7 - Flax

"My name is Ma Jabyoa. My people come from a land of mountains and a vast desert, northwest from here, across the sea that segregates this kingdom."

I tried mouthing her name to myself, finding it quite difficult. She clearly noticed my struggle.

"Maja is fine too."

Thank goodness.

She smiled politely at me and continued. We learned that people with animal features are more common across the seas, and when she arrived here she had to endeavor for acceptance. She was a talented healer, which she proved to us earlier, but the church ostracized her for constantly trying to use her talents on monsters.

"I believe not all monsters are evil, and I want to help anyone who comes to me, no matter their shape or size."

Praise the Mother Maja!

It seems recently she had healed a wounded Sori, a scorpion like creature with a fake human face on its tail. By any account you'd think it was a youkai from my world. The church didn't appreciate this as the Sori went on to destroy their provisional shed.

"None of the traditional heal spells work on monsters, but I've developed a new spell based on the incantation for healing animals that seems to work. It certainly takes it out of me though so I suppose it needs some fine tuning... I'm so deeply glad it worked on your Spirit Partner too."

You and me both.

"Are you able to tell us what was wrong with him?"

"It's hard to say. He was definitely exhausted, and his MP was entirely depleted. Please excuse my saying so but you may have pushed him too much in a recent battle. You need to be more careful, even with a Spirit."

Kana interjected, but I was already blaming myself and my stomach was in knots.

"We haven't fought anything in two days though, he seemed fine until we arrived here."

Maja looked pensive, and told us her theory.

"It may very well be that your Spirit partner needs to rest and regain strength for a long period of time after using up all of its MP. Part of the incantation I used today is from the spell I use on large animals after they give birth."

The church often sent Maja on requests to heal farm animals, so she had extensively researched and refined her spells. 

"Also... Apologies for my intrusive question, but can you use Heal as well? I noticed a similar effect of recoil I often see in new healers. Sometimes they unconsciously take the pain onto themselves when they care for the person they're healing."

I felt my eyes well up and Maja didn't press any further. 

I asked for more details about Heal. She reconfirmed it takes a tremendous amount of MP, especially for people who aren't a Healer class, and is often quite exhausting for any user when used repeatedly, despite their level or skill. She was delighted to hear about the old woman from Kana's village, who was apparently rather famous amongst healers. Using Great Heal so casually like she did takes decades of training, and Maja expressed a desire to meet her someday.

All I could think of was that Toast must have been using Heal over and over on all my small scratches after stopping the bleeding in my stomach. He didn't understand the difference or how much energy he was using. And to make matters worse we barely rested after that. We just pushed to get to the city as fast as possible because we were excited. I hated myself.

I'll never let anything like that happen to you again. 

I glanced over and saw Kana staring at me with concern. I pushed down my anger at myself and tried to regulate my feelings.

Maja picked up on the tonal shift and changed the subject.

"Now that the church has kicked me out, I'm not sure what to do with myself."

There was another short silence as none of us really had any idea of what to do with ourselves.

"Marketable skills."

Kana and Maja looked at me utterly confused. I expanded on my thought.

"What are we all the best at? Where I'm from people can make good money just doing something they're good at. I'm sure its the same case here."

Kana joined in with a bit of contention.

"Of course it's like that here, but the three of us have different talents. We wouldn't be able to find anywhere that would hire all three of us for such different abilities."

"And the church has disgraced me, I'd just tarnish the reputation of anywhere that employed me."

I scanned my memories for anything that might be helpful to our situation. I leaned back on my chair and all of the sudden I was on my back looking at the ceiling. A chair leg had popped off and given me our great money making scheme. I addressed the room from my position on the floor.

"Ladies! I need you to go into town and see if there are any storefronts to rent. It doesn't have to be big, just cheap! As cheap as you can find!"

Kana leaned over me.

"But we don't have any money Mitsuta!"

"That's okay for now, just find out how much it is to rent the cheapest space, and I'll have a plan worked out by the time you get back."

"Okay..."

The girls hesitantly left the room. I was eager to get to work but first I was going to address the poo pile and Toast's status. I hadn't stopped thinking about his skill points and the Moroza mystery.

Toast was still snoring on the bed, and after hearing everything Maja had to say I wanted to let him rest, so I started opening item boxes. As I suspected it was Sagi meat and an occasional horn or wing. The math confirmed the Sagi dropped one item each.

The ones that piqued my suspicions however were the Moroza items. There were 3 Moroza horns, and 2 Moroza wings. That didn't add up. Toast had left 4 'Sagi' untouched before using his Sonic Bark. That meant the lone Sagi that attacked Kana was also a Moroza.

"Common monster indeed."

Then I came to a realization. Toast hadn't attacked any of the Moroza Sagi right away. He attacked the one that stabbed me, and his Sonic Bark had taken out the lot by coincidence. But what about the Moroza Jika? Was it because he felt my fear? Because it reached out?

In any case, Toast can tell  Moroza apart from other monsters. I don't know what good that is yet but it might be a handy skill.

Letting that train of thought rest for now, I moved on to Toast's status. I ran my hand down his body, tip to tail, feeling the phantom pain of seeing him so weak before, and knowing now that it was my fault.

His screen popped up and I shook off my feelings for the moment, and started my investigation. First up was heal, and how he got the SP for it. The only math that made sense was that Moroza were worth 2 skill points, regardless of the shape they take. Sagi probably weren't worth any, as Kana had mentioned they're some of the weakest monsters out there.

Can Toast spend his own skill points? Did he do that to save me?

I leaned down to give him a kiss on the head and whisper my thanks.

Checking around in his status screen I saw his health was at full, likely thanks to Maja, and his strength, speed, defense and MP had all remained the same. Either the Sagi were too weak to increase anything for a level 99 individual, or his stats were maxed. The dialogue box from earlier that had explained skill points had mentioned a MAX level, but I don't know if it was the same as 99. 

Moving on from his stats, he had 0 spendable skill points again. It would have been nice to expand his skill set with the plan I had, but since I don't have any control over what he can use anyways, it didn't matter too much. Then I saw it.

 I couldn't believe what I saw. An mind blowing earth-shattering skill had unlocked on the skill tree. If I'd had a drink I'd have spit it out.

>Telepathy
>Cost: 50SP

Could that mean what I think it does? Could I actually truly be able to talk to my dog? Are you kidding me? For real?

I'd discovered something potentially amazing, and knew I needed to get started on my plan before the girls returned.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Kana and Maja returned to the room as dusk was setting in. Toast had woken up since then and was back to his playful self, though he was giving me attitude in the form of huffs and little "aroos" for not giving him 100% of my attention. This was his current way of communicating with me and his array of "awa awa"s and "arr"s were quiet sassy.

I was just trying to scribble some final notes on a paper I'd borrowed from the desk in the room. Kana scolded me for neglecting the poor thing after his awful experience. 

I played with you for the last 3 hours, since the moment you woke up! And I fed you and showered you with kisses and belly rubs! Traitor!

Kana took her turn cuddling with him as Maja looked on in awe, still believing him to be a Spirit. We told Maja she could pet him too if she wanted but she politely declined, saying it wouldn't be proper. Kana put Toast down on the bed and he made himself comfortable, heaving a big sigh.

"So did you find anything in the city?"

They looked at each other and grimaced. Maja spoke with a hint of shame in her voice.

"Everything in the city centre would be a fool's dream."

"There was one place... but it's in the outskirts in the north."

Why do they look so uncomfortable?

"It's really quite small, I'm not sure if it's what you're looking for..."

Kana slapped her hands to her reddening face.

"I can't say it!"

"What is it? If it's cheap enough there's not much I can't overlook."

They peeked at each other again and Kana meekly spilled their secret from behind her hands.

"It's right next to a brot-!" 

Dance club. She said dance club.

WONDERFUL. Ahem.

She buried her face into the bed and Toast came to investigate, pawing at her hair. Maja stared at the wall and refused to make eye contact with me, but her tall rounded ears were a shade of pink they hadn't been a moment ago. I cleared my throat.

"Well, it can't be helped if the price is right. It may only be temporary anyways if things take off for us."

Kana kept her face buried and spoke in a muffled voice. I think she said;

"What do you need the space for?"

"We just need it to operate out of. We're going to be... part timers!"