Inside-Outside-In

Shay

Marlonn was definitely not what Shay had expected.

Neon. There is so much neon. What the hell is his medieval cyberpunk place I’ve found myself in? And the larger buildings have stone pillars like it’s ancient Greece or something.

The village Shay had spent three months in had looked like someone smushed fantasy and modern building design together. The small towns he had stopped in on the way here were only a little more advanced than that.

That’s not to say they were primitive, but there hadn’t been bright magic everywhere, constantly vying for his attention.

Every single store has a neon signboard, apparently. And some of them are even floating a bit and changing design intermittently like they’re animated. And then there’s a bunch of glowing window signs, too.

In a strange way, it was actually a little comforting to gaze upon this garishness. It felt like a few places on Earth he had visited before.

If a small village has washing machines and running water, what will a large city have?

He headed to an inn he had been recommended, trying to look a little less like an obvious tourist.

He booked a room and examined his wounds before heading back out. They were scabbed over and didn’t look very good, but they were healing. He had learned that just by having magic, people's natural healing would be faster, though only slightly. And he had the sub-skill on top of that.

It's still only one fourth as good as what someone with an actual Skill for it could do, though.

He had kept his [Mental] sub-skill as his main one to help get rid of the dysphoria faster, but otherwise put all his effort into casting healing spells on himself, which did help a bit. The healing sub-skill had gone up to 4.2% since he had first gotten those wounds.

He had gotten a bit of healing from one of the mercenary escorts, but had asked them to not heal it all the way, as he wanted to increase his own healing ability faster.

The escort had warned that the longer someone had an injury, the more difficult it would be to heal it. Eventually, it would become impossible, which usually took a couple weeks. With the current state of his wounds, it would only be a few more days before they were completely healed, assuming he kept casting spells on them. Otherwise, a bit longer.

Healing no longer being possible after a certain point meant that permanent injuries were still a very real possibility, but there was still a greater chance of them being completely taken care of before they became a problem.

Shay had also learned that if something happened, like permanently losing a limb, his stats would not be affected. Stats couldn’t be affected at all, but a permanent injury could have an effect on health or stamina. They might never go back to full again.

Not even reshaping could restore a lost limb. Apparently, the flow of mana in the body would become attuned to how it moved in the body without a limb, meaning it couldn’t be brought back, because the mana just wouldn’t go there anymore.

Another thing he learned was that he wouldn’t lose any stat points after being reshaped, which he was glad about. Magic somehow kept them intact.

It was normally impossible to increase a person’s stats with reshaping magic as well, but Elna had put a lot of work into creating his current body before he had stats at all. Basically, he cheated. His base Dexterity had probably been around the same as it had been on Earth, but his base Body stat had also only been around 8, not the ridiculous 14 it had become.

Seeing that he didn’t have to worry about the injuries, Shay left, leaving his pack behind.

 

———

 

Shay entered the Mercenary Center, which had many years ago been built near the gate he had entered the city through. This was so mercenaries wouldn't drag monster and human carcasses through the streets.

He entered the building just in time to witness a dead human body being loaded onto a levitating platform, where a worker then pushed it through a set of doors and out of view.

He could only gape at seeing a dead body for the first time, not counting the funerals he had been to in the past.

That was a real body. There were stab wounds all over. Whoever that guy was, he had been killed by another person. And no one here cares. It’s normal here.

He spent several minutes standing in an out-of-the-way corner of the room, resolving himself for this. He didn’t want to kill people, but it might happen.

No, it will happen if I join up. It’s just a matter of when.

He walked up to the counter before he could change his mind.

“What is it you need today?” the man behind the counter asked him. He had large eyes and feathers growing from his scalp amidst his hair.

“I want to join. I'll need training, too.”

“Understood,” he replied, getting out some sheets of paper. “Are you aware of your options?”

“There’s only full payment for the joining fee or putting myself in debt, right?”

“That’s correct. Should I explain the debt option?”

“Yes.” He had already heard most of the details elsewhere, but still wanted to confirm one last time anyway. He had asked around and researched beforehand, and had found that it wasn’t an organization that tried to shackle you for life with debt.

“The debt option requires a minimum of one mission completed per month, with the Center taking 5% off your payment for every mission. That’s on top of the 5% the Center already takes from the entire mission reward, not just your portion of it.
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“You can pay more than that to clear your debt sooner, of course, but if you miss a payment, 50 chifs¹Currency. will be added to your debt. If you fail to pay for three months in a row, you will be arrested and will have to work for the Center for three months. The work is not unreasonable, but you would not be allowed to leave the city during that time unless otherwise stated. You would also have to live here.
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“Most people pay off the debt in about a year if they only pay the minimum amount every time and only accept low-reward missions. Is this what you would like to do?”

Shay frowned at the thought of being in debt. One of the reasons he had avoided going to college was to avoid that very thing. He also just didn’t feel that it was necessary for himself. Still, he would have to do it here.

He had looked into what kind of work the Center asked of people who had been unable to pay off their debt, and had been relieved to find that it wasn't anything heinous.

“Yeah, I’ll take the debt option,” he confirmed.

The man slid a sheet of paper in front of him. It restated the rules and had several blank areas for him to fill out.

Among them were questions about his age, fighting ability, Skill, level, why he wanted to join, as well as space to write any personal requests. They weren’t guaranteed to be fulfilled, but the Center might be able to help out anyone who signed up with something specific in mind that they wanted.

He had been worried about giving out information about his Skill when he had first arrived in this world, but that proved to be a non-issue. People would find out one way or another, so few bothered to hide it. What they usually kept private were the inner workings of the Skill, assuming they weren’t known about already.

My age? I haven’t really thought about it, but I currently look about 20 years old, which is the same as my actual age.

Elna had looked to be around the same, but her level was high enough that her age had reverted back to that appearance and physical condition. It was no longer possible for her to die of old age.

It’s weird as hell that that can happen.

Not even the capabilities of flesh magic can undo the effects of aging on the body. Reacquiring youth is entirely up to the person themselves and if they can get their level high enough for it to happen.

In the section for personal requests, he wrote, “Space magic training. I have a sub-skill for it, and I need to improve.”

There was a section at the end for anything about himself that he would like to add.

He wrote, “I’m from another world, just arrived four months ago. I’ll probably need a lot of help with general knowledge and common sense. I’ve already done what I can in that regard, but four months isn’t a lot of time to learn everything, especially since I’m still learning Tiirve, too. My world had no magic, either, so that’s also new to me.”

The man read through everything and didn’t seem fazed by that reveal at the very bottom of the page or anything else he had written.

“Looks like you’re going to be doing a lot of studying in addition to training,” he finally commented.

“I figured. Will that be a problem?”

“No. Many people come to us without any formal education.”

Looking through everything one last time, he got up and said, “Please excuse me. I have to check something for a moment.”

A couple minutes later, he came back and explained, “What I was checking was how long it would potentially take you to learn how to teleport back to your world.”

Shay dryly commented, “In other words, if I would skip out on my debt or not.”

“Precisely. Assuming you have plenty of time to practice space magic, you can expect several months at the soonest, though that is a generous estimate. I’d say half a year minimum.

“’Half a year’…” he repeated, feeling like his legs were about to give out.

“I understand that that is a long time, but please keep in mind that few people from other worlds ever make it back home. Space mages of this world can’t teleport to worlds they haven’t visited, and having space magic is rare enough as it is. The fact that you have the chance to return at all is quite fortuitous.”

“Yeah…”

Half a year might be a bit slow for a space mage to learn how to teleport, but that’s still a ridiculous thing to even be able to do, right?

After an awkward minute where the man allowed Shay to process the information, he asked, “Is there anything else you need right now?”

Bringing his thoughts back to his current situation, he said, “Uh, there are dorms right?”

“Yes. You are not required to stay in one, but many do, if only because it’s free for trainees.”

“I’ll do that, then.”

“Understood, I’ll get you a key once we’re done here.”

“That soon? Ugh, I just wasted money on an inn.”

“I can’t do anything about that. Your first training session will be…” he checked a calendar. “In two days at 8, training room 2.”

Days in this world had 25 hours in them. Shay was unsure if the hours were the exact same length as Earth’s, but they did feel a little shorter.

And unlike the clocks he was used to, rather than twelve numbers, they had five. If it was an analog clock and not a magical one that just displayed the numbers, it would have two hands; one that made one full revolution every hour, and another that moved a single tick every five hours.

Shay left the Mercenary Center with another key in his pocket and made his way back to the inn to return the first one he had gotten today. He asked if he could get a refund since it had only been an hour since he checked in, and he got most of his money back. He was glad for that, as his funds were limited.

He left to instead buy some new clothes with the money. He needed something durable that he didn’t mind getting filthy during the training.

 

———

 

Cara

Cara arrived in training room two and found two people already waiting, sitting on a bench along the back wall. One was a stout man with silver scales and a gem in his forehead, and the other was a tall and buff woman.

I saw her the other day. She was freaking out over seeing a body.

Cara sat next to the woman. “I saw your little freak-out a couple days ago. Never seen a body before?”

The woman stared at her. “No, actually.”

She scoffed. “And you signed up to be a mercenary?”

“Circumstances pushed me into this situation.”

“Have you ever even killed a monster before?”

“Yes, I have.”

“Guess you’re not completely hopeless, then.”

The room went silent for a minute.

Cara decided to pester the woman again. “Hey, how’d you get so buff?”

“I killed a man.”

“What? Oh, that’s a joke. I don’t get it.”

“Maybe I’ll explain it if you’re less of a pest.”

“Nah, don’t bother. I’m not interested. Hey, I don’t recognize your accent. Where are you from? The Gortrand Plains?”

Does she even know where that is?

She thunked her head against the wall behind her. “I don’t feel like talking about it right now.”

“Ohh, why’s that? Were you exiled or something?”

The man in the room who had been quiet until now spoke up. “Leave her alone.”

“Why? I’m just getting to know her. We’re all assigned to the same team, right?”

The silver-scaled man just looked at her in irritation.

Cara grinned and was going to say something else when two more people walked through the door, a man with glowing eyes and a woman who had eyes like a snake’s. A long, forked tongue flicked out of her mouth as she gazed around the room.

The man asked, “You’re our teammates?”

The woman next to Cara replied with a simple, “Yep.”

Cara asked the newcomers, “How do you two know each other? Did you sign up together? Are you a couple?”

The snakelike woman corrected, “We only met outside the door just now.”

Despite Cara’s best efforts to annoy everyone, they all refused to speak. Even Shay, who had been talking earlier.

Usually, someone would’ve already flung magic my way by now. I guess they win.

They sat in silence until the door opened again, another woman walking through. She looked subtly sparkly.

The final one to arrive looked at everyone in confusion. “Huh? There are already five people here. Is one of you our trainer?”

Cara’s hand shot up. “Yup! That’s me!”

Everyone groaned except for the new girl, who was just confused.