CHAPTER 17

It just dawned on me: where exactly is Bread Village?

I’m walking in an area that was once sealed off by a Keyward Stone. My floating words point me here. Is the village actually inside the sealed area? If that’s the case, then isn’t the floating words point to a place that most Adventurers can’t go?

Wait a minute. What if—besides sealing Contractuary and cults—Bread Village’s existence was meant to block Adventurers from going anywhere? They’ll be killed by Nostrazeus. If they live, they’ll go to the energy wall, stuck, go back. Their floating words won’t tell them to go anywhere else because they don’t know what exist in this world. If they try to go anywhere else, the floating words will still points to the Bread Village unless they can survive to be near a suitable destination that can replace that village. That can be amended by having a better floating words, but that’s beyond anyone’s ability to do. Everything is based on a dice roll. Class is a dice roll. Subclass too. Even my origin from World Number 1 is practically a dice roll. How can anyone survive if they have no education and say about what they would want to be?

Salty Ray stops walking. Then Timothy. Wanda too. They can finally see it. Contractuary. Or what’s left of it. The television is gone. The stump stands out as a reminder that it had fought against slavery.

Everyone else seems to be checking the details of Contractuary using their floating words. Salty Ray seems to be vaguely impressed. Timothy is the most interested with what he received. I thought that Wanda would be surprised, but she’s indifferent. Now is the moment to see who I can trust.

“What do you think of Contractuary?” I ask.

“It has a nice history.” says Salty Ra. Not dangerous.

Timothy grins. Dangerous.

“Meh,” says Wanda. Not dangerous.

Okay then. My problem would be Timothy right now. There’s no telling what he asked his floating words, but my best hope right now is Wanda’s floating words. I pull Wanda aside.

“Can you help me a bit?” I ask.

“What is it?”

“What do you think Timothy think of Contractuary.”

“I don’t know. Why?”

“I’m just curious.”

Okay. So first, Wanda’s floating words or ability doesn’t allow her to read minds. Otherwise, she would’ve known why I asked her. The best answer that I can come up with is that she can know someone’s life before they came here.

Second, Timothy is a Wizard. Wizard is known to have a lot of spells. Even Timothy himself experimented his own spell on himself. I don’t know how exactly spells work in this world, but I think that he wants to experiment contract spells. What worries me is that he might want to control us in the future. Should I stop him?

No. If I did, then everyone else would target me later. Even so, it might be useful for us if he can use it on the enemies. I decided to put him in this team, so I have to trust him for now. But if he ever made any weird move, off with his head.

Oh no! It’s almost dusk!

“Timothy,” I say, “can you make a makeshift house for us?”

Timothy raises his shoulder. “Sure.”

He makes four stone walls. Then, a horizontal stone wall as our roof. I hope that this is enough to shelter us for one night.

“What’s the emergency?” asks Salty Ray.

“Ask your Detail Check.”

Salty Ray seems worried. Timothy is interested. Wanda is scared.

“What if I need to pee?” asks Salty Ray.

That’s… actually a good question. I was alone last night so I don’t have to care about it. But now? With three other strangers?

“No worries,” says Timothy. “We’ll forgot about everything that would happen anyway.”

“We will still have to deal with the filth in the mornin’,” says Salty Ray.

“Let’s take a leak one last time,” I say.

With that word, Timothy cancels one of the stone walls. Everyone takes care of their private business away from each other.

The next thing I know, I wake up in an enclosed space made of stone. Salty Ray and Timothy are sleeping. Wanda is snoring beside me while holding my hand. I feel tired. There is a pool of water near my face. I don’t think that I slept. I think that I cried the whole night. Why? I must’ve quite a conversation with Wanda. The men might hear it too since the space isn’t really that big. What were we talking about?

Timothy wakes up. The moment he sees me, he tenses up. What is his deal?

“Zanna, I’m sure that you don’t remember it, but my condolences for what happened to you.”

“Did… something happened?”

“I see that your Detail Check can’t see too much into my subclass. I can actually remember what happened during the night.”

“Did… something bad happened?”

“I promise that I’ll electrocute him if I see him.”

“I said that? About my stalker?”

“Kind of.”

“You have your own backstory? It’s not fair that only you know mine.”

“Kind of. Before the airport incident, I was supposed to bring a teenager to the police station. She was a robber. As I got out, the teen was shot. The perpetrator was waiting in the police station. He ran away. My partner was so distraught that he quit the workforce and became a private investigator. He joined a cult to find the perpetrator. He succeeded. He shot him. To this day, I have no idea what went on the head of these two people. What’s more surprising is that I remain the same. That is, until I’m here.”

“Do you think that the shooter is in this world?”

“I have no idea. That aside. I can give you one spell. Is there any spell that you would like to have? I wanted to offer it to you last night but you won’t remember about it. Now is the time for it.”

“What do you have?”

“What I can cast freely: electric, stone wall, and summon a mouth. The rest, I don’t know yet. My Detail Check won’t give me a full list. I have to discover it by reading a written note about magic. Can be scroll, tome, grimoire, and so on.”

“Your Detail Check is terrible too?”

“It sucks a lot. It doesn’t even tell me the name of the spells. Just vague description of what it does.”

“Let’s see. I can make solid steam, so I don’t need stone wall. Electric is good for fighting. If we have electricity around here, that’ll be useful. Summoning a mouth is useful in niche situation. Electric sounds good.”

“Before I give it to you, we have to see how it interacts with your metal arms. Some spells are just finicky.”

“Fair enough.”

Timothy zaps my metal arm. The electric moves straight to my heart.

“That’s a terribly compatibility,” says Timothy.

“At least give me a warning first!”

“I did warn you.”

“That’s not warning! You should’ve said “Prepare yourself” then let me be shocked on my own terms!”

“You said “Fair enough” so it should be fine.”

“That’s not enough!”

“Since we’re done with electric, is there any spell that you would like to learn? Stone wall? Summon a mouth?”

“I think I’ll wait. If we ever found a cool spell, then maybe I’ll consider it.”

“Fair enough.”

“And make sure that I give you double or triple confirmation first before giving it to me!”

“Whatever you say.”

Wanda wakes up. Her head is spinning.

“Speaking of spell,” says Timothy, “I haven’t offered her any.”

“Oh yeah,” I say, “I also forgot to tell her that some Detail Check can find the user’s items.”

“You already did last night.”

“Really?”

“At least I can remember it. You should tell her again. She should be able to sense it.”

“Good money,” says Wanda.

“Good morning to you too,” says Timothy.

Salty Ray wakes up with a growling stomach.

“Let’s eat seafood,” I say.