that idea sounded terrifying. I seriously doubted they’d limit their jealous attacks on me to just bashing me over the head with the spell books they studied so laboriously.

                “Fine… As for scrolls, they come in the same levels of difficulties. Novice, Intermediate and Master. Unlike the spell books, their difficulties are based on whatever spell the scroll is enchanted with. However, unlike memorizing a spell, scrolls are one-time use items that can be cast by anyone, regardless of if they have the Mage class.”

                That’s definitely useful. Judging by how it works, since the spell is contained in the scroll itself, there may be no mana requirement to actually use it. So, having a few of those in case I ever manage to run out of mana would be a big help. They could tide me over until my mana regenerates. And if that worked, then maybe I wouldn’t even need to replace my sword.

                “Is there anything else you wish to know?”

                “Uh… How does one join the Mage’s Guild? Is there some kind of discount on spell books if you join up?”

                She snorted a bit, but quickly corrected herself, returning to the stiffly professional air of an ultra-strict teacher.

                “A discount? Gods, no. This place is just a hub for mages to gather, learn and share what they know. We offer our services and magic to those that can afford it, but otherwise, we don’t offer anything to our members… Except, maybe, first pickings when new spell books hit our shelves.”

                So, in other words, this place is just a glorified book shop combined with a magic-focused Adventurer’s Guild?

                “Then the requirements?”

                “One looking to join the Mage’s Guild needs to be at least a level 10 Mage to even be considered. From there, ranks within the guild are as follows; Mages ranked 10-20 are considered Novices, level 21-50 are Intermediate and 51 and above are considered Masters. What missions you are given to perform on behalf of the guild are based only on your rank. Assuming, of course, you are given one in the first place. Most mission requests go to the Adventurer’s guild, where you may accept them at your leisure. Other than that, the only other requirement is that you must perform one spell of any kind. If you can’t do that much, you’ll be asked to leave. And no, using a scroll doesn’t count.”

                “I see. Can I join then?”

                If this place was nothing more than a fancy bookshop, then I might as well take advantage of the first pickings they might offer members. Buying spell books may not be an option for me just yet, but preparing for the future a bit can’t hurt.

                “… You don’t know how spells work, but you want to join the Mage’s Guild?”

                “Er, uh… I know how spells work. I’m just not from around here, so I was curious to see if magic worked the same here as it does back home.”

                Thinking on my feet, assuming the process that allowed me to come up with the word vomit that just fell out of my mouth could be called thinking, I went with the same half-truth I had been giving everyone else.

                Geez. Maybe instead of worrying about magic, I should be focusing on learning more about the world before someone calls me out on my bullshit.

                Beth sighed. She looked at me with an obvious twinge of sympathy, as if she realized all on her own that I, Alex, was in fact an irredeemable idiot and that she couldn’t expect too much from me. But the look lasted only a second.

                “Magic works the same everywhere in the world.”

                “I-I see. Then I’d like to join, if I may.”

                “If you must…”

                Apparently, she was not very welcoming to new members.

                She took out a glass orb filled with a swirling cloud of blue smoke fixed atop of a golden-ringed tripod from beneath the counter, carefully moved her spell book to the side so as not to lose her page, and set the orb next to the silver tray.

                “Place your hand on the Scrying Orb so I may see your class level.”

                So, this is that Scrying Orb thing Yua was talking about? For some reason, I was expecting something more ominous, considering what it did to her. Or rather, what it helped the city knights and that Adventurer to do to her. But this thing looked like your average witch’s crystal ball.

                After thinking back to when I first bought Yua and the slave spell made my info box appear besides hers, I took a moment to confirm that my top two classes were arranged to read Mage and Adventurer, as only two of my classes showed up at the time. Assuming it worked the same way here, I didn’t want to screw up and not show that I had the Mage class, as I would have no way to explain why it would have shown up during a second try. Given how Yua was so adamant that everyone else was capable of having only two classes, I’d be outing myself as an anomaly if I tried.

                With my classes in order, I did as she said and set my hand on the crystal ball.

                While the orb itself did not feel any different than any other glass ball, as soon as I touched it, the smoke inside began to swirl faster and a small information window popped up between Beth and I, just like I thought it might. Thankfully, it showed her little more than my name, top two classes, their levels and what spells I knew.

                Wait…

                “Impossible!” she nearly shouted, her eyes widening at the window's display. A few of the others in the room pulled their noses from their books to observe the commotion before deciding it wasn’t worth the distraction and turning their attention back to their studies. Beth continued. “How can a level 17 Mage already know any sort of teleportation spell?!”

                She looked up at me, not impressed but angry, as if she had been upstaged. I had no idea what difficulty my Dimensional Step spell actually was or how long it should have taken me to learn it, but from what she said, it didn’t seem to be the only type of teleportation magic there was.

                “I, uh… The spell book I learned it from was the only thing my mom left me when she died,” I lied.

                Beth blinked at me, her expression as blank as a newly crafted sheet of paper. Like the only emotion she was capable of at the moment was the purest form of skepticism, but Yua excitedly swished her tail about like she was happy to learn more about my past.

                Come on, Yua… I already told you the real way I learned that spell.

                Sensing my lie wasn’t strong enough to convince this seasoned Mage, I continued.

                “My mom, who was a Mage, used to make me study it every day before she passed away and before I knew it, I was able to use it.”

                “Nonsense,” Beth growled, looking at my information again. “The Scrying Orb says you are only eighteen years old. How could you have learned a Master level spell already?”

                I know a Master level spell? I suppose that means my theory on the importance of levels regarding what magic I can learn was a waste of brain power.

                “I… Like I said, I studied very hard.”

                Sounding every bit as convincing as a student hiding a cheat sheet right under their skeptical teachers nose after already getting caught with it during a test they definitely didn’t study for, I tried my best to keep a straight face.

                As long as she didn’t know the real way I learned spells, I didn’t feel like I should worry all that much. It may have been an oversight on my part, but the spell was there for her to see. I can’t exactly deny it now.

                “Unacceptable. I must have you show me this spell immediately or I’ll be forced to send this faulty Scrying Orb in to be destroyed.”

                “If I show you, can I join the guild?”

                “Obviously. But only if you can actually perform a teleportation spell.”

                What the hell? I thought I could show any spell!

                “Alright, ma’am. But could we go into another room? I don’t want to do it out here.”

                The fewer that saw, the better. And if with her screaming out her denial, I didn’t want my knowledge of this spell to reach too many people. The Mages here reading their books may look like they’re focusing on the pages in front of them, but showing off what is apparently a master level spell might draw their attention my way. Better to do this out of sight if at all possible.

                “Fine,” she scoffed, as if expecting me to pull some sort of trick on her once we were alone and was fully prepared to beat me down if I tried. “Follow me and be quick about it.”

                Practically stomping her feet as she walked, Beth led us into another nearby empty room that looked sort of like it was meant to be a tea room, given the sofas and coffee tables strewn all over the place. I nearly suggested we use the room she disappeared into to retrieve the coin, since she’d have to take the silver tray back there anyways, but figured she of all people would know that teleportation magic depended on the caster being able to remember the location they’re trying to teleport to. So, she clearly wouldn’t want me to see where she kept the guild’s money. It’d open up too many chances for me to break in and steal from them, assuming anyone would be dumb enough to break into a place run by Mages that could light you on fire as soon as look at you.

                Making sure nobody followed us inside or came to listen, Yua closed the door behind us. Thankfully, Beth didn’t seem to mind her presence.

                “Alright. You may show me the spell in here. Just open a teleportation door to anywhere you wish. If you can prove it works, I will believe you.”

                Thinking about it briefly, I didn’t have many places I could go. Besides the various dungeon floors, which presented a potential danger to us, almost everywhere else I could think of was in a public place. Trying to minimize the number of people that knew I could teleport, I had only a few options to choose from.

                Making up my mind, I faced the wall and raised my hand in the usual manner.

                “Dimensional Step.”

                I went ahead and actually added the chant to it, so Beth here didn’t get any more on my case than she already was by learning about my silent casting trait as well.

                Sure enough, a doorway made of blue swirling lights appeared on the wall in front of my outstretched palm. Keeping in mind the location I wanted to go, I held the pose until the lights settled into their final positions. Satisfied with my work, I turned to see Beth’s mouth hanging open and her arms dangling limply by her sides, stunned. Apparently, she really was favoring the idea that the Scrying Orb was faulty.

                “How’s this? Want to try it out?”

                With a cough to reform her dignity, Beth nodded and strode towards the door of light. First, she stuck a hand through, like testing the water of a swimming pool with as toe to see if it was cold before jumping in. Seeing as it was safe and that it wasn’t going to bite her, she stepped through.

                “Wait here a second, Yua. We’ll be right back.”

                “Yes, Master.”

                Leaving behind that smiling girl, I followed Beth through my portal.

                We stepped out into our room at the Lazy Cat Inn, same as when Yua and I left the dungeon. When I entered the room behind her, I found Beth looking around, her mouth agape like she truly couldn’t believe what she was seeing. It was almost like she thought, assuming my spell even worked, that I’d only be able to put up a portal linking to the other side of the wall I cast it on.

                Showing much more energy than she even seemed capable of until now, Beth ran over to the only window in the room and looked outside when I let portal disappear. I didn’t have to go over to know that what she saw was the backyard, the water well and the streets behind the inn as I had already seen them myself.

                “How is this possible,” she muttered to herself. “Is this… This is the Lazy Cat, isn’t it?”

                “Yup. Is this enough to pass your test?”

                Blinking several times to test if her vision had gone bad, she coughed again and faced me.

                “I don’t know how you managed to learn such a powerful spell already, but yes. You passed the test. I cannot deny the results when they are in front of my eyes.”

                “Great. What happens now?”

                “What happens is you opening a portal back to the guild. I don’t see the point in walking all the way back there if you can do this much.”

                Satisfied with her acceptance, and the knowledge that she probably just wanted to see the spell again, I went ahead and cast it. It’s not like I wanted to leave Yua waiting for us to walk back anyway.

                We entered the back room at the Mage’s Guild to find Yua still there waiting for us, her tail wagging happily. Having experienced the spell already herself a few times now, she clearly expected me to pass with flying colors. When Beth followed me through the portal, she turned back to watch it fade away.

                “Well, we’re back. What now?”

                Beth spun around, looking beyond surprised, like seeing it a second time hadn’t convinced her enough to completely be rid of her skepticism. She even went as far as pinching her cheek to check if she was asleep. Causing enough pain to her cheek to turn it red, but without flinching, she looked to us.

                “How can you two just stand there like this is nothing? Mage’s four times your level struggle for years to learn magic this strong.”

                Really? Now there was no way I was going to tell her I learned it by accident after seeing the General by the dungeons entrance use it only once.

                “Master really is amazing, isn’t he?”       

                While Yua sang my undeserved praises, Beth looked stared at us, uncapable of forming any more words as her lips floundered. So, I broke the silence.

                “Um, ma’am. Can I join the guild now?”

                “Why… Y-yes. Of course. A prodigy like yourself would be most welcome to join our guild. However, despite your knowledge of this spell, because of your level, I can only offer you Novice level membership.”

                “That’s fine by me.”

                “Then, please, follow me.”

                Beth led us back out to the front of the Guild and I put my hand back on the Scrying Orb at her suggestion. Grimacing and only looking slightly annoyed at needing to touch something so dirty, or perhaps out of jealousy, she placed her hand on top of mine and my info box appeared again. After a brief moment of silence, a tag denoting me as a member of the guild appeared beneath my name and she removed her hand to wipe it on the hip of her dress.

                “Is… Is that it?”

                “That’s it. You, Alex, are now a member of the Mage’s Guild.”

                Well, that was… uneventful.

                “Great. Thank you. Is there anything else I need to know about being a member? Do I get some kind of fancy robe for joining, or something?”

                I doubted they had some kind of letterman jacket with Mage’s Guild printed across the back in bold letters, but I wouldn’t turn it down if they did.

                “No, Sir. There is no such thing.”

                Oh, so now I’m a Sir?

                I know next to nothing of this woman, but how snobbish she seemed in regards to magic, I had no reason not to assume that she treated non-members like garbage. She definitely seemed the sort to prefer accompanying herself with full-fledged Mages, rather than those of the non-magical sort. Hopefully, becoming a member myself will change her attitude a bit.

                “However, if you wish to purchase clothing befitting a mage,” she said. “Then I can accommodate you.”

                She eyed my mostly leather outfit with a disgusted sneer, immediately disproving my thoughts. If she was going to be picky about even my clothes, I had to wonder if she was as in to magic as Madame Turquesse was potions, but was okay with being infinitely more rude about it.

                “Thanks, but I’ll have to think about that. Although, I may be back soon to look at what spell books you have.”

                “Our library is always open to members of the guild,” she said, then looked to Yua with another sneer. “Only to members, though.

                Showing much more respect now that I was one of them, Beth bowed slightly as we left the guild. Yua didn’t seem all that perturbed by Beth’s attitude towards her, but I guessed that she only meant that I wouldn’t be allowed to send my slave to fetch books for me, since she didn’t seem to actually have a problem with Yua’s presence during our visit, despite beast-kin being unable to perform magic.

                Once I paid off Yua’s contract, I really planned on coming back after getting some more gold. Just imagining all the spells I could learn made me happy enough to almost start skipping down the road. With a good arsenal of powerful magic at my beck and call, and if master level spells only require about as much mana as Dimensional Step does, then I might not even need to replace my sword. A full magic build was now a definite possibility for me.

                I couldn’t wait to see what other types of magic this world had in store for me. Who knows, maybe learning something else flashy would even get me on Beth’s good side. Not that I particularly wanted to be there, mind you. I was just tired of all the vendors in this city acting like dicks.

                “Master looks so happy,” Yua said carrying on with a smile of her own.

                “Sorry, I was just thinking about learning some new magic to help us clear the dungeons.”            

                “Well, because of Master’s amazing… abilities, you’ll be able to learn new magic in no time, right?”

                Being that we were out in public, Yua respectfully danced around the exact reason why I learned spells so quickly.

                “That’s what I’m hoping for… Still, it’s kind of strange that they have a Mage’s Guild with no real benefits, don’t you think?”

                From the sound of things, you didn’t actually need to be a member to buy books. And, unless I just didn’t ask enough questions, there didn’t seem to be anyone that could help me learn magic. Since all it took to do so was studying a spell book, then I doubted anyone could really help in the first place.

                And that’s not even mentioning the fact that I don’t seem to have started a mage-themed questline after joining. Part of the questlines for the video game versions of the mage’s guilds were supposed to give the player some overpowered items or enchanted gear to finish out their playthrough with. So, in a way, if all joining up with them got me was early access to spell books, the rewards were a little lack luster.

                Not that I minded, though. Were this a game, I’d be complaining online to forum of other players non-stop. But with magic being so real here, I truly didn’t care.

                “Well, that lady did say that most requests meant for mages are sent to the Adventurer’s Guild, right Master?”

                “Right… Speaking of which, the entry level for the Adventurer’s Guild is level 10 too, right?”

                “I believe it is.”

                “Then how about we stop by and join them as well. Maybe we can start earning some coin through them as well.”

                It was a bit late to start now, since it was highly unlikely we’d be able to complete any quest with what time we had left, but it wouldn’t hurt us in the long run to get joined up now.

                “If Master wishes, I don’t mind joining with you!”