The room was simple. Two simple wooden beds, a rickety wardrobe, a desk, and a wooden chamber pot. Norman’s back made a loud popping sound as he lay down on the bed. It was hard as rock, with a single off-colored sheet on top. Norman felt it was only marginally better than sleeping on the ground. The extra storage was nice, as was the feeling of a roof over his head, but the chamber pot stuck out like a sore thumb. It made him miss his bidet at home.
Pail was busy going through every corner of the room with amazement. He’d never seen such a fancy room before, and he felt like a king. He looked through the closet and under the beds to check for any hidden treasures. A small metal button was lodged between the bedframe and the wall, and it was quickly shoved into Pail’s pocket for safekeeping. Pail liked collecting things. In the woods, he had a sizable collection of fun shaped rocks and cool sticks, but this button was prettier than all of them.
Pretty didn’t feel much about their temporary home. They missed their burrow, where they lived with their fox mother, but they felt bitter at being abandoned. Pretty remembered their mother’s cold and animalistic eyes as she left them under that tree. They decided not to dwell on the past, curled up in a corner, and went to sleep.
“Alright. Now that we’re both safe and clean, I have a lot of questions I want to ask.” Norman told Savant through his thoughts. He preferred to speak out loud to keep his thoughts and words separate, but he would have to deal with it until the boy went to sleep.
[WHAT DO YOU WISH TO KNOW? AS A KNOWLEDGE SYSTEM, I CAN ANSWER ALMOST ALL OF YOUR QUESTIONS]
“Almost all of them? What can’t you answer?” Norman asked; it was an off-topic question, but it scratched his curiosity bone. His curiosity bone was located where his funny bone would be if he understood humor.
[I CANNOT ANSWER THINGS I DO NOT KNOW. WHAT SOMEONE IS DOING, WHAT SOMEONE IS THINKING, OR ANYTHING TO DO WITH DEATH AND BIRTH.]
That made sense. Savant seemed nigh omnipotent since it had the whole disembodied text thing going on, but it really was just a parasite who would easily die without him. “I see. Well, to start with, may I ask about how the currency system works in this world?”
Norman fished through the coin pouch and pulled out one large, medium, and small coin and lined them up on the bed. A thought about where the money from the exchange came from crossed his mind, but he pushed it away; dwelling on such things wouldn’t be productive. He looked at the coins in front of him and appreciated their design. They were all in different shades of blue. Norman wondered if they were dyed that way or if Silvae had a blue metal.
[LARGE COINS ARE WORTH 100 LAPIS, MEDIUM COINS ARE WORTH 10 LAPIS, SMALL COINS ARE WORTH 1 LAPIS.]
[A LARGE COIN CAN BUY A HORSE, A MEDIUM COIN CAN BUY A BOW, AND A SMALL COIN CAN BUY A LOAF OF BREAD. DOES THAT MAKE IT CLEAR?]
“Very much so. Thank you, Savant.” Norman was glad that it was an easy system to remember. Base 10 made the most sense for mental maths, making for easy calculations. He had worked in an office in base 7 when he was new to the job market, and he quickly quit afterward.
If it cost 100 Lapis to buy one horse, and he had 1085 Lapis, wouldn’t that make him relatively wealthy? He thanked his past self a second time for thinking ahead and carrying cash. If he had that much money, he had a lot of room to work with. He leaned against the bedframe as he began making a mental plan for the near future.
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According to the guard, the nearest village from here is Lugg, where he could get a collar for Pretty. There, he would have to either rent a carriage or walk to the nearest town, where he would leave Pretty and Pail at an orphanage if there was one. Those were good short-term plans, but he had no idea about the long-term. Maybe he could buy a small property in a large town and work at their bank or at a private trading company. Was that an okay thing to do? Savant told him to do whatever he wanted, but didn’t people summoned from another world usually have some cumbersome quest to do? Norman had been subconsciously waiting for some grand quest to appear, one he didn’t want to do.
“Could you tell me about MP and SP?” Norman asked, trying to get his mind off all the annoying things like grand adventures.
[MP IS GATHERED FROM THE AIR THROUGH MANA RECEPTROS OVER TIME. YOU CAN HOLD A MAXIMUM OF 3 FOR NOW. YOU WILL BE ABLE TO HOLD MORE AS YOU GET EXPOSED TO MORE MANA.]
So it is just replenished by doing nothing, then. Like a plant taking the sun using chlorophyll, the people in this world were taking in mana using mana receptors. An image of a person stuck in a flowerpot flashed in his mind, probably sent through his link with Savant. Norman couldn’t understand Savant; they were both alike, yet not alike at all. Norman was an only child, but he guessed that this was what having an older sibling felt like. All-knowing yet annoying, familiar but different.
[SP IS A STAT UNIQUE TO LAW MAGIC. YOU GET SPIRIT POINTS FOR EVERY LIFE YOU SAVE, DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY. YOU CAN USE YOUR SP TO LOWER AN ENEMY’S HP. ONE SP REMOVES ONE HP.]
Norman pushed the LIFE SWAP skill into one of his mental drawers for now. He doubted he would kill anyone soon nor save enough people to make the skill viable. Both EXCHANGE and GOLDEN EYE were fantastic skills for him, so the uselessness of LIFE SWAP didn’t sting very much. Maybe if he invented a new medicine and saved a million people, it would make him a god of death with the skill, or maybe not. Norman didn’t really care.
Pail gently tugged on the kind mister’s pant leg to get his attention. Mister seemed to be concentrating on something, and he didn’t want to be rude, but he also didn’t have the impulse control yet to wait. This mister promised not to beat him, so bothering him was probably fine.
“Mister, I’m hungry,” Pail admitted hesitantly while covering his head with his hands. He just now realized that the kind mister might not be a kind mister at all. The angry men pulled his hair and dragged him across the floor whenever he asked for food in the past, and now he was worried this mister would do the same.
The kind mister looked up with his usual blank expression. Pail could never get a read on what he was thinking or how he felt. It was a far better expression than the angry scowls or disgusted gazes from the adults he knew in the past, though. The kind mister had never once looked at him as if he was less than a person, and that made Pail happy.
“Hungry? Right. So am I. The innkeeper said they offer food here; hopefully, it’s better than the fish we ate yesterday.” The mister agreed without any emotion. He just stood up and headed towards the door, where he waved his hand for Pail to follow.
Pail felt immense relief when he knew he wasn’t going to be hit. He clenched the button in his pocket and quickly followed. He had to walk fast to keep up with the wide steps of the mister, but he didn’t mind. The comment about the fish puzzled him. What could possibly taste better than that? It was cooked and warm and the best thing Pail had ever tasted. The mister was probably a prince from somewhere if he had eaten better food than that before.
Pail and the mister were sat at a table in the biggest part of the inn. It was empty except for the two of them and the redheaded human girl. She made him a bit nervous, the way she talked was so loud, and she looked super strong. Pail wanted to pet Pretty for comfort, but they were left in the room. Pail rationalized that they were left there because foxes can’t sit in chairs.
After a few minutes, Pail was greeted by a hot bowl of soup in front of him. It reminded him of the cold gruel he used to eat before, but warm. Pail grinned when he saw the mister poke around in the bowl. “I knew ya were fibbin’, mister! Ain’t nothing better n’ that fish,” he thought as he shoved a spoonful into his mouth.
He was wrong; the mister didn’t fib at all. This was so much better than the fish. It was warm and filling, salty and flavorful. When he thought it couldn’t get better, he bit down on a chunk of dried meat. They must’ve given him a meal for nobles by mistake. There simply was no other explanation. Pail quickly shoveled the food into his mouth, guarding his food in case someone would come and steal it from him. He and the other kids usually had to fight for the cold and flavorless food when they were with the angry misters; Pail could only imagine that everyone in the world would fight for a meal as fine as this.
