NOVEL WEB Volume 1 Chapter 22
The moment we were back in our room and away from the prying eyes of all other living beings, I fell onto the bed, now exhausted for another reason entirely. Even though she should have been apprehensive now more than ever given what happened while we washed, Yua quietly closed the door and, obeying the past order I meant for her own benefit, she climbed up onto the bed a short distance away from me to avoid sitting on the floor.
She didn’t say anything for a while. Wondering if she was upset with me, and every prolonged second of silence between us was making it harder to tell myself that she wasn’t, I chanced a peek at her. What I saw was her blushing cheeks as she looked down, not to her feet, not to the floor, but at me. Directly at me. The moment our eyes met, my heart panged and signaled my eyes to retreat to fight another day. Naturally, I made sure to lay on the bed facing down to avoid any further unwanted guests from rising up on the off chance my mind fell back on the sight of her covering herself with that tiny towel, but this effort must not have been enough for her.
I may not have seen all of her, in fact, I really hadn’t seen anything that would have been censored on public television, but I had essentially seen Yua naked. That incident only came to pass because she warned me exactly like I asked her to. But it was mainly because I was so lost in thought that I hadn’t been cognizant enough to have heard her repeated warnings, prompting her to move closer to get my attention.
If I had known that the person she heard coming was a woman, I would have worried more about myself. Then again, I suppose I didn’t specify men when I gave her the order to hide herself.
“Master… Who was that woman?”
Breaking the silence by asking the question I knew was coming, but still hoped wouldn’t, Yua finally met my eyes. Her cheeks were still flushed as she twiddled her thumbs. Without another word, for anymore would have been too painful, she awaited my response.
“Uh, her? Well… she’s just a random slave I happened to run into outside yesterday.”
“You ran into her… outside? Back there?”
“Y-Yea,” I said and I had no reason to lie. That woman more or less said the same thing. “B-But nothing happened!”
Yua’s cat ears perked up at my sudden shout and she bit her lip. She looked away, contemplating something with a roll of her chin and let the silence steal our voices again for a minute or two before looking back.
“I understand. Master was washing himself when that woman just happened to come out to do the same, right?”
“Right!”
That was exactly what happened, but… why does it feel like I’m being interrogated?
“I-I sorry for looking at her…”
Deciding to preemptively apologize before she really got mad, I put my hands together to pray for her forgiveness. Her eyes widened at the sight of her master making such a pleading gesture in front of her. Shocked enough to gasp, she waved her hands dismissively.
“Wha… Master doesn’t need to apologize for that. I don’t mind at all. It’s just…”
She doesn’t mind? How? Did I just imagine her glaring at the back of my head?
“Th-Then is it because I asked you not to let anyone else see you naked?”
“No... I am happy to obey Master’s orders.”
“Th-Then was it because I saw you… Naked?”
“N-No.”
Yua pinched her knees together, as if trying to strangle her own hands as she pressed them between her thighs. She bit her lip again. Her eyes started to wonder all over my body, lingering here and there for reasons I couldn’t so much as guess at. Her face flushed a deeper shade of pink when her eyes stopped moving. Just when my brain was about a half-second away from registering which part of me she was looking at so intently, I reflexively opened my mouth.
“Wait, then you aren’t mad I saw you? I-I mean, I really didn’t see much because of the towel and all, but…Sorry.”
Yua’s cheeks darkened again, but she shook her head.
“N-No. I am Master’s slave. I-I am not scared of Master looking at my body. It’s just…”
Yua put a tentative hand to her chest, as if to slow her heart beat, but it was me that needed to about a heart attack right now. Those were some dangerous words to a guy like me.
“Then why did you…”
A knock at the door interrupted our conversation before I could finish. Probably seeing it as a chance to avoid my next question, Yua shot out of bed. Making decent use of her elevated Speed stat, she made it to the door quite literally in the blink of an eye. Well, I’m sure if my brain had been running at full capacity, it wouldn’t have seemed so fast, but my Memorization trait was playing all sorts of dirty tricks on me every time I my eyes lingered on her.
After a moment to compose herself that lasted longer than her trip to the door, Yua pulled it open and greeted the our surprise guest as politely as possible. The innkeeper sneered openly at Yua, then to me as she stood there, holding a tray with two plates of piping hot food as well as two cups of tea that she no doubt wanted to be rid of.
When her sneer returned to Yua and the poor girl forced a smile, I got the feeling that she may have misunderstood something between us. She was no doubt close enough to notice Yua’s flushed cheeks and could easily see that I was sitting on the bed, just as flustered.
“Oh. So, you’re here this time,” she said, choosing to avoid the topic herself. “Guess the food was plenty cold by the time you got back yesterday, wasn’t it?”
She practically shoved the tray into Yua’s arms before thumping her hands onto her hips to increase the reprimanding effect of the glare she aimed at the both of us. It was as if we’d wronged her by letting her cooking get cold before eating it.
“Sorry about that,” I said, happy myself to have the conversation changed. “We were in the dungeon and sort of lost track of time.”
She scoffed and waved me off.
“I don’t care. You already paid for the meal anyway. Once more, dear guest, here is the two meals you ordered. When you are done, leave the dishes in the hall and they will be collected later.”
After showing that her disdain for me had not faded in the slightest, the innkeeper once more flicked her eyes between us, scoffed and left the room.
“What was all that about,” I asked as soon as the door was closed and I was sure that the sound-muffling enchantment of the room was in effect.
The flush that had been brightening her face quickly disappeared and her ears flattened themselves against her head, though she tried to keep up the already clearly forced smile she’d been wearing since answering the door. She stared down at the plates of food without any of the longing she’d showed before our late dinner yesterday, even though she had to be at least as hungry as she was then.
“Master, I told you that slaves don’t eat the same food as their masters, right?”
Ah. That nonsense again.
“Yes. And like I said, I’ll be giving you real food from now on. So, don’t worry about that.”
“… Master really is too kind. It’s not that I am worried about it. The innkeeper knows that I am your slave, so she looks down on me. Thanks to your kindness, instead of giving me gruel, she had to cook this nice meal for someone she thinks doesn’t deserve it.”
Yua was torn between smiling in the face of the hot meal waiting for her to dig in and the sadness of being hated for no other reason than simply existing as she was. That was something I understood a little too well from my life on Earth. I got off the bed and took the tray from her.
“You do deserve it, Yua. I don’t care what anyone else says or thinks. That woman and people that think like her are just hateful. Don’t let her get to you. I say you are fine to eat what you please. If she doesn’t like that, then she can go jump off a bridge. You worked hard today. You deserve a good meal to build back up that impressive strength of yours.”
She sniffled a bit, but the side of her that wanted to enjoy her meal started to win out and a little more honesty weaved itself back into the smile still on her lips.
“I can’t tell you to forget everything you’ve been taught about being a slave, but what I can tell you is that I won’t allow you to be treated the way she wants me to treat you.”
“Master is too kind…”
“And why shouldn’t I be? If being nice is all it takes to make you smile, then I want to be nice,” I patted the top of her head to reassure her. Something my old self never could have done. “Come on, it’s time to relax now. Let’s eat before it gets cold.”
Nodding, now with a smile brighter than the magic candle that lit the room, Yua sat down on the floor to eat, likely assuming I meant to make a repeat of last night. Once she was good and settled, I handed her portion and sat down beside her, feeling all the more heated by the fact that she didn’t so much as flinch when I did, but I chose to pretend the hot tea I gulped down was the one responsible.
The meal wasn’t anything special. Not any more than last night’s was, anyways. The unknowable meat was still bland without any seasonings to jazz it up, but Yua chewed every bite of it as thoroughly as though she somehow thought she’d get back at the innkeeper by enjoying every second of it. She even went so far as to carefully examine each bite she cut off with her knife before taking it into her mouth. And, if I were being honest, from the looks of her, had I not been present, she would have licked the leftover fat and grease off the plate were I not there.
Fuck that bitch of an innkeeper. This smile is worth every copper I put into this meal.
Once we had cleaned our plates, Yua got up to take the now empty dishes out into the hall while I stuffed what was left of the bread we couldn’t eat into my item box. When she came back in, holding onto her stomach like she was truly satisfied, I smirked and pat the floor where she sat next to me. Without so much as a question as to why I was calling for her to sit down again, she happily returned to my side.
“That was really tasty, Master,” she said with a small bow that left her chestnut hair to dangle over her shoulder. “Thank you for letting me have some.”
“Oh, don’t thank me yet. You see, while I was at the bakery, I got us something else.”
Her cat ears perked up, but not before her eyebrows did the same. I saw her cute little nostrils flaring slightly, repeatedly, like she was trying to sniff out my secret. Instead of joking around and letting her search for the thing that might as well be hiding in another dimension, I flipped over the bread basket to use it as a miniature table, hovered my hand over it and called upon my item box.
Along with the usual purple miasma effect my item box insisted upon, a white and yellow slice of cake fell out onto the basket, where it gave a spongey bounce before settling into place. I didn’t yet know how my item box handled food, so I wrapped the thing in a napkin for safe keeping. Though, while letting the food repeatedly touch the miasma was of middling concern, Yua inhaled sharply as her nose couldn’t have possibly failed to catch the sweet scent of the cake when it was so close.
Yua clapped her hands over her mouth, failing completely to hide her gasp as her tail started swishing about faster than ever. I felt I was going to need to apologize to the bedframe because of how her tail pummeled it, but I wasn’t done yet. I followed the cakey reveal by pulling out the second slice of and then the cookies. After seeing these, she didn’t seem to notice that her tail had switched from beating the bed to thumping against my leg, as though trying to get my attention so she could show me the very foods I was already well aware of.
“I got these as a thank you. As a reward and as thanks. I couldn’t have gotten this far without you and without you, I wouldn’t have had a reason to even try.”
Setting out in this new world with the intention of rebuilding myself into something better may have just been wishful thinking on my part when I still had the mindset of a cowardly shut-in, but I can say for certain that finding Yua and us getting stuck together in our attempts to earn money was the primary reason why I could say for the most part that I was accomplishing that goal. Even if just a little.
“But Master… Weren’t they expensive? I thought you wanted to save. You even sold your…”
“Don’t worry about it. Thanks to the bonus we got from the Elderwood Staff, we have some extra money.”
“B-But…”
Just like last night, the thought of eating something so extravagant caused tears to spill down her cheeks and this time she didn’t fight them. I could tell the smell of the pastries was just as intoxicating to her as it was when we walked past the bakery, yet her hesitation wouldn’t let her actually touch them. Like she thought they’d vanish from existence the moment she even tried.
I ushered her on by sliding the basket closer to her. She covered her mouth and let out a small cry through her lips. I leaned in and wiped the fresh set of tears from her face.
“Go ahead Yua. I got them for you. No games. No tricks. Just my thanks.”
She looked at me, reverence in her eyes before her peachy lips quivered behind her fingers and more tears fell. When she uncovered her mouth, she had a full toothy smile that I could tell was trying to thank me, but that couldn’t quite form the words to do so. Despite the want in her being so obvious, Yua hugged her knees to her chest and just stared at the cakes for a minute or so until she found something to say.
“… When I came to Amoranth five years ago, I had a really hard time getting used to all the noise. There’s just so many people here. All of them talking, arguing, working and playing and I could hear it all. I just couldn’t focus. My ears were almost constantly hurting. Being inside the dungeon was just about the only time I had any quiet and could think straight. You know, I think getting used to all the humans’ noise was part of the test.”
“A test?”
Yua nodded.
“That’s why I’m here. It was a test of strength set by my people. The dungeon, I mean. But after coming here, I’ve come to think that forcing myself to get used to all the noise was meant to be a part of it. My village wasn’t exactly quiet, but there is nowhere near as many of us there. I definitely wasn’t ready for this.”
A test of strength, huh? No wonder why she was so happy to beat the third floor. And if her ears were sensitive enough to literally hear my heartbeat from a foot or two away, then I could only imagine the torture her first visit caused her.
“Sorry we humans are so noisy.”
“Haha. No, Master, I’m not complaining. If it meant I was able to get stronger, I was happy to have struggled. It’s just… whenever I’d leave the dungeons for the day and walk back into the noise, I’d smell the bakery I brought you to and the smells coming from it were just overpowering enough to drown out the noise. I-I’m sure that doesn’t make any sense and I’m probably not explaining it right, but it’s true.
“We didn’t have anything like that in my village, so when I smelled something sweet, I ran to check it out. The baker was nice and explained to me what the smell was without laughing. I think he understood that I’m not from Amoranth or any of the other human settlements from just that, but when he told me how much they cost, I couldn’t help but feel defeated. I wouldn’t have been able to buy them for a long while. Not until I was strong enough to make the dungeons easy, anyways.”
“What are you talking about?” I said softly, not accusing her in the slightest. “One slice of cake was only 1 silver. You could buy a whole cake with the reward for just one Proud Wolf Pelt.”
Wiping her tears again, Yua looked at me out of the corner of her eye and smirked.
“Hahaha. Master, there’s no way I could. I think you’re underestimating how… unique you are.”
“… I don’t follow.”
Yua let go of her knees to recross them. Sitting up straight, she held up a finger, looking like she was about to delve into a long lecture, but the gentle smile spread across her lips was anything but disparaging.
“Since we started fighting yesterday, we’ve had a pretty easy time dealing with the monsters, but things don’t normally go so smoothly. Remember when I told you most people just fight one or two monsters before they leave the dungeon? I was serious. For most people, unless they are visiting a floor way below their own level, fighting the monsters is dangerous, difficult and stressful. It was slow.”
“But you handled the wolves so easily. And that was before I started leveling you.”
That aside, if what she was telling me now was the full truth, just what sort of hell did she put herself through to be able to clear an entire dungeon floor on her own?
As if agreeing with my thoughts and finding the memory of her struggles to be a happy thing, Yua nodded.
“I had a lot of experience fighting them. And like I said, those pups don’t stand a chance against me… anymore.”
“Then why couldn’t you afford to splurge a little and buy yourself something sweet?”
“Because I didn’t have the coin to do so. I didn’t have Master’s help in the dungeon, so I had to fight all the monsters by myself. And just so I could keep fighting, I had to buy a lot of potions. Health Potions, Stamina Potions, Cure Poison Potions incase the slime’s goo got in my mouth while fighting.”
She started putting up more and more fingers the more she listed her past expenses. And I started to worry that she might not have enough fingers to list them all as she continued.
“Then there was the food and water I needed to buy. Bandages so I didn’t have to waste potions on small cuts and bruises. Spare clothes for when mine got ruined in the fighting, since I didn’t bring any extra from home. I had to pay rent for the room I was borrowing every night. And, just, there was a lot more. I could fight the monsters easily enough, but I couldn’t make money fast enough to cover my expenses and buy things like this. We only have it so easy because Master made us so strong.”
Pointing to the cake still waiting for her to devour it, she smiled lovingly.
“But what about the boss loot? You said you sold that, right? The Proud Great Wolf pelt was worth 10 gold. That should have kept you going for at least a few weeks, right?”
I could understand how the potions would cost her quite a lot, since she’d need to constantly keep up her stamina with potions so she didn’t get too tired and mess up in her fights, but when those were gone or she just slipped up and bit off more than she could chew and got hurt, then the health potions would be even more of a necessity than I thought they were myself.
But they weren’t so expensive that 10 gold couldn’t keep her going for a while. Hell, Madame Turquesse even seemed to pride herself a bit on how cheaply she was able to sell these necessary potions, despite the quality she imbued them with.
“…”
At my question, Yua flinched and raised her shoulders defensively. She blushed, pressed her lips into a thin line and after spending the next few seconds mulling over whether or not to tell me and then, after she likely decided it was best to do so, she spilled the beans.
“I, uh… When I first came to Amoranth, I didn’t really know what I was doing or where to go, so I asked around for a place I could stay the night and accepted the first offer that was made to me. They told me they may not have many rooms left, so I hurried to the inn as soon as I got directions. I didn’t realize it at first, but that inn was really expensive. It took all the coin my parents gave me just to pay for the first week. And at first, I thought that making the coin needed to stay here was part of the test of strength, so I struggled to keep paying, but I did so without fail.
“Then one day after about a year and a half of this, when I made it to the second-floor boss room for the first time, I found another Adventurer waiting there. The boss hadn’t respawned yet and he was waiting for his turn, so I waited with him. We got to talking and he complained about how hungry he was because the inn he was staying at was so cheap that they didn’t even offer any food. When I asked where his inn was and how much he was paying for it, I felt like I had been tricked. I ran straight back to my inn and tried to get my coin back, but since I paid ahead of time for the week, they wouldn’t give it back. So, I finished out that week and switched to that other inn.”
“You… You spent over a year renting an inn you couldn’t afford? Didn’t you look around for other options.”
“Haha… The human world is kind of confusing, I guess.”
Scratching my head, I felt as though I shouldn’t be judging her for that particular failure, since I more or less did the same thing when I got here. I was just a little lucky that this inn ended up being somewhat cheap, but I suppose I still should have looked around to weigh my options. Then again, given how the incident that happened here eventually led me to Yua, it’s hard to say I wouldn’t have stayed here again if given a chance to redo the last couple of days.
I suppose we’re just a couple of impulsive idiots that jumped at the first chance to get what we thought we needed without thinking it through. When I thought of this similarity between us, a small smile spread across my lips.
Possibly thinking my smile had something to do with her admittance of how hard she had it back then, after berating me for not knowing the same things she didn’t herself just yesterday, Yua pressed her palms firmly onto her thighs like she was about to explode off the floor to continue ranting on her feet to hide her shame, but she didn’t. She stayed put. And she stared longingly at the cakes.
“I always wanted to try one of these, Master.”
“Then do it. Like you said, we can handle the monsters easily now, so a couple silvers really isn’t a problem right now.”
Feeling as though I was a hypocrite for saying something so flippant when I had been causing fights with shopkeepers and selling my own things just to scrimp and save money, I stayed quiet.
Sniffling back the tears that hadn’t quite faded yet, Yua nodded before carefully picking up the first cake with her bare hands. The slice was barely larger than her fist, but she held it so gently that you’d have thought she was scared of breaking it. She squeezed it lightly, testing its consistency with a happy grin. I hadn’t had the forethought to have her keep hold of our dinner forks and I certainly wasn’t going to ruin her fun by moving to go get them.
She looked at it closely, examining each and every little airy pocket of sweetness in the sponge. She smelled it again and again, her nostrils flaring as if she meant to remember its scent more than its flavor. Then, as if she couldn’t fully believe in the existence of the thing she was holding in her hand, she smelled it again. When she finally held it up to her mouth, she looked to me, using nothing but her glossy eyes to ask yet again if it was really okay to eat something so extravagant.
I nodded and, without further hesitation, she bit down.
“Mmmm!”
The second the sweet pastry greeted her tongue, she squealed with so much delight that I was almost concerned she’d hurt her throat. With a hand to her cheek as she chewed slowly, savoring every bite, still more tears started down her cheeks. Watching her enjoy something I had known to be so easy to obtain that you could stop by just about any gas station and pick up a cheap, factory-made piece on a whim, I almost felt like joining her in crying over our dessert.
“It’s so squishy and sweet!”
The baker had said sugar was scarce, but for her to not even know what cake tasted like was just heartbreaking. Seeing the one I bought for myself just sitting there untouched while she enjoyed hers so much that it literally brought her to tears was just unfair.
The cake was only 1 silver. 1 damn silver. All she would have had to of done to earn a slice herself was beat a single monsters in the dungeon, turn in it’s loot and buy a piece. She could have done that every day if she wanted had things been different. The things they made her eat at the slave house must have been so tasteless that even a slice of unaltered white bread must have tasted like heaven to her. So, this must have tasted like… Well, I don’t know if the heaven I visited had a second heaven above it, but if her expression was anything to go by, there was.
Yua smiled at me through a mouthful of cake, her eyes sparkling now that the tears were gone. She quickly took on a questioning gaze when she noticed that I wasn’t eating with her.
“Don’t worry about me. All of this is for you. Just enjoy it.”
Deciding that something I had taken for granted for so long should belong to her, to someone that could truly enjoy it, I offered her my share. Hearing this, she gulped down the bite she had been working on, only to briefly look remorseful at not having chewed it longer, before speaking.
“But, Master, I can’t take yours…”
“I said it’s alright. I’m full from dinner. You go ahead and take it.”
Seeing how I wasn’t going to back down despite my dinner being just as big as hers, Yua blushed all the way to her ears. But just when I thought she was going to give in to my offer the way she did last night, she set her cake down, spun on the floor to sit facing me and looked me dead in the eye. Her beautiful features weren’t twisted into anger or rejection, instead, she looked somewhat concerned. Like she thought that what I was giving her wasn’t just a piece of cake, but a life-saving potion while I was already bleeding out.
However, she didn’t even look at her cake again. Though, I did catch her mouth moving like she was tonguing the bits of it stuck to her teeth before she spoke.
“Master, may I have permission to say something? Something that you might find rude?”
“Uh… Sure. And, um, you really don’t need to ask. If you ever have something to say, just say it.”
Yua nodded. Gripping her knees over her pants, she let her emerald eyes linger on mine for a good while. There was an apprehension to her now, but I could tell she was struggling to work past her slave training to say what she needed to. I felt as though I had already made it clear that I wouldn’t hurt her, but maybe knowing what she had in mind was rude made her worry. Hard to say given her attitude yesterday, but this version of her was so different that she might as well have been another person entirely.
“Master,” she said finally. “… Is there something wrong with you?”
“What do you mean?”
She paused again, but this time the hesitation lasted only a second. The relief that washed over her after giving voice to her question was enough to spur her on.
“I’ve been watching you all day and you’ve been acting really weird.”
“Weird how?”
We’d only know each other for two days now. How can she say I’ve been acting strangely when I haven’t noticed anything myself?
“I thought you were worried about your debt,” she said. “But that wasn’t it. So, then I thought it was because you were carrying that enchanted ring and you were worried someone might steal it or something, but then you left it with the auction house. You shouldn't have needed to worry about it anymore, but you’re still acting weird.”
“Oh… Uh, haha. I guess I’m just nervous about tomorrow, is all.”
Yua shook her head without letting her emeralds leave my person.
“No, Master, it’s not worry. I’m worried too, but you’re… I don’t know. You seem almost… sad.”
For some reason, her concerned comment sounded almost like an accusation. Something in my chest panged, but I brushed it off with a shake of my head.
“Sad? Am I sad? Wait… Is that why you keep praising me for doing the same things I’ve been doing all of the last two days?”
While it was nice to have her do so every time I did or said something moderately interesting, it felt out of place. To the best of her knowledge, I was born with the traits and abilities I’ve shown her so far. She knows that me gaining a teleportation spell was a fluke, but she looked so excited every time I used it, even when I was just proving I could to the Mage’s Guild. Then there was my combat magic. Fire Ball was the same spell I had been using all day yesterday and for most of today. The only difference in it was the staff.
Had she goaded me into using it just so she could praise me?
“Were you trying to make me feel better because you thought I was sad?”
Yua nodded quickly, as if she couldn’t quite explain her actions herself until just now.
“Yes. I know Master is sad. I can hear it in your heart and I can see it on your face. So, I tried to make you happy.”
“By saying I was amazing?”
She nodded again, this time with a big smile.
“When I was living in the slave house, every time I’d complete a task or learned what they wanted me to learn, they’d say wow, someone like you actually managed to do it, amazing. So, I thought that was just how humans praised each other. It made me little happy, at least.”
Yua pumped her fists, apparently proud to have made that connection on her own, but I felt stuck. I truly did not know how to respond to her or the way she smiled so assuredly at me now.
She had yet to say anything good about her time at the slave house, but was it really so bad that a back-handed compliment like that actually made her feel good?
No, I suppose that shouldn’t matter. If she’d been trying to cheer me up, be trying to parse out what her past was like. I should just be grateful. But…
“Do I really look sad to you?”
She stopped pumping her fists and returned to the more dignified posture she took up before she started. This time, she didn’t nod.
“Yes, Master. All day yesterday and again today, you spent the whole time looking down at your feet. When we’re walking in the city. Between fights in the dungeons. When we were looking around the all the shops earlier. It’s like, um, you never looked at anyone unless they talked to you first or if you needed something from them. It makes you look sad.”
“… I feel like I’ve been looking at you a lot, though.”
In the light of the magic candle sharing a bit of light with the room where the moon’s shine didn’t quite fill the window just yet, I could swear she blushed just a little. But her worried expression didn’t so much as twitch.
“Yes. You have been. But it’s only me you do that with. Nobody else. It’s just… sad watching you hang your head all the time.”
Hang my head? Staring at my feet? How can she say that when she herself once complained that I ogled women too much? How when she was one of those women?
I’m not sad. I’m just a socially awkward idiot that doesn’t know how to talk to people correctly because I spent most of my life trapped behind a computer screen. She doesn’t know what she’s…
“Master… Won’t you please have some cake with me? You may not think it’s all that much, but I think it’ll make you feel better. At least, a little bit. Besides, you keep saying I’ve been working hard, but so have you.”
Apparently willing to let this sadness thing go, she grabbed hold of my hand and pulled it over to the extra slice I had already decided to give to her. And, for all her strength, I couldn’t have ripped my hand away from hers if I tried. But she wasn’t forcing me. A slave forcing her master to eat sounded so ironically hilarious that I would have been laughing had the worry marring her once beautiful feature not been so very present in the moment.
Forcing the most reassuring smile I could, I copied her and scooped up the cake with just my hand and only then did she let go. Seeing that I gave in, she scooted closer. Close enough for her arm to press against mine. Leaning against me, she took up her piece as well. With nothing but her smile urging me forward, we both took a bite.
She was right. It was sweet. The cake was sweet, soft, moist and if it’s color and my own tastebuds had a say in it, it tasted like it had a slight vanilla flavoring to it. It was everything you’d want in a cake. It wasn’t the best I’d ever had, but sitting here with her, it was up there.
Yua squealed with delight again as she worked over her second taste of the food she longed for. Her tail had already resumed thumping against my side and I said nothing for it. It almost felt like there had to be something wrong with my tongue if I wasn’t enjoying it as much as she was.
After her fourth bite, she excitedly pointed to the small pile of cookies that had so far gone untouched.
“Master, what are those? They smell sweet.”
This just isn’t right.
I know I needed to tell myself that not everybody in this world had easy access to this kind of stuff, but to not even know what they are?
“Those are cookies,” I said, swallowing down the last of my cake. “Why don’t you try one?”
While the cake’s overall lacking presentation made it look like it could have passed as some sort of extra sweet bread that happened to have a thin layer of icing on it, the cookies looked exactly like the chocolate chip cookies I would have expected to find piled into boxes in the sweets section of just about any supermarket, except that there were no chocolatey bits baked into these ones.
I don’t know if chocolate exists in this world, but if I find some, I’m definitely giving it to her.
She carefully set the cake down again, probably wary of dropping it, and picked up a cookie. After examining it with all the same enthusiasm she did the cake, she slipped it into her mouth and bit down. At first, she looked a little surprised to feel that it was a tiny bit tougher than the cake, but once its flavor flooded her mouth, she nearly jumped. Or rather, she did.
Yua leaned hard into me, pressing her soft body against mine as if asking for help trying to contain the sweetness of the cookie. I laughed, glad that I managed to finish off my piece of cake instead of slowly enjoying it like she had, because I definitely would have dropped it.
“Master, it’s even sweeter than the cake!”
“Sure is.”
“Mmm. It’s hard to explain, but… I think the cake is sweet but it makes me want to drink something. But this cookie just makes me want to eat more!”
“Yea, that’s usually how people feel. They can be hard to put down.”
Considering how the sweetness of cookies and such were a large factor in why I used to be overweight, I knew full well how hard they could be to put down when you had nothing else to occupy yourself with and a will power so lacking that just the existence of junk food in your pantry felt like a taunt you had no other choice but to bow to.
“Master, don’t you want some?”
She held out her half-eaten cookie to me and, seeing as how she nearly forced me to enjoy the cake with her, I gave in and took one for myself. If she was going to let me share my food with her, I should let her share her sweets with me.
She grinned widely when I bit down this time, bits of cookie stuck in her teeth.
“What do you think?”
“They’re really good. Definitely going to have to get more later.”
Maybe I should have gone ahead and splurged a bit more and bought a slice or two of that pie the baker mentioned. I was happy enough to have received this fit and healthy body, but a couple sweets here and there weren’t going to be a problem as long as I controlled myself. So, while I shared in her joy, I quietly let Yua take the rest of the cookies once her sweet tooth really kicked in and she stopped talking.
With her still snuggled up against my arm, switching between nibbling away at her cookies like a chipmunk and squealing every time she took a bite of cake, I instantly gave into the urge to wrap my arm around her back the moment it appeared within my mind. She didn’t so much as flinch at my touch, but she smiled warmly to show she knew I was there. I held her close and watched her as she spent the next hour savoring every single crumb.
After a good long while of sitting on the floor together, of Yua leaning on my shoulder looking both thoroughly satisfied and full, the mana I had funneled into the magic candle dried out. The burning light faded away and a reminder of the late hour appeared when the moonlight filtering in through the window suddenly became the only thing that allowed my eyes to continue working.
“Yua, we should head to bed now. I think we ought to head to the auction house and be there when it all starts.”
I wanted to trust in my luck and say I was sure the ring would sell as I had earlier, but I needed an answer as soon as possible. If we found it didn’t sell, we would need to run to the dungeons as soon as we could. We only had one more day.
“Yes, Master.”
I stood up first this time and offered Yua a hand. She took it with the same smile that hadn’t left her lips since she finished eating and she went over to her suitcase. With a flick and a snap of the metal clasp, it popped open and she started digging through it. When she came back up holding the same incredibly loose-fitting rag of a shirt she wore last night, set it on the bed and began to untie the leather strips holding her shirt together, I turned around to give her some privacy as well as to take off my own shirt.
While she had said earlier that she wasn’t scared of my looking at her body, the change from how timid she was last night was too sudden. I didn’t want to take advantage of her good mood by sneaking a peak.
I flung my shirt to the floor, pulled off my belt, pushed my boots aside and hopped back into bed. Once the nearly torturous sounds of Yua undressing and then re-dressing right in front of the bed ended, she moved to stand beside me, her now unguarded backside repeatedly exposing itself to the room’s side wall thanks to the swishing tail that wouldn’t let the hem of her top settle.
To spare her the discomfort she didn’t even seem to have, I lifted up the blanket for her. She crawled over me to get beneath it and to get away from the chill she no doubt must have felt changing into such a revealing outfit. More astonishing than how I didn’t need to remind her that sleeping on the floor was no longer allowed, was how she cuddled up next to me and rested her head on my bicep without complaint and, this time, with a smile.
She closed her eyes and by the moonlight, I watched over her. Feeling her softness press against me and with her showing me such a cute smile even as she started to drift into unconsciousness, it honestly felt like it was mine and mine alone. And when silence returned to the world, I hated myself all over again.
Even if I could say that all it took to win her over was some sweets, I can’t get over the idea that she is only here beside me now because I bought her. I hated the thought of being alone in this world even more than I did on Earth. This was my one and only chance to start over, to do things the right way and to live a better life and the first thing I did was fund the fucking slave trade?! The hell?!
I could still smell the sweetness of the cookies on her breath as she balled herself up next to me. Unlike last night, there was no tenseness in any of her movements or in the way she lay. I suppose she might have just gotten used to this since I just spent the last hour or so with my arm around her. But, was she only letting me do this because she still thinks I’m sad? Or, maybe, did she want me to?
No. How could that be? A girl this perfect, with me? If I hadn’t bought her, she wouldn’t have given me the time of day. I know it and, most importantly, I can prove it. And I can do it right now. Prove once and for all that this is all just a long-winded dream. That my wishful thinking had just gotten the better of me and that my years in seclusion had truly just destroyed my sanity.
I’ll prove it, so that I can finally stop worrying over the inevitable.
“Hey, Yua…”
“Yes, Master?”
Her sweet voice came from under the blanket where she should have been sleeping. She sounded tired, but there was no hint of annoyance in her tone for rousing her.
“Can a master give a slave their freedom back?”
Her ears flicked up as if she were startled by a explosion and she rocketed up into a sitting position atop the bed. Under the moonlight enveloping her, I couldn’t help but notice that her rag-shirt had slipped off her shoulder ever so slightly and the deep cut in its side had suddenly left just a tiny bit of pink to filter into view like it had back in the bath.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s just… You’ve been so good to me that I thought you might like it if I gave you your freedom back once I paid off your contract.”
Even under the dim light, I could tell she was looking at me skeptically, not hopefully.
“Well, no Master. Once the slave spell is cast on a thief, they will remain a slave until the day they die. No matter what. It cannot be undone.”
“So, if I gave you your freedom, you’d…”
“I’d still be your slave.”
“No, I mean, symbolically. I’d let you go back to the life you had before you became a slave. I suppose you’d still be a slave, but you’d never need to worry about me ordering you around ever again.”
“I know what you mean. And I’d still stay with you even if you tried to let me go.”
“But… why turn away your freedom for me?”
“Because Master is the kindest person I know. Master has shared his food with me, let me eat meat, gave me sweets and ate them all with me as an equal. You even let me sleep in your bed, just so I wouldn’t have to sleep on the floor.”
“But those are all things that anybody…”
“No! They aren’t!”
Yua shouted, lifting herself off the bed so that her face was hovering over mine. The blanket slipped further down her back and the all-too-loose shirt she wore dangled too far down for me not to notice the pink tip that entered my line of sight. I gulped. I felt my notice was too obvious, and yet, she didn’t seem to care as she glared at me, as if I were offending her by not believing in her every word.
“This is what I was talking about! You’re sad, so you want me to leave so you can keep being sad!”
“I’m telling you, I’m not…”
“Slaves are nothing but trash that society has thrown away,” she said, cutting me off. “Nobody cares if a thief is taken by a slaver, because we broke the laws of the world we were all supposed to share. Slaves are meant to be used whenever and however their master sees fit and no matter how hard we are worked, we’d never have the right to complain. Not anymore. Not after what we did. Even if it was just an accident, because nobody else would see it that way. To the rest of the world, we’re not people anymore.
“But my Master, you, you see me as a person. We barely met and you’ve been trying so hard for my sake. Me, a slave! And you don’t even try to hide it. You risked your life to save me multiple times.”
Tears started down her cheeks once more tonight as she struggled to make her feelings known, and this time, I only had myself to blame.
“I know you don’t like fighting the way I do, but you still stayed with me and we grew stronger together. And you helped me prove I was still strong when we beat the third floor of the dungeon. Together. Even if I never met you. Even if I never became a slave, I wouldn’t have been able to go back home for failing in the dungeons the way I did.”
“But I bought you…”
“And I’m glad you did,” she said with so much sureness in her voice that I couldn’t dare refute her. “If you didn’t, I would have either been killed for all the trouble I caused. Or I would have been sold to someone that would’ve treated me like dirt. I’m happy with you, Master. I know that I can only be happy with you… Aren’t you happy with me?”
“Of course, I am. I have been alone all my life!” I said and her expression suddenly lost its strength. “But ever since I met you, despite all the danger and worry and problems I’ve caused us, I couldn’t be happier.”
“Then why are you hesitating to accept me? Why are you still so sad when you’re trying so hard to keep us together?”
“Because I don’t deserve someone like you!”
“Says who?”
“Wha…”
“Says who? You say I shouldn’t be happy because you bought me as a slave, but I am happy because it is you that bought me. Even if Master didn’t buy me, I’d still be a slave, you know?”
“But…”
“Master, you may not see it this way, but you’re the strongest person I’ve ever known. Why shouldn’t you deserve what you want? Or… don’t you want me?”
“I do. I want nothing more in this life than you. But I don’t deserve…”
She clapped her hands over my cheeks, causing the both of us a twinge of pain, and forced me to look her in the eye. There was a strength in her gaze, but also a softness that I couldn’t pull away from no matter how my pessimistic mind tried to force me.
“I accept Master for who he is. Can’t you accept that?”
“I… I’m… I’m a bit of a pervert, you know? Wouldn’t standing next to someone like that bother you?”
Her cheeks flushed a bit, but she maintained that strong gaze of hers.
“I know. You were staring at my butt the entire time I was leading you through the dungeon. And I noticed you looking at my breasts quite a bit throughout the day. You did it again right when I sat up just now.”
“Y-You noticed…? I-I mean I’m really a pervert.”
“I know.”
“A-And you’re okay with that?!”
“If it’s Master, I don’t care if you look. I belong to you and only you. You say you want my everything, but you haven’t realized that you already have it. Look at me how you want. Look at me whenever you want. Touch me whenever you want. As long as it’s you, I don’t mind it at all, because...”
“Because you’re my slave?”
“Because I want you to. I want to be wanted by you!”
“I…I…”
I couldn’t think of anything to say. Time and time again I had tried to remind her that she was a person all her own and now she was turning that sentiment against me. These were her honest feelings. There was nothing forcing her to say this. I gave her no orders. She said it because she wanted to say it.
Unable to force my brain to come up with something to say to deflect, to reject, to doubt, or to spite this, I watched as Yua collapsed back into bed. However, instead of just balling up next to me, she brought her face closer to my chest, rested her cheek there and wrapped an arm around my abdomen. She was shaking.
This time, I was the one that bit my lip. My hesitation was starting to look like a rejection of her feelings.
“I-I’ll believe you, Yua. I’ll make you a deal, if in the morning you still feel this way… I want you to wake me up with a kiss. And I want you to do the same every morning from then on out. If you truly don’t feel this way come morning, I’ll release you without question. You can run away wherever you want. You can run to another city. Another country. Go back to your village and to your parents if you want and I won’t track you down. And I’ll make sure Alphonse doesn’t either… H-How does that sound?”
She was silent for a minute, then the pressure she exerted around my stomach tightened and she pulled herself closer.
“Master… In the morning, when I kiss you, can it be in the same way you kissed me in the dungeon?”
I gulped.
“Y-Yes. But only if that’s really what you want.”
I felt Yua exhaled a long breath against my skin, as if she had been holding it back this entire time. She settled into place in my arms and I realized that I was the only one that was tense. Refusing the temptation to look upon her further, I pulled the blanket back over her shoulder and held onto her. Just holding her like this was all my heart could bear.
Soon after, the heat of the conversation died down and I grew listless. The remnants of the day’s fatigue finally caught up with me and, this time, they wouldn’t let go. I slowly began to give myself over to the darkness of sleep.
Despite the truly blissful feeling of being able to fall asleep with such a beautiful girl in my arms, I got the feeling that I may have just made a huge mistake. That rotten part of me wanted to just make her stay, to force her to stay by my side forever, but every other part was telling me that, if I didn’t give her this time to think about it, nothing between us in the future would ever be real. She may have decided that my purchase of her wasn’t a sin, but because of it, I had to give her this out. Regardless of how I felt.
All I could do was wait for morning to rise.
I really wish I had put some more points into Luck when I had the chance.