I woke up and the first thing I did was to check the tank. It was barely below half. There was something wrong as by my estimates, my magic reserves should be at least three-quarters full. I looked around and found the box of enchanted eyes. I didn't even store it properly before putting myself to sleep. I checked on the eyes and yes, they were glowing stronger than electric light bulbs.

Probably a side-effect of staying next to me while I leaked magic for the whole night. That's what Nanna meant when she told me I charged them yesterday. I spent a lot of time in her room. I touched the fabric of the bedsheets and concentrated. Soon I found the resonance for glucose hidden in the fibers.

I felt dizzy and a sudden jolt of headache assaulted me. I halted Decompose immediately. Still too soon. I focused my attention inwards and checked. No sensible change in the amount of magic available. In fact, as I kept watching, it seemed it was fluctuating up and down slightly, like the calm waves on the shore of a lake. Maybe the excess magic that wasn't used for patching the holes was leaking.

What I could do was summon my headphones and iPod so I could listen to some music. I felt the sharp headache as the items came to me and it went away after a minute.

It seemed the recovery of my magic would still take a day or two. My body on the other hand... I needed to do a complete and thorough test.

I was just laying on the bed, listening to random music with my eyes closed when someone knocked on the door. Noise-cancelling technology was awesome. I'd finished my checkup five or six songs ago. All systems nominal and working as intended.

"Who is it?" I asked out loud.

"It's me, Arwia. Is everything alright in there, Sandra? You didn't come to breakfast."

I jumped out of bed and changed into my explorer outfit. It was either that or Cloe's dress. I dared not summon other clothes. I shouldn't even have summoned the iPod but I needed something to distract me. It's like when you do surgery and the doctor tells you to wait four weeks before doing anything but then it itches and you wait only two and a half. After I was done, I opened the door and was met by my maid's concerned gaze.

"Hey. How's everything going on with you?"

"Better. I used my powers today," I showed her the iPod in my pocket and the headphones around my neck. "Hurt a bit, but I think one day or two at most and I'll be ready to go down another abyss," I joked.

Arwia frowned. "Please don't. You were lucky or blessed to get out once, but don't test the gods' goodwill."

I smiled, "I don't pretend to. Food?"

Arwia tried to imitate the curtsy I did before, "This way, milady."

I went to the kitchen and ate my breakfast. Fresh fruits, bread, and a thin and sour yogurt. It was served as a drink in a mug. I had tasted it before but I paid no mind to that, thinking it was just drinkable yogurt. But they shouldn't know how to make drinkable yogurt.

"What is this?" I pointed at the mug fermented milk.

Barani, Abil-Kisu's cook answered, "It is something the master recently acquired from the mountain people to the northwest. It is something they put in the milk to make it curdle, but it doesn't seem to work well in the lowlands."

I took another sip of the yogurt. I felt a slightly alcoholic aftertaste. To doublecheck, I took another sip and held the drink in my mouth, focusing on Decompose. The resonance for ethylic alcohol was there, and soon the headache from using my power when I shouldn't briefly assault me.

I thought about what it could be, and then I remembered one thing. "Hey, does this curdle comes with some spongy grains? White and gooey?"

Barani nodded. "Yes. The lady is quite wise to know them. They aren't good to eat though."

I knew what that was. And from what I saw from the geography of the place, the gods built up this world and spread the peoples much like the way they were back on Earth. I would've done the same if I was trying to preserve an endangered species. In that case, they.

"Master Barani, could you get me some of these grains? And a large goatskin if possible? I think I know how to cultivate them."

If these grains were kefir, it would be a huge boon to the food situation. Kefir could increase the nutritional value of milk several times over and help people with bowel problems, as the colonies were strong and aggressive enough to clear the intestinal tract of parasites and other microorganisms.

I finished my breakfast and Barani brought me a ceramic bowl with some kefir grains swimming in milk. I scooped them with a wooden spoon and truly enough, the viscous and gooey slime the fungi and bacteria colonies used to grow their grains were there.

"I sent the boys to fetch a large goatskin used to carry water on caravan trips," Barani told me as he watched me play with the kefir grains. I even took one and popped it in my mouth.

"Good. Master Barani, make sure to only use goatskins that held either milk or water only. Fill them with goat milk, put the grains inside and keep them hung over a place that doesn't get too warm. It takes several days for the grains to ferment the milk. You see, these grains have... they are the houses for tiny creatures that ferment the milk. They need time to grow and make more grains. But this is a boon to our houses. You see, drinking this can even make your farts less smelly."

I was already planning to include the kefir in the food planning. That meant we had to protect the dairy cows. I thought I could supplement the glucose I could extract from any plant fiber and mix it with the milk to enrich it and see if the kefir would also consume that basic sugar along with the lactose. I needed to check my books on the laptop but I was pretty sure they broke down the lactose into glucose anyway. All organisms did.

I wasn't planning on making a kefir strand that lived on sugar alone even though there was one on Earth. That was the result of decades or even centuries of adaptation. I just hadn't that much time.

Barani barked some orders to his helpers and I helped them. Soon we had two large goatskins filled with milk and some kefir grains. I told him to also keep some grains in a jar with milk safely stored away, in case the cultures went wrong. He would need to check and change the milk every few days, but the kefir would be added to their diets.

"Milady, are you sure these... creatures from the grains are not evil?" He asked, superstition and fear oozing from his voice.

"Absolutely. You see, master Barani," He straightened his back, proud to be called 'master' by me, "Living beings usually can't exist alone. They need a chain of life around them. Even we, humans, need plants and animals around us in balance. The same goes for these tiny creatures. There are some good and some bad. The ones in these grains, they are very good. The ones that cause disease, very bad. If we eat that curdled milk, or 'yogurt' as we call it in my language every day, these creatures will help us fight the bad ones."

He nodded. "If the Lady says so."

Happy with this discovery, I went out to get some sunlight. Arwia followed me.

"What are you doing today?" She asked.

"I was thinking of going under my favorite tree, laying down and taking a nap," I answered, already itching to pull the headphones up and hit play on the iPod. Then something hit me. I've been using the same two sets of clothes for the past few days, washing my underwear during my bath and letting it dry either on my body or by air-drying them in my room. This situation had to change, and fast.

It was no time to nap. It was time to gear up!

I turned around and asked my maid, "Change of plans, Arwia. I'm going out. Do you know if Abil-Kisu is home?"

"I think so. I didn't see him leave and his guards and scribes are here. They are using the tent."

We went to the tent. A guard at the entrance was blocking our way. "Lady Rinaldi," He nodded in acknowledgment but didn't move.

"Good morning, mister," I nodded back. "I would like to ask if I could have a minute of honorable Abil-Kisu's time."

"The master is not here at the moment. He's in the main house, with his family," He replied with a mechanical voice.

"Thank you then. Would you tell him that I might have a business opportunity for him? I'll be around the gardens."

He just nodded. I stood in front of him for a few moments but it seemed I wouldn't be able to coax any words from him so I left and went to my favorite tree with my favorite maid.

"Is that normal, Arwia? The guard can't hold a conversation."

Arwia looked up at the sky, unsure of what to say, "I think it is. He is not a messenger, herald, crier, minstrel, or a bard. He's a guard. So he guards."

Since when the ability to hold a conversation was based on a person's profession? Oh, well. This was a world where people don't introduce themselves to me because I'm female, so there's that.

"Do you intend to marry sometime, Sandra?" Arwia broached the subject, rather unsure as if she was walking on thin ice.

"Yeah, I guess? What girl doesn't want to marry deep inside? The problem is not wanting to get married, is finding the right conditions to get married. The right person. You see, Arwia, I don't want a man to be my provider, my guardian, my protector. Even without my powers, making money in this world is way beyond easy for me if I could keep myself from getting tangled in greedy people's schemes. So the man I want for myself needs to be my companion. Someone that can stand by my side and support me, not someone to be my lord and master.

"There's a saying in my world, 'it takes two to tango'. 'Tango' is the name of a really complicated dance from my world. So, it takes two to dance. But since the dance is complicated, both partners need to be fully engaged and aware of each other. That's what I want. Partnership, not ownership."

Arwia took some time to digest my words. We reached the tree and I sat leaning on the trunk, while she sat next to me.

"But a marriage is meant to build a family. A family has the man as its head," She retorted with the common sense of this world. "And a woman's duty is to bear children."

"Is it? I won't deny that without us birthing children civilization will collapse, but there's so much more, Arwia! Tell me, just because you can does it mean that you should? To take one aspect of one's entire being and reduce oneself to just that? There's so much more to life than just bearing children! I want one or two kids one day, but not now. In fact, I don't even know if I can, since the poison that hurt me might've also killed all my eggs."

I felt like I was breaking Arwia mind. As if I was draining her SAN score with every statement.

"Oh. But if you can't have children anymore, you can't be married. The code says that a woman that bears no children can be returned by the husband. But the blessings of Ishtar--"

"Not happening," I cut her. "Arwia, I don't worship Ishtar, and I don't think I would even if my life depended on that. I don't worship Tarhun either if you are curious. These gods' antics cost me my life back on my homeworld, and the only reason I am here was that Tarhun would suffer dire consequences if he didn't make amends with me. That's why all those people got struck with lightning. And worse, the gods seem to think I am some sort of game piece to use against one another.

"Prince Marduk came after me when Nergal told him of me. He corrupted Hama-Tula, The Enshi and the former magistrate. All these deaths, all this trouble, was because Nergal sent Marduk after me. Now, did I do anything to them? No. They were greedy people that wanted my power for their own ends. They weren't even interested in me. Just my power and maybe my body."

I sighed after I delivered my piece. It felt really good to put that into words. Like hell, I am guilty of someone's greed-motivated crimes because I exist. That's just absurd. I was really glad that I could now rest in peace and just live my life.

"I think I understand," Arwia said after thinking for a few minutes. "But if you really lost the ability to bear children, maybe Ishtar's blessing can help you."

I glanced at her sideways. Did she listen to anything I said? Not hear, listen. I had no idea. I couldn't know what Arwia was thinking. I thought about asking but then she spoke first.

"Would you marry Brandon?"

That was the million gold shekel question. Did I want to marry him? Yes. Under their rules? No way. Would Brandon be willing to negotiate a middle ground? I didn't know. Nanna's warning about him being a bad match for me and an inflexible traditionalist haunted my thoughts. He showed that he cared for me in the way he nursed me, even taking personal time-off to stay with me. I was very thankful and I made sure to show him that.

Even though he backed off saying I had to save my strength.

"Enough about me. Are you really waiting seven years to marry?"

Arwia blushed. I had to remind me that her first sexual experience was terrible. Sold as a debt slave to the innkeeper, she was forced to sleep with him and would become his second wife if she got pregnant. Which she didn't. Same thing as Belle-Sunu and Hama-Tula, but in her case, it was basically statutory rape.

Arwia took my hand and caressed its back. "I want to stay by your side. Help you. You saved my siblings' lives, Sandra. You saved me. That's five lives I owe you."

I got a really L-vibe coming from her. The way she was holding my hand and caressing my skin was even arousing me, and I was pretty sure I liked men. Arwia seemed dreamy and her face was flushing red. See, that's why it's so easy to make harems in isekai stories. The women in those medieval worlds are just too naive.

"I am grateful for your dedication, Arwia," I told her as I delicately retrieved my hand before things escalated. "I think I want to rest for a while and listen to some music. Feel free to go elsewhere if you want. If you stay around, let me know if Abil-Kisu shows up."

Her reply showed she was unsure of something as she spoke slowly as if testing the waters. "I'll stay here. I can see the children playing the games you taught them from here. If that's okay with you?"

I decided to tease her a bit. I leaned on her side and turned to face her, leaving just a small distance between our faces.

"Yeah, I love your company, Arwia. In fact, I'm flattered that you want to stay with me. Please stay here if you want to. I'm more than okay to have you with me."

Arwia shuddered and I could see the steam rising from her head. I planted a mischievous kiss on her cheek and pulled the headphones up. She reached for her cheek and touched the spot where I kissed her. Then she sighed and leaned on the tree. I think she'd have swooned if she was standing up.

I felt bad for toying with a maiden's heart like that. But it was her fault for being so cute. I hit shuffle and Rocket Man by Elton John played.

I miss the Earth so much I miss my wife

...

Rocket man

Burnin' out his fuse

Up here, alone

Then the next song came. You should see me in a crown, by Billie Eilish.

You should see me in a crown

I'm gonna run this nothing town

Watch me make 'em bow

One by one by, one

Yeah. Maybe I should show them me in a crown. Music is so universal because its inner message can fit an infinite number of contexts. I sunk into my playlist and indulged in this little piece of home. The third song, however, made me think that maybe RNG was playing tricks with me.

Only my Railgun.

What was my freaking iPod telling me?

Maybe I wasn't meant to be lazying around at all. A couple more songs played and Arwia shook me. I opened my eyes to see Abil-Kisu coming my way. I paused the music and lowered the headphones to my neck.

I quickly jumped on my feet and pulled Arwia up. The perks of wearing pants. I waved at the merchant lord.

"Milady Rinaldi. I was informed you were looking for me, is there something wrong?" He asked, a bit of concern in his voice but I knew it was a calculated amount. The man was a master of social skills.

"Oh. I'm sorry if it alarmed you, honorable Abil-Kisu. I was just going to ask if you were interested in buying a few items from me. Some collectibles from my world."

He couldn't hide his surprise. The merchant lord immediately assessed the possible profits. It went without mentioning that items from Earth were unique and irreplaceable. His eyes went to my neck where the graphite Bluetooth headphones rested.

"Ca-can I see those items? Where are they?" I was sure his nose was twitching with the scent of gold.

Metals have no smell.

"Do you have time now? They are in the annex near Nanna's room. But I can wait."

"I can go and take a look at them now. I need to appraise them and see what can be done with them. After you, milady."

We went to the annex and I opened the door to the room where I left the stuff that was cluttering my storage. I made way for Abil-Kisu. He entered the room and scanned everything.

"Are these the items? I can see some very fine goods here,"

"Not all of them. These containers and flasks here," I showed him the bags of discarded trash that came with me. "Some of them are very fancy and I think would make good decorative items or gifts."

I showed him some bottles of vodka and other alcoholic drinks that were very fancy. Geometric patterns, intricate shapes. I wanted to keep some of the glass bottles to myself though, but I cared not about shape. The plain ones were just fine. I separated the bottles into two piles and pointed out.

"Of the glass bottles, these ones are for sale."

He took them, checked them up close. "This workmanship is superb! And the glass is so uniform and flawless! I can't see a single bubble!"

That much was true. Even the lens I used to transform my iPad into a projector had some minor flaws in the glass.

"I can't even fathom how much this would sell for," He said and that was a huge thing. "This is a gift worthy of a King. This wouldn't offend the Lugal if I were to gift it to him."

Damn. I was taken aback by what he meant. Instead of just seeing the items as something worth some coin, the master merchant was going one step ahead and thinking of using them as keys to open the doors to even more opportunities. He would profit much more than just the price of one fancy bottle.

Well, two could play this game.

"You could use my name if you are going to use them as gifts. After all, this is an item touched by Tarhun's mighty power. All of these are. Even if they break, if a single shard reaches me, I can restore them entirely."

I could see the illusion of the gears of the merchant turn and the imaginary sound of gold coins clinking over one another in a tall vault as he mumbled and handled the bottle with care.

"I see... I see... This is no ordinary bottle. It's a relic!"

I giggled.

"I'll buy all of these items, Sandra! I can't give you a price on them, but I can assure they are all very valuable. Oh, to obtain such treasures!"

He went outside and shouted something about getting some crates filled with hay to store the fragile items.

"There's more than the bottles though. I have here these cans. They are meant to hold beverages. Some people in my world like to collect them."

I showed him the aluminum cans. It was strange, I made sure to crush all the cans before I picked them back in the park but some of them straightened themselves back and some of them didn't. So I had some pristine but opened beer and soda cans and some crushed ones. I had no use for either.

He carefully placed the bottle on the ground and picked up some beer cans. "This painting. It is so smooth, I can't feel or see the strokes of the brush. It was if they were painted by magic. And the metal is so light! These glyphs here, what do they mean?"

"Some words in one of the languages of my world. It is mostly information on the beverage that comes inside these cans when you buy them. And the company that makes them. Not a sacred text," I stressed the last part. It would be bad if he mistook or misrepresented the writings.

I had mixed feelings about selling the cans with the writings. Someone could use them to decipher the language or at least part of it. It represented a very minor security threat to my devices as someone from this world would have no idea of the language they used.

I could always switch them to another language. Portuguese, Italian, Japanese. The latter had the problem of kanji being similar to their own grapheme system, at least conceptually.

"I'll take every single one of these cans, of course," He said after a period of silent evaluation. And what about those other ones there?" He asked, pointing at the long-life cartons. And then at the food wrappings.

There were three trash bags I hadn't cleaned up yet. The organic trash, the food wrappings and napkins, and the condoms.

"These are just trash. Unique trash from another world, but trash. Those are not for sale." They might even be contaminated even though I didn't believe that any sort of microorganism could live in my storage.

Maybe I could test that theory with the kefir grains.

"The boxes are called long-life cartons," I told him and immediately regretted it as his eyes flared. "No, not long-life as in granting a long life to a person, but in the way, the food... beverages that came inside these boxes would be packed in a way that would prevent them from spoiling. We can't repeat the process though, so they are just like jugs, I guess."

"I'll take everything. Are the silk spools also from another world?"

"Those? No. Those were taken from Balthazar's destroyed caravan. The one the rage-apes destroyed."

"Poor Balthazar. Are you going to use the spools of silk for anything? It is still valuable."

"I was thinking of visiting madam Cloe to get her to make me clothes out of them. I have a very limited wardrobe."

He clapped his hands.

"Yes, that would be excellent. You do that. My wife likes madam Cloe's work very much. Take the pelts, leathers, and furs to her as well, will you? She can integrate them into the clothes."

"I'll do that. In fact, the reason I asked you to buy these items from me was exactly to make some quick coin to hire her services."

He chuckled. "Of course. I can give you an advance payment on the goods, and then the rest of their value later when I have them all appraised, is that okay? I can promise I won't rob you."

I smiled and shrugged. "I know you'll give me a fair price, but please don't go overboard. I don't care if you make a little more profit on them."

"Preposterous!" He jokingly protested. "I would never take advantage of my most esteemed guest ever!"

I laughed with him.

"It feels like I am the one taking advantage of you. I was thinking of moving back to my villa soon."

"Nonsense," he scoffed. "It is better for both our houses if we stay together and pool our guards. You are my treasured guests. It is lovely to see children bringing life to this otherwise deserted gardens," He said with theatrical hand waves, "And you and mistress Nanna are giving me tons of profit. And I mean it!"

Abil-Kisu then frowned. "Milady Rinaldi, I will be offended if you tell me again you consider yourself a burden. It is an honor to host you."

I bowed. "Please, honorable Abil-Kisu. You must understand my feelings. I feel like I could do more, pull my weight, earn my keep."

"Then do that! I'm not telling you to stay idle and do nothing," He told me with a calm and paused tone. "But it would be perfectly fine if you do that. I know you will be very busy soon once the Enshi approves your plan to increase our crop yields. And that you are still recovering from your ordeal to purify the poison that almost killed the Enshi.

"Follow your heart, milady. Laze around if you need, do something if you must. I'll be honored if you allow me to support you either way. And regarding earning your keep, these items here will give me enough gold to buy a city for myself if I wanted to. Not at once, of course. But with time, the right connections, and more importantly, the right words dropped on the right ears? Definitely.

"It is also okay if you have more ambition, more greed! Even though your kind heart desires none of that!"

It was a touching speech.

"You are a true friend, Abil-Kisu. And I'll be offended if you call me by my last name. You can call me Sandra."

"I'm honored, Sandra. Now, shall we separate the items you'll be parting with?"

We did. I handed him all the fancy glass bottles, all the intact aluminum cans, and most of the cartons. Ironically, I kept all the PET bottles. They were very versatile and plastic was a thing I wouldn't see again in my lifetime. The servants brought the crates with straw and carefully packed the fragile items inside. We were about to leave the room when I picked up one of the wine kegs from Balthazar's caravan.

"Abil-Kisu, I think we could drink this wine tonight during dinner. To celebrate our friendship. Would it be proper to offer it to you as a gift?"

He chortled and clapped his hands. His gaze was kind and warm. "Of course. But only if you tell me what is this most curious necklace you are wearing."

He pointed at my headphones.

"Not a necklace. This is a tool to listen to music or other sounds sent by another tool. Here," I took the headphones and handed them to him. "Put them over your hears, like this. And now..."

I lowered the volume of the iPod to a whisper and selected Vivaldi's Spring.

"Oh!" He gasped. "I can hear the most sublime melody ever! It is like the heavens and a thousand birds are singing in my head!" He smiled and handed me the earphones back after the song ended. "That was... my hands are shaking. Such emotion! Oh, Sandra, could you sing for us tonight? If we are opening this keg of wine, I might invite a few guests. What do you say?"

It would be good to let loose and sing my worries away. I nodded.

"It would be an honor to sing for you and your guests. It is the least I could do."

Abil-Kisu nodded, returned my headphones, and smiled. "Then it is settled. I have to send the invitations now. If you excuse me, mi... Sandra. I'll have a small advance payment for you in a few moments."

I waved and he left, the servants carrying the crates as if they were full of babies. I turned around and checked the state of the room-turned-warehouse. Well, at least some of the trash was dealt with. I didn't have the heart to tell him these items were considered as such in my world.

Well, it might be as the saying goes. One world's junk is another's holy relic.

I shuffled some of the items around and left the textiles and leathers in an easy-to-reach place. Then I shut the door. As I was about to leave, I heard Nanna's voice mumbling something from her room. I didn't mean to eavesdrop but it seemed she was having a conversation. With whom? The whole time I'd been here I haven't seen any guests in her room and she wasn't speaking.

Well, none of my business. I left the annex and went back to my favorite spot under the great tree. The kids saw me and came to talk.

"Sandra!" Kiya called me. "Could you teach us another game?"

I looked at them. Covered in dirt. My first impulse was to send them all to take a bath but we should spare water.

"I won't be here to give you a lecture, so I'll teach you a game now. But you must promise to behave and follow Arwia's lecture this afternoon. Okay, the game goes like this..."

I taught them the game of telephone. One person whispered a secret message on another's ear, and then it was passed along the circle until the last person would speak it out loud, usually heavily modified. It wasn't a game where someone won and I thought it was good. Not all games should have a winner.

I played two rounds with them, and I quickly some of them caught on the trick to this game. You could twist the message wildly. You could swap the message entirely. The first time it happened, they wanted to find a culprit but I didn't let them. The game was about having fun.

Arwia came to call us for lunch before the third round started. I had all of them wash their hands before sitting down to eat.

After lunch, one of Abil-Kisu's scribes came with a bag of gold and silver and a scroll with a receipt. I just checked the quantity and attached the bag to one of the belt loops of my pants. I went to the stables and got Penny out. It was time to get my spools of silk and order me some custom couture.