The smell emanating from the bakery was just as intoxicating as it was last night. It seemed to have a permanent hold on this part of the city, but my hunger for sweets wasn’t anything compared to Yua’s. She too had to endure her nose’s powerful sense of smell by squeezing my hand to keep from letting herself run off towards the scent that continuously perked her up.

                Similar to the Threaded Spool, the bakery seemed to have been undergoing a large-scale clean up, but neither of us pressed for a reason why. When we entered the shop, we’d stepped in the remnants of an avalanche of flour as several bags of the stuff exploded after falling off the cart that delivered them. The cart itself and most of the floor near the entrance were covered in enough of the white powder to briefly confuse the eye into thinking we’d stepped onto a snow-covered mountaintop.

                “Welcome, Sir. Please excuse the mess, I forgot to mend the broken wheel on the cart before using it and, well, you can see what happened.”

                His brow was slick with sweat, he threw up his hands in defeat before leaning on his broom to heave a hefty sigh, no doubt out of remorse for his coin purse once he tries to replace what he just lost. He’d been pushing the broom long enough to have left several small hills of flour in patches around the shop.  

                Part of me wanted to pick up a shovel and help him out after watching him dab at his sweaty forehead with his apron, but decided against it. Our little shopping spree/date was at its end and midnight was drawing near.

                “Sorry to hear that, but would you mind if we bought a few things?”

                The baker shrugged, letting his broom fall against a nearby table still stocked with sheets of what looked like hardtack. He clapped his hands to rid himself of the floury dust coating them and made his way to the counter. 

                “I don’t see why not. If someone’s going to stop by this late, might as well, right?”

                “Great. Thank you and I’ll try to be quick. Do you happen to have any cakes and cookies?”

                “Oh, yes. Actually, I made another cake this morning, but sadly, nobody wanted any today. The cookies are from yesterday, so sorry they aren’t fresh. But I can promise their quality.”

                “That’s fine. I’ll take the whole cake, please. And could you throw in about a dozen cookies and three loaves of white bread, too?”

                “Th-The whole cake?”

                “That’s right. Is that okay?”

                “O-Of course! I made the cake to be eaten, not to just sit here and wither away. It would only be sad if nobody got to enjoy it!”

                The surprise that caused his mouth to hang open limply for a few seconds wasn’t the least bit shocking. He must have been concerned because of the price of the cake costing more than it had any right to. Due to the inflated sugar prices, he must have never thought that somebody would buy the whole thing in one go. And if nobody had bought any of it so far, then he was probably planning on eating it all himself to avoid throwing it out.

                As for why he continues to indulge in his joy of baking pastries when they cost too much to sell reliably, only the Goddess can tell. But the news that our luck had kicked in again made Yua happy enough to skip over the patches of floor not dusted with flour to join him at the counter. With a smile so grand and infectious as she held out a basket for him, she actually improved his night enough to warrant a smile of his own.

                “Your total comes out to 18 silvers and 8 coppers. Let me get your order ready.”

                The baker set out a silver tray for me and left with the basket to go fetch our order to save us the trouble of steeping through the flour again. While his attention was elsewhere, I set 19 silver coins on his tray.

                 The baker quietly packed our order into the basket and gave the coins a quick count with Appraisal when he finished. He nodded satisfactorily and took the silver tray into the back room. After a minute or so, he came back with the same smile Yua imprinted on him and set the tray back down on the counter. The tiny pile of silvers I’d left were gone, replaced with two small copper coins.

                Did he really need to use the tray for only two coins? Several of the other vendors did the same with small amounts of change, but this is excessive. Sure, presentation was nice, but it would have been faster and easier to just hand them to me directly. I’d say he might have been a germophobe and just didn’t want to get too close, but considering how he wasn’t scooping the flour into a trash can, but into large glass jars clearly labeled “Flour,” I doubted it.

                “Thank you for your patronage, Sir, Miss. I hope you enjoy them.”

                “We will. Thank you.”

                I took the coins and stuffed them in my pocket. The baker handed the basket to Yua, probably assuming I brought her to carry it, and we turned to leave to the backdrop of the baker jazzing himself up to finish his sweeping.

                After stuffing the basket of food into my item box as soon as we could step into a secluded alley, we set off to what might end up being our last destination for the night. Or the first of many.

                Holding my hand as we walked beneath the stars, Yua touched her head to my shoulder and left it there. On our way back to the Lazy Cat Inn to collect what we left in the room, the silence of the night quickly took hold of both our tongues and refused to let go. There was nothing left to talk about. Our footsteps as we walked the cobblestone sidewalk were the only sounds in the air there to distract us, but not even Yua’s ears seemed to pick them up.

                I had no lingering attachment to this place. The Great City of Amoranth has been almost nothing but a jumble of bad memories I was ready to be rid of, even if my memory would no longer allow for such a thing. Yua’d been here a lot longer than I’d been, but the way she squeezed my hand, nearly turning my fingertips white, was not from grief. Nor could I say the slight twitch to her ears was born of anxiety. If anything, she was a little excited.

                “Have you thought about where you’d like to go?” she asked, rubbing my bicep tenderly.

                “Not really, no. I’d like to say I had an exact plan ready for you, but I’m not from here. I don’t know where we should go.”

                Where we could go, to escape our inevitable pursuers and live out our lives in relative peace.

                I had very little doubt that Alphonse may have already considered that we’d run away, because who wouldn’t run? I was probably the crazy one for not trying to book-it the moment I realized his contract was supposed to be impossible to overcome.

                He didn’t know what I was capable of now. I was confident that he thought our only options to escape Amoranth were to either leave through the main gates by foot or by horse, assuming we could buy one in time. This means he wasn’t expecting us to get too far and that he could just slap his fat coin purse down on the Adventurer’s Guild’s bar and order the Guild Master himself to send someone after us, a Thief and a runaway slave.

                But I have Dimensional Step. I made damn sure that nobody else in this city, aside from Beth, knows that I can use that spell. And her overall strict demeanor made me fairly confident that she wouldn’t just disclose the private info of a Mage’s Guild member so easily.

                That spell may not be able to take us all that far since it demanded a clear mental image of the destination and my knowledge of the terrain outside of the city was severely limited, but I now had the mana to cast the spell several times in one sitting. As long as I could see where we were going, I could take us there. I may not be able to see very far during the night, but that only meant that I would need to expend more mana teleporting us shorter distances. That loss can easily be mitigated by the mana recovery potions I bought earlier and it should be able to outpace a horse.

                All we had to do was choose a direction instead of a destination and leave.

                “Ha ha…”

                “What are you laughing at?” Yua said, her lips curling into a small smirk as well.

                “Nothing. I was just thinking… How about we head East?”

                Her ears flicked and her smile never wavered.

                “That sounds like a fine plan.”

                By the time we got back to the Lazy Cat Inn, the lobby was empty and the innkeeper nowhere to be seen. She probably went to bed. The kitchen in the back had gone cold and none of the pleasant smells saying dinner was on its way lingered. Since the food we’d paid for was likely left in our room again, and was probably already cold, I planned on saving us a bit of time by throwing it in my item box so we could get going. We’d eat it and the sweets once we get to where we decided to set up camp.

                We shrugged to each other. Neither of us were surprised to know that most everyone in the inn was likely asleep. Being able to stand in the lobby without any sort of annoyed look being shot my way felt oddly peaceful. This was what an inn was supposed to be. A comfortable place where you could come and rest your head after a long journey.

                Yua took to the stairs up to our room without a word. I followed close behind her as quietly as I could, waiting for the floorboards to announce our arrival with every squeak and for the innkeeper to come running. Likely dressed in some sort of nightgown, her hair done up in a lazy bun. She’d throw a small fit about us coming back so late, waking her up and a slue of other complaints. I let out a small, soundless laugh at the thought. It was nice to come back to this place and not receive a stink eye for once, but now that we were leaving, I almost wanted it to happen so we’d have our little send off.

                Once we got to our room, I handed her the key and she slipped it into the keyhole. A short twist of the wrist later and a small metallic clank bounced throughout the hall, sounding almost like a hand grenade exploding in the silence. She pushed the door open. But she stopped herself from finishing the step she was about to take. Throwing up a hand to stop me as well, her ears shot to attention, stiffer than I’d ever seen them. The second the door swung open her emerald eyes sharpened with danger, but all I could see past the half open door was our bed. She paused there a moment, half in the hall and half a step into the doorframe. Listening.

                Her eyes narrowed further. I could almost hear her fist clench. Her chest expanded slightly, pulling on the air, her nose searching what her ears couldn’t quite place. When her short breath stopped, her eyes shot open before her expression suddenly change to the purest anger I’d ever seen on a woman. She bolted into the room before I could ask what happened.

                The second she passed through the barrier of the doorframe, a hand flew out from behind the door and seized her by the neck. She gripped the well-tailored suit sleeve attached to it right back and opened her mouth to say something, …

                “…!”

                … only to choke on what might have been a scream when the hand tightened its grip. I fumbled for my sword, but before I could draw it, the unseen attacker lifted Yua off her feet and pulled her into the room and out of sight in one quick motion.

                Shocked stiff for the briefest of seconds, I ripped my sword from its sheath and threw myself into the room.

                Behind the door I found Alphonse waiting, a wicked grin creaked across his lips and his arms wrapped around Yua. One hand was clamped tight over her mouth to prevent another scream. The other gripping the knife pressed hard enough to her throat that her skin bent beneath its pressure. She struggled, trying with all her might to pull his arm off of her. He didn’t budge. No matter how hard she pulled, he didn’t move an inch.

                “Close the door,” he said.

                “How the hell did you get into our room?!”

                “I said close the door.”

                He repeated his demand, but not before pressing the knife harder against Yua’s neck. She winced, a small trickle of blood running down the blade’s steel. She stopped her struggling when it became apparent his strength surpassed hers.

                My jaw clenched. My heart pounded in my ears, but not loud enough to quiet his order.

                Without removing my eyes from the man and his greasy, slicked-back hair, I kicked the door shut. His smiled broadened. The room’s sound-proofing enchantment was in full effect now.

                “What the hell are you doing here?!”

                I pointed my sword at him and all he did was chuckle at the sight of it. The demure sense of mercantilism he showed when we first met played across his lips, but it was so clearly a lie that not even his own reflection could have looked him in the eye and say he was honest.

                “Drop the sword.”

                This time he didn’t wait for me to speak before pressing the knife harder still. Yua clenched her fists to bear the pain, but I could see her shaking. She shut her eyes.

                Gripping the handle of my blade so hard that it felt like it might snap under the pressure, I readied myself to put the sword’s edge to the test and strike at him the second he made the slightest of openings. But when I saw the resigned look flit across Yua’s eyes, the whole of the sword suddenly turned into a led weight my heart couldn’t bare to risk swinging. Not when he was using her as a shield.  

                I threw my sword aside. The clatter that sounded when it struck against the wooden floorboards made Yua whimper. 

                “Good. Now, why am I here?” he mimicked, releasing some of the pressure he put on the knife. Yua drew in a sharp, desperate breath through her nose. “Well, I’m here to receive what you owe me.”

                “What I owe… I tried to go to your damn slave house multiple times today, but they kept turning me away saying that you weren’t there! If you want your gold, I have it. Just let her go!”

                He laughed again, this time loud and clear.

                “I’m not here for the gold, you idiot. I’m here for the both of you.”

                He squeezed the hand he held over Yua’s mouth and forced her to shake her head in his stead. Again, she tried to resist, but the knife stopped her.

                “What? The day’s not over yet. Just let me give you the gold and…”

                “Shut up, kid. I never meant for you to actually pay off the contract. It’s a shame, really. And here I was so looking forward to all that sweet interest tomorrow. Now I actually have to work for it myself. How bothersome.”

                “What? Interest?”

                He laughed again and I got the sense that this supposed interest was just another hidden part of the contract that I failed to read. I never even considered its existence because the debt itself weighed so heavily on me.

                But what the hell was he talking about? I knew he expected me to fail, but if this interest was real and the percentage I was supposed to pay was large enough to prevent me from paying off the contract in one go, then it made no sense to have it kick in only after the third day.

                If he wanted me as a slave, that plan wouldn’t work. As a slave, I wouldn’t be able to earn him any gold, for the same why Yua was unable to join the Adventurer’s Guild. Slaves can’t own money. The only exception would be by fighting for him somehow and leaving him to collect the reward. But he should still think that I’m nothing more than a low-level Adventurer. Someone as weak as I was when we first met, without knowing what I was capable of now, I shouldn’t be worth much of anything as a battle slave. How would I even pay him this interest? Unless…

                … His plan was never to enslave me; it was to leave me in debt to him for the rest of my life.

                If the interest he was after was worth putting a knife to the neck of a slave worth 30,000 gold just to get me to comply, then whatever I agreed to must be insanely high. I’d be an endless stream of gold for him. No matter what job I took, how far I fought into the dungeon, or what Guild quests I took, I’d never be able to make enough to completely pay off her contract no matter how hard or for how long I worked. And wouldn’t even have Yua by my side anymore to see me through it.

                Him saying that it was my fate to become his slave after I accepted the contract was just another of his tricks to distract me from thinking about the possibility of interest.

                “Good,” he said with a wicked smirk. “It looks like you understand. About time. It shouldn’t have been all that hard to figure it out.”

                “Yea, well, it doesn’t matter, does it? I have the gold and there’s still time for us to finish the contract.”

                “Ha! You really should have read that contract a little more thoroughly. It didn’t say you had to pay by the end of the third day. It says pay on the third day. I could have come to collect whenever I wanted. I heard about what you sold at the auction. Now that was lucky. A little too lucky, if you asked me. Almost beggars the question of how you managed to pull that off a find like that in just three days. That fool Barrily should have kept his nose out of my business.”

                “So, you knew… You knew I had the gold all day?”

                “Obviously. Did you think I wouldn’t keep an eye on you? You owe me a tremendous amount of gold. I wasn’t just going to let you slip away, now was I? As soon as you left my slave house, I made my way over to the men guarding the city gates, slipped them all a generous handful of coin, gave them your description and had them keep an eye out for you. You were supposed to breach the contract by trying to run away once you found that the dungeon wasn’t the money maker you were promised it’d be. They’d lock you in irons the moment you stepped out of the gate and they’d drag you back to me.

                “You’d become something of a second coin purse to me,” he continued. “And, little Yua here would come back to me to be resold. It seems she’s gotten a little stronger, so perhaps I should be thanking you for increasing her value for me.”

                Still holding her mouth shut, he curled his index finger back and pressed it mockingly into her cheek, as if to poke fun at the strength she held so dear becoming useless in the presence of a blade. Even with all her skills as a fighter, there was nothing she could do.

                “I knew from the moment you first laid eyes on her that you fell for her. The day you visited my house and found her causing a scene, I was watching and waiting for the moment she turned her attention away from my men. Waiting for her to break your nose or maybe your arm, anything to get the slave spell to shock her back into submission for attacking my client. But she never did. You two just stared at each other. And kid,” he laughed mirthlessly, as if he’d forced himself to do it. “I’m sure the look on your face back then was the same face I wore when I first met my wife. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind. You’d fallen and you’d fallen hard.”

                I couldn’t say anything. I tried for several agonizing seconds, but nothing came to mind. All I could think of was that his promise to kill her had always been just another distraction to keep me from thinking clealry. Because of my love for her, he expected me to try and run away in an attempt to keep her safe. And since that really was our plan, he was completely right.

                I’ve been playing into his game the moment I first laid eyes on her and I didn’t even know the rules. To him, I was probably just another person that came to buy a slave, but couldn’t actually afford one. And when he saw how much I wanted her, wanted Yua, and how I was willing to part with every coin I had to obtain her, he concocted this whole plan because he knew I was desperate enough to fall for it.

                And now, the knife at her throat was meant to keep me here. Keep me complacent. To prevent us from stealing ourselves away from the city under the veil of night. He came here to wait for us himself in case the guards failed to catch us in our last ditched effort to escape. And with him still owning half of Yua’s contract, he was probably the only person in the city willing and able to hurt her to get what he wanted.

                Knowing we played directly into his waiting hand by coming back to do only a couple of things that shouldn’t have mattered only made that fact sting harder. The only thing we were really here to do was drop off the room key so I didn’t accidentally steal it and to grab Yua’s suitcase. The one thing I didn’t put my hands on, because I wanted her to be able to feel as though she owned it. I could have just left the key on the lobby counter and abandoned the suitcase altogether. It’s not like she cares for the thing or its contents.

                “But why… What did I ever do to you to deserve…”

                “Here we go!” he yelled, making me pause and causing Yua to flinch from the pain he inflicted upon her ears. “Me, me, me. I, I, I. You damned Adventurers are all the same! What, you think that doing the city a favor by killing a bunch of worthless critters in the dungeon makes you better than the rest of us? The city knights can do your job and can probably do it better. And they probably wouldn’t need to be drunk half the time to do it!”

                He sneered and dropped his head. Several strands of his greasy hair fell out of place in the moment of brief silence that he’d forced himself into. He took his hand off of Yua’s mouth to push his hair back and she used this small opening to plead with me.

                “Alex, just run. You can still…!”

                “You think your job gives you the right to do as you please,” Alphonse said, covering her mouth again. “That you can take a woman from her husband on their wedding night, just because the law says you can? No matter how they beg for mercy. No matter their promises for compensation. No matter how they promise to do right by the one they wronged. None of it matters as long as you get to turn in your quest slip and get paid, right? You have no respect for the rest of us.”

                I wanted to tell Yua that I’d never abandon her like he did his wife, not knowing what he had in store for her. And I wanted to scream at Alphonse that his accusations were unfair on a multitude of levels, as I wasn’t even a part of the guild when we met and because I’d never take a quest like that to begin with. But I couldn’t. Not because I couldn’t find the words or because I knew he was beyond believing them, but because what he said hit me harder than I ever could have expected.

                My mouth floundered, gasping at syllables that wouldn’t allow themselves to be spoken until I had no other choice but to draw in a breath and let them out.

                “I have no respect…?”

                “Yes. You lot were supposed to protect us, but you throw your weight around just as much as the nobility, claiming you can do as you please as long as you’re paid for it. My wife was innocent. She committed a crime completely on accident, but to the men that beat me and stole her, she was no longer a person. Nobody cared. And when I got her back, I found out they were right. She was no longer a person… not anymore.”

                No longer a person…?

                …You never looked at anyone unless they talked to you first or if you needed something.

                …Do you think that a bit of loneliness and an out-of-control sex drive is all you need to commit an act that you yourself view as a sin?

                A few choice words from both Yua and that Goddess and a never-ending stream of many more that my now perfect memory forced me to remember echoed throughout my mind, banishing all other thoughts from existence.

                It almost felt like the world was slipping away from me as these thoughts penetrated my being. I was sure my feet were still planted firmly on the floor, but I was floating. My mind was a blur of thoughts that raced by so fast they made me dizzy. I’d never passed out before, but I was sure this was what it must feel like in the seconds before it happened. The only thing keeping me awake was the knife at Yua’s neck.

                I was forced to accept what Alphonse said. As much as I wanted to deny it. As much as his meaning was off, he was right. I don’t respect anyone.

                Back home, I secretly belittled my classmates, workmates and friends because I thought I was better than them. Criticizing them for struggling at what I found to be so easy. I fooled myself into thinking I was some sort of genius for succeeding where they couldn’t, without stopping to wonder why they struggled to begin with or how their lives affected their work. I didn’t see them worthy enough of my time to care, and so I shunned them. Shut them out. Kept myself secluded where I couldn’t be shown the truth because, I think, I knew it was always there.

                I wasn’t any better than them. I was just a little different.

                And after I swore to do better, to live a better life after my reincarnation, I did the same thing here.

                I broke the law by sneaking into the city instead of just talking over my options with the guard. I lied to the first people I met in the city just to get my way. I ogled Albert’s bunny girl without consideration for their potential feelings for one another without a care for the fact that it was his words that made me want the same thing he had. I immediately stole a place on the innkeeper’s bad side by asking her to do something I knew to be unreasonable after openly staring at her chest. I pissed off the city’s only Apothecary because I stupidly thought I could outwit her by belittling the very thing she so clearly loved. I even wrote off the tailor as a pervert, even though he was just trying to do his job because of my own insecurities.

                Hell, I don’t even know the names of most the people I’ve met so far, even though I have the ability to learn their names before either of us could open our mouths. The only names I ever bothered to learn belonged to those that introduced themselves.

                And then my biggest mistake, I thought I could outsmart Alphonse. Without stopping to ask anyone about the man I knew to be doing something evil, without stopping to consider who he was as a person, I tried to outplay him repeatedly to get what I wanted. I’d noticed that I was digging myself deeper and deeper into a hole when I realized exactly how easily he was able to see through me, but I just kept thinking I’d be able to win against him because, how could this random man be smarter than me when nobody else ever was?

                Then there’s the worst offence I’ve committed since coming here: I bought Yua. I bought someone. A living breathing person I knew that, on some level, was provably a lesser being than me, all because she was a slave. And because she was a slave, she shouldn’t have been able to tell me I was wrong, that I was seeing the world through a lens that had long since been broken by my own arrogance. She would’ve been forced to validate my existence by accepting the love she didn’t even want.

                But she didn’t. She didn’t need to. We were forced to fight and spend time together, and because of that, I got to know the real her. The person behind the slave. I was able to give a name to the love I felt for her, because she was no longer that lesser being I wanted to force to stay beside me. She became the person whose affection I wanted to earn. And, sure, I tried to deny its existence once I had it, but that’s only because it was conflicting with who I thought I was.

                That’s where the fear and lacking confidence came from. When in reality, I was just an arrogant piece of shit that was so full of himself, but who was also so stupid that he somehow didn’t notice that his way of thinking was and always has been wrong.

                The Goddess was right. Yua didn’t fix me, she just saved me from becoming something worse.

                And because of me, the little taste of happiness she’d thought she’d never have again was being threatened. But there has to be a way to save her.

                My heart beat violently at the back of my ribcage, trying to wring a solution out of the brain upstairs that had all but flatlined for the last several seconds. I checked my HUD for the time. There was only a few more minutes until midnight.

                Seeing this almost brought back the panic, but I managed to hold it together and looked at the man. Looked him in the eye for what felt like the first time. His pupils were a cold, metallic silver, but more than that, even as he yelled, even as he complained, even after bringing up how his wife was taken from him, I could see nothing but greed in his gaze. And it was the same look he wore when we first met.

                “There’s still time…”

                “Yes. You are absolutely correct,” Alphonse said. “There is. However, if I don’t see this deal going anywhere favorable, then I’ll just cut my losses and kill her. You’ll have to make up the gold I’d lose on her death once this debt is set into stone by handing over what you got from the auction. But that will only be the beginning.”

                He paused and looked around the room, as if he only just noticed that neither Yua nor myself were carrying around a giant sack of gold.

                He knew we had it, but didn’t know where we put it. I felt the inkling of an idea come to me, but when I saw the blood trickling down Yua’s neck, the idea struggled to hold its place in my mind.

                But Yua was as calm as she could ever hope to be. Even with a knife cutting into her throat, she didn’t shed a tear. Not in front of the enemy. Her gaze was not on him, but me, looking for strength. I gulped.

                “You can’t hurt her. She belongs to me. If you do anything to her, it’d be the same as destroying my property, right?”

                “Oh, no, no, no,” he said, tutting his tongue. “If I were to kill her after you paid me, then I would eternally be branded a Thief for stealing what’s yours. But, if I waited until midnight when the day changes and she becomes mine once more, then I can do with her as I please. I wouldn’t get in trouble for killing my own slave.”

                “B-But the three conditions… You have to take care of your slaves.”

                “Yes. But those rules only apply if you want to keep them. If you can’t afford to care for your slaves, you’ll lose them simply because they’ll die of neglect. There’s no magic in the world that defines whether or not you have the capabilities to care for them, you fool. You should have realized that when you bought her. You used all the coin you had, right? How can you say you’d take care of her if you yourself were broke? But,” he snickered. “If you no longer have a slave to care for, you don’t need to provide for them. And for little Yua here, I wouldn’t mind letting her go, if you don’t do as I say.”

                My head throbbed just as fast as my heart. How did I ever think I could be more intelligent than this man? He set all this up, covered all his bases and came up with the perfect contingency in the unlikely event I actually managed to make the gold we needed. And to the best of my knowledge, he did all this in the short time between the end of the fight Yua started in the slave house and when he made it back to finish his conversation with me in the tea room.

                His vendetta against Adventurers was absurdly misplaced. The Guild Master seemed like a nice enough person and he said Adventurers weren’t forced to take quests like the one that had been set for Alphonse’s wife. So, the men that took her were just a couple of bastards in it for the quick coin. It was probably due to the beatdown they handed down to him that he sought the strength needed to actually be able to hold Yua in place like this. So it could never happen again. And because of those same Adventurers, and because of my mistakes, my options were limited.

                He beat every option I had at hand before I even set foot in this room. And, regardless of whether or not he knew about my magic, him holding Yua hostage prevented us from teleporting away like we planned.

                There had to be something we could do. A loop hole in the contract. The contract I never read. Clenching my jaw and purposefully letting my shoulders drop, I probed for more information.

                “… And what exactly do you want me to do?”

                “The way I see it,” he started with a laugh. “You have only three options. You can wait until midnight when the contract runs out and prolong both of your suffering. Or you can admit you can’t pay me back and sign Yua back over to me to end this farce early. Or you could try and save yourself by running away all on your lonesome. Though I really wouldn’t recommend the last choice. I didn’t exactly come here alone. And even if you managed to slip past the men I have waiting outside, you’d never make it out of the city.”

                Yua’s brow was furrowed. I could tell she was still doing her best to hold back her tears by the forlorn look in her emerald eyes, but she clearly hadn’t noticed anyone on the streets waiting for us to arrive. She knew we had no choice but to comply. But because of this, the glare she turned on him was nothing less than a promise that he was going to be in for a beating the second he let her go, no matter what happened with her contract and regardless of how the slave spell rebounded on her.

                Perhaps a real warrior like her might rather die than be handed back to him, but I wouldn’t allow that. As much as I hated all this, as much as I hated him, I didn’t want her to die. I wasn’t going to let her. It was this thought that inspired that inkling to gather the courage to get back to its feet.

                As he spoke and as I listened, really listened, I found our opening. Something just clicked, slid into place and a hidden fourth option he shouldn’t be able to see coming appeared with all the clarity of a bright summer’s day. Feeling my pulse slow, I almost couldn’t believe myself for not having noticed sooner.

                Thinking back to every transaction I’ve made since coming here, I found a single truth that granted me clarity. The merchant Albert was first. I sold a few things to him and he paid me. The tailor. I sold him some pelts and he paid me. Then the apothecary. I sold her some things and bought something at the same time and she paid me the difference, just as you’d expect from any store. Every place here that worked in the trade of coin did the same thing.

                It's those silver trays. Every single trade, every transaction of coin was facilitated by those damn trays. The less well-to-do stalls in the merchant’s district didn’t have the luxury of silver and had wooden or stone ones, but they all always traded via a tray of some sort.

                It was the last trade I made with the baker that proves it. He went out of his way to use the tray when he only brought out two small copper coins. It looked completely unnecessary. But what if it wasn’t?

                What if I could use that?

                “I’m waiting.”

                Alphonse spoke with an malevolent grin that suggested my loss was already a given. I kept my shoulders low in a feigned weakness that came all too easy to me, but that now felt so foreign to me that it became every bit the lie I meant it to. I had to look small. Weak. Insignificant. Because it was exactly what he wanted.

                “I… I’ll do it,” I said. “I’ll give her back to you.”

                Yua’s body weakened as if the will she had to keep fighting had been torn in two by my words. She pressed her eyes shut. I knew at once that I’d hurt her, but I had a reason.

                “Good. Now, let’s get this over with. I trust you know what to do, Yua?”

                Trembling, Yua raised her hand out to me, palm up, to begin the transfer of ownership. Just like she did back in the slave house. Smiling, Alphonse uncovered her mouth to put his grimy hand on top of hers, making sure to keep his knife against her throat as insurance. A light appeared between their palms, a contract ready to be fulfilled, and he waited for me. And there was my window.

                And it took every ounce of strength I had in me not to smile.

                Stay strong, Yua. I’m going to need your help to clean up my mess.

                “Hurry it up, will you?” Alphonse sneered. “All you need to do is put your hand on mine and the transaction will be complete.”

                I pulled at my hair. Covered my mouth as if to prevent a sob. And I refused to look either of them in the eye. I didn’t know where the confidence I had to keep up this act came from, but I was damn well going to use it now. And the best way I could think to do that was to pretend it didn’t exist.

                “Can… C-Can I just hug her one more time?”

                I forced my shoulders to shake, feigning the beginning of tears. My voice came out as weak, pathetic. It was easy. I had a whole previous lifetime of experience behind me to make it convincing enough for even Yua to find me hard to look at. I showed him the sort of weakness that only a man without a spine could, because what else could I do? His level was higher than mine, right?

                “A hug?” he laughed. “Is that really all you want? What a child. Did you actually manage to hold back from bedding her? Fine. Do what you want. If she’s still a virgin, that just raises her value.”

                The sword I had on my hip when we met was gone. The one I brought with me now was laying useless on the floor. And he didn’t know what I was capable of. He had little reason to deny me. I thought he might refuse because of what happened to his wife, but maybe, deep down, that’s why he allowed it.

                Shaking off his insults, I grit my teeth and maintained the defeated mask I wore. He took his hand off of Yua’s mouth and grabbed her by her blouse’s collar before taking the knife away from her throat. He didn’t let go completely, though. Keeping her in place by her collar and keeping the knife at her back to prevent any tricks, he gave me a nod.

                I moved and Yua held out her arms to me. Had he not been holding her; she would have lunged into my chest. I slid my arm back around her shoulders, pushing her long chestnut hair over to hide my mouth where I rested my chin on her shoulder. I held her close. She did the same, squeezing me tighter than ever before as she started to shake.

                Yua clung to me so desperately that I almost broke inside. But I had a plan and that plan demanded her strength. I squeezed her tight. Too tight. Tight enough to grab her attention.

                We’d spent so much time in the dungeons together. I knew how she scouted out our enemies for us. I knew how sensitive her ears were. This girl that could hear my heart. Her ear flicked against my cheek and her shaking stopped.

                I whispered. I whispered so quietly that no living being short of this one girl could hear me.

                “Yua, when I give the signal, I want you to hit him as hard as you can. Give it everything you have and hold nothing back.”

                She went still and the grip she had on my shirt loosened. As dire a moment as this was, I was proud of her for being to bounce back to help me out one last time.

                Maintaining my somber appearance, I stepped away from our embrace. I looked to the smirking Alphonse to let him know I was ready. He held out his hand once more and Yua looked at me, waiting. I took her hand and guided it under his. I couldn’t mess this up by letting her misunderstand what my signal was.

                I only had one chance at this and it might not even work in the first place.

                Making use of my Silent Casting trait, I cast Dimensional Step directly behind Alphonse. To anyone else, the glow that filtered into the room might have come from the street lamps outside, but to Yua, it was enough to make her eyes widen with understanding, even if she couldn’t see the titular blue lights swirl into place herself. While staring blankly at my palm, I kept my mind focused on the spell so that I didn’t mess up it’s end point, hoping he’d think I was just having second thoughts.

                The swirling blue light took the shape of a doorway and settled into place. The connection was complete.

                I raised my hand.

                Yua tensed and I knew she was ready to act. Regardless of the fact that she didn’t know what the plan was, she trusted me enough to try it. So, I hovered my hand over theirs.

                “Hurry it up,” Alphonse said. Yua tensed more, a pained grimace briefly taking hold of her lips like he’d pressed the knife into her back just enough to force me to move.

                I took a deep breath… and accessed my item box.

                “What the…?”

                The same purple miasma that always showed itself whenever I used the ability clouded the air beneath my hand. Without giving him the chance to work out what he was seeing, the treasure chest I’d filled with gold fell out of the cloud and directly onto his hand. For every half-second it took for the chest to fall, I compounded more and more of my will on to it so that it might be taken as a payment for her contract.

                Exactly as I’d hoped, exactly as I knew the greedy bastard would, Alphonse instinctively threw up his hands to catch the box once he caught sight of the mound of gold it held within. And if by luck, in order to catch the exceedingly heavy object, he had to move the knife away from Yua’s back, freeing her at last.

                The second the chest hit his hands and he grunted under its weight; I got a pair of notifications.

                [Merchant Class has reached level 3]

                [New Class Acquired: Slave Master]

                “Yua, now!”

                “Iron Fist!”

                Without a shred of hesitation, Yua spun on her heels and launched into a full-bodied punch. With her fist glowing the most beautiful shade of silver I’d ever seen, she pulled back her elbow, lowered her stance and in less than a half of a half a second, kicked off the floor to shoot forward and drive her fist straight into the treasure chest with every ounce of strength she could muster. With every single memory of her time as his slave backing the roar she let out, her fist connected, causing it to slam into Alphonse with just as much force as the punch itself, both knocking the wind out of him and sending him flying backwards through the portal.

                His body disappeared into the wall of light and all I needed to do to be done with this was cut my spell, but catharsis be damned, I wasn’t done yet. And, checking the clock on my HUD, I still had time to make sure this was going to be the end.

                “Stay there, Yua!”

                “Wait, Alex!”

                I jumped through the portal to follow the greedy bastard and found him on the floor, reeling and coughing up blood from the punch he most deservedly earned for himself. Alphonse had landed on his ass and looked unable to muster the strength needed to move the heavy, now dented treasure chest off of his abdomen. I guess I was right about level not mattering all that much when it came to actually taking a hit.

                “Wh-Where are we?! What have you done?!”

                Finally deigning it necessary to look around, Alphonse found himself in a large, spacious room made entirely of stone. Its ceiling stood much taller than all the hallways before it and where he’d once been basking in the light of his victory, the only thing illuminating him now were the two large braziers, each set ablaze with a fire so hot that I could feel their warmth all the way over by the entrance to the room.

                Something in the corner of the room moved and we were both drawn to the sound of something big and metal scraping against the stone floor. There we found a pair of red, glowing eyes sat atop a crumbling throne that didn’t belong down here.

                “Where are we? What is that?”

                Managing to roll out from beneath the treasure chest, spilling its contents onto the ground, he tried to pick himself up, but the pain from Yua’s punch made him reel, clutching at his chest as he coughed up another clump of blood.  

                I put my hand atop his greasy head of hair and squeezed with all my might. He tried to push me away, but there was no strength left in his arms. Not that it mattered. When his eyes locked on the monster glaring down at him, he nearly froze solid. A thick rain of sweat dripped down his face.

                “This is the third-floor boss room and that over there is the boss. A Hobgoblin.”

                “What?! How did we… Get off of me!”

                Suddenly filled with understanding for the danger he was in, he summoned up the strength buried within and thrashed about, trying to punch, hit, kick and elbow me, but I kept my distance. The same way he kept Yua in place with the knife at her back.

                “I don’t think so. You’re pretty high level at level 50. I don’t know what kind of abilities a high-level merchant and slave trader could have, but I’m not going to give you the chance to fight back.”

                “What?! How did you know my level? Fuck it. Get off of me!”

                Alphonse tried to wrench himself from my grasp, caught sight of the knife he’d dropped when he fell and made a grab for it. Feeling its reassuring grip in his palm, he managed a blood-stained smile and swung his arm and the knife backwards. He tried to stab me in the side, but the tip of the blade struck the wood panel of the treasure chest, sending more coins scattering, and lodged itself so deep that it couldn’t be pulled back out.

                “This is goodbye, Alphonse. You accepted my payment. Yua’s contract has been fulfilled. Now it is time for you to sleep.”

                “What? No, I didn’t! I…!”

                “Force Sleep!”

                I cast the spell I’d learned from the man himself and that he used to torture all the slaves he owned into compliance. And he, like all those slaves before him, was instantly filled with a fatigue so potent, so deep, that he couldn’t help but let his eyelids droop. He struggled with all his might, but his expression faded without fail and his greedy eyes themselves shut forever. He fell asleep almost instantly.

                When I was sure he was down for the count, I turned my attention to the boss. Seeing as how the Hobgoblin noticed we weren’t going to prepare for an honorable fight, it started towards us. Dragging its new heavy greatsword across the stone floor, it glared at the both of us with an indignant fury that made me shudder.

                “Even though you don’t deserve it Alphonse, I’ll let you go with a bit of peace.”

                The blue lights making up my exit were beginning to fade. Without so much as a glance back at the bastard that tried to ruin our lives and who succeeded in ruining countless others, I jumped back through the portal and into our room at the Lazy Cat Inn.

                The moment the portal faded and she saw I’d come back alone, Yua rushed over and tackled me into an embrace. Tears streaming down her cheeks, she squeezed then let go and started looking me over, likely trying to find any injuries on my body she could heal, but there weren’t any there. I stopped her by grabbing her cheeks and pulling her into a kiss. Her frantic search ended in an instant and our lips melted together.

                She let go once I’d convinced her I was fine and I handed her one of our health potions so she could be too. She eyed the bottle with an impatient pause, but downed the whole thing without a word.

                “Alex, what happened?” she said after confirming the knife wounds on her had been sealed shut. “Where did you go? Where did you take him?”

                “To the third-floor boss room of Amoranth’s Dungeon.”

                “But what if he gets out? He’ll just come back! We need to go!”

                I put a hand on her cheeks again and smiled at her.

                “Hopefully, if I’m right, that can’t happen,” I said, somewhat unsure myself. “It’s only a minute to midnight now and you said yourself that the magic of the dungeon causes it to change shape every night and midnight, remember? Even if he somehow survived against the Hobgoblin, he’d never make it out in time.”

                I’d only chosen the third-floor’s boss room because the blacksmith confirmed that the majority of the loot on that floor was useless. Meaning that most Adventurers in the know would choose to avoid it as a waste of time and effort and, more importantly, it meant that out of the three bosses we’ve fought so far, the Hobgoblin was the one boss most likely to still be alive before the change occurred.

                Yua clutched my arms, desperately seeking answers.

                “But won’t this label you a murderer? You could be arrested or even killed on the spot if someone found out.”

                “I don’t think so. Technically, if he dies, it won’t be by my hand. So I think I’ll be fine.”

                In theory and as Yua warned our first night fighting together, Alphonse should end up being absorbed by the dungeon’s magic and reshaped along with it. Maybe he’ll become a weak, mindless goblin himself. Maybe his gear and the gold I left him with will end up appearing before some other lucky Adventurer several years from now. Or maybe he’ll just fade into nothingness once the change starts.

                All I know is that he should be as good as dead. I wasn’t sure yet how I felt essentially sentencing a man to death, but given who it was, I doubted I would lose any sleep over it.

                “But what about being labeled as a Thief?” Yua pressed. “If a slave master dies, his slaves along with his other property goes to their next of kin!”

                She was worried that her contract would be forced into the hands of whoever he left his will to and that I would then be stealing her from some unknown person, but that wasn’t the case here.

                “I don’t think we have to worry about that, either. See, after all the trading we’ve done around town these last few days, I realized something. Whoever touches the gold set out for trade, owns it. So, if the merchants tried to give change or paid someone by directly placing the coins in their hands, the coins’ true ownership might be thrown into question by the world itself. This is because the chance of the coins being touched by both parties at the same time is highly likely.

                “Meaning, that if the magic determining ownership decided that the coins still belong to the merchant after they gave their customer their change and the sale was completed, then the customer might end up being branded as a Thief for accidently walking away with something that didn’t belong to them. Or it could even be the merchant that’s seen as the thief. That’s why all the merchants use those trays. It’s both a formality and a measure set up so they don’t accidentally ruin their lives or that of their customers’.”

                It was the same idea as a woman leaving a clothing store after forgetting to take off what she tried on. Or for another to accidentally double back on a sworn deal after what she promised the other party was stolen from her. Neither of them meant to commit the crime, but the forces that run the world don’t care about the specifics. And I used that fact against Alphonse.  

                “So, when you made him catch the treasure chest…”

                “It counted as me finishing the contract before the day was done.”

                “A-Are you sure?”

                “I am absolutely positive. When I completed the contract, my Merchant class leveled up and I gained the new class, Slave Master. I figured non-combat abilities would only level up when actually using them, so all our purchases today brought me up just high enough to almost level up again. And finishing a huge trade of 30,000 gold gave me more than enough experience to level up!”

                “Th-Then that means…”

                Yua clung to my shirt, trembling. A pleading look filled her eyes. I took her hands in mine and confirmed her thoughts.

                “That’s right. Yua, you now completely belong to me. You’re free.”

                “Alex!”

                Despite the two contradicting statements, Yua jumped at me so hard that she knocked the both of us down to the floor. There she started raining down kisses all over my face and neck until I slipped my lips under hers and held her there. The taste of her love had never been so sweet until that moment. Now that I knew she was safe, I could enjoy her embrace to my heart’s content.

 

                After a few minutes of giving into her affection as she laid on top of me, I put some strength into my abdomen and lifted the both of us up into a sitting position. With her still on my lap and with her legs wrapped tight around my back, she kissed me one more time before I turned away. Not to deny her, but because we had other matters to deal with for now.

                “Yua, I think we should still leave the city tonight.”

                “But why? Shouldn’t Alphonse be dead by now?”

                I checked the time again and it was six minutes past midnight. Assuming the changes to the dungeon happened instantly and that he didn’t somehow manage to wake up from my spell, fight off the boss and run all the way to the dungeon exit just in time to get teleported out, she was likely right.

                “We can only hope at this point, but besides him, there’s all the guys that work for him and his business partners to worry about. You heard what he said, he has people waiting for us outside the building and by the city gates. If they see us together after tonight, but they don’t see Alphonse, they’ll know I did something to him.”

                No label announcing me as the world’s newest Thief or Murderer appeared on my status page, so I was at least not considered a criminal. But that didn’t mean nobody would seek revenge on us.

                “B-But…”

                I pressed a finger to her lips, which were still wet from our kiss.

                “Don’t worry about it. We planned on leaving anyways. And we can go as far away from here as we want with Dimensional Step.”

                “Wouldn’t it be better to leave in the morning? We can teleport directly from this room, right? So, it’s not like we have to show ourselves outside.”

                “I thought about that, but we can’t. It’s too risky to wait any longer. Think about it. Alphonse was able to get into our room without our key. The only other way he should have been able to do that would be to have someone skilled at picking locks open the door for him. But that may not have been the only option available to him.”

                I pointed to the two cold plates of food I’d ordered that morning and to where they sat on our bedside table.

                “If the innkeeper was able to open our room to leave our food, then she might have let him in. She never liked me anyways. So, if he paid her for her time like he did the guards, she probably would have had no problem stabbing me in the back. And she might do it again if we stay here.”

                Yua looked down, like she was thinking this over, but I knew that it wasn’t safe to be here anymore. If the innkeeper really did let Alphonse into the room, who was to say she won’t let a bunch of armed thugs in when we were sleeping to prevent us from seeking revenge?

                “Do you not want to go, Yua? I don’t know how much you actually like it here, but...”

                “I don’t like it here,” she said flatly. “This is the place where I lost my freedom. But… This is also where I met you. So… I don’t know what to feel.”

                I could understand a bit of how she felt. She became a slave because of some asshole that wouldn’t help a wounded girl for free. She lived the last few years of her life as a slave, and was so poorly treated that she began to think that that was all her life was ever going to be.

                I was the same. Fresh off a second chance at life, I did nothing but worsen my life, primarily because of this debt and because of the other actions I’d taken in this city.

                But then we met and she found out that there were still several good things in the world for her to experience. I helped her prove to herself that she was still strong by beating the dungeon floor that ruined her. And she helped me to understand why I was, well, let’s be honest, why I was such an asshole.

                All of that, in this one city.

                “Yua, we may not be able to come back for a while, but that doesn’t mean we have to stay away forever.”

                She shook her head and wiped away the tear that hadn’t quite fallen yet.

                “I don’t need to come back. As long as I’m with you, I don’t care where we go.”

                She embraced me one more time, kissed me on the cheek and stood. Without any further debate, she crossed the room to collect her things. I got up and did the same.

                As I planned, I stashed the meals waiting for us in my item box for later. I did, however, make sure to leave behind the dishes themselves so I didn’t screw up our escape by stealing from the inn.

                By that time, Yua had already finished collecting what few things she had, pulled on her backpack and held her suitcase in front of her hips, like she was patiently gearing up for a long trip.

                “Here, let me put those in my item box. We’ll be walking for a while, so there’s no need to carry it yourself.”

                Much to my surprise, with just a thought, I was able to disappear her suitcase and backpack into my item box without her even needing to set them aside or hand them to me first. I chalked it up to the bit of common sense that she told me about how everything a slave owns belongs to their master anyway and decided to just leave it at that.

                We took one more quick glance around the room to make sure we didn’t miss anything, but the room was just as empty as it was the day I first took shelter in it. I wish I could say that I was going to miss the place, but the only good thing about the room was the soft bed.

                “You ready?”

                “Yes.”

                With her emphatic nod of approval our signal to leave, I tossed the room key onto the bed and cast Dimensional Step on the wall. Hand in hand, we stepped through it together into the world outside of Amoranth.