The world around me had become a pitch-black darkness so deep that even the thought of light seemed impossible. To say that I couldn’t even see the tip of my own nose would have been an understatement so egregious that had we not almost died, I would have slapped myself in the face for considering it. When Yua’s arms and knees buckled and the ceiling fell, it quickly stole away with the inexplicable visibility illuminating the dungeon, but it was a comforting thought, knowing that it was still there somewhere above us.

We weren’t dead, thankfully. I could tell that much from the sweet scent of Yua’s breath against my neck as she tried to calm herself. The sheer physical exertion she had to put out to keep the stone from crushing us as long as she did tired her out so much that she wasn’t able to stand on her own anymore. So, I put my knee between her thighs to give her something to sit on and to support her while she clung to me. She didn’t say a word. Didn’t protest in the slightest. She just sat and leaned on me, the tips of her ears tickling my nose all the while.

Cramped as it was in here, in this small little box of stone, her breasts pressed so firmly against my chest that, in any other circumstance, her softness mixed with my inexperience would have been enough to drive me crazy, but for her sake, I managed to keep calm. Though each time her hot breath swept across my sweat-drenched neck, it tickled at my sense of reason.

“Thank that beautiful goddess,” I said to distract myself and hugged Yua as tight as I could.

I thought she might protest me this, but in this one case, I wasn’t going to have it. I was just happy neither of us died. She didn’t reject me, though. Maybe she thought she had no choice as my slave or maybe it was just because she was too exhausted to try, but she relented, did away with her snark and let me hug her without complaint.

I worked hard and finally had something to show for it that was worth a damn. She was safe.

The Material Destruction ability did exactly what I thought it might and destroyed only a section of the stone about to crush us, creating a large hole about the size of a double-wide gym locker just above our heads before it finally fell. Instead of the stone crushing us, we slipped inside of it entirely unharmed. Well, mostly.

It appeared to be an ability similar to another game I occasionally dabbled in that involved mining. Just like in that game, the chunk I removed was, or felt, like a perfect square, judging by how sharp the corners of our little room in solitude felt. The only difference was that I didn’t seem to need a pickaxe to make it work.

I had no idea why that goddess chose to incorporate aspects of that game into this world, as it wasn’t exactly my idea of an RPG.

While I praised that wonderful Goddess and myself for figuring out how that ability worked on the fly, Yua remained quiet for a long while. The only sounds she made were that of her continued heavy breathing. I was sure that the massive thud that accompanied the falling stone must have really hurt her extra sensitive ear drums. So, I didn’t mind it at all when she squeezed my shirt and clung to me with what was left of her strength to deal with the pain. Aside from any muscle damage she sustained holding up that impossibly heavy boulder, her ears must have been ringing. The fact that she was still conscious was a testament to the strength she seemed proud of.

I tried to check on her status page to see how she was doing, but all that popped up was a blank window. I checked mine just to be sure, then tried directly accessing the Help window. Both were blank.

Great. Things that affect my vision like light must also affect the visibility of my menu.

“Where… are we?”

Sounding exceedingly tired after she regained enough strength to speak, I felt her hair shift against my arm, as if she looked straight up at me, even in the pitch-black of our secluded resting place. Somehow, I could feel her looking into my eyes, though I was effectively blind. I had to wonder if along with her powerful ears and nose came a cat’s ability to see in the dark. If so, I felt she shouldn’t have been able to without at least a trace of light, which there were none.

“Just rest up for a minute. I don’t mind if you lean on me for support. It’s the least I can do.”

Slowly, probably reluctantly, I felt her forehead press back into my chest. Her legs seemed to give way and I felt her fully collapse onto my knee. I tried my best to be respectful and not think about which part of her body exactly was resting on my knee.

I geared up to explain what happened, but she seemed to remember before I could.

“Right… Master yelled something, then it all went dark. What happened after that?”

“Not much, but I imagine you might have temporarily passed out from the strain.”

“Then why is it still dark?”

“… Somebody must have put out the candle.”

I felt her breaths press against my chest in quick, sweet bursts as she giggled. Her grip on my shirt slackened and her arms fell to her sides. She slumped against me completely and I tightened my hold on her to give her the support she needed not to fall back. In this narrow stone room, she wouldn’t have fallen far, but she still would have hit her head.

“… Why did you come back for me?”

Trapped beneath a solid block of apparently magical stone, her voice didn’t echo in the slightest. The question was directed at me and only me and it shot straight into my eardrums to make sure I heard her loud and clear. I swallowed at the question, only remembering that, if the assumed ringing in her ears had dissipated enough to hold a conversation, that she heard my reaction.

I had no idea what to say. How could I tell a girl I just met that I became infatuated with her at first sight? How could I tell her that in that dire moment, I didn’t want to continue living without her by my side?

Even in that near-death state, I still couldn’t manage to say any of that. But now that I had a moment to think, the possible responses she could throw at me threaded my lips shut with a red-hot sewing needle made entirely of my own stupidity.

Wouldn’t that just make me sound like some kind of stalker? Wouldn’t she reject the idea on the merits and claim I was an immature idiot for thinking that was enough? Or that thinking I could ever win her heart after buying her like an object.

I could feel her waiting an answer, though she remained silent. So, for once in my life, I bit down my worries and just answered honestly.

“… I didn’t want to lose you.”

“B-But, I’m just a slave… If you let it crush me and got away, you might have been able to free yourself from your debt to Mr. DeGrave if you claimed I wasn’t as good as he promised.”

To put an end to her rambling, I squeezed her tighter. The fact that she brought up the same potential loophole that I had given thought to a moment ago stung me in a way I couldn’t even place. She seemed to take this as my answer and stopped trying to convince me that I made the wrong decision.

“You’re not just a slave. I know we just met, but you’re a very important person to me. I can’t and won’t trade your life away just to save myself.”

My cheeks burned.

“B-But I’m just…”

I felt her look up at me again in the darkness, this time tiredly resting her chin on my chest, and couldn’t stand to think of the way she must have been looking at me. Was there pain in her expression? Disgust? Resignation? Or just confusion? Until now, I hadn’t exactly been treating her as someone special to me, at least not openly. She had no reason to believe my words were my honest feelings and even if she did, she didn’t need to respond to them in a way that would favor me.

But like before, I couldn’t stand for any of those thoughts holding me down. That line of thinking was exactly why I stayed rooted in place back on Earth, unable to ever take a step in the direction I wanted to go. A direction that might have been East. So, this time, instead of letting my pessimistic imagination run wild, I moved my hands through the darkness and cupped her cheeks before I leaned in and kissed her.

“Mm?!”

A brief, surprised gasp was her only response to this surprise attack. I don’t know if our lips were guided together through the darkness by some kind of mysterious force or if I just had to praise my extra luck since I found hers without fumbling around, but I knew immediately that I must have used up all the luck I had left in me when she didn’t resist me. A tiny amount of strength returned to her arms and she reached up to grab hold of my shirt again.

Perhaps inspired by the anonymity of the darkness and the lust that had built up in me since coming to this world, I threw caution to the wind and moved my lips. My movements were unskilled, but I managed to part hers with my tongue and a heated breath escaped her, further fueling my desire. She accepted this and met mine with hers. Our lips danced together to the music of our every breath while I memorized the texture of her kiss. She tasted so sweet. I was immediately intoxicated. But in this cramped space, this was thankfully all I could do.

We continued on like that for what must have been only a minute or two, but could have easily been a few hours for all I cared. Our kiss only stopped when she no longer had the strength to hold her head up to meet mine. As if she had completely forgotten her need for oxygen after my assault, her lips slid away from mine and she drew in a sharp breath before collapsing onto me again.

That was as far as I could allow myself to go. Without seeing her reaction, without seeing if what I’d done made her hate me more, I couldn’t even fathom doing any more than that. That was already likely too much. I’d taken advantage of her weakness for my own pleasure. So, I bottled back up all the lust threatening to spill out and hugged her close. And we waited.

If she chose to reprimand me, to scold me, to hate me when all this was done with, then as her master, I’d give her that right. And as a man, I’d accept it.

“Master…”

“Y-Yea?”

“Can you use that ability again? The one that made the stone disappear?”

“I think so.”

“… Can you do it, please? I think we’re running out of air.”

“R-right.”

I supposed my actions earlier had cut us off from a constant supply of oxygen. A small price to pay for keeping us alive, but I guess all of Yua’s heavy breathing and the brief, but wonderful kiss we shared might have depleted most of what we had.

After a good long rest, Yua finally regained enough strength to stand on her own feet again. She apparently didn’t want to speak on what I’d done, or was at least saving it for when we had oxygen to spare. So, I left it alone. Still holding onto her due to the narrowness of the hole we were in, I put my hand behind me against the stone wall I was leaning on.

“Material Destruction.”

I spoke as clear as I could so that Yua would realize what I was doing and not get startled by the sudden movement.

The wall behind me disappeared instantly and became a hole large enough for us to walk through. With Yua holding my hand behind me, I continued destroying the stone in the direction of that little alcove she pointed out earlier.

Once the final layer of stone in our way was destroyed, we felt the cool air of the dungeon rush our sweaty bodies. There was no breeze down here, the sensation of coolness must have been caused by the temperature of our heated embrace mixing with that of the outside.

I helped Yua to sit down and sat next to her, still holding her hand. But only just barely. If she wanted to forget my earlier advances and continue shunning me, I wasn’t going to stop her.

But she didn’t let go. She curled her fingers around my hand and we rested there a bit longer in the darkness together. She seemed to be able to stand well enough, but the short walk to safety seemed to be all she could manage.

“Yua, can you see a passage we can use to get out of here?”

Still breathing a little heavily, she answered.

“Yes, but can’t Master just use that ability to get us out?”

Seeing that she wasn't going to mention what just happened, I tried to let it go too.

“No. At least… I don’t think I want to.”

She squeezed my hand out of what may have been concern, but I had my reasons.

As much as I enjoyed our kiss, I had to be proactive about our future. Not only was it probably not safe to assume that gravity in this world worked like it did in the game this ability was based on, which means it only worked half the time and that the stone above us might collapse right down onto our heads if I took too much of the supporting structure away. Plus, given my knowledge of gaming logic, I had a hunch that a passage hidden within a trap like this must surely lead to something good. Yua said it might have been a fail safe for the monster in case they triggered the trap, but seeing how thoroughly she beat them down, I doubted they’d be able to make it here before the trap crushed them.

Now that we were already here, we would be fools not to look. I explained as much, omitting direct mentions of video games and such, while she listened patiently.

“Alright then. If Master thinks there is something there, we should go.”

Feeling like her usual snarky tone did a complete one-eighty, I smiled.

“Could you lead the way, please? I’m blind as a bat down here.”

“Of course. I can’t see very well in the dark, but I can see much more than a human could.”

She let go of me and I felt her shift onto her hands and knees in front of me before she crawled over to the far side of the little alcove.

“Wait, if you’re tired, we can rest a bit longer.”

“I’m okay. I don’t think I’ll be much good in a fight just yet, but it’s not like I’m hurt.”

With that, she continued crawling away. I did my best to follow her. However, as I thought about doing so, her body suddenly gained a feint, white outline that detailed her body’s each and every curve as she continued to crawl in front of me. From the delicate strands of her hair to the tip of her tail that seemed reluctant to touch the ceiling of the passage we crawled.

Unsure if it was really her at first or just an illusion brought about by my own lust and the oxygen deprivation we might have suffered, I stopped moving and listened to her as a test. Her sounds matched her movements perfectly.

“Hey, Yua… Does the slave spell come with some kind of ability to track down the contracted slave?”

“I think so. Why?”

She answered easy enough, but kept on moving towards a goal that I still couldn’t see.

“Because I can see you. Or, an outline of you anyway. I can’t see anything else, but I can see you almost perfectly.”

She came to a stop so sudden that I would have collided with her backside had I not been able to see her outline and stop myself in time.

Slowly, she turned her head around to look at me, her pointed ears flexing against the narrow roof of the tunnel. Then she covered her butt with one of her hands. I could feel the embarrassment pouring off of her.

“I-I’m not looking.”

“Hmph.”

After realizing the position her going first had put her in, she quickened her pace. Not being as nimble as this cat-girl, I had to struggle just to keep up with her. Hoping that the vague sweetness she showed when stuck in the stone with me and the confidence I had when I went to save her weren’t gone, I did everything I could not to lose sight of her.

After a few minutes of crawling, I finally started to see the feint glow of a blue light that instantly reminded me of the street lamps I saw in the city. From there, I must have subconsciously noticed I didn’t need the magic effect showing me where Yua was, because her white outline vanished all on its own, replaced by the sight of her fully-formed body.

Yua slipped out of the crawl space and I followed her into a small stone room with a stair case leading upstairs somewhere else in the dungeon. Likely back up to the main floor, as I thought.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

More importantly, in the center of the room was a red treasure chest with neat gold trim just sitting there, waiting to be found, just like I thought. I couldn’t help but smile at my successful hunch and my impressive Luck stat.

“Wow,” Yua said, darting around the room, looking at the chest from every angle while her tail wagged about happily. “I never managed to find a chest myself, but you found one during your first visit to the dungeon. You must be really lucky.”

“Yea, I am,” I said, looking at her.

It was a bit hard to tell in a room filled with blue light, but I got the impression that she might have blushed. I really was lucky to have found her. For a multitude of reasons beyond her knowledge of this world and its workings.

“Erm… M-Master, maybe you should just open it already?”

She stepped away from the chest and gestured towards it with an open, as if the honor should be all mine despite her strength being the reason why we were even able to have this conversation. I smiled back, excited myself at the prospect, and did what she asked.

Unlike how one would think the point of a treasure chest would be to hold and protect something valuable, the one we found had no key hole to keep it locked up. The thing was nothing more than a glorified box without it, so I had to wonder why the dungeon chose to give it such an ornate design. At least it opened easily enough when I tilted the lid back.

At first, it looked like the box was empty, but upon closer inspection, I found a small silver ring resting inside, placed perfectly in its center. My mind went first to wondering whether or not silver jewelry was worth more than their weight in silver, since it looked only about as heavy as a single silver coin, but I noticed that it had what looked like a few tiny, rounded red gemstones about the size of fish eggs embedded into its band.

I guess that means gemstones are a thing in this world as well. Not too surprising, honestly.

When it came to RPG games, I always had the tendency to hoard all of the gemstones and jewelry I ever found instead of selling them. Just for the sake of collecting them. It would have helped me get through the games easier if I sell off my collection, but for some reason I could never force myself to do it. The sight of them piling up in my inventory was just too satisfying.

Although, I suppose this time I would have to give them up.

I cast Appraisal on the ring before touching it, still expecting a trap to show up since the chest was so easy to access and its info box appeared, annoyingly obscured by the light in the room.

[Silver Ring of Life Regeneration]

Wait, what?

I snatched it out of the box and held it out to the light before casting Appraisal again. The name “Silver Ring of Regeneration” popped up again. But how? If it did what I thought it would, finding something this good on the first floor made no sense to me. Its existence here was in and of itself a cheat code.

From what the name suggested, this ring, if worn, would slowly and automatically regenerate lost health the same way a potion would.

Although, maybe it’s just a weaker version of the enchantment and its regeneration effect was too slow to really be useful in a fight. But the Appraisal ability didn’t specify that its enchantment was a weak one or if it were strong. As this was the first enchanted item that I managed to get my hands on, I didn’t even know if there were weak and strong versions like with potions. There was no way to know if it was without trying.

I checked my own status, but I hadn’t lost any health in the fall into the pit or in fighting against the monsters, which was a serious surprise since that fall hurt like hell. Maybe the damage to my actual life force was just minimal enough to have already healed on its own. My ass did feel much better after taking that break. My combat classes might have helped me to subconsciously guide my fall so that I’d take the minimum amount of damage.

Yea. That made some sense. A fall like that should have easily broken an ankle or something, but I was effectively unharmed. And even Yua managed to jump right back to her feet to catch the ceiling after taking that same fall.

Speaking of, while I kind of hated the thought of using her to experiment with the item, I checked Yua’s status again now that I could see my menu and froze.

Because of how strenuous it was for her to hold up that huge stone, or maybe because of the initial impact it made against her when she caught it, Yua’s health had dropped to around twenty-percent of what its max value was. No wonder why she had such a hard time recovering. It wasn’t just an issue of strength or stamina. She really almost died. But in this dim blue light, she looked completely fine.

How the hell do health bars even work in this world?!

“Master? Did you get anything good?”

She tilted her head like nothing was wrong with her. Her cat ears even twitched curiously, like she really wanted to know what I found more than anything else in the world. I clutched the ring in my fist and stood up.

“Yua, hold out your hand like this, please.”

I held out my free hand with the palm facing the floor and, while confused by the weird request, she mimicked the pose. I took hold of her hand and held up the ring so she could see it and her eyebrows raised and looked surprised that I found something so pretty in a place like this, but she didn’t so much as blush at the potential misunderstanding of what my holding her hand while offering her a ring could imply. Since she didn’t react to the gesture with embarrassment, neither would I.

I slipped the ring over one of her fingers. At first, the ring was loose enough that it would have fallen off if she weren’t careful, but once it was on her finger and I let go, it shrank down into a more appropriate size to fit her all by itself. Supposing that it did this because it was enchanted to do so, I imagined that the armor the Bikini-Adventurer wore must have started off as something much less of a snug fit, given how it bit into her.

Yua looked at the ring curiously while I kept an eye on her status page.

Sure enough, her health bar was starting to refill, all thanks to the ring. Not just that, the speed that it recovered at was actually impressive. I couldn’t tell if that was just because her lower level came with a lower pool of health, but in only a matter of minutes, her health bar was full once more. I even noticed her skin clear up a bit, like it had somehow become bruised during all the fighting with the wolves without my noticing.

“Amazing...”

With something like this, we wouldn’t need to buy so many potions. In fact, if I could use Yua’s extra sensitive hearing to the fullest effect, we could head somewhere secluded after every battle and take turns using the ring to heal ourselves and save our potions for a real emergency. We were lucky so far to only fight weak enemies, but we probably wouldn’t be so lucky in the future.

This ring was a great find that would save us a lot of money in the future.

“Master, is something wrong? Did you want me to carry the ring for you? It’s not heavy, but…”

Yua, looking curious, her ears still twitching cutely, stared at the ring, then into my eyes, then back to the ring. I looked at the ring and realized that, in my haste to test it out, I had put it on her left ring finger. My cheeks were set aflame as I looked at it.

I was about to apologize and explain the misunderstanding, but Yua just continued to look at the ring with a confused curiosity. She was maiden-like enough to cover her fully clothed bottom in near complete darkness just because she knew I could see her, but she had no reaction at all to what anyone else might have seen as a marriage proposal? The only thing that would have made it look more like I was asking her to marry me would have been if I was on my knee holding it out to her in a little black box!

Is marriage even a thing in this world, or was she just more naive than she lets on?

“I…Uh. It’s an enchanted ring,” I said. “It regenerates the health of whoever wears it. You lost some health because of the trap, so I wanted to see if it could help you.”

“Eh, really? Did it?”

Yua looked to her arms, turning them over and then looked all over the rest her body for signs of injuries. Naturally, not only were her injuries possibly not visible to begin with, the ring had already cured her of them. So, she found nothing and her tail swished happily.

“Yes, you are at full health now.”

I answered, amused by how excited she looked, only to realize that I just unintentionally told her that I could see her health bar. If people couldn’t see one another’s level, then it went without saying that the same likely went for their health and other stats. I’d have to come up with an excuse for this.

“Really? That’s so amazing!”

However, she either didn’t notice or didn’t care. Maybe the slave contract usually grants the master access to such info to begin with?

“Hey, Master, do you think a ring with this effect would sell for a lot? Enchanted items are hard to find, so I think selling this might be a good idea.”

She slipped the ring off her finger, rejecting the proposal I didn’t mean to make, and handed it back to me. Since I was so caught off guard by the ring’s name and prospective uses it had for us, I hadn’t even thought to look at the price tag the info box showed. So, I cast Appraisal on it again and…

My jaw dropped and Yua tilted her head.

“It’s worth 30,000 gold!”

I yelled so hard that Yua had to cover her ears to avoid taking damage from the pitch of my voice. Once I calmed down, she let go of her ears and looked at the ring in my hand and nodded, putting an inquisitive finger to her chin.

“That makes sense.”

“I-It does?”

While such rings existed in the games I played in the past, their effects were usually so minor, mainly because they typically only worked outside of combat when you really needed them most, that they usually weren’t worth all that much compared to how much money you could make by just playing the game until you found something better. If anything, a ring like this would have just been treated as a placeholder until you got better equipment.

Although, thinking about it logically, this world was the real world. Prices of items in games are likely decided by the developers and corresponded to the players level so that they didn’t find something super overpowered early on, because they would just breeze through the game without taking the time to enjoy it. Not to mention what an item at this price could do to the in-game marketplace if sold. But here, where real people could easily die to monsters and wild life, something like this must truly be a godsend to the average Adventurer.

“Yes, Master,” Yua said, holding up a finger to explain.

At least this time she didn’t look annoyed to have to explain something she thought I probably should have already known.

“You see, enchanted items, like that woman’s armor from earlier, can be extremely powerful if made by a skilled Enchanter. The effect on this one seems pretty strong on its own, so even if it were made by someone that was unskilled, it would still be worth quite a lot of coin. And that’s not even mentioning the materials needed to make it. So, it’s only natural that it should come at a high price.”

Materials needed to make it? I wondered what those might be. Silver for the ring itself and whatever these gemstones were, were obvious requirements, but from my experience, and again, just gaming logic here, but you needed both the knowledge of the enchantment and some sort of catalyst to enchant an item. The catalyst was usually some sort of crystal and I had no idea where I’d get one. If there was even one to find. Nor would I have the knowledge of how to make use of it if I managed to get my hands on one.

While it would be risky, as in game doing so often caused the item to break, I might be able to study the ring somehow and figure out how the enchantment worked. If I could do that, I might even be able to apply the ring’s enchantment to something else we could keep with us at all times. We’d be able to keep ourselves safe and healthy while selling off duplicates for extra coin.

Thinking along those lines…

“Yua, do you know what’s needed to make enchanted equipment?”

She shook her head.

“Sorry, but I don’t. I’ve never met someone with the Enchanter class before.”

I sighed. There would be a dedicated class to the process. So, of course Yua wouldn’t know. Although, I suppose I should have expected this, since there was an Apothecary class.

“Then how did you know that woman’s armor was enchanted?”

“Because the first time I went to the dungeon, I met another woman wearing something similar and asked her about it. She’s the one that told me everything I told you. Armors that looked like that could only ever be enchanted, because they would otherwise be useless in a fight.”

That so…? Then why did you look at me like I was an idiot back then when you had to ask about it, too?

Keeping my annoyance at her double standards at bay, I chose not to comment. I’ll just have to find someone with the Enchanter class. Maybe I can just wonder around the city in my free time, scanning each and every person until I find one.

Or… maybe not. Given how my info box needed me to focus on something for a second or two before it told me what it knew, I bet I would come off as a huge creep if I went around just staring at people.

I put the ring back in my pouch and Yua tilted her head again. Why is a gesture of confusion so cute when she does it?

“Master, aren’t you going to wear the ring when we fight the boss?”

Fight the boss? After all of that, she still wants to fight? I mean, even if her health has been restored, she did almost die just now. Even if we were in a hurry, I’d say that definitely was a sign that we needed a good break.

“No,” I said, slipping the ring from my pouch into my item box to prevent accidentally dropping it. “When I used Appraisal, I found out that this ring alone is enough to pay off your contract. I don’t want to risk losing it.”

“Eh? Master can use Appraisal? I thought your classes were Adventurer and Swordsman.”

I froze before I could put the ring into my item box. What a time to slip up. As much as I liked her, I had no idea how Yua was at keeping secrets. But it was too late to back down now. Since only those with the Merchant class could use that ability, I successfully outed myself. So, there was no point in lying further.

“O-Obviously. How else did you think I figured out the price?”

“I thought you just knew and got really excited.”

She smiled cheerfully, her tail swished back and forth when she looked at me like an innocent little girl that realized she misunderstood and was expecting not to be called out for it.

What’s with these double standards?!

Her swishing tail suddenly stopped and she looked at me as though something important just occurred to her.

“But, Master, how can you use the Merchant’s ability when you aren’t a Merchant?”

Here we go.

“I am a Merchant, actually. Just not a very good one.”

I had no choice but to take a shot at my lack-luster performance during every transaction I’ve made today. Even when trading with Albert. That particular transaction went smoothly enough, but I might have been able to talk him into a better sale if I tried. Well, no. Probably not. Not after how things went with Madame Turquesse.

My admission only seemed to cause Yua further confusion.

“But it’s impossible to have more than two class,” she insisted, stamping her foot on the floor and furrowing her brow like she thought I was intentionally lying to her.

So, two truly was the limit? At least, it was the limit she knew of, but given how everyone else I’d seen so far only had two, she was probably right for the most part.

“I’m serious. I have more than two classes,” I answered truthfully. “I don’t know how or why, I’m able to get more.”

I deliberately left out the reason being because of the Goddess’ blessing. I still haven’t explained to her how I came to this world and didn’t want to pull the pin on that grenade just yet. Which meant what I could tell her was limited.

“You weren’t all that bothered when I used magic earlier. You know I have the Mage class too, right?”

“Well, duh. But that’s different. You’re a human. Any non-beast-kin with sufficient mana can learn magic. Same as anyone being able to learn swordsmanship, all it takes is the ability to hold a sword and lots of practice. But having both the Swordsman and Mage classes on top of the Adventurer and Merchant ones? Impossible. Once you get your second class, you can’t learn anymore. Ever.”

Is life here really that limited? You either stick with the class, and therefore the job, you were born into or get tied down to whatever the next one you happen to try is? Is there really no wiggle room to find something you actually like? Alphonse did mention people having hobbies whose classes could be transferred to their children, but if they didn’t actually have the associated class, didn’t that mean they would always be sup-par at whatever they were attempting no matter how hard they tried? That’s just depressing.

Yua looked at me dubiously and crossed her arms. I sighed and decided to try something to show her. I already screwed up, so I might as well try to show her I wasn’t lying.

I didn’t have any other valuables I could appraise that she couldn’t assume I already knew the price of. Nor could I appraise her or my clothes. Both were common enough outfits that even an idiot like myself could guess the price of. So, I had to look around.

Behind the chest, hanging from a crack in the brick wall, I found what looked like a hanging weed at first glance, but the name “Green Moss” popped up when I looked closer. I slipped my hand beneath it while Yua watched and, somehow knowing instinctually that it was best to extract it as close to the root as possible, pulled it out of the wall, ignoring the fact that moss shouldn’t have a root to begin with.

The lightly damp weed felt disgusting in my hand, so I quickly used Appraisal so I could discard it.

But when I did, the info box that appeared came with more detail than usual. Below the listed price of 5 coppers, I found a longer description that said,

[Green Moss: Moss found often in dungeons and areas with bodies of water surrounded by foliage. If combined with Living Slime Goo, an Apothecary can brew a batch of lesser health potions.]

Oh… So that’s why Living Slime Goo is able to heal you. It’s a potion ingredient. Cooking it into a potion must get rid of its poisonous effects.

“That doesn’t prove you can Appraise it,” Yua said, eyeing me suspiciously. “That just means you can say a random number while looking at it.”

“Maybe you’re right,” I said, remembering that only I could see the pop-up window. “But I think I just found something pretty good.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think I can use this moss to create health potions. At least, I believe that’s what my Apothecary class is telling me.”

Since the Merchant’s Appraisal ability typically only shared the item’s name and worth, I thought the extra details came from the Apothecary class I just got. Is that also how I knew how to extract it? It’s probably similar to the somewhat instinctual knowledge I had of fighting with a sword, despite never having wielded a real one before.

Yua lowered her eyes at me and tapped a finger on her bicep.

“Now you’re an Apothecary too?”

“Yes… Apparently.”

Why does it feel like I’m already losing any progress I made with her just now?

“Hmph. Fine then. Brew us up a potion later and I will believe you.”

“Well, if that’s all the proof you need…”

“Uh-uh, Master,” she said, wagging her finger. “Only real Apothecaries can actually brew a potion. Without the proper knowledge afforded to them only by the Apothecary class itself, there is no way you could make a successful potion. If you try to brew it without that, you’ll just end up with a batch of useless sludge.”

Again, with the return of a disrespectful intonation, she shared yet more knowledge of this world’s inner workings with me.

She huffed triumphantly, like she thought she won the argument, but I could clearly see the Apothecary class in my menu. So, I likely had nothing to worry about. I could probably prove her wrong at any time.

She continued to stare at me and I felt forced to give up and accept her challenge.

“Then I’ll just prove it to you later,” I said, stuffing the moss into my item box via the pouch on my belt. I already outed myself as having more than two classes, let’s not do the same with item box.

“We can talk about it later. For now, if you’re sure you can, let’s just go fight the boss.”

I started up the staircase at the side of the room while she continued to huff, but she grabbed my sleeve from out of nowhere as I passed in front of her.

“Wait, Master. I really think you should use the ring for the boss fight.”

“Why? You said you can handle it yourself, so with us fighting together, there should be no problem, right? I don’t want to risk of breaking or losing the ring.”

In the time we spent in the stone, my mana had fully regenerated. So, I would be free to cast my spells from a distance, but that didn’t mean the boss wouldn’t try to close the gap to come for me directly if I annoyed it enough. As long as any wound I sustained wasn’t instantly fatal, I was sure the ring could heal me, but I didn’t yet know if its enchantment was limited. If used too much, it could even break on me.

The instant solution to our money problems that this thing offered was worth taking the risk of getting hurt and relying on the potions we already had.

Yua’s brow furrowed and she pouted cutely when I turned her own confidence against her. She shook her head and tried again.

“That doesn’t matter! It’s still dangerous and you haven’t fought the boss yet. You shouldn’t be getting cocky just because we killed a few pups!”

She grabbed hold of my shirt, as if suddenly overwhelmed with the urge to wring the stupidity out of me, but I took her hand in mine and squeezed it lightly, instead of tearing it away and smiled at her. Her cheeks took on a slight shade of pink, probably remembering the kiss we shared in the darkness, but her glare was serious.

“I’m not getting cocky. This ring is simply too valuable. If I lose it, then I might as well be losing you. And I won’t let that happen!”

“Eh...?”

Her glare gone, her cheeks took on a deeper hue in the blue light of the room. She let go of me to look at her feet. Being as unused to dealing with such cute girls, or girls in general really, I wasn’t sure how to follow up on that. My inability to think up competent topics of conversation was getting the better of me again. I guess a little kiss wouldn’t be enough to change that. Because our levels were similar now, I don’t think the confidence trait was working properly just yet.

“L-Let’s go,” I said. “Depending on how we feel after the boss, we might have to call it a night.”

“O-Okay…”

She followed behind me and when I chanced a look at her over my shoulder, her head was hanging as if she had just been scolded. I decided right then and there I would make up all the trouble I’ve caused her by using some of what we earned tonight to let her pick out a pair of shoes. It might not be much, but anything would be better than forcing her to walk around barefoot all the time. And the ring would net us more money than we even needed.

Thanks to that, all we needed to focus on now was leveling up. And that meant clearing the boss.