After waking up and getting himself out from under Doliy’s arm, Victor chose to ignore Dorun and left the sleeping area. The night before, he had been told that they could leave their things near their beds until late day without it costing more, so rather than gathering everything up, he simply went outside.

Stretching his arms over his head, and taking a deep breath, Victor looked out at the buildings, nature, and general set up around him. With how busy his life had been before coming here, he couldn't remember a time back home he could just relax and enjoy things without any immediate stress in his life. He knew there would be stress before too long, but even having just an hour to relax was something he had lacked even before coming to this world.

After taking a moment to enjoy the morning sun and silence, Victor walked towards the center of town. Seeing a few people setting up their stalls, he decided to go and look at them. Once closer he saw that the first one he came across was putting out fresh produce to sell.

The same stall was also selling some well made wooden tableware, but for the time being his attention was focused on the fruit. Specifically, something that looked like green grapes sold in small bunches.

Unable to help himself, Victor bought a bunch on impulse.

"You know the best way to eat those?" the woman working the stall asked.

Victors eyes went to the fruit. He couldn't help but think of the pufferfish and how it was so full of poison that only the most skilled chefs even tried to prepare it. Even then he knew that a single mistake on their part could result in the diner's death. Suddenly he started to wonder if he had accidentally bought something along those lines.

"I was just planning on putting them in my mouth and chewing on them..." Victor said, his voice slowed as he finished the sentence.

"Ah that is fine, but there is a better way to eat them."

The woman pointed towards a man setting up a stall about thirty feet away. He seemed to be setting up some sort of cooking tools and putting the dough into balls.

Looking back at the woman, Victor saw a smile on her face that reminded him of his grandmother. Sure she was only about as old as his mom, but somehow it made him think of his grandmother. This was, as far as he could tell, because of the fact that she fit the stereotype of always wanting to feed her grandkids.

"Down there, Carous makes some amazing dough that he fries in oil. If you ask him to before he uses it all he would be willing to put some fruit in the center of some, as long as you buy them," the woman stated matter of factly.

Three words caught Victor's attention more than the rest. Oil, fried, and dough. Although it was fries that was said and not fried, his mind didn't care about the slight difference. With those three repeating in his head, he found himself smiling as he peeked at the man, who looked barely older than him, setting up the mentioned stall.

"Fried dough?" Victor asked, "Is it sweet?"

"Oh so you know about them already?" the woman asked.

"Maybe. It sounds familiar," Victor stated, "But like I asked does it taste sweet?"

Pointing over at the other stall, the woman nodded, "He mixes in some syrup or honey. It isn't as sweet as just honey, but has a little sweetness that's even better if there's a little fruit in the middle."

Hearing that, Victor thanked the woman and went right to the other stall, seeing the man still balling up the dough as he approached. Peeking from side to side he couldn't help but compare it to doughnut stalls he had seen at events before. The setup was smaller compared to what he had remembered, but besides that, it looked mostly the same. The only thing that looked to be missing was the heating source, but he shrugged it off as something to do with magic or magic tools.

"Are you going to be ready to sell soon?" Victor asked with a touch of excitement in his voice.

"Soon," the man replied without looking up, "I am almost done getting the dough ready. Once the oil's heated up I can start cooking."

Taking the fruit that he had just bought, Victor held the bunch out to the man.

“I’ll take a dozen. Half the way you normally make it and half with the fruit.”

Without missing a beat the man looks at the fruits briefly as he continues to work.

“Ah, she sent you here. Alright, I’ll do it, but how many did you say you needed? I try to only sell ten to a person. Last year someone who was traveling through town bought my whole stock and resold them at a higher price. Well, I should say tried to. The fool didn't think that he might not be able to sell it as easily as he bought it.”

“I’ll take all that you’re willing to sell me. Just put the fruit in half of them if you think that they taste good like that. If you've got some new flavor you're testing out I'll even try that.”

Victor and the man held a quick exchange. It was explained he wasn't trying any new flavors so, in the end, the money and fruit switched hands. The man quickly started to prepare five fruit-filled fried dough balls to be cooked and five without fruit.

“It will take a bit for the oil to heat up but after that just come over and I’ll give them to you. If you’re looking to buy anything else I can probably tell you who to go to.”

“Ah thanks, but I think I’m good on things to buy,” Victor told him, “But I am going to try to sell a beast we killed not too far from here. Are there rules about where and fees for selling things?”

“If you want to sell just pick an open spot that isn’t a stall,” the man said, “As far as fees the head of our town asks for a cut of what you sell. I think it is for every coin you make you give our community one coin of the cheaper quality. Or something like that. You, travelers, are often cautious about paying a fee before you even know if it will sell."

Being directed towards who to talk to Victor went to talk to the man. The conversation was pretty simple. A fee would be expected after the sales were over. If they tried to escape from the fees they would be reported and would be given some level of criminal status.

Not wanting to take any legal risks, Victor mostly nodded his head but decided to try to haggle a bit with the man. It was a pretty quick back and forth that resulted in victor agreeing to a five percent fee instead of a ten percent fee. Shaking the man's hand, which felt interesting due to the fur, the agreement was made.

Having taken care of what he needed to for selling what was left of the beast, Victor returned to the center of town and saw his group looking around. Having noticed them first, he thought he would try to avoid them and pick a spot himself before everyone else could second guess him. Before he could, however, he was noticed and both Doliy and Dorun were fast approaching him.

As they got closer, Victor brought out the beast behind him. Unlike what he usually did, this time he didn't put much care into placing it on the ground. He instead chose to drop it, hoping the sudden shift in its form, and any sound the slight fall would make might attract customer's attention.

The beast was large enough that its sudden appearance and fall should cause some of the people who lived here to notice. Especially since it would be hard not to notice the noise of something with that much weight falling to the ground.

At least that was what Victor expected. Instead, it was abnormally silent behind him and nobody turned to look at him.

Turning around, he saw that the beast was indeed in place as he expected, and there was no reason for him to think that it didn’t fall since he had gotten quite good, in his opinion, at placing stored items where he wanted. It took him a short moment to realize what must have happened as he turned to Doliy.

Her magic messed with sound. It was a subtle magic that he couldn't imagine was something many people went out of their way to learn. After all, how could one make use of silence, except for keeping secrets?

“What are you doing?” Doliy almost hissed out as she approached him first, barely ahead of Dorun.

“I know we want to sell it, but what if someone figured out what you can do? Magic is a weapon, but it is only at its most effective when its full potential is kept secret. If what I can do became common knowledge it wouldn’t be long before…. Just…. No, we should have asked to borrow a cart and brought it in on that. Then people could have seen it slowly coming into town. Instead, we might have to explain something that would be better kept quiet.”

Victor tried to stand up a bit taller, but feeling the eyes of his group upon him prevented it. Somehow it only just now dawned on him that, even if a bit of flair and showmanship would bring in customers, exposure could be both good and bad.

“I just wanted to try to attract people to buy,” he said, “If they cut it in half I can only take half and I don’t want to leave anything to just rot.”

Sighing, Doliy ran her hand through her hair as Ruuz went to her side. Dorun had already caught up while the other slaves were close behind bringing up the rear.

Once everyone was gathered up and sitting in front of the beast they remained quiet until the man from the stall that Victor had visited gave out a sharp whistle.

“I finished what you ordered. If you don’t eat it fresh the fruit ones won’t have quite the same flavor.”

From his stall, the man waved Victor over, which was the only excuse he needed to walk away from his group for a moment.

Victor was cursing himself out as he approached the stall to get his order. This world wasn’t like what he was used to, he reminded himself. He couldn’t assume his common sense would work here. He couldn’t assume that things that made no sense weren’t, as far as this world was concerned, common sense.

He thought of what he had done so far. Trying to hide away, avoid whatever he could as best as he could, only doing what he needed to survive instead of trying to thrive. Sure he had done a few things that could be seen as standing out, but even then he hesitated. He thought of how he almost let that man end the life of the woman at the farm, just because of some fear.

Thinking back he had always been a bit like that. He didn’t push himself when he could have. His grades were good, but he never tried to get any awards in anything, always avoiding the contests even if he had a chance to win. The only exception had been math which he had a natural knack for, and even that was minimal since the whole class had to participate. He never went out for sports which would take up his time while giving him, as far as he was concerned, almost no chance at anything except exercise which he could manage many other ways.

Sure, he thought, it was true that he had bought a weapon, but one that he could use at a distance. One that would keep him farther away from whatever was putting him at risk. Even what he could consider putting himself at risk, he thought to himself, was mixed with cowardice and fear. He wondered if this was a part of himself he would ever be able to change, as he took the food he had bought.

Victor silently took the fried balls of dough and then turned to go towards the beast and his group. Before he could get three steps however the man working the stall grabbed his arm, albeit loosely.

“You selling that thing whole or can we pick and choose parts?”

The question took Victor by surprise. Instead of answering the man he just remained quiet for a bit.

“Or did you decide not to sell it? I’d like to try some of its haunches if you’re selling it by the part. A few other parts, but mostly the haunch.”

“Parts,” Victor said regaining his mental state, “I doubt anyone would buy the whole thing. Yes, I’ll sell it by the part. It’s not like it’s whole, to begin with, right? Some of it was already cut off and used after all."

Letting Victor go, the man smiled, “I’ll be by once I’ve sold enough of my stock.”

Taking his food back to the beast, Victor started to eat it, slowing his walk as he did so. The plain doughnuts were like he remembered, at least to an extent, but not quite as sweet. Whatever they used to make them wasn’t quite the same. It was close enough to make him hope this was something he could buy more of in other towns and cities.

Biting into the fruit-filled ones, however, was dramatically different. The juices from the fruit had soaked into it as it was made. Somehow the dry basic doughnut-like breakfast was so different from the fruit that Victor could hardly think of them as the same food. Somehow it was juicy without feeling wet and sweet mixed with just the right amount of sour as the fruit's seeds had burst within it.

Victor had to hold back from eating all of them, saving one fruit and four plain ones for the rest. He gave the fruit one to Drelt and the plain ones to everyone else.

“Thought you might want to try something different for breakfast today. It’s almost like what I could get back home. I would have gotten more but he said only ten per person.”

The next part of the day went by calmly, but with a fair amount of social interaction.

While many others bought some of the meat, cutting off a slice from one area or another, the man selling the doughnuts bought multiple cuts from different areas. He seemed to be more particular about where he cut and how much he took from each section.

Most of the sales did come from the meat, but the beastkin's who had greeted them all bought nearly all of the remaining hide and a middle-aged woman asked about the possibility of a mana core.

Alena was the one who spoke up saying that there was no mana core in this one sadly. The woman seemed a bit disappointed, but, after seeing how cut up it already was, accepted it as she walked off.

As the sun rose to show it was nearly the middle of the day, the group looked at what remained of the beast. It had been cut into at nearly every part of its body. One of its limbs was no longer attached to the rest, and a few other parts looked to barely be holding themselves together.

“I think that’s all that we can sell at this point,” Doliy said as she examined it a bit, cutting off some strips of meat while she spoke.

Victor nodded his head.

The food stalls from the morning were gone and only a few that sold various merchandise remained. From what he could tell, they sold food in the morning, let those who were unable to work the fields or hunt work the stalls during the day.

Turning from the stalls that remained to the parts that were left of the beast's corpse, Victor started to calculate how much he would need to pay to the town for selling here. It was a simple percentage for someone like him who had math as a basic everyday skill. He couldn’t help but wonder how many people could barely count or do simple mathematics as well as an average fifth grader in this world.

He was about to get into a tangent about how such simple math should be something everyone can do. At least until he thought about a person's talents are often driven by the needs of where they live. Perhaps math wasn't a big deal if you had the right tools, but knowing the best places to hunt or times to harvest was something they would all strive for.

Victor couldn't help but wish he knew how everyone else thought so he could figure out what he lacked as he tried to push himself further.

While getting ready to leave, the group, with a lot of pushing by Victor, decided to just leave the rest of the beast's body instead of paying the fee. The man in charge of collecting the fee didn't technically agree to it, but had agreed to buy it for the exact cost of the fee.

"We could have made more money if we just sold it," Doliy scolded.

"Yes, but for now long? Even if I keep it stored away it might get dirty or start to rot to much or something might go bad and I don't want to deal with..."

Doliy interrupted Victor again by shutting off his ability to speak. Something he was finding more irritating each time it happened.

"I'm not sure if you're really smart or really dumb if I'm being honest," Doliy said after they packed up and started to leave town.

"I'm smart in some ways but dumb in others if that makes you feel better," Victor retorted.

"He's just dumb."

Turning around Victor saw Ruuz with a wide smirk on her face.

"Oh don't deny it. You buy slaves and plan to free them, you give up something that could make more money than you owed, and you are so lazy about basic magic that you use a tool to make a fire. How can we call you anything but dumb?"

As they continued, Victor started to walk backward, looking at Ruuz.

"I am smart in other ways. I can read and write my native language and..." Victor started before he was interrupted.

"I can read too, except not in your language. It's not a big deal to read," Ruuz snapped, "It's the minimum requirement at your age to at least know how to read and write."

"What about mathematics?"

Victor kept his eyes on Ruuz waiting for a response that didn't come, "I can do math better than anyone else I've come across here and even without a calcu.... abacus. It's pretty easy once you got the pattern down."

Ruuz glared at Victor a bit. She didn't say anything until Alena got between the two of them.

"Let's just agree that he is weird. I for one like that about him. If he wasn't weird I would be on my way to the death mines or expecting a complete life of slavery. I mean sure most of us slaves will dream of our freedom, but we always know that it is impossible. That just means he can go against the impossible."

"I have never seen or heard of a slave being freed unless they did something amazing like saving their owners life or making them a big pile of coin. Something of a reward for work above and beyond the usual. He barely even has us do anything and he seems to care about us."

"Speaking of that though we did help you kill that beast so surely you are going to be giving us some coin from the sales right?"

The cheerful tone that accompanied the question gave Victor a moment of pause. He had told them that he would be paying them for the work they did, but it slipped his mind as he was doing the sales. Having already gave Doliy a share of the sales, he thought on how much he would provide each of his slaves. He had told them it wouldn't be a huge amount since he had to pay to feed them and such.

Calculating as he walked, Victor tried to remember how much everything sold for and how much he had given to Doliy and Ruuz. It seemed like a fair split at the time, but he started to wonder if he should have taken into account that he was going to be paying his slaves. Either that or if their share would be taken out of his share.

Victor noticed his current life and his past life kept ending up at odds with each other. Each time it happened he began to wonder how long it would take before this worlds way of thinking would start to override the way of thinking he had lived with all his life until being brought here.

Taking out the paper he had used to keep track of the sales, Victor went over it slowly.

"Alright, I'm doing a bit of rounding and I'm sure you remember you weren't getting an equal share. I mean I got to take food and such into consideration so....."

Feeling bad about it, he gave each of them a few large copper coins and several small ones. Thinking about it in terms of copper they would need to pay him eleven hundred large copper coins to buy their freedom. Or thinking of it in terms of small it would be eleven thousand. Even then they would take into consideration having some money to start a life.

Dorun, as expected, tried to refuse the money, "I have no need for the money master. I am your property and it isn't right for me to own anything that won't help you as a result. The money would be better placed in your hands."

With a mental groan, Victor thought of how one would treat someone like this. He didn't want to do the first thing he thought of, or the second or third. Eventually, however he had to do something and stood tall, intending to speak with more power and authority then he usually did.

"Do you dare question your owner? Freedom should be a goal that everyone should want and if you think that isn't true, then you are saying your owner is wrong. Is that what you are telling me? That I'm wrong?"

Victor hoped that Dorun wouldn't notice his hands shaking as he spoke like that to him. At least he thought they were shaking as he didn't dare look to check.

He normally wasn't one for confrontation. Better to just stay in the background and succeed quietly. If done quietly when you finally choose to make your success stand out, it would be more impressive since nobody noticed you before. It was something his neighbor had told him when he was younger, or maybe something similar that the years had shifted around in his head.

Regardless this seemed like a perfect time to stand out and make the quiet man take his place in the spotlight.

"I.... but..... no master but...."

Victor cut off Dorun, "A slave is often lazy because they see no future for themselves. The only hope is that one day they can be given a small job they can slowly die doing. Or maybe becoming a slave who does night service and nothing more. I find that mindset beneath even slaves. I want slaves with motivation to do better. That is why I offer these coins."

Peeking around he noticed that Drelt, and Doliy seemed especially interested in his words. He just hoped he could properly finish, what he thought, was a good speech.

"A slave who has a future they can work towards will work harder. They will do everything asked of them with their heart, body, and soul. So you will take this money. You will use it to become free or buy things you want or both. Everyone has desires and to hold back is bad for you."

Taking a few hurried steps into the center of the group, Victor pointed to the sky, "The next day for a slave isn't a promise. As I see it your life can be sacrificed at your owners' whim. So fight for the future. Work hard for the coins. And prove that my way of thinking was right by proving you are worth the coins I offer you because if you aren't then perhaps....."

For all his speaking he was silent as it got to its end. Not because of the magic that Doliy could do, but because he himself had nothing more to say. Nothing felt right to him in this situation.

Eventually, it was Ruuz who broke the silence, "So that's why you offer them freedom? Maybe you aren't as dumb as you look."

Glad to have something to respond to Victor turned around with a smile, "There's always a little logic behind my insanity."