Matt knew that first impressions mattered. When he first met Lucy, she had told him that he should just slink off into the shadows and die. Thankfully, he had been old enough and maybe even wise enough to know she was a hurt kid, and that hurt kids don’t always think things through. It wasn’t a great first memory, but he had a lot of tools for minimizing the hurt and pain from her actions.

Her story was different. Her first memory of him was a guy showing up five years too late to prevent her from being all alone on a featureless planet with literally nothing for her. Then, that same guy used system-provided powers to force her to help, even if the help consisted of answering a few questions before they eventually became friends.

At the time and even now, Matt thought that what he did was necessary. He stood a good chance of dying without information. And he used the authority as little as possible. But she didn’t have a choice in it. It was worse, somehow, that coercion. She couldn’t have said no even if she wanted to, even if she was willing to brave death over it.

Yeah, it was before they knew the system was generally shitty. And, yeah, there were other excuses that Matt could invoke. But it was still a traumatic experience, and it made sense for her to still carry some of that baggage around with her.

“It’s stupid. I know you aren’t… that. What I thought you were at first. And I know it was dumb to try to let you die. But…”

Matt interrupted. “Lucy, listen. Some guy you don’t know pops out of nowhere, and you tell him to get lost, and he won’t, and he forces you to help him? That’s a big deal. And from what you told me, the process itself was scary. You don’t have to pretend like it wasn’t a big deal. Whatever else it was, it was a big deal.”

Lucy thought about that for a second. “See, that. Those words are different from what I thought you’d be like, you know? That doesn’t come from someone who left me alone for five years on purpose. So, I think you remember, once I figured out you were a decent person, everything was better, or at least it wasn’t the same kind of bad. And then you grew a beard, and your hair got scraggly, and it was like I was dealing with some new Matt, one that was more kind. I forgot.”

“And then I got a haircut and shave, and the bad guy was back?”

“Something like that.”

Matt knew this wasn’t the kind of problem you could just solve, but he searched his brain for possible solutions anyway.

“I don’t know if this would help, but I could try to find a… hair growth potion? This world must have bald people. You can’t tell me they don’t have one.”

Lucy laughed. “No, no. It’s fine. Well, it’s not fine, but it was more of a shock than anything. It’s just, I think, I was worried because you haven’t talked to me much in the last couple of days.” As Matt jumped to interrupt with reasonable excuses for why, Lucy put her hand up. “I know why, I know it’s a good idea. It’s just that it’s always been us two. And now it’s more people than that, and we can’t even talk, and you’ve been having such a good time, I had just been worried it might make you forget what we were here for anyway.”

Matt knelt. “Listen, Lucy. There’s a lot of stuff that’s been fun about the last few days. But it’s also… it’s pretend, somehow. I’m not from here. This isn’t home to me. Whatever’s happening here, it’s for now.”

Lucy nodded, pretending to be reassured.

“There’s more, I’m not done. This is for now. Me? You and me? That’s forever. I don’t care what happens, what I have to do. You come first. And that means, even if I was going to die if I didn’t do it, I promise you that I won’t use any commands from now on. I don’t even know if they work anymore. We aren’t going to find out. And if you don’t want me to, no more haircuts.”

“Oh, no. We are going to get used to the haircuts. If nothing else, it’s less of you to smell bad whenever that magic bathtub breaks.”

—

After Lucy dug into her work, Matt stayed up just a little longer, pretending to sleep while he thought about everything. From what he had seen, the human parts of Ra’Zor were clean, well-organized, and nice. People seemed happy here, and he knew from his Earth experience that even if there was some dark stuff going on behind the scenes, most of the common people wouldn’t have anything to do with it. The laundress was probably just that, a really good laundress who enjoyed her work. There was no reason to think it would be morally okay to punish the common people here.

Still, something was wrong. Brennan and Derek had both twigged to it. The Church was too in control, even if they were doing an objectively good job. They didn’t just control all the non-reincarnator troops, they controlled most of the reincarnators as well. They didn’t just control all that military might, either. They also controlled all the communications, and the market for the raw materials it took to build weapons and armor.

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He had asked Derek about when he first encountered the Church, and the answer was that it was immediate. From the moment he had arrived, they had put him on a track. When they said he could fight, he was sent out. When they said he couldn’t, he was put on house arrest. Brennan seemed to have a little more freedom than that, but he was the strongest fighter the Church had. The strongest fighter that the two knew about, at least.

And then there was the old man. He might be a crafter now, but there was no reason why a crafter should be as strong as he was. He had been a fighter once, and Matt couldn’t even begin to imagine what he had been while he still held a combat class. Something had made him quit all that and apply his talents in other ways. It could have been enthusiasm for his work, and he did seem to like banging metals into the right shape. But Matt didn’t think that was it. There was something else, behind the surface.

And they still hadn’t gone to see these plinths. It was the one thing that still nagged at Matt. There was still time to do it, but it didn’t make sense to go there before Matt was as well-armed and prepared as he could be. If they went, and these plinths were just little computers that handled minutiae, that was one thing. But if the worst was true, the best-case scenario ended with Matt banished to the demon wilderness. The worst-case ended with him dead.

He’d do it, too. Not just for Lucy. Hanging out with her this whole time had convinced him that there was something right, something natural, about the relationship between reincarnators and their guardians. But like anything else, there were people who would fuck that up for something ugly that promised them more personal power. If he had to screw up some other stuff to get that to stop, he would.

—

The next morning, Matt half-expected Derek to be waiting for him outside the tavern. He wasn’t, so Matt took the opportunity to order breakfast, which the tavern apparently served. He left exactly what he’d have up to the waitress’s judgement, and she didn’t disappoint. She returned to the table with an entire loaf of bread, slightly hollowed out and filled with some kind of egg scrambled with cheese and pork-like meat.

Matt dug in right away. It was incredible. It only got better when the waitresses assumed rather than asked that he’d want coffee, bringing him a fresh cup of the real version of what he had previously only had from Ra’Zorian packets. The liquid was woodier than Earth coffee, but it didn’t matter. It was miles above his instant coffee, and he was instantly hooked. And in that moment, he had an idea.

A quick query to the waitress brought the owner of the tavern to the table, very confused by the garbled message that the waitress had carried back. When he came to the table, Matt posed his two requests again, a bit calmer now that he had a few minutes to acclimate to the effects of the caffeine.

“I want to buy a big sack of this. I don’t know how you measure it, but maybe this much?” Matt made a shape about one-and-a-half times the size of a basketball with his hands. “And I want some live seeds if I can get them. Something that I can plant in a few weeks, and let grow.”

The owners looked thoughtful. “The grounds are easy enough. I can’t sell you what we have here, but I can send a message to have my supplier to bring a little more. The live seeds are a little harder. They don’t like spreading those around. Each farm has their own strain, you see. They protect them.”

“I’m going off world shortly after that. You can ask… I don’t know. Brennan? Artemis? The old blacksmith? They should confirm it. I won’t be in competition with them. And I can pay.”

“Off world? I’ve heard of that.” He chewed his lip a little, thinking. “They might just if it’s true. It wouldn’t be cheap, though. You sure you got the funds?”

Matt showed him his credit token, and explained what he had bought with the old man the day before. As soon as the owner realized that Matt was willing to pay at that level, if not quite that much, his eyes goggled a little. Especially when Matt indicated what he’d be willing to spend extra to give him a cut for making the transaction happen.

“And I’ll need stuff to make the coffee with. Whatever works best for travel, and is the least likely to break. A couple sets if you can. I’ll pay for those, too.”

“Son, I’ll give you a bit of negotiating advice for free here. A deal this big? You don’t pay for things like that. If they don’t throw it in at that point, you don’t want to do business with them anyway.”

—

After waiting outside for Derek for a bit, Matt decided he knew the way to the old man’s well enough that he probably could make the trip on his own. Even if he got lost, people probably knew which direction to point him in. The old man wasn’t exactly living a stealthy, unnoticeable life. Matt wouldn’t be surprised if it went beyond “people know where he lives” all the way to “he’s a local landmark in and of himself”.

He was halfway there when he ran into Derek anyway. Derek was dressed in lighter, more casual clothes than he generally went adventuring in, something like sports clothing would be back on Earth. He was breathing heavy, covered in sweat, and practically had skidded to a stop in front of Matt when he approached.

“Whoa, Derek. What is it? What happened to you?” Matt asked, concerned.

“Oh, this?” Derek asked, mopping sweat from his brow with the lip of his shirt. “I’m just working out. I have to now. It’s part of how my class works. I don’t get stats unless I push my limits all the time.” He heaved a big sigh, then sat on the ground, rubbing his calves. “And it hurts, Matt. I have to make it hurt at least as bad as hard exercise back on Earth did, or it doesn’t work.”

“How much longer do you have to go? I was thinking about going to the old man’s right now.”

“I think I’m done, actually. Two hours is about enough for my morning workout. Anything more than that and it stops paying off. I’ll go longer in the evening as long as it doesn’t break anything.”