Spade stared blankly at the menu before him. There were pictures of the dishes in the goddamn store window, why the fuck weren't there any on the menu? The large trunks of the living tree the restaurant was built into had multiple signs that he couldn’t read, but were probably the daily specials. He glanced at Joyce, who was intently staring down the menu.

"What do you want to get?" Spade asked. Maybe she had finally unlocked translation skills.

Joyce set down her menu with all the dignity of a general surrendering his arms. "The server's recommendation."

Spade nodded back somberly. "A good choice. I'll be having the chef's special."

The two nodded at each other in pathetic silence while trying to feel a little better about themselves until a waitress approached their table.

"Hello, what can I get you guys today?" the waitress asked cheerfully.

"What's your recommendation?" Joyce asked. The waitress smiled.

"Oh, anything on the menu's good, our chef's amazing!" she replied. Joyce blinked, before nodding sagely. She shot a glance at Spade, signaling it was his turn up.

"Alright then, what's the chef's special?" Spade asked. "His best dish?"

"Anything on the first page, the second page was added more recently so he's had less time with the recipes," the waitress said. Spade stared at her. Was it that hard to narrow it down a bit? There were about 60 dishes on the first page. He mildly regretted choosing this store. He glanced back at Joyce. The ball was in her park now.

"Tell me your favorite then, I'm having a hard time choosing," Joyce said. Spade gave her a mental thumbs up.

"Oh, don't be afraid, just choose the one that draws your eye the most!" The waitress looked at Joyce with genuine excitement in her eyes.

"Couldn't you just...recommend a dish?" Joyce asked.

The waitress’ reply was cut off by the magic communication device loudly making a beeping noise. Joyce retrieved the rather hefty orb from where it was stretching the limits of her coat pocket, staring blankly as it flashed red. The waitress winced as the other customers glanced over in annoyance. Spade reached over and smacked it like it was a bald man’s head, and the device stopped beeping. Spade leaned in to listen as it played a voice message before nodding in pretend regret.

“We’re so sorry, but we just received an urgent notice from work, we’ll swing by next time we’re around,” Spade said, looking at the waitress with his best regretful expression.

“You know how it is with giant serpents and all,” Joyce added unhelpfully over her shoulder as she followed Spade out the door. Having left the orb on the table, Joyce hurriedly ran back to grab it before exiting again.

//////

The giant serpent slithered over the river basin. Coiled and asleep, it was the size of a mountain and looked like one too. Moss covered its grey scales, and it had all the weight and profound stillness of a mountain. It was a lot less still now, and despite its weight, it was fast as hell.

Spade propelled himself through the air, gracefully avoiding the Giant Serpent’s fangs as the monster reared its thirty-meter tall head. Using his qi to hover high out of its reach, Spade twirled his sword and shot forward, piercing through the rock-hard scales of the serpent to plunge the blade straight into its heart. He slashed diagonally, bisecting the serpent. Standing amidst the torrent of blood that crashed down, Spade realized he might have under-estimated how much the top half of the serpent weighed.

“Oh shit. Joyce, could you get that?” Spade said nervously. The enormous head hit the ground without so much as a thud, cushioned by Joyce’s magic. The raised tail of the serpent, however, dropped into the river with a resounding splash and the concerning sound of crumbling riverbanks.

“The river!” The Imperial Mages that had come along for supervision/surveillance teleported over with their guards in tow, their white robes flapping in a flurry of motion as they began casting spells for damage control.

“I’ve got it,” Joyce called out. “Seriously, I’ve got it.”

Joyce began to spontaneously reconstruct the destroyed riverway using the Master of Waterways skill, which was exactly what it sounded like. It allowed the user to instantly reconfigure waterways to their desired effect. Though Joyce knew nothing about waterways and the like, the skill hinged entirely on "desired effect" and not willful construction. Joyce's desired effect was that the destroyed riverbed was fixed properly, so the skill simply made that happen.

"Thanks," Spade said, offering her a fistbump. He had overestimated how hard the Giant Serpent's scales were and ended up slicing through the riverbed as well. They tapped fists lightly.

"No worries, I literally didn't have to do anything," Joyce said cheerfully. The Imperial Mages that the emperor had sent to support them nearly turned green with envy at her casual words. The 15th-tier magic skill Joyce had used was far beyond any of their abilities or potential, and they would likely live their entire lives without ever coming any closer to unlocking that skill. Joyce didn't notice their reactions but thankfully didn't mention she had unlocked the skill by accident after waking up from a nap to find that the pipes had burst.

While most mages could only unlock up to ten skills, with two hundred being the record number (though the record holder proceeded to combust right after), Joyce could unlock an infinite number of skills. And unlock she did. Joyce made a hobby out of unlocking new skills just for fun. It was fast (for her), free (mostly), and tended to be pretty useful. In fact, the Celestial Cartographer skill that allowed her to map the paths between dimensions was Spade's only hope for getting back to his homeworld. For some reason though, the one skill she couldn’t unlock was a translation skill. It wasn’t the worst thing that could happen, but it sure made signing contracts a pain.

"Well, there's that," Spade said, turning towards the Mages and soldiers. "We're done here."

The Captain of the guards gave him a salute, thumping a closed fist over his heart and turning eyes of admiration and gratitude towards them.

"We thank the great swordsman and mage for their service to this empire and its people!" The captain shouted. Spade tried not to grimace at the volume. They were seven feet apart, for god's sake. The words of gratitude were then echoed by the other soldiers in unison, also at a loud volume. Spade smiled gingerly and nodded.

“To think you would throw yourself at such a monster and refuse compensation! I am deeply touched by the depths of your benevolence!” The captain wiped away the tears welling up in his eyes.

“I refuse-what are you talking about?! I did no such thing,” Spade said sharply.

“Please don’t be so humble, great sir and lady! We witnessed you sign away the commission fee to charity with our own eyes!”

Spade whirled to share a look with Joyce. Now that he thought about it, there had been a page in the contract that looked different from the rest, but Spade had thought it was just a fucking receipt. A slow sense of icy horror filled his heart. There had been a money symbol, so he wrote the amount he’d been promised…and then they’d signed it.

“Shit, I guess I did,” Spade whispered.

“Yeah?!” Joyce hissed at him. Spade cleared his throat nervously and looked away.

“Great swordsman, is something wrong?” One of the mages asked quizzically.

“No. We’re done here. Nice working with you guys,” Spade hurriedly said.

“Oh we are done,” Joyce said. “Peace out.”

In the blink of an eye, she’d teleported them to the privacy of a forest.

“We signed it all away to charity?” Joyce asked, an edge in her voice.

“We did.”

Joyce shook her head sadly. "What a waste of a well-paid job," she bemoaned. "Goddamnit. I wanted to roll in a giant pile of gold coins! Why is my life like this???!!!"

Spade sighed. He jingled their coin purse. It wasn't very heavy at all. The thought of the chests overflowing with gold coins back at the Emperor's palace left a bad taste in his mouth. Hopefully, they would have better luck in the next world they traveled to.