The supplies Sallia and I had secured from Old Mo’s store were more than enough to last me for a few weeks, and Sallia’s noodle bowl could extend that time to over a month if I ate cautiously. My mother’s condition wasn’t urgent either, and Felix’s situation could wait until I got a bit stronger.

The most important thing I did with that time was to advance my magic.

My runes came along nicely, and with about a week of work, I established my second rune.

Power: Form your second rune (Note: this dimension does not have the laws to support runes, although it does somewhat support absorption spellcasting. moderate Achievement penalty).

Achievement +140

Using the same water-vapor visualization I had used for my first rune ability, I created the ability to teleport objects near me to other places with their momentum completely intact. The idea was to teleport away a bullet, and hopefully, return it to its sender. Since I wasn’t teleporting myself, the difficulty of teleporting things was a bit higher - I could probably only teleport things about the size of my arm, or smaller. However, I felt that was more than enough to handle the weapons of this world. After all, bullets were quite small.

I also noticed that when I used both of my rune abilities at the same time, I had a certain… odd feeling. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but when both feelings overlapped with each other, I felt as if I was the water vapor around me, gazing upon the world with eyes that saw everything with a cold indifference that I couldn’t quite wrap my head around.

It was a very strange sensation, but also quite interesting. It was sort of similar to the one and only time I had managed to raise a magic-related skill to basic grade during our last life, although it was several times more pronounced. I suspected that if I kept training that sensation, I would eventually get access to an interesting magic skill. It was something to work towards.

Apart from my second rune, I also managed to push my attunement back to intermediate grade. I also continued to heal my mother every night, trying to reverse the damage drugs had done to her body.

Power: Form a [Intermediate] Grade attunement (Note: this dimension does not have the laws to support alteration spellcasting. Significant Achievement penalty).

Achievement +100

These two Achievement rewards, combined, pushed my Achievement from 722 Achievement to 962. A little over half of the cost to raise another Stat from +20 to +40.

Unfortunately, many of my earlier suspicions proved correct. While I was now slowly reversing some of the physical changes wrought by years of drug abuse, I couldn’t interact with the psychological aspects of addiction at all. In other words, while I could heal some of my mother’s drug addiction using magic, I couldn’t heal everything. If my mother wanted to recover, she herself would also need to make a concerted, conscious effort to get better. I could make that path easier for her and reduce or remove a lot of the difficulties - but I couldn’t just wave my hand and magic away every part of the problem.

Which was a huge disappointment for me. It was the first time I had run into such a notable limitation for my healing spells. I could even regrow limbs, but it seemed that fixing the messed up chemistry of an altered human brain was far more difficult than regrowing an arm or leg.

Still, for now, I wanted to focus on healing my mother a bit more before I sat down and had a talk with her. I wasn’t quite sure how to broach the subject, and apart from seeing my mother in a blissed-out haze, I hadn’t talked with her yet. I had worked up my courage to talk with her a few times, but… frankly, I had yet to see my mother while she was sober, and most of the time she was blissed out, she seemed to act more on autopilot than out of any conscious thought. It was to the point where I was a little concerned about how she got home safely every morning. I hoped that once my healing had progressed a bit more, my mother might be a bit more conscious, and thus make it more possible to have a proper conversation. That was the best I could do for now.

For now, I also put off my intentions of establishing myself as a ‘mysterious hooded healer.’ Now that I had a better idea why I was behaving the way I did, I had realized that I really was rushing things a bit because I felt stressed out. With food secured, for the next month or two, I could try to slow down a bit, put myself together emotionally, and come up with a less problematic plan that was less likely to blow up in my face.

As for the gangsters Sallia and I had killed, neither of us saw any sort of follow-up repercussion appear. Whatever the local gangs had made of the mysterious deaths, they clearly hadn’t linked it to us, which was good enough for me.

Finally, I spent my off-time doing something I had never tried doing before.

I tried to find a hobby.

Once I had realized how much the feedback loop of anxiety, loss, and fear was getting to me, I realized that I really couldn’t let it continue. Even if it was reasonable to be afraid of losing people, I couldn’t let it control my entire life - because I wouldn’t like the person I became if that happened. After more reflection, I didn’t think I was wrong for responding to the attack of the thugs with lethal force. Beating a four year old had a pretty high chance of resulting in death, after all. So I was still reacting against potentially lethal force.

But I wanted to be in more control over how I reacted and my own emotions.

However, I really wasn’t sure where to start when looking for a hobby. So I asked my friends for suggestions.

Felix seemed interested in having someone to nerd out about when he talked about crafting, so he recommended I try picking up some sort of item creation as a hobby. I already had some basic foundation in making items, since I had spent four years as an apprentice bone carver under master Arne during our time on the islands. I decided to go for wood this time. So I found little blocks of scrap wood and carved them into artistic shapes using my sword.

To be honest, I was surprisingly okay at carving. I still needed a lot of practice if I wanted to get good at carving art out of blocks of wood, since my skills were rusty after decades of disuse and I was more used to making functional tools than artwork. But I could see certain hints of talent in my carvings. When I sent pictures to my friends using the bracelet, they were able to figure out what I was trying to carve, which meant that I was at least all right at making the carvings.

But I wasn’t having fun with it, so I ended up dropping the carving after a few days. It just wasn’t speaking to me as a method of relaxation.

After that, Anise suggested storytelling or singing, which sounded a lot more interesting to me. I had fond memories of telling Anise stories about our times on the islands back when she hadn’t known anything about the Market. Anise mentioned that in this country, there was a pretty popular form of song-storytelling she was fond of, and recommended I try it out.

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And ultimately, I discovered that I enjoyed quite a bit more.

I had never really sang all that much in our previous lives - there had never been much of a reason to, and I had never thought that much about music. In our first world, our society was barely out of the stone age. Besides some basic humming, the villagers hadn’t really been very musically inclined. In our second world, while there had been a few bards kicking around in the city, the world had been slowly dying, and people just weren’t that focused on music.

But when I tried humming a few songs that Anise was able to convey via bracelets, to my surprise, I ended up really enjoying the feeling of just… putting emotions into my singing. I quickly discovered that I enjoyed the musical aspect more than the storytelling aspect, but I ultimately liked both. I couldn’t sing very loudly, because I didn’t want to disturb the neighbors. But I found the experience relaxing. Some of the stress and fear from seeing my mother caught in a haze of drugs every day seemed to slip away from my shoulders when I sang.

I liked it very much.

So I decided to practice a bit, and maybe drag Sallia into a singing session with me or show off a bit in the future. I also arranged for a meeting with her at Old Mo’s restaurant again, to figure out a better way to handle long-term finances and just hang out. Both of us were mobile and able to defend ourselves, and I had gotten a good feeling from Old Mo last time. I was also vaguely hoping that if he was in a good mood, he might teach me how to read - I hated the feeling of being illiterate again, and I doubted my mother was in any state to help me learn to read right now.

However, my thoughts were brought to a screeching halt by Old Mo’s greeting that day.

“Haven’t seen you two in a while,” said Old Mo. “I wasn’t sure if you two would ever come back. It’s nice to have a bit more business. Things have slowed down a bit since the war started.”

“War?” I asked.

Old Mo nodded. “Or so I hear, at least.”

“I haven’t heard of it,” I said. I glanced at Sallia to see her reaction.

Sallia furrowed her brows.

“Who are we at war with?” asked Sallia.

“Well… most of our neighbors, I think,” said Old Mo, scratching his head. “I heard a few of the soldiers who were coming to my shop after… spending some time getting to know a few ladies last night.” He cleared his throat. “They were a bit drunk, and mentioned that a few days ago, war was declared. They weren’t too clear on all of the details when they were talking to me - probably because they were hungover.” Old Mo sighed, and shook his head. “Anyway, I guess that probably doesn’t mean much to you two, if you’re still wandering around. No males that can get conscripted into the army in your family?”

I blinked, and then shook my head. “My father is either dead, or left. No clue which.”

“My father doesn’t have an arm. The army isn’t bored enough to conscript him,” said Sallia.

Mo frowned. “No arm replacement, either? I wouldn’t think it’s that hard to at least find a cheap replacement. Is his alchemy essence so low that he can’t even get a basic prosthetic working?”

Sallia gave Old Mo a blank look, and I tried hard not to stare.

Alchemy… errr, binding essence… was linked to prosthetics? I had noticed that a lot of people in this world had metal additions to their body, and had wondered about how that was possible, considering how complex prosthetic limbs needed to be. Maybe this world’s binding essence provided some kind of shortcut?

The idea was fascinating to me. I glanced around the shop, and confirmed that there weren’t any other customers.

Which meant that I could drag Old Mo over to our table and chat with him over a meal, hopefully. He seemed fine chatting with Sallia and I, and I suddenly had two major topics I wanted to learn about. Actually, three topics - I was still hoping to ask if Old Mo would be willing to teach me a few more letters, too.

“Got any bargain bread?” I asked.

“One loaf left.”

“We’ll take it, and a bowl of soup,” said Sallia. Then, before I could pay, she quickly grabbed a handful of sterlings, carefully counted out the correct amount, and shoved it at Old Mo. “Can we get the same spot as last time?”

“Of course. Thanks for the patronage,” said Old Mo. Then, he made his way towards the kitchen, to prepare a bowl of soup for us. While Old Mo was away, I began to think.

I still needed a steady source of income. Getting started as a healer was proving… unexpectedly difficult. It would be fine once we were a bit older or had better ways to disguise ourselves. But my attempts at getting started as a healer, so far, had gotten Sallia and I turned around, left us wandering the streets for several hours, and then had one of the local gangs try to give us a beating, which had ultimately ended up with three fatalities. I felt less bad about killing the three thugs now - but I didn’t really want to repeat the experience.

When Old Mo came out with our meal, I decided that there were four things I wanted to talk about with him. “Old Mo…. do you need any help?” I asked, tentatively. “With cooking prep, or anything like that?”

Old Mo gave me a curious glance. “Why do you ask?”

“I mean… in exchange for teaching us letters. And maybe a spare meal every now and then?” I said.

Old Mo frowned. “I’m glad that you’re interested in learning to read - some kids don’t even want to learn, which isn’t good. These days, it’s becoming more and more important to read. But as for help in the restaurant… let me think about it for a while.”

He looked… hesitant.

I couldn’t blame him. He might think that I would just be a burden in the bakery. He seemed like a good person, but that didn’t mean he was obligated to personally take care of me.

“Don’t worry about it if it’s not possible,” I said. “I just wanted to do something to help you, since you seem like a decent person. And I was also thinking of maybe finding a reliable source of food. I figured it was worth a shot.”

Old Mo nodded, and seemed to fall into thought.

“So… what about the war?” I asked, trying to divert Old Mo’s attention back towards a different topic. I didn’t want to make him feel awkward by bringing up the idea of me helping out in the restaurant again. If he was willing, that would be great, but if he wasn’t, I wouldn’t hold it against him. He was willing to accept money he thought was stolen, and even taught Sallia and I a few letters. He was doing enough to help out, and if he didn’t want to do any more that was perfectly reasonable.

“Well… we’re at war,” said Old Mo, after a few more moments.

“With who?” I asked. “What are the details?”

“Hmm… well, we’re at war with the Ennalian empire, and four of the five other major powers,” asked Old Mo.

I frowned.

Four of the five other major powers? So were we just at war with most of the continent?

“Why are we fighting five countries on our own?” I asked.

“We’re not. Uhh… we and the Ennalian empire are the two strongest countries on the continent, and we fight a lot. And then there are five other countries that are weaker than us, but still fairly strong. They usually ally with either us or the Ennalians. Right now, most of them are allied with the Ennalians, but the Verin principality is still allied with us,” he said.

“Why?” I asked.

“The steam engine was born in our country, and that scares a lot of people. So they’re trying to band together and keep our nation from dominating the Ennalians,” he said. “They probably think that if we defeat the Ennalians, we’ll try to conquer the rest of the continent afterwards.”

“Are they right?” I asked, even forgetting my questions about alchemy as I thought about the implications of a major war between all of the continental powers.

If this war went poorly for our nation… I did not like the idea of being caught up in a massive, continent-wide war as it swept through the city.

Old Mo thought about it for a few seconds.

“Probably,” he said. “But I doubt anything will change much this war. Wars happen every decade or two. It’s just a part of life.”

I frowned, and started thinking to myself.

The Slums, war, Felix’s status as the first artificial human…

This world really was a mess.