With Keane and the party's tacit consent, I spend the remainder of the trip back casting magic as best I can. I have to wait a while for my mana to recover completely, because I focus on synergizing the most complex and intricate spells I can, pushing my element count to my limit each time. The effects get more and more elaborate and far-reaching, covering large areas with magical fallout, even if the spells themselves do effectively no damage.

I really need to take some time to figure out how to get the magic to work more powerfully over a smaller area rather than spreading out the more I add to it. I don't know if I'm missing something, or large areas of effect are just a trait of Synergist magic.

With our return to town, it's been a whole seven days since we left. Whatever was going on in town, I really hope it's over by now. I mean, since months are only twenty days long in this world, we were gone for almost half a month for our quest, so it really should have...

Even so, I try to stick with the group, using them for cover on our way back to the guild. When we arrive, we go over into a waiting area while one of the tanks, apparently the party leader, heads up to the counter. He returns with Malic in tow.

One looks at me and he gives a start, before glaring around at the other adventurers. “A-ah, no, Malic,” I wave my hands frantically. “It's not like that!” I don't know if he's listening.

Then Keane steps forward to address him. “Yumi owes me six gold coins for using a low-grade magic crystal to heal her when she almost died to a goblin.”

“Oh,” Malic responds, his alert ears falling as he calms. “I suppose that is understandable, but a goblin?” he asks suspiciously.

That one draws a slight glare at me from the shorter dog-altra, and I duck my head. “As it turned out, Yumi never distributed any of the potential gifted to her. During our whole quest, her Magic never exceeded six.”

Now it's Malic's turn to look guilty. “I'm sorry, I was in too much of a rush to get you out on a quest, I forgot to cover that part,” he apologizes.

“No, it's fine,” I excuse him immediately. “I never even figured out how to get my Status information properly until Keane showed me. Besides, I still don't want to use them until I get my magic higher naturally, so I think this will work out alright long-term.”

“Hmm, an interesting idea. You will be giving up a lot of power in the near-term though,” Malic warns.

“That's what I told her,” Keane grunts, “but she was surprisingly insistent on trying.” He shrugs dismissively.

After a quick debrief on the overall quest, Malic pays everyone their share, and we all part ways. Except for me and Keane.

“So, you said you have the rest of the money back in your room?” he asks, and I nod. Without much more discussion, we head to the tavern. Keane waits out front, and I head inside. It's both comforting getting back after my first quest, and weird.

Because all around, the patrons I'm pretty familiar with, are staring at my neck... Even Limmera the bartender, throws a wary glance at my collar as I approach.

“U-um, hi,” I greet the lizard-altra awkwardly. “I'm back.”

“Good to see you, Yumi. How are things?” The sudden switch to English after getting accustomed to Panir with the adventurers is surprising, but I go with it. Besides, he didn't ask directly, but I answer his real question anyway.

“Not bad, actually. I just owe some money to a healer from my first quest. Can I get the key to my room?”

Limmera cringes. “Actually... the noble that came. He demanded your room. I had to. He took everything.”

My mouth falls open. That slaver stole all my stuff? My money? How am I supposed to pay back Keane now?!

“Here, take it.” Limmera offers a handful of coins, worth almost a whole gold. It's not as much as I lost, but it's a solid few days worth of wages here. “Never paid you for last shift.”

I smile a little, despite everything. “Thanks a lot, Limmera.” I bow deeply, and he returns the gesture.

I wave to Keane on the way out. “So?” he asks expectantly.

“The slaving noble who was trying to kidnap me when I left town went into my room and stole all my stuff.”

He grimaces, but then pushes on anyway. “Well, can't just dwell on it, have to move on. So what's next...?”

“I don't know, I only have about four gold, not enough to pay you back. If I remember right, I could have trouble finding work as a slave, and I've heard the pay is bad.” I run a hand through my tangled black hair as I think things through aloud. “My best bet is probably going on another quest, but I still need to train my magic before I can do much except be a burden and possibly almost die again...”

For some reason, Keane chuckles. “You're forgetting the most important part.”

“Huh?”

“Right now, I'm the one that makes the decisions.”

“Oh...” I look down at my feet, I don't know how to respond to that.

Then he starts walking and I hurry to keep up. Where are we going?

I'm not left wondering too long, because we stop at a clothing store hardly a few blocks away. Oh, I've been here before, I realize.

Keane strolls through the shop, grabbing a few articles of clothing. I'm not too sure what to do with myself and just stand near the entrance waiting, and trying to avoid the gazes of the customers inside. Now that I have a slave collar, I don't think they see me as an otherworlder anymore...

I still have my clothes, but they're all beat up and filthier than usual from our trip through the wilderness, to the point that they're a bit embarrassing just to wear because they don't leave much to the imagination. Thinking that, I pull up on the part where one shoulder strap was cut. I need new clothes, but I don't even have enough money to pay back my debt, so I guess it'll have to wait.

Then Keane comes back with the clothes he just bought, all packed up in a bag, and I grimace a little. Just have to hold out a little longer and everything will be fine...

And then he drops the bag of clothing into my arms. “Here, you'll need these.”

“What? B-but...” I reply, flustered by the sudden armful of stuff.

Then Keane says, “That'll be two gold added to your debt,” and I cringe. Now I owe him eight gold...

“Also, let this teach you a lesson,” he says pointedly. “When making a temporary slave contract, you have to make sure to include that you must accept help from a master before they can add to your debt. Otherwise they'll buy stuff like this and one-sidedly keep increasing your debt.”

I... I didn't know I could do that. I thought it was just natural once they had power over me that they could abuse it to keep power over me... I nod mutely, taking his advice to heart.

He makes a satisfied grunt when I get it, then moves on. Following as he leaves the shop, our next stop is... a bathhouse?

“Go get yourself cleaned up,” he says with a jerk of his head, “change into your new clothes after.” Then he looks down to eye the ratty, filthy tanktop and jean shorts I'm still wearing, clearly at the end of their life. Past it, more like. “I don't know if you still want to hang onto those, but...” He shrugs.

“Sure...” The thought of throwing out the clothes that have served as my best defense against racism and hate is horrifying, especially after not just getting a crest, but a slave crest...

I shuffle into the bathhouse to get washed up. The whole time, I feel the eyes of the altraska inside burning angry holes in me. I keep self-consciously touching my collar, the only article of clothing I can't even take off.

When I'm finished, I stare reluctantly at my old clothes, but there really isn't any saving them anymore. I squeeze my eyes shut and throw them in the trash. Then I change into the clothes Keane bought me. They're just some brown and black things, somewhat oversized and loose on me. They aren't much different from peasant clothing, but they're easy enough to move around in.

But... I absolutely look like an ordinary slave at a glance now. I dig into the rest of the bag to try and ignore that thought. It looks like a set of light leather armor. I'll need it when we go on another quest, I guess.

When I return outside, Keane is already waiting. Since he's not furry at all, it's a little harder to tell, but I think he got washed up too. His dog tail looks a little fluffier than before.

“Alright, so here's the plan,” Keane starts. “I've got some errands to run, supplies to top off and all that. Then I'll head back to the guild and put us in for another quest. You have until we get out there, into combat, to practice your magic. I won't let you go into battle again without the ability to defend yourself. Do you understand?”

His tone leaves no room to argue, so I just nod obediently. “Umm, where can I practice?” I ask. “I never see people using magic in town.”

“There's a training field at the guild,” he says easily. Oh, I never saw it before. Of course, I couldn't read the signs either...

“Ok, I'll train as hard as I can.” I say with determination.

Then we part ways, and I head straight back toward the guild. He takes my armor with him though, since I don't need it now. I'm still pretty exhausted, having just made it back to town, but the bath helped a lot.

Still, I have no idea how long it takes to get a quest. Is it like you see in anime where they walk up and snag a flyer from the quest board and bam, it's time to go, or is it more structured? That last group seemed pretty large for a hastily thrown together pick-up-group, so I don't really know.

When I make it to the guild, I follow the signs, glad I can not-exactly-read now. I am picking up the words and letters quickly with how they're all filled in for me, like with the spoken language, but it's still difficult.

Then I get to the training field. It's not that big, which I guess isn't surprising, they did have to fit it inside a single building. There are a few people standing on the outskirts, taking practice swings alone or sparring.

Looking up, it's getting dark, with a few moons peeking into the gap overhead, the four story building towering over the training field on all sides. The ground is dirt, probably because grass would just get destroyed, with some big, burly training dummies set up in the middle. I throw a weak wind blast at one and it doesn't even twitch.

Well, not that I need to attack the training dummies anyway. Maybe I could work on my long-range spell casting accuracy, but so far, the stronger they get, the larger the area of effect.

I shake my head. I can think about that while my mana recharges. There's no one near the middle of the field, so I aim there, stacking up the most complex spell I can come up with off the top of my head, and bombarding the center of the field.

Maybe if I was stronger, I'd have to worry about going all out in the middle of a small area like this, but with my magic as it is, the eruptions of air and earth and fire bombarding that spot don't even leave a scratch.

The flashy magic does draw a few eyes from others in the field, but I try to ignore them as I sink against a nearby wall, head spinning from sudden mana exhaustion. After I've recovered a little, I pull up my status.

Status Strength: 34 Vitality: 50 Stamina: 55 Agility: 23 Mind: 386 Magic: 8 Remaining Potential: 76

My Magic is sitting at eight points right now. If I had to take a guess based on the exponential natures of things I've seen so far, ten points is like a very young child. Twenty would be like a kid or teen, while thirty would be like the capabilities of an average adult. Everything above that would require more training, like how my strength and stamina got higher from running myself ragged at the bar all the time.

But just looking at them, it's dead-obvious that it takes a lot more work to increase them naturally the higher they are. I've gained eight points of magic in the last few days since becoming an adventurer. I wish I knew what all the others started at, either when I arrived in Verilz or before my first quest to use that as a gauge, but there's no helping that.

But they definitely haven't gone up eight points.

Still, what the hell's up with my Mind rating? It's like ten times higher than my other scores. Is it on a different scale than the others? If it wasn't, I'd have to be some sort of super-savant, right? Sure as shit isn't my IQ...

I'm not making any headway.

Turning my thoughts to something more useful, I consider my spell formations. I've been doing a lot of throwing them together on the fly, but I've started picking up patterns based on how each element interacts and the ways I slot them together. Hmm......

“Haa... Haa... Haa... Haa...” I pant. Fuck, I'm fucking dying... I finally crumble against a nearby wall. I'm so thirsty, I need water... and food... But now my legs burn too much to stand. I also just finished waiting for my mana to recharge though, so I try the next spell combo on my list, flinging it off into the center of the field. Flaming meteors and... no, they don't release bursts of wind on impact, so that specific interaction between the third and fifth elements is no good either...

My head flops against the wall. Sure, you can stack all the magic in a pretty straightforward way to basically get what you had in mind without much trouble.

However, Synergist spells are stupid complicated to get exactly what you want. “Ugh.” I groan and lean my head back as another wave of fatigue hits me, from the mana exhaustion this time.

Looking at my agility score on the level of a kid's, I decided to run laps between spell casts. I'm sorry! I sat around playing video games in my last life! Ugh...

Eventually, I drag my sweaty, tired ass up off the ground. I need food and water. And I really need a book to write down the results of my experiments because there's no way I can keep much more of it stuffed up in my head before I start forgetting things.

I head over to a general store to see if they have anything like notebooks.

Unfortunately... “We don't sell to human slaves.” The owner stops me cold. My head falls. That's right. It was easy to put it from my mind, sitting and training alone in that field for who knows how long. I'm still technically a slave... “Come back with your master if you want something,” he says and waves me off.

'Master,' huh... Where is Keane anyway? It's probably been about a day since I started training, I think. I even passed out against a wall in the training field when I got too tired a few times.

The thought of sleeping, unprotected in the open like that still makes me twitchy and anxious, but the guild is the safest place in this whole town. I earned a few angry remarks and some glares, but otherwise, nothing bad happened.

I briefly consider going to find him, but the thought of going to get my 'master' just to buy some things from the general store fills me with so much shame that I can't even imagine going through with it.

No, I'll just find a different store that will sell to me.

After some searching and getting turned away at a couple other places, I manage to find a shop without any obvious signs that they won't deal with me. It's somewhat away from the city center in a slightly less reputable looking part of town, but I don't... feel like it's too dangerous... probably.

Shaking the feeling, I enter the store. The cat-altra owner seems pretty nice when I ask about notebooks and things to write with. She directs me over to that area and I buy a couple without any trouble. This is how buying basic supplies should work... I complain to myself.

As she rings me up, I notice how nice and fluffy this particular woman is. Some altraska look so nice, I'd love to pet their fluffy, shiny fur, but I get the impression that it might be really disrespectful...

Keeping those thoughts hidden deep inside, I thank her and go on my way. I'll remember this store if I need anything else. I stop at Limmera's tavern for some much needed food, again glad that I can just buy my own meals here without needing to worry about the excessive racism. Limmera really is an alright guy.

Once I'm finished, I head back to the guild. I can... skimp on lodging expenses by sleeping in the practice field...

I'm not working now, since all of my time is taken up trying to train my magic to a usable level before Keane finds our next quest, so the money in my pocket is all I have, and the more of it I spend, the more I need to earn to pay him back!

So I'll be living with the absolute minimum of expenses I can until I can pay off this debt and finally be free again.