I took my lesson. I kept my food and water supply in my “Keeper”. Keeper is a dimensional storage that has unlimited space. Every time I took something, the space in my hand will be distorted so that my hand could reach it.

I spent the whole evening buy a new food and water supply. Of course, with Erfia as my guide. Now, the night has come and I rest in the Inn. This room is not too bad. A single bed, a desk, a shower, and a window. Through the windows you can see the night star and some drunk people walking on the road.

“Um, mister, may I ask what can I do for you?”

I look back at Erfia who’s standing in the door.

“What are you doing there? I need you in this room, not outside.”

Erfia steps inside in a very slow motion. I can see her foot is shaking.

Darn, I can’t take it. She’s too slow. I walk toward the door and close it while I grab her and put her on the bed.

She’s not moving at all on the bed. She closes her eyes so tight.

Did I just make a wrong impression? Could be.

I take my mana storage ring in my right middle finger. With her eyes is being closed, how can I give this ring to her?

“Hey, Erfia, open your eyes. I need you to open your eyes.”

She’s slowly opening her eyes. As she opens it, she should see the ring is hanging from my hand in front of her.

“Mister? What is this?”

“I need you to fill the mana inside the ring. I’ll be taking shower while you’re on it.”

I drop my ring right into her hand and then go to the shower. Damn man, people these days easily get wrong ideas about things. But, it’s not really my concern though. I take a shower for about a quarter hour and get out. Erfia is still closing her eyes with something is glowing out of her clasping hand. I guess it is my ring in her hand so I’ll let her be.

I walk toward the windows and open it to let some fresh air to enter. But, I’m not doing it as I look at some drunk people are fighting each other on the alley.

Now, what should I do? Normally it would take about an hour to fill that mana storage ring. Another thirty minutes. As I think about what to do, my stomach is grumbling.

I walk toward the door and get out of the room. I lock the room from the outside to prevent any person breaking in. I walk downstairs, back to the bar.

“Get me some food and a beer.” I shout when I sit on the high chair.

The current chair that I used is different from the one I used in the afternoon. The desk and the chair that I used in the afternoon are lower as it designed for group or a lot of food. But the high chair that I’m using right now is facing right to the waiter behind the desk. It is designed for a light meal and a drink.

“So, how’s the little girl? Is she good enough?”

The big woman from the afternoon comes and serves my dish. Rice with some salad and a fried big lizard tail is ready with a glass of beer.

“She’s good. Where did you find her?”

I start to eat my food while trying to maintain the conversation.

“I bought her few months ago from a slave trader just for a couple hundreds of gold coin. Just a second rate gold though, unlike yours.”

“Insufficient workers?”

“Yes, something like that. I need a cheap worker, and it seems because she’s a half elf and half beast man it makes her cheap.”

I look in the kitchen and around the bar then stuff my mouth again, “Say, I see you have a lot of workers and all of them are human. Nobody likes her right?”

“Yes, nobody likes her. But I don’t care about it. I just need her to do dirty works like cleaning the vomit of some guest, washing the big long-legged lizard, or something like that.”

So, that’s how it is. I empty my food and starting to drink my beer. “I need another set of dish sent to my room right now. Change the beer with some milk. Just put it in front of the door. I’ll be taking it inside.”

“So, it seems you like that little girl. How about you buy it for a hundred of your shiny gold coins”?

“I’ll think about it. I’ll be back to my room for now.”

The mana filling process should have done. I leave the bar and walk upstairs. As I reach my room, I see the food is already served in front of my door. I open the door and bring the food inside.

“Ah, mister, welcome back. I’ve filled the ring with mana.” Erfia is coming to me with my ring in her hand.

“Thank you. Close the door, please.”

I walk and put the dish in the desk while Erfia close the door.

“Have a meal. I’ll try the ring.”

Erfia says nothing and takes her meal. Could it be she’s scared? It seems it is not that easy to change one’s perspective. I’m afraid it will become worse by tonight. I’ll worry about it later.

I put my ring back on my middle finger and start to enchant some simple spell.

~By the will of wind and the earth, let these touches the greatness of your might. As I say, speed of wind~

Enchanting a simple magic won’t give you any big stress over your body. So, it is understandable if I can’t feel any change in my body. But don’t get it wrong, a well-trained body and knowledge of the science can change everything.

“I’ll be back in a moment.”

I open the windows and jump right out of it. In one jump, I can see those small people on this small place. This is definitely my favorite spell. The spell to lessen air and earth friction toward anything around me. This spell consumes fewer mana than speed increasing spell. But of course, it’s harder to control because without the right knowledge of the science behind it, you could slide through everything until you hit a wall.

By decreasing the air and ground friction at my will, I jump normally at the beginning but I instantly remove air friction so I can jump about 30 meters. But, jumping at that height could kill me the moment I land, so I always land on an angle. By the time I land, I decrease the land friction. So, instead of the land killing me, without the friction I just slide through the land and slowly increase the friction to make me stop.

Now I’m already standing at the outside of the village. It should be coming at any moment right now. As I wait, the land suddenly shakes and a pair of jaws are trying to eat me from my right and my left side. I jump back as far as I could and watch the jaw has been closed tight. The monster has finally appeared on the surface. A gigantic blue snake with four legs. It destroys everything in its way.

I jump back a few times to return to my room.

“Mister, what’s happening?”

“No time to explain, I’ll tell you later.”

I grab Erfia and run as fast as I can toward the bar. Everybody is panicking over the gigantic snake outside.

“Hey, mam, I’ll buy this little girl.” I put my hand in the Keeper and take a pouch of pure shiny gold. “Catch this.”

“Glad to do business with you.”

As the big woman catch that pouch, I can see a magic contract in a form of thread connects me and Erfia. That big woman smiles and runs in a hurry. She runs outside where the gigantic snake is rampaging. I pull my hand and the pouch flies off her hand.

Being distracted by the flying pouch, she doesn’t realize the snake is coming at this place. The snake eats her, and I get my 100 pure shiny gold back.

I take Erfia in my left hand while changing the pouch with a piece of shield in my right hand from the Keeper. I Jump toward the outside by breaking the glass on my shield and put Erfia down. Then, I move the shield from my right hand to my left hand. The space in my right hand is distorted and a big egg at the size of my head is already at my hand.

The snake rampages as it sees the thing it's been looking for. I throw the egg toward the snake, and it jumps to retrieve it. While its busy retrieving its egg, I hit it as hard as I can with my shield.

~clang~

This shield is not a normal shield. Anything it touches lose its weight. By doing this I can easily bounce the gigantic snake and then remove the air and land friction of the snake for a period. I bounce the snake until I can’t see it any more.

A silent moment come right after I bounce the snake out of sight. Fortunately, nobody saw me toss that egg. Except for Erfia. I look at her and see her sight is empty. Her jaw is dropped to the point you can see her throat.

“Well, Erfia. You got two choices now. Come with me or become another person slave.”