After waking up and departing on the second day of our journey we reach Gavely, and judging by how he sun is still at its zenith it’s only midday. 

“The gate toll is five coppers.” 

“We’re adventurers.” 

Shiona and I take out our adventurer licenses and hand them to the guard. 

“Hm-hm, this looks right. And her?” The man asks and points to Ronnie. 

“... Here’s five copper.” 

‘We should get her registered at the guild while we’re here.’ I think as we walk through the gates. 

“Should we just do the normal and go eat at a bunch of places after we finish up at the guild?” 

“Yeah. Wonder if they have pamphlets here like in Straitley?” 

“Maybe? I’d imagine so though, what with us being closer to the capital and all, only makes sense for the to get more luxurious and easy to sightsee in.” 

“Yeah, guess so.” 

“There, I think that’s the guild.” 

The three of us enter the guild, we tell one of the receptionists that we’re guild staff from Eastern lake city, and once they’ve written down enough details to be able to alert our branch of the guild we ask to have Ronnie registered as an adventurer as well as have her home branch be changed from Gavely to Eastern lake city. 

“Miss Ronnie? Please come with me for the preliminary examination” 

“Master?” Says Ronnie in a worried tone. 

“Go for it Ronnie, we’ll go look around the town for a bit while you show them what you can do.” 

“Okay…” 

‘Lizz, go with her.’ 

 

‘So we can communicate with each other.’ 

‘... I’ll remove the desert ban.’ 

 

After Lizz flies out and sits down on Ronnie’s head Shiona and I walk back outside- 

“Excuse me, do you have any sightseeing pamphlets?” 

-After asking a very important question that is. 

“Yes, here you go.” 

“Thank you!” 

We take the pamphlet and exit the guild while skimming through it. 

“We should probably wait with going and eating anywhere until Ronnie is done registering.” 

“I agree, but what do we do until then?” 

“Well we could go rent a room at an inn for the night, and after that we could just look around the market district for interesting things.” 

“That works, and speak of the devil, here’s an inn.” 

Right in front of us was a very normal looking inn with a large sign above its entrance which read, well, ‘inn’. 

*ding ding ding* Rang a bell when we entered. 

“Hello, would you like to rent a room? Or would you just like some food?” Asks a receptionist who’s sitting at a desk further in. 

“We’ll take a room please.” 

“Alright, five silver for a night.” 

I hand the receptionist five silver and she hands me a key. 

“Just come back when you want alright?” 

“Sure thing.” 

And after finishing that we leave the inn and walk towards the market district- 

‘What a convenient town.’ 

-which happened to be right outside the inn. 

“What are you waiting for? Let’s go!” 

I followed Shiona through the market district and we walked past all the different stalls they had. 

A lot of the merchants called out to us. 

“Hey! You there, the blessed doll! I’m certain you’ll find what I’m selling to be useful in accomplishing your master’s wish! I’ll give you some for free if you do me one small favour first...” 

“Buy some of our medicine! You wouldn’t want to find yourself next to a sick master without any way to help them would you?” 

All in all, this place was even worse than Straitley’s black market, these merchants were trying to get a blessed doll to do something that they couldn’t ask anyone else to do, most likely something illegal. 

“Hey! Aren’t these gems pretty? I’m certain your master would love to have them! They can even be used to make one of the incredibly strong and famous seventh circle magic wands!” 

Feeling tired of all these people calling out to me I walk up to the one selling the magic crystals, Shiona stayed behind and just looked on when she realized what I was about to do. 

“Good choice dear customer! What would you like? Maybe this fifth circle thunder gem, or this sixth circle water gem… Or maybe, how about this seventh circle wind gem!?” 

“How much for the wind gem?” 

“Ah, err…” The man stumbled with his words, surprised that I could speak. “Y-you seem like a good kid, so I’ll give it to you for free?” 

“Really!?” I ask, trying to sound as excited as possible, and judging by how the merchant calmed down he seems to have bought it. 

“Yes yes! Just one thing, you see, frankly this store isn’t doing so well, and neither is my family, so I can’t just give it away for free, but if you do me one favour I’ll give it to you.” 

“Okay!” 

“That’s a good kid, you see, the thing is that…You see that guy over there?” 

The merchant points to another stall a short distance away, this one also selling magic gems 

“That guy has been selling fake products and stealing all my customers with his silver tongue, so if you could go and get a bit rowdy over there and make him shut down his stall both me and my family would be forever grateful!” 

“But… My master said never to buy things without holding them first… Is that no good?” 

The merchant was visibly shaken by my request, however he soon calmed himself down again and answered, most likely thinking something along the lines of ‘No way this naive doll could actually tell the quality of the gem’. 

“Sure, here you go.” 

After the merchant hands me the gem I look at it for a bit. 

“Hey mister…” I say, lowering my voice. 

“Y-yes?” Responds the merchant, worried that his jig might be up. 

“This gem…”

I channel energy through the green crystal, and in the center of it appears the elemental crest for wind. 

The crest for the wind element is a tornado that you add more layers to, almost like an upside down pyramid. 

But the thing is… 

The crest that appeared was a single upside down triangle. 

“...This gem isn’t what you said it was?”

“Ah, err-” 

“don’t tell me… You lied to me?” 

“N-n-” 

“And then your story about your family? And what about that other merchant you told me to sabotage? Were those also lies? Were you... making me ruin an innocent person’s life?” 

‘Cy?’ 

 

While the merchant was panicking and trying to think of a way to diffuse the situation I let Cy take over my body, causing it to change color and form. 

‘This guy thinks I’m a blessed doll yet he still tried to swindle me, and you know what happens to blessed dolls when they see bad people? They turn bad, so why not play along?’ 

When Cy took over I found myself back inside the apartment in the book, sitting on the couch and seeing what’s going on outside through the TV, and oh boy is it entertaining. 

The merchant stares at my body with his mouth wide open as my eyes split into four and turn red, my furry hood turns rust brown, my body glossy black and my legs my legs split into three each. 

“GYAAAH! Cu-cursed doll! Guards! Guards! Help! There’s a cursed doll!” 

As the merchant backed himself into a corner in his own stall Cy used all of her limbs, both her six legs and her two arms, and climbed over the stall and closer to the merchant in as creepy of a way as she possibly could. 

‘Cy, you’re really enjoying yourself aren’t you?’ 

<... Let’s just say I have bad history with human trying to trick me, you wouldn’t believe how satisfying these rare opportunities of payback are.> 

‘I think I have an idea, but fair enough.’ 

Cy kept following the merchant, twitching every now and then as she opened a toothy mouth for added effect. 

If I’d been able to see behind Cy I would’ve seen people looking a quarter in shock and three quarters in a ‘You reap what you sow’ kind of way. 

“There it is!” Shouts a voice from behind us. 

“G-guards! A blessed doll suddenly turned outside my stall and started attacking me!” 

At first glance the merchant looked genuinely grateful that the guards were there- 

“What do you mean suddenly turned!?” 

-until another pedestrian voices their thoughts. 

The guard turns towards the pedestrian and asks. 

“Excuse me? You sound like you know something, care to share?” 

“Yeah! I overheard they were talking about! That rotten greedy merchant was trying to have the doll sabotage another guy’s stall while trying to look like a victim!” 

“L-lies!” Shouts the merchant suddenly. “How could you believe what a single pedestrian says! He must’ve obviously heard wrong!” 

“Wha-” 

“Sir, although we understand your anger, we can’t build a case on a single bypassing witness when there should have been tens of them, the only ones who were close enough to have their stories taken seriously are the merchant and… well, the cursed doll.” 

“N-” 

“Enough! This guy may only have the merchant in his sights right now, but whether he deserves it or not is a whole nother thing! Once the merchant dies the doll will go on to kill anyone in sight! Men, prepare for combat!” 

Seeing how many guards they’d brought just to take down little old me I felt almost flattered, however I decided it would be best not to keep the charade going. 

“Ah, that won’t be necessary sir.” I say and take back control of my body. 

“Wha-” 

“Here.” I hand him my adventurer license. “I’m actually neither a blessed or cursed doll, but this guy, and many others by the way, were trying to get me to do illegal things despite thinking I was a blessed doll, this one even tried to get me to ruin someone else’s stall, said he’d pay me in a grade seven magic crystal.” 

I picked up the green crystal that Cy had dropped when she transformed and fill it with energy, causing the one circle wind crest to appear. 

“But as you can see this is just a grade one gem, so I’d finally had it and decided to get them to shut up.” 

“Ri-right… I’ll be honest, I’ve no idea what any of that means so could you follow me to the station please?” 

“Sure.” 

“N-no, I don’t want to and you can’t force me!” 

“As a matter of fact I can, doing things that could set loose a cursed doll in the middle of town is a very severe crime, even if it ended up not actually happening.” 

*click* 

“Wha-” 

From behind the merchant another guard appeared and put a pair of handcuffs on him before the merchant noticed he was there. 

“Come along now, and try to do so calmly or we can lengthen whatever punishment you get. You two as well.” 

“Actually, I’m here with my wife and we were waiting for our friend to register at the guild, could they also come along?” 

*sigh* “Sure, this town can be pretty hard to meet up in… You, follow this guy to the guild and then lead them to the guard post.” 

“Sir!” Responded another guard. 

The head guard then walked off with the merchant and the pedestrian that had vouched for me while I met up with Shiona and we went back to the guild with the other guard. 

“So… You two are married? How does it work in the-” 

“Please don’t.” 

The guard kept asking similarly personal questions all the way to the guild. 

He was incredibly rude. 

And yet, despite the guard’s hopefully sub-conscious efforts to piss us off to no end we somehow make it to the guild without throwing him through three buildings. 

“So, who are you two looking for?” Asks the guard. 

“Hang on… Uhm…” 

Thinking it’d be easier to show than tell both Shiona and I look around for our mountain of a friend. 

She’s very likely to stick out in a crowd yes? 

And yet despite our less than vertically challenged friends height we still don’t see her anywhere. 

“Maybe the examination is still happening?” 

“Maybe.” 

‘Lizz?’ 

‘Lizz…?’ 

*sigh* 

“Lizz is sleeping so I can’t get in touch.” 

Shiona walks off to the receptionist while asking me to keep the guard check so he doesn’t piss anyone off, and after a few seconds she returns. 

“I just told them to tell Ronnie where we are when she finishes.” 

“Good idea.” 

We scan the area once more before leaving the guild and following the rude guard. 

-=Ronnie POV=- 

“... come with us for the preliminary examination.” 

I look towards the staff member that suddenly told me to follow them while feeling surprised. 

“Master?” I ask and look towards master, wondering what I missed while I wasn’t paying attention. 

“Go for it Ronnie, we’ll go look around the town for a bit while you show them what you can do.” 

However she misunderstands me, she thinks that I know exactly what’s going on and that I’m asking for permission to do whatever it is I’m supposed to do. 

‘Master please…’ I ask in my heart, however my request goes unheard and I’m soon made to follow the guild staff to an open field behind the guild house. 

“You’d better finish this quickly so I can get some ice cream.” 

And as if it wasn’t enough to be separated from my masters I also had to hang out with the insufferable gluttonous gnat of a jerk that is my master’s first familiar. 

“...” 

“Hey! I’ve been Plush’s familiar longer than you’ve been his slave, least you can do is show some respect to your senior!” 

*glare* 

When I glare at her to the best of my ability she finally shuts up and seems to go into deep thought instead. 

‘Finally, a little peace and quiet.’ 

“Here we are this is where the examination will be held.” 

‘... Shit.’ 

Normally I’m able to keep my mood in check much better than this, however Plush’s familiar ruined any chances I had of doing that today. 

“Just tell me what you want me to do.” 

Somehow I was able to talk with the guild staff without screaming, but it definitely wasn’t in a respectful way. 

“Right, first I need you to tell me what you’re capable of, and then we’ll test you to make sure you’re not lying.” 

“I’m good at fist figthing.” 

“Fist fighting? Any special way?” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Do you specialise in any particular field? Like, fighting other people,, fighting monsters, manual labour, etcetera.” 

“I’m good at fighting people and monsters, and honestly, are you daft? I’m almost one and a half times as tall as you and I used to be a slave, how could I not be used to manual labour ?” 

‘I’m sorry for taking out my anger on you miss staff member, but you’d do the same if you were in my shoes.’ 

Since master and Plush didn’t tell the guild staff that I still was a slave I shouldn’t have to either right? I said that I’ve been a slave but never specifically said that I stopped being one so I technically didn’t lie either. 

“Right, sorry.” 

The staff member then walks back inside the guild while asking me to wait here. 

“Hm?” 

In the corner of my eye I saw something moving, and when I turned to look I saw Plush’s familiar’s back as she slowly flew away from me, still in deep thought. 

‘I should probably call out to her, Plush said that she was the one I should talk to if I wanted to get in touch with him… But then again…’ 

The further away she got the calmer I felt, so I decided to just let her go off and do her own thing. 

‘If something happens I’ll just say she flew off while I wasn’t looking, worst that can happen is that she won’t get sweets for a few days.’ 

Valuing my sanity over her sweet-tooth I face the opposite way from master’s familiar and pretend I didn’t see anything. 

-=Nameless staff member POV=- 

‘You rude mother fucker, here I am trying to help you register and you start calling me an idiot? Fuck you.’ 

I walk back inside the guild while letting such negative thoughts ruminate in my mind, best way to get rid of them is a bit of good old revenge yeah? So I was trying to think of something I could do without causing to much suspicion from my co-workers. 

“Hey!” Shouts one of my colleagues. 

“What? I’m busy.” 

“You got a letter, says it’s from your brother in Vartan.” 

*sigh* 

I take the letter that my colleague was waving around and open it while I continue to where I was going. 

Right now I was going to the suite of the guild where we let some of the stronger adventurers rest in their off-time, I was going to pick out someone to help evaluate the hare-kin’s abilities. 

‘Dear sister, I hope you’re doing well these days… ‘ 

I skip over the unnecessary pleasantries, my brother was way too good at making them way too long whenever he wanted something, and judging by how the letter actually looked like that of a concerned family member for the entire first page I knew he really wanted something. 

‘Here it is, “Sister, I need your help with something…”’ 

Once I finished the letter I smiled, picked the biggest and brawniest person there was and brought him with me. 

He also had a knack for making his fights look so easy that anyone would think they could do the same, he fit perfectly for what I wanted. 

I also bring along every adventurer that was moping around the guild, that way everyone could watch. 

But something happened that I wasn’t expecting before the fight even started. 

-Ronnie POV=- 

The staff member soon comes back out to the field while being followed by a huge mass of people, probably adventurers. 

“Right, miss Ronnie, this man is Burt and he will help evaluate you, I need you to do fight him one on one for everyone around us to watch, you don’t need to defeat him though, we just need to see how well you do.” 

Since I was already in a marked area of the field Burt walked up to me while smiling menacingly and hitting his fists together. 

I smiled back, made sure to show my fangs, and I swear I saw him shake for a moment before he took a stance with his hands closed into fists. 

Seeing this I didn’t panic, instead my smile just widened at this delicious opportunity to both practice what master taught me as well as vent some anger, so I took my stance and waited for Burt to throw his punches.