Another year passed, and Daron was now 4 years old. By now, he had already completely scanned the whole city and had a detailed map of everything after countless trips around the city.

His body had also grown a lot. Muscles were now beginning to be seen on his body, and he could easily pass for a 6-year-old kid who has spent some time to build his body. However, this also came with its own problems. Daron could no longer sleep whenever he wanted to, which resulted in him having to tell Joanne and the other kids about him training.

For some reason, none of them reacted too strangely, saying things like,

“Oh! You want to be a knight when you grow up?” and “Good, Good. You need a strong body to survive!”

Another downside was that the food provided to him by the church were no longer sufficient. And he could not ask them for more since he knew their financial situation. Therefore, he had a new objective in mind.

‘I need to earn money…’

With that objective in mind, he told Sirious to think of something to do, while he too began to think.

[How about we make guns and well them?]

‘No, although it is a good idea, it will be too easy for others to buy one of my guns, dismantle it, and recreate them on a larger scale. There is also the possibility of being pulled into some wars between counties. Lastly, I don’t want to create something that can be used against me! And that is the most important.’

[How about scamming people?]

‘Tch. I wouldn’t mind, but getting caught scamming out in the open, or if people came searching for me later on would cause many problems.’

…

After a round of this continued, Sirious actually began to bring out good options.

[There is a mercenary guild, blacksmith union, and an alchemist union in this city. I assume they are not only limited to this town, and at least have reaches within most of the Kingdom of Pierre. You should join one of them?]

‘Good idea! But I am too weak to become a mercenary, and I have no clue about anything related to alchemy.’

[Blacksmithing?]

‘I suppose so. But I will need to learn from the people of this world, since the equipment used should be really different. And for that, I will require more money. Also, with my current body, I doubt I can properly hammer metal.’

[How about making food?]

‘Excellent idea!’

Like a thunderbolt, ideas of various dishes ran through Daron’s mind. However, he just sat there for some time before giving up and telling Sirious.

‘Sort all of earth’s dishes I remember based on taste, then filter out all of them that would not be possible with the current ingredients and technology.’

Daron had been to the market several times, and so had a list of everything available there.

Looking at the list in his mind, Daron sighed as he saw only different forms and methods of noodles, with different names like noodles, ramen, spaghetti, etc.

Seeing this, Daron just shrugged and asked.

‘Filter them based on the taste of this world.’

Soon, the top one was replaced from Ramen to spaghetti. Nodding, Daron read the recipe and thought to himself. I need money to buy the ingredients…

He knew that the church barely had enough money from the countless donations to maintain the place, and keep the children fed. He could not carelessly ask for money, especially since the head priestess would not give money to a child. Thinking thus far, Daron thought to himself that he was now running out of options. As someone had said back on earth, to make money, you need money…

However, he had a solution to this. He could just steal some ingredients. This would have been a problem if he was going to steal something expensive like iron ingots for training, or herbal ingredients for practice. It would not be too much of a problem if he was to steal some food ingredients.

In the marketplace, he had seen a person stealing, and when he was caught, he just had to give back the food.

With this plan in mind, Daron waited till it was late at night, and put-on black clothes to prevent others from recognising his clothes, and mut on a black mask on his face, and hair to prevent the same thing. He also put-on shoes which did not symbolise the church to prevent clues from being left behind. Even though this was small theft, getting caught was still not an option.

Naturally, the church did not have money for extra clothes for Daron, and he found these black clothes a long time ago while cleaning the basement of the church. Thinking about his financial situation, and the fact that he might be required to steal something in the near future, he had kept the black clothes hidden and brought them to his room for a use at a time like this.

It was actually not his own plan, but Sirious had given him the suggestion, which he had just shrugged and followed.

[Oh, the irony!]

‘What is it now?’ Daron questioned as he prepared to jump out of the window of his room that was on the ground floor.

[You are going to steal food, so that you can make food, in order to legally make money, so that you can eat more food.]

‘Huh’ Daron’s movements stopped for some time as he too began to think about this, before he shook his head and got back to his plan and leapt out of the church building.