“We need to try a different way!”

It was early morning, and Noviel and Awa had breakfast in the inn. Noviel glanced unhappily around. There were some 10 other guests in the dining room, and several were looking now and then at them. Especially at Awa. She was not happy with that, but what could she do?

There were two reasons why that was bothering her. First, because she was afraid they would recognize Ayra. And second... well, even if she and Ayra looked very much alike, well, previous to Ayra's transformation into Awa, Ayra was the one that was attracting views. And even now, after her transformation into Awa, she was still very much glanced about. More than herself.

Noviel sighed. Actually, she was not interested in those glances, but to be compared with Awa and lose? That nerved.

Awa continued to eat happily, unaware of all the fuss. She raised her head and looked inquiring at Noviel.

“What do you mean?”

“You are levelling too slowly.”

“Leveling?”

Noviel grinned, realizing she was using phrases she had learned from Spartacius in the short time they've been together. She explained:

“You need to become a veteran by tomorrow.”

“A veteran? But? Even...”

Awa halted. She had almost spoken about the camp. There they've said she would need at least three years to become a veteran. A fox, how they called it. Noviel understood what she wanted to say and shook her head.

“We need to train harder, and for that, we'll need to take some risks.” - she cleaned the last pieces on her plate - ”As soon as you finish, go into the room and study. I'll get to the guild, check for quests and come back. Try to get something done by then. Don't lose time.”

“But...”

Awa looked at Noviel and sighed. Nobody can learn a spell in a day? That was an absurd request. You needed months or even years just to unlock your spell power. She did not even know what kind of mage she would become as she did not understand her affinities. But talking about these in the inn's dining room was maybe not a good idea. She lowered her head and nodded.

Soon she was back in her room looking at the book. She opened it again at the first page that she had not been able to pass yet. The book started with about twenty pages that described various exercises to unlock your affinities, but each one needed to be analyzed and understood. It was not simple! If she at least would have somebody to ask! After another hour of staring at the first page and trying to complete the first exercise, she started to panic. Noviel would be soon back and ask her if she had made some progress.

She flipped through many pages until she found something that caught her attention. Something about fire mage. Yes, she probably had fire affinity. She always liked to stare into the fire. She looked further at the spell description, then at the spell itself. The text of the spell itself was strange. You had to look under a certain angle to see the word: fire. But if you shifted your head a little, you saw the fire burning. She focused on the page, trying to understand. She could no longer discern the letters. There was only fire there. She tried to look again to get the letters, but it was only fire. Fascinating fire.

“AWA!”

Scared by the scream, she jumped, turning towards the door. A shocked Noviel was standing there. For a couple of moments, they looked at each other, and then Awa asked:

“What?”

A confused Noviel entered the room and closed the door behind her.

“You were burning, there was fire all over you, but now it is gone.”

She was looking carefully at Awa and her clothes. She sighed, relieved:

“OK, it seems it was a harmless illusion. Well done, at least you spelt something!”

“It was...”

Awa wanted to protest that it was not an illusion... but what was it? She had not even realized the flames in the air around her.

“Sorry for screaming at you. There is a better quest, a pack of wolves has moved into the area with the destroyed farms. We need to chase them.”

“A pack of wolves?” Awa's wide round eyes turned to Noviel. She cannot be serious!

Noviel shrugged and grinned:

“We need to try something harder than those slimes in the sewer, and besides, they do not smell so bad.”

She was looking confident, dismissing the wolves. She must know something.

It turned into a disaster.

They found a lone wolf, and Noviel shot an arrow at it. The arrow struck; however, the wolf did not flee but turned and decided to attack. It did not attack Noviel but jumped directly at Awa, who tried to fend it off with her staff. It was a wood staff about two meters long, a so-called acolyte's staff that Noviel had in her inventory, too long and too heavy for Awa. The wolf avoided the baton and bit her hands repeatedly. Awa tried to fight it, and the wolf bit her ankle, bringing her down.

Noviel was too afraid to shoot not to hit Awa. She decided to drop her bow and jumped with a dagger at the wolf.

Awa screamed in horror as the wolf teared up her right foot. She did conjure a small fire on her hands that deterred the wolf for a couple of seconds. Probably that saved her life. Noviel attacked the wolf screaming furiously. The wolf turned to bite her, but she offered it her left hand whilst she opened its belly with the dagger.

She screamed again in pain as the wolf tried to break her hand whilst she stabbed at its heart. The wolf fell to the ground.

She remained with the head low, panting over the dead beast with Awa sobbing behind her. She had to use the dagger to free her left hand from the dead wolf, still hanging on it.

She poured some drops of the precious healing potion over her hand and then over Awa's hands and foot.

They have fought a wolf level thirteen. A lone wolf. A pack would have devoured them in two minutes.

Noviel sighed and stood up.

She helped the crying Awa to stand on her feet. As Awa was sobbing and blabbering, Noviel decided to turn back towards the town.

“I don't want... I don't want...”

Noviel tried to soothe her.

“Sssssh. It's alright. Let's go..." - before any other wolf comes - but she did not say that aloud - "It was my error. I should have accepted the offer from that guy...”

Awa, who was almost freaking out, raised her head:

“Offer?”

“There was a warrior in the adventurer's guild who wanted to partner with me. He would attract the wolf's ire, and I could kill them with arrows.”

“That does not sound stupid? Could he stand in front of a wolf?”

“Yeah, he had steel armour. It was stupid of me to try it like this. I underestimated this wolf. Maybe I do not understand how levels work. Come, I have an idea.”

“An Idea?”

Awa was starting to fear Noviel's ideas.

“There is a place where you can buy scrolls to learn skills.”

“Skills from scrolls? Just like that?”

“Aha” - Noviel nodded - “Let's see if we can find something for you.”

She looked at Awa. After the fight with the wolf, she had been so shocked and afraid that Noviel feared Awa would refuse to fight further. Trying to kill now another wolf would have been certainly too much for her. If she had a spell that she could cast from a distance and the wolf would be pinned by somebody else, that could work.

As they entered the shop, the undead girl smiled, greeting Noviel happily, then seeing Awa, she froze.

She sighed and whispered:

“You're crazy!”

She had said that very softly, but Noviel still heard it. She raised a brow looking at Anabella.

“Why do you say that?”

Anabella asked with a half-smile:

“Are you here to cash the reward?”

A confused Awa looked at Anabella:

“The reward? We killed only one wolf?” - she turned to Noviel - “Did you take the ears?”

Noviel sighed:

“No, I forgot.”

Anabella rolled her eyes:

“No, I was speaking of these ears.”

She placed her hand on Awa's head. Noviel watched her alarmed whilst Awa put her hand over Anabella's and protested, then exclaimed, surprised:

“Hey... Your hand is so cold?”

A rictus ran over Noviel's face. She explained whilst watching Awa intensively:

“She is an undead.”

She expected a violent reaction from Awa, but nothing like this happened. The republic was much more tolerant towards other races, even undead, and Ayra was raised in a border town where many players of various races passed through.

Meanwhile, Anabella watched Noviel, unsure:

“You do not know where you are, isn't it?”

Noviel hesitated. Maybe the idea to come here was a mistake. She thought the disguise was good enough, but Anabella had seen through it from the very beginning. Well, she had bought the ears here, but she hoped the undead girl would not prove to be that knowledgeable. How could she know about the reward? Was she reading the wanted posters? Was she not a sales clerk? How could she make the connections so fast? Besides, there was no such poster about Ayra at the adventurers' guild; what was that girl, Elise talking about?

Noviel used her new skill on Anabella. Undead priest, level eighteen.

“You're a priest?”

Anabella gasped, surprised:

“You did learn that assassin's skill yourself? You're crazier than I thought!”

Meanwhile, Awa looked thrilled, utterly unaware of the danger she was in:

“I haven't met an undead for years! We had undead customers before, but now they do not come here anymore. Why? You are so cool!”

Noviel, so tense about the situation, the many questions in her head almost exploded seeing Awa so unconcerned and using stupid Spartacius expressions:

“Stop using Spartacius' expressions! You met him only once!”

“Why should I stop using them? You use them too!”

Anabella looked at the two girls and wondered:

“Who is Spartacius?”

Noviel could not abstain anymore:

“Her crush!”

Awa turned suddenly completely red:

“It's not true! He saved me!” - she turned towards Anabella - “He is Cala's son!”

“Why do you say it's not true?”

Anabella watched the children for another moment. She sighed, then spoke:

“Look, your false ears are not good enough. One is already half damaged, and besides, they are too easily recognizable as false.”

Noviel turned to her with a red face:

“Recognizable as false? You did not say that yesterday! They still look perfect?”

Anabella sighed:

“Every trick can be recognized as a trick; the question is how hard and who is checking it.” - she now shrugged - ”What did you expect for two silver? A perfect disguise? As a priest, I can see that there is no life in them; it is as simple as that; they are only two leather bits glued to her ears.”

The two girls watched her, surprised.

“Look, I can propose you something. I can provide you two ears that will be alive, nobody will be able to tell they do not belong to you, but for this, you'll have to take me out and spend every evening with me in a tavern for as long as you stay here. Do we have a deal?”

Noviel asked fast:

“Who pays for what you eat?”

Anabella rolled her eyes:

“Actually, I wanted to pay for my bill, but now I think you will pay!”

“Not more than one silver per evening!”

“Two, and we have a deal!”

“Deal, if the ears are as good as you say!”

“They are.”

Awa put her hands at her ears.

“Do you have something to remove these? They are pretty well glued to my ears?”

Anabella answered with a naughty smile:

“Doesn't matter, honey, I will need anyhow to cut your ears.”

Awa stepped back, outraged.

“Cut my ears?”

Anabella shrugged:

“It's the only way it works. You get real ears from an elf. I'll heal them.”

“Is this possible?”

Anabella grinned:

“Yes, if you are an undead priest.”

As Awa was sitting on a chair whilst Anabella was doing her bloody operation, she asked:

“Why are you so keen to get with us out?”

Anabella shrugged:

“I do not get many chances to get into town. I invite an assa... guy from here from time to time, but most do not know about me, and the ones who know would not like to be seen in my company. They fear that if I'm caught someday, that would have bad repercussions on them. You know that the guards don't like undead people here, so I spend most of my days in this building.”

Awa answered, shocked:

“Oh no! That's horrible!”

“It's not that horrible!”

“Yes, it is horrible!”

Noviel tried to reason with Awa:

“But she is an undead!?”

“Imagine being confined all the time to one building. It is as bad as... as being a slave! Almost as bad! Let's get out!”

“Wait, we wanted to find a scroll for you!”

“Oh, true!”

As the 'operation' was finished, Anabella healed her once again, and Awa's ears twitched. Awa put her hands on her ears. Noviel exclaimed, surprised:

“Your ears twitched!”

“Really? I thought I felt something.” - she turned to Anabella - “How comes? I could never twitch my ears?”

Anabella shrugged.

“I told you, you get real ears. Probably the healing and the new ears helped your muscles.”

Anabella removed the rag Noviel used to catch Awa's blood, and the two started to talk about scrolls.

Awa listened to them for a while, then, getting bored, started to look at the scrolls. The problem was that Noviel and Anabella were talking about levels and money. It seemed that almost all scrolls that Anabella had here requested higher levels.

Awa took a scroll in her hand.

Spelling with your eyes.

That was an interesting scroll? There was some text below, but most of it was hidden. She unfolded it to read it.

All these scrolls had one short straight part. The straight part was the short description. The folded part was the scroll itself, and unfolding it executed the scroll.

A light enveloped Awa.

Both Noviel and Anabella screamed at the same time:

“Nooo!”

They jumped at her, but it was too late.

“What did she do? What spell was this?”

“Another assassin's scroll. Shit, this is for those who cannot spell at all.”

“What do you mean?”

“Assassin is a special class; they do not have their own mana; they use the ambient mana. At higher levels, they can accumulate it. This scroll was a helper scroll for those who need it, to enable them to spell.”

“Expensive?”

“Not very, only four gold.”

“Fuck! That's not expensive?”

“What do you want? Most scrolls here are over twenty. Do you have the money?”

“Yes, but I am running low”, - Noviel sighed - “why is she not moving?”

“It is so after reading a scroll. She needs some time, depending on her level. She is low level. What level is she exactly?”

“Two”

“Oh...”

Noviel identified Awa and exclaimed, surprised:

“Not true. She is level three now. Maybe that wolf that we killed? Mage level three says my skill. She is a mage!?”

“That's an assassin skill that you use.”

“Why do you keep saying that?”

“Because skills are per class. You should not mix them; it is very dangerous!”

Noviel shrugged:

“You keep saying that. We live in dangerous times.”

Anabella sighed.

Awa's eyes turned red. She started to move. A worried Noviel asked her:

“How do you feel?”

Awa shrugged.

“I feel OK. Did anything happen?”

Anabella spoke plainly:

“Your eyes are red. I've never seen this happening before.”

“Oh no! Oh no! Spartacius liked my blue eyes!”

There was an explosion of laughter in the small shop.

“Why do you laugh?”

Noviel sighed:

“That's all that bothers you? You don't have any other problem? I guess he will like your red eyes even more.”

“Do you think so?”

“I'm sure.”

Awa searched for a mirror to look at her red eyes whilst the two looked at each other.