"Here you go, sir. Your stew, bread, and ale. The pie will take a bit more time but it's too almost ready."

"Thank you Rose."

Joe smiled at the perfect D cups hovering over a wasp waist. Yup, they were perfect. Since he was the one that made them, perfect was the only way they could turn out. That Reconstitution skill was way too overpowered. Well, it couldn't compare with his chop-shop skill that only worked on his possessions but still, for as long as the subject was alive and wiling and the MP cost wasn't prohibitive, he could do whatever he fancies.

Removing scars, wrinkles or beaty marks wasn't an issue. Boob jobs, butt jobs or liposuction? Sure, no problem. Stretching or fixing bones? Reshaping one's skeleton? Why not. Bit more mana intensive but still doable. Not in mood for children? feed up with monthly womanly issues? He got it covered. Permanent, reversible contraception at the flick of his fingers. You got a nasty case of crotch rot? As long as you have gold, nothing's impossible. Want to swap teams? Sure. He had done that too. Joe had to burn all his mana, but his happy customer came to him in pants and left in a dress.

And that's just a fraction of what the skill could do. There were hundreds upon hundreds of options available inside the odd editor the skill provided. Names of which meant nothing for him. Like the one thousand needle, heavenly bone evolution or inner way of moon passage for qi body recultivation. Murim? The hell was all that junk? None of the descriptions made any sense. At least not to him. Well, whatever. Even if he stuck only to those options he could understand, the skill still gave miraculous results and brought him a steady stream of customers. One of his first customers, Rose, just stood above him and watched as he shoveled her stew.

"Is something the matter Rose? Are there any issues with your body?"

Joe asked when she hadn't left his table. He really did a number on her body.

"Oh, no! No such thing! It's..."

She cast a troubled look around her inn and noting that all the other patrons weren't paying them any attention, she slipped him a folded note and a fat, silver coin.

"I'll go see is the pie ready."

She hurried away when her note joined the stack of papers spread on Joe's table. Did he get himself another client?

After that fateful run in with the god of vengeance, Joe opted to put as much distance as he could between him and the condemned City. It worked out only partially as his Endless run skill deactivated halfway between villages and sent him tumbling into the mud where Joe spent the next two days. The afterburn of that skill was horrendous. It left him half dead for several days without access to any of his skills. Thankfully for him, Rose found him on her way home from the market in a neighboring village. Being a devotee of the goddess of justice, she took him for a victim robbed by bandits and brought him home to recover. A misunderstanding Joe wasn't too keen on rectifying.

Since he also suffered a recent shortage of coin, Joe offered to heal the elder barmaid of her shameful affliction she got while providing extra services to her customers. Something worth about a gold coin or two at the local temple. More if you wished for the matter to remain private. While he was at it, he decided to test out his new skill and went a bit too far in his fiddling. He turned the elderly, limping woman, from a prune back into a thirty-year-old supermodel. With a juicy D cup and a waist to kill for. A change that turned out to be in quite high demand. And quite profitable too. While Rose let him stay and eat free of charge at her inn, countless other women came looking for his service and Joe, smelling gold, happily provided treatments. A request for one such treatment just came through the hands of his innkeeper. A maid in service of a local noble was seeking urgent help. The guy had some peculiar fetish tastes, but he also paid good coin, so the girl was wiling but recently one of her piercings got infected. She played it off as that time of the month so the baron wouldn't pester her for the time being but, there was no way she could push him away for too long.

Joe finished reading the note and pocketed the silver the girl sent him. A mundane treatment to do. Clean up the infection and toss in the infertile womb charm. While many girls choose to elope with a noble for the promise of gold or favors, only the smart ones made sure there was no child from such relationship. The commoner girl being kicked out or vanishing when the noble discovered he sired a bastard child, happened in this world more often than Joe's conscience was ready to accept.

He wrote time and place on a scrap of paper and put it under the edge of his mug. Rose would take it when she'll come to deliver his meat pie.

Meat pie.

Joe winced at the memory and went through his quest screen. Seventy-four days remaining. As much as he wanted to stay and play the hermit with blessed hands, he couldn't. That would be a death sentence. He finished his stew and went back to his journal to once more run over his stock and his options.

He had about twenty gold total. Give or take. A third of that was in bronze and copper coins. Ten gold in silver bullion. The remaining four gold he had in gold imperials. Not great but not bad either. Depending on the current market price, he also held around two hundred gold in precious stones and jewelry. His emergency fund.

Not enough to handle his party equipment maintenance, not to even mention the ongoing expenses.

While he could craft them some basic junk, he was no blacksmith. Proper gear did cost a pretty coin and maintaining that gear tended to cost half as much. Then on top of that he had to add food and accommodations for five people. Soon seven or even eight if he won’t find a way to get rid of that vengeful spirit.

Neira alone took ten to fifteen silver a day to keep her fed and happy. She was a pig when it came to food but still, with eight people, he'll be looking at over two, maybe three thousand silver a month just for food. That is whole two gold coins a month just to keep everyone bellies full. For the time being, he couldn't afford that kind of money. Well, he could keep them in storage, long term, as he was doing now but that may eventually drive them insane. Popping in and out of existence couldn't be healthy for their mental state.

Alternatives? They will have to hunt for their own food. Time consuming but doable. This option also provided the benefit of accumulating materials overtime. Okay, they'll do that. Joe put a comment in his journal and again scanned his list.

Next was, accommodation. He could tolerate sleeping in a tent while they were out in the wilds but he still preferred a comfortable bed in a quality inn but that could get expensive quite fast. Long term solution would be to get some property of his own, preferably with farmland or hunting grounds attached. Since that would cost a fortune, for the time being they would have to make do with something basic or just spend the nights outside of towns. No way around that. He made another note.

Equipment? Nope. After a long thought Joe strike that out from his list. It will have to wait until they'll bounce back from red. What little coin he had, he chose to put it into his bribes and taxes fund.

Since buying anything now was a big no-no, that would sum up his expenses. As for his income, he had the 'blessed hermit gig' that brought him anything between a gold and a silver a week. All depended on how busy he got. While it looked like easy coin, it would require him to travel between many towns and villages to keep the income at a steady level. If he stayed for too long in a single place, eventually the need for his services would vane and what worse, the church of that annoying whore would probably send someone to 'take care' of him. Those bastards weren't too fond of competition.

Yup, back to the potion making he goes. In theory he could also try to capitalize on his costume maker class but that required mingling with nobbles and some additional investments. Joe made another note.

What else? His stock? Five permanent slaves and crapload of corpses and body parts. No idea what he could do with those aside from giving them a proper burial. He also had that elven body without a soul, one nonhuman spirit without a body and one soul whose body needed a serious redo before he could even call it a body. Something he would have to address before the quest timer runs out.

He checked the status of that soul.

[Zaleria el Quilen (Corrupted Soul, unusable) time until recovery: 2147483647 days.]

Yeah, there was also that tiny detail. He tried sensing out if he could communicate with souls, he held in storage but all that got him was the medium skill leveling up and the vengeful spirit rumbling something about killing all that wronged her. If he listened for any lengths of time, she went between rumbling about vengeance and weeping for her murdered children. Though, with the recovery effect applied to her soul, Joe felt that odd mind becoming increasingly coherent.

Zaleria on the other hand just screamed. If anything. Whenever she noticed him prodding her soul, she screamed. Her corruption level was too high for his skills to handle. It left him with nothing else to do but wait for the full moon and pray that this soul cake thing works out.

"Here's your pie."

The note Joe wrote vanished before he raised his head.

"You're the best Rose."

If a pizza ever had a bastard child with a muffin, this was it. Soft, juicy, meaty. And the cheese, gods, this was the best cheese he had in his life. Not some crap processed from plastic and dyed yellow but an honest to god cheese.

"Then marry me and I'll bake you one every day, since you love them so much."

This again.

"You know I can't Rose."

"Coward and a liar you are Joe. A quest from goods? Really? Can't you just say you don't want children, eh? Either way, you know where to find me if you ever change your mind. Though, don't take too long. There are other, more wiling candidates."

"Then I'll drink to your fortune and happiness Rose."

That earned him a swat from the rug she kept in her apron before Rose went to handle other patrons. Joe's eyes walked away her swaying hips. Rose was a simple woman. Honest, smart, and fun to be with. People loved her. Would he? Joe entertained the idea.

No.

His mind told him. His heart was too broken for that. Never again.

"Well, time to get some work done."

He finished his ale and put the last bit of his pie into his mouth. There was a maid in need and coins to be made. He went upstairs to get everything ready.

Five more days until full moon.