“How’s that for an equivalent exchange?”
The butcher oozed confidence when he put forward his terms as if that poor lass was in his bag as a slave. Agatha wanted to slap the wretched teen in front of her. He was bartering with Ari while treating her as a form of goods.
“What makes you think that I have this issue, Eren?”
Ari didn’t want to believe the words coming from a teen’s mouth but his statements didn’t sound too absurd to her. The potioneer had already told her about the possibility of side effects. Maybe this slowly increasing incompatibility was part of that side effect.
But she still had to confirm her doubts. She couldn’t just blindly trust Eren on his speculations.
Eren gave her a detailed account of what he had observed. Of course, he twisted some logic and mixed truths with conjectures. But when he was done answering the question, everyone who was witness to that answer believed him.
“Alright, Eren. You have a deal. If what you say is true and I’m indeed diagnosed with the issue you talk about, then you can take that lass as your legal slave. But I want compensation of 40K Extols in case your predictions become invalid.
Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
Eren didn’t have a reason to say no to Ari’s request. He even would have accepted the deal of 100K Extols had she claimed it.
It was not like he was guessing her ailment. So he didn’t have to pay a dime to her anyway when she finds out what he said to be real.
“Alright. Guards, take our prisoners to their cells. And close the city gates. It’s about time we go inside.
Let’s go Marla and company, the city administration has booked rooms for you at the Lamb Arms. I’ll take you there myself.”
Ari took Eren’s team to the inn they were supposed to be staying in. Eren and Steve were exhausted by the long travels while Almera looked tired. Only Marla went outside with Ari for some drinks after they dropped the rest at the inn with the weird name.
Eren was delivered food to his room and realized why the inn was called the Lamb Arms Inn. The Inn had served him lamb stew, roasted lamb leg, and lamb ragu for his dinner.
Eren had ordered plenty of food for two. The other serving was of course for Reen. She had kept quiet during the whole journey like Eren had asked her to do. It was about time to treat her to some lamb meat for her patience.
Reen separated herself from Eren and manifested into a gorgeous beauty with curvy features. She had learned to eat human food now.
She still preferred to eat her meat raw by turning it into a soluble inside her ball of slime. But over the weeks she had learned to eat human food in a humanly way. Eren was leaving no stone unturned to educate her about urban etiquettes.
“Are you going to let me have that girl for food, Eren? I can feel that she is different from normal humans. Can’t wait to digest her whole. Hehe!”
Reen said while picking a roasted lamb reg and taking a huge bite from it. Eren mirthlessly smiled before shaking his head:
“I’m not going to have a legal slave just so that you can eat her, Reen. She’ll be very useful for my experiments. But that is for the future.
Right now I want to use her for information gathering. I’ll also ask Jack to accommodate her into his shop so that she can help us run a seamless business.”
Eren said this and stopped to take a bite out of lamb ragu. He liked the flavour of the dish. It was enough to tell him that the Lamb Arms Inn was not something an ordinary adventurer or traveller could afford.
At least the city administration of the Silvermoon was not as thrifty as that of Osan’s. Eren thought to himself before being interrupted by Reen’s next words:
“I know how and why businesses are run from your memories. But I still don’t understand why humans run these businesses. If they want to eat, they can just hunt and have food right?
Why earn money when you can secure your food more directly?”
Reen threw another question at Eren which he didn’t have an answer to. He knew she was just rambling but decided to clear some of her doubts:
“Reen, humans see a way past food and daily necessities. That can be our boon or bane depending upon how we make use of such vision.
For example, human rankers need ranking techniques and spells to become a step above normal humans. And for humans to get them, they need to earn money and resources.
Without the money to support them, I don’t think many rankers can progress further in their journey. And we get these techniques and spells for free either.
Humans are more vicious than beasts in that some of them would start killing their own kind if these techniques are readily available to them.”
Eren took a spoonful of lamb stew in his mouth after saying that. He thought that he had solved Reen’s doubts but was soon proven wrong:
“Hmm? Buy the techniques you say? But why do you buy these techniques? Don’t you have your own?
And the very first human who became a ranker. How did they start their ranking journey when they didn’t have any techniques or spells?”
“Well…”
Eren wanted to answer Reen’s questions but was soon frozen to silence. He had never really thought about why humans and other races like humans needed techniques and spell formations when the mana beasts didn’t.
Can humans enter or breakthrough into the ranking levels without any technique involved? Can they cast spells without ever learning about them?
Suddenly Eren thought of the cultists. These heretics were pursuing long lost paths of magic that differed from today’s practices. They were often unconventional and made little sense.
But maybe there was more to these lost paths than met the eyes. Eren started replaying his fight with the cultist in his mind and recalled how Agatha transformed in front of him.
“Reen, you witnessed Agatha’s beastly transformation spell with my senses. How did it differ from the normal spell?”
Eren asked his demon beast while looking earnestly at her. Reen put what remained of the roasted lamb leg down on her plate and thought about it for a while before replying to her master’s question:
“Hmm! Should we still call something a spell when it stops being a spell?”
Reen looked at Eren innocently. But she didn’t understand why Eren dropped the fork from his hand at her statement.
“When a spell stops being a spell…”
Eren mumbled to himself as loads of thoughts started swirling inside his head.