Eventually, we reach a somewhat wider room. Krulm walks the kids through setting up a campfire and ensuring there's enough airflow that we don't suffocate from the smoke. It sounds like something they've practiced before, but not in the field yet. Since we're in a cave and there's nothing to burn around, it looks like they brought some wood with them.

They all sit around the fire, pulling out food. Some have travel rations, but some have bits of meat that they hold out over the fire, and soon the smell of food fills the strange little cave.

Fuck.

God damn it.

Everything hurts...

Stomach growling, my entire abdomen is twisting up. I'm starting to sink.

“Krulm,” I finally call.

“What is it?” he huffs at me. In the firelight, he looks annoyed as he glances in my direction.

“I'm sorry, can I... can I borrow some food? Anything?”

“Borrow food?” he scoffs at the obvious implication. He stands up, stalking a little closer with an angry look, but when he leaves the glow of the fire and sees me on my hands and knees, his expression changes a little.

I feel a faint quiver, like a Scan, but not as bad. “You, girl. You're about to starve to death, aren't you?”

“Yes.” I pant at the ground. In the corner of my vision, my Health has already fallen dangerously low. Much lower and I won't be able to move anymore.

There's a note of astonishment in his voice. “And you're only asking now? You're almost on death's door.” I don't know if that's a good or bad thing, so I apologize anyway.

“I'm sorry...” I mumble.

Staring down, my life in his hands, I have to wonder. Is it really so hard, offering a little food to someone about to die in front of you?

But apparently, that's not what he's considering. Because his next words are, “Sure, no problem. However.” I cringe a little. Of course there's a condition... “This is a good opportunity. Hey, kids, time for a lesson.”

Krulm pulls me, stumbling over my own feet, into the light of the fire. Everyone gathers around. “Healers, this is especially important for you, so listen close.” He points out a few of them.

“Now, everyone. Let's say you need something when you're out on a quest, and you don't have any money to pay for it. Like a magic crystal a healer uses to heal you when you get injured.” He points at them again to let them know this is why it's important. “What do you do?”

There's a pause, most of the kids looking uncertain as I gaze hazily around at them. Then one of the healers raises his hand and says, “Oh, they go into debt, right?”

“Exactly. You take care of your party, but you want to make sure they pay you back later. Especially when it comes to expensive magic crystals.” His words draw appreciative nods from everyone. “That's what we use these for.” And he draws a slave crest stone from his pack.

My heart sinks. I'm going to be a slave... again...

No, not a real slave, I have to remind myself.

“You've heard about slave crests, yes? This is a slave crest stone, you'll want to carry a couple around with you when you go on quests. They have a few uses, and this is one of them. You can use them to form a slave contract with another adventurer who owes you a debt, to ensure they pay it.”

That draws a few more nods of understanding. “Here's how you do it. First, take the crest stone, then, think about forming a slave contract with the adventurer in front of you, and you will get a contract window. Focus on it and think the terms of the contract, and they will appear in the window.”

Everyone looks like they're following, so he says, “Next, send the information to the other adventurer, and as long as the terms are fair, they will accept. Here, I'll also show the contract terms to all of you as well. And note that slave crest stones cost one gold, so you should always add that onto the debt. You don't want to be the one to pay for the stone, obviously.”

With that said, there are a few noises of understanding, presumably as they see the contract windows appear for them. But I'm more focused on the one that shows up in my own view.

Slave Contract Master: Krulm Slave: Yumi The slave owes one gold, five silver for freedom.

Debt will be added for any supplies provided by the master.

After reading it, I immediately remember what Keane taught me. Don't let a master set the contract so I can't reject things they try to give me.

And yet... I look up at Krulm. He's a good two heads taller than me, almost as tall as Master was. His squarish, rugged face and buzz cut make him even more imposing...

“U-umm... s-sir...?” I mumble.

“Hmm?”

“W-well... I was, umm, told not to accept a contract where my m-master can give me things without me accepting them...” As I speak, I keep shrinking down until I'm practically whispering at his feet. Fuck fuck fuck fuck why would I say that? I don't have room to negotiate here! He'll just say no and I'll literally starve to death!

“Eh, details.” He shrugs, and the contract changes to include my request. It was... that easy...? “Remember to keep things fair, you don't want to be the kind of scum that takes advantage of your fellow party members when they're in need, do you?”

“No, sir,” the kids all call in response.

“Now...” He steps closer. I gulp, then nod, mentally accepting the terms. There's a pause, then he reminds me, gesturing and saying, “Shirt.”

“O-oh, right...” I hastily work at the straps of my leather chest armor.

Unfortunately, when I pull at them, it doesn't work. I've been wearing it so long the straps are completely stuck. Krulm makes an impatient noise, and I squeak. “I-I'm sorry, I can't...” I try pulling at the straps more, but my arms are starting to go limp. I'm losing sensation in my fingers. Just the exertion of fighting with them is making me lightheaded.

“I... I can't...” My breath is coming in shallow pants. I think I'm losing consciousness. Everything starts to go dark.

Then, something is shoved into my mouth. It tastes like food!

Fighting to work my jaw, I bite, and swallow. I'm barely conscious for a while as my body greedily works on breaking it down. Getting the calories I need to continue surviving for just a little bit longer. Then my eyes open up again. “Ah, she's up,” comes a girl's voice.

“Well, that was certainly closer than I intended,” says Krulm. “Remember, if you really need something, don't hesitate to ask for so long that you literally almost die. Now you.” A hand closes on my shirt, lifting my heavy body from the ground so I sit up. “Eat.” Once more, something hard and food is shoved into my mouth.

I don't even care, I just start eating it. I think it's bread? I can't tell. I bite and chew and swallow repeatedly, getting more sustenance in my belly, until the food is gone.

“Good.” When he lifts me again, staggering up to my feet, I realize that his hand is closed around my shirt. Not armor. I reach up, realizing that they must have gotten my armor off somehow, because just the feel of the air, pressing close around me as I wobble on my feet, tells me I'm a slave again. Bringing a hand to the new collar on my neck, and the wave of discomfort I receive from doing so, confirms it.

“Now that this idiot's not about to drop dead, let's continue.” He releases me, and I end up staggering, hardly able to balance or support my own weight. People quickly shuffle aside as I stumble past, until I reach a wall to hold myself upright.

Not even taking notice, Krulm goes on. “Once you've formed the slave contract, the first thing you always make sure to do is set up rules they need to operate under. This will protect you from some scumbag trying to get out of their debt by killing you. Most people, like this girl, are probably alright, but you can never be too careful. To set things up, just think about what punishments they should receive for what sort of actions they take.”

Watching from my spot against the wall, I watch Krulm sweep his gaze over the surrounding students. “Now, there are a few things that can help you here. First, you can look at the debt-slave's full Status, to help determine whether they'll try something sneaky to get out of their debt, and adjust any punishments you set to account for it. Here.”

With his words, he looks across everyone again, and he must be showing them all my Status. It even appears in my own view again. I skim past most of it, already knowing my own stats, but one line stands out.

Health: 12/113 Stamina: 54/150 Mana: 455/460

I... really almost died...

“As you can see, there's a Traits and Misc section. Traits gives you insight into the person's personality so that you can judge their trustworthiness. Normally Misc only includes Slave Rating, which is a grading system used to determine how suited a person is to slavery. Yumi here, has an S rating, which is, frankly, ridiculously high. You'll probably never see that rating again. I'm sure you can see why, looking at her Traits.”

There are a few whispers and laughs from the group, mentioning my low stats, and one points out my Sex skill, to some hushed titters of laughter, before Krulm gets everyone back in order.

“If there's anything out of the ordinary you also need to know, it will show up under Misc as well. In this case, it appears that she has Depression, which probably contributes to the generally gloomy atmosphere about her. Something like that might not usually impact a person's ability to pay you back, but they may not work as hard toward it as they would otherwise. In this case, she has an, ahem,” he suddenly clears his throat.

“Well, she has an absolutely ludicrous Work Ethic trait, so that probably isn't a worry. Are you all still following?” The whole group nods along and says they are, so he moves on.

“Now, there's one more thing. If you think about the Settings of the debt-slave, you will get another window. Here.” Once more, a new window, this one actually new to me, makes its appearance.

Slave Settings Yumi – Human Contract Slave Rank: 4 Rating: S Previous Masters: 6 Favor Throttle: 75% Magic Enabled: Yes Punishments Set:

Touching Collar: Minor

Tampering with Collar: Harsh

Lying: Moderate

Stealing: Severe

Betrayal: Severe

Running Away: Severe

Harming Master: Severe

Killing Master: Death

“Here, you can see that I've set the most common punishments that you should always remember for a debt-slave. Even if someone appears to be trustworthy, you can never be too careful.”

As he speaks, two things jump out at me. Favor Throttle? Is that like, how much my experience gains are reduced? Unlike everything else, it's grayed out, so I guess he isn't able to change that? No wonder why It's always taken so long to level, it's been four times longer than normal...

But besides that...

“Woah, she's been a slave to six other people already?” One guy asks, looking over at me.

“Do some people go into debt that often?” A girl chimes in.

Even Krulm seems a bit surprised as he looks over at me, a look all of the kids catch. But then he clears his throat into his fist. “There's a bit more to it than that, but that's for another lesson. We'll get there eventually.”

Apparently, that covers everything. With their impromptu lesson complete, Krulm approaches me again.

“As promised, five silver worth of food.” He holds out a few hard rolls for me.

I take them with a hushed, “Thank you...” Even if I'm a debt-slave again, at least I'm not dead... I stash them in my pack, finding my armor inside when I do. Pulling it back out, I realize that it's broken, the shoulder straps cut. “Ah, sorry about that, it was so rotted out, we had to cut it off of you. You must've been wearing that for way too long.”

I don't know how to respond, so I just lower my head a little and slide the armor back into my pack. I'll have to get it repaired later, or sell it for whatever I can to pay off my new debt. Though I doubt anyone would buy it...

Without much more talk, we continue on. Since I don't know how much longer this will take, I decide to leave the little bit of bread he gave me until I absolutely need it, and just keep following along.

Unfortunately, it turns out that we were just about done. That little resting place was located just a short way from the very end of, well, what's basically a dungeon. How the hell did I never hear about dungeons before?

At the end, we reach a larger room. Just outside, Krulm calls the kids to stop. “Alright everyone, just like we practiced. Last room contains the monster that created the infestation. It'll be a lot bigger and a lot nastier than everything else up to this point. Stick to your positions like you learned, and everything should go smoothly. I'll step in if anything looks off, alright?”

Everyone agrees, and he reminds them to double check their gear before we go. Then, he turns a look at me. “You, uhh, Yumi. I want to get some idea of how useful Synergist actually is in battle. Throw your highest damage spell at the monster at the beginning, then leave the rest to my students.”

“U-uh... Mmm... I, well...” He gives me one look and I bow my head. “Y-yes, sir...”

“Alright everyone, we're moving in.”

With his call, we enter the last room, and I immediately see a problem. It's not big enough for me to fire a full power spell. But there's no time either. Just ahead, hardly thirty feet off, is a really big, really mean looking gray-skinned troll. We saw a few smaller ones delving through this dungeon cave thing, but none so big and muscular as this.

Still... I can tell with one look that the monster is weak, like the rest in here have been. Doing as instructed, I queue up my magic. He told me to throw the highest damage spell I could, but... if I interpret that as the highest I can throw with a single summon and cast, I can use the exponential cost to summon just sixty or so elements at once to dump my whole mana pool.

It takes a few moments to weave them all together into a spell, letting them interlock into proper positions that should allow me to direct my fire away from our group, despite the explosiveness of my spells. As I work for a few seconds, quite a few eyebrows are raised by the watching students, and even the instructor.

For this spell, I mix fire, wind, and earth, shaped to create a wind gust, carrying blades of superheated rock. That should keep all the damage directed forward... I think.

There's just one problem...

I cast the spell, watching it fly the short distance between us, just as the shouting troll begins to charge.

Then the spell hits, a gusting explosion of wind, stone, and lava bombarding the entire section of room ahead of us. It hits and splatters and bounces, shredding the troll into a smoking, burned away corpse.

I immediately start bowing and apologizing. “I'm sorry, I'm really sorry. I held back, but I still killed it, and, and I'm also sorry I held back!” I totally just screwed up the end of their training exercise!

“Pff, it's fine,” Krulm waves it off dismissively. Huh? How? Then he points, and I look ahead again. “A monster that weak wouldn't be the cause of this disturbance. At his words, more trolls, just like the first, begin materializing out of thin air near the far wall of the room. They come at a decent pace, one or two every few seconds.

“Oh.” I breath out, incredibly relieved I didn't just mess everything up. The students start running forward, the front line cutting into the trolls, which immediately begin swinging back, the kids dodging or blocking before diving back on the offensive.

The trolls, grayish in color and covered with small tufts of fur on their muscular bodies, take quite a few sword and spear strikes before they fall, but the follow-up from the magic tears them apart very quickly.

“So, what was that about holding back?” He's still looking forward, watching the battle, but he has a testy tone which makes me gulp worriedly.

“I-I'm sorry, I specialize in extremely large area of effect magic, so I can't cast my biggest spells here.” Still without looking, he raises a hand, and chops me on the head.

“Ow!” I yelp and stagger, tears in my eyes and my brain rattling around in my head.

“You should've told me that earlier,” he scolds me, and I bow again.

“I'm sorry...”

Krulm doesn't pay any attention to me after that, calling instructions to his students as they fight, directing them and correcting their mistakes. I guess the 'monster' was actually the whole group of trolls, because when they finally finish off fifty or sixty of them, they simply stop appearing. As Krulm said, individually they couldn't be called a monster worthy of causing this... whatever this is. The monster dungeon spawns, or however they refer to it here?

We basically went through the same thing when we were clearing out that abandoned mineshaft, but I don't understand the point of this area. Why is there such a huge underground cave system, with such man made looking corridors, underneath such a tiny ruin? What possibly could have been here?

Without any answers to my questions, we finish up and head back. The trip up to the surface is significantly faster, since no one needs to be on alert for monsters. We break back into the clear forest air so quickly, it's almost surprising. Out of the dark, I instantly feel myself relax.

I may technically be a slave again, but that doesn't really bother me anymore. As long as I'm not alone in the dark...

The fresh air tells me I'm not trapped, and not suffocating. It helps me calm down after so long underground.

Still following the group from behind, we continue walking for a little while longer. Then Krulm falls back a little. “You said you didn't show me your full power. Do it now.”

“O-oh.” His sudden command catches me off-guard. “Yes, sir.” Then I turn around and look for somewhere to fire where I won't destroy anything. We're still in a forest though, so the only place is up overhead. I remember hearing warnings about bandits, so I make sure to ask, “There aren't any bandits in this area to attract, are there?”

“No, not this close to Miselka.” We're still like four hours away, the city is really big enough to keep that much of the surroundings clear of bandits? Taking his word for it, I turn my thoughts to my magic. I still feel awful from being on the verge of starvation, but this shouldn't be too difficult of a spell.

Thinking of magic I could put together in battle, I take a deep breath, going with a classic fire-air spell for a nice big explosion. Starting to summon, I do big waves, generating twenty or so elements each time, rapidly forming them all together as I go, sucking down my entire mana pool in a matter of seconds while forming the magic. I make sure to give it a good delay while I'm at it.

Then I fire straight up, the magic flying high, high overhead, far above the tree tops, before erupting into an enormous explosion, stretching out far and wide. It's too far to reach the trees though, so I don't need to worry about burning the forest down or anything like that.

Everyone stops. Even Krulm. “That's...” he keeps staring, not finishing.

“How much mana did that spell cost?” one of the students asks, finally coming a little closer to me.

“Uhh...” I stammer, looking away. I have to pull up my Status to check, before answering, “About, umm... four hundred sixty.”

“That much? What is that, you entire mana pool? I guess that's why it's so explosive.”

“Well, mm...” I trail off, feeling really, really, really awkward right now. I'm basically a slave again, walking right next to my 'master,' and he's talking directly to me...

Come on, not really a slave, I tell myself again. I can't let myself rely on him for everything. I won't let this be a repeat of when I was with Keane...

Krulm finally recovers after that short conversation, clearing his throat. “I see, so you're a class focused on single shot, wide area fire spells? That sounds... difficult.”

“O-oh, no,” I immediately shake my head. “I have really flexible casting,” I assure him. “I practiced my casting speed for fighting smaller targets, so I'm really, really proud of my speed casting too. It also helps a lot for my bigger spells because of the way my magic works.”

Why am I trying to impress him? I shake my head, realizing I'm still thinking like a slave, trying to prove my worth to my new master...

No no no, I just owe him a debt!

“Hmm, that's certainly unique.” He shrugs off my boast. It nearly makes me panic, but I keep screaming at myself that I don't have to impress him.

Apparently he's satisfied his curiosity, because he rejoins the teens in the group up ahead, while I still hang back, not really wanting to go too close to them right now. Though there is one guy with them that glances back at me now and then.

On the walk back, I carefully ration my food, taking no more than a bite or two of bread every couple hours, just the smallest amount I can manage to stave off full blown starvation. It'll have to do for now.