?It was the first time leaving his home. One might have called him a shut-in, but to him, staying indoors was the logical decision.


    The outside was too unpredictable. He wanted to learn about the world before leaving his home, which was why he refused to make friends or talk to any of Syra''s friends.


    Of course, the other reason was that it simply felt weird.


    A 50-year-old man ying with a bunch of children was like asking the FBI to knock his door down and arrest him right there and then.


    ''You will never catch me, you FBI bastards... Wait, now that I''m saying outloud, it sounds a little predatory. Hmm... Oh well, I pretty much controlled the FBI after the civil war, so I don''t have anything to worry about-... Nope, still sounds weird.'' Ss sighed.


    "Why do I have toe with you?" Ss asked with a disheartened expression. He didn''t mind talking with his grandmother. She was close to his age in his past life, and he conversed with her the most since she always exined what words meant.


    Of course, Ss'' awkwardness was always pushed aside when it came to his passion for knowledge, so eventually, he learned to get ustomed to her.


    "Hmm? Well, I saw your broken sword earlier, so I kind of knew that you were frustrated. On the other hand, your parents were far too blinded by the fact that you had the power to shatter the hilt, but they''re still kids, I guess...


    But you have to understand something. You''re a kid too. You''re much younger than them... You''re allowed to throw a tantrum when something doesn''t go your way. Don''t bottle it up because, believe me, it won''t be pretty when it explodes." She exined.


    "Oh, don''t worry. I''m fine now. I think I got past that little hurdle of mine." Ss chuckled while pulling on the cor of his shirt.


    While he usually worefortable clothes, he was forced to wear the most ufortable clothes he''d ever worn in his lives.


    They were itchy and tight, and despite them seeming professional and even making him look like he had ss, it was still super ufortable.


    He wore a greyish-blue tunic garment that only reached to his shoulders in width and down to his lower thighs in length. He wore a whiteish-creamy shirt underneath the tunic garment and pants of the same color.


    On the other hand, Keira wore an amethyst robe and held a magic staff with arge crystal at the top, in her right hand.


    It didn''t take them long to reach the town of dia. It was created right outside the dia forest, and it had even been named after the forest since it was the keyndmark in the area.


    The forest also happened to be the thing that sustained the town since their main export was the wood from the dia forest as well as the magical creatures in the forests.


    The words beasts and creatures were used quite interchangeably. Of course, they didn''t always mean the same thing. The words beasts usually referred to violent magical entities with the characteristics of unawakened animals.


    Creatures, on the other hand, were essentially monsters. Yet, even then, Ss knew that calling them monsters wasn''t the right term since there was another group of races that were actually referred to as monsters. They were called the called monsters because of their curses on their races, but that was something for another time.


    Once they could see the town''s entrance, Ss narrowed his eyes when he saw two guards at the entrance, taking something from all those who entered the town.


    However, some simply showed the guards a card, allowing them to move right past without having to give anything.


    ''Entry fees?'' Ss thought.


    Once they were at the entrance of the town, Ss waited for his grandmother to pay the entrance fee or show a card, yet she did neither.


    Actually, the guards bowed to both of them before letting them walk past.


    "What was that?" Ss asked with a puzzled expression.


    "You''re grandmother is a famous girl around these parts." She chuckled.


    ''Girl? Have some shame, woman! You''re 40!'' Ss inwardly snarled, yet he didn''t dare say those words out loud.


    He was too much of a coward, and way too afraid of the consequences of such words to even think of doing such a thing.


    He had watched his grandmother curb-stomp his father after he muttered something under his breath, so it was logical for him to not want to be on the bad side of the monster beside him.


    ''For a mage, she sure is physically gifted.'' Ss thought.


    Maybe his father was going easy on her?


    As they walked through the town, Ss looked around for a while, appreciating the architecture of the houses... or at least theck of it.


    The houses could be best described as "medieval." Most of the houses in the area were a little slum-like, with hundreds of people put into a single block with houses stuck to one another.


    Most houses were around 2 stories high, with one family upying each floor, yet the richer homes usually had 3 or 4 stories in a single home. They were always separated, making them stand out more than all the other buildings.


    However, just like medieval Earth, the churches were always the highest building in the towns, and not only were they much cleaner, they looked like they were built with much better architecture than all of the other housesbined.


    Looking around, one could spot everything from cksmiths and tailor shops to small farms and cottages for livestock.


    The smell of fresh bread entered the noses of everyone in the town as the bakery near the center of the town bakedrge batches of bread for all the people that were standing in line.


    The sun had already risen, and everyone was trying to get food before work... Or at least that''s where Ss assumed they were going.


    "You see that there?" Keira asked while pointing at the church in the center of the town.


    "Yeah?" Ss tilted his head.


    "That''s the church of Gilea. It was the first thing to be built here, and everything else was built around it. As you can see, there''s a pretty big circle around it, and that''s called the town square. It''s where all those scam- I mean merchants are." She quickly corrected herself.


    ''Nice naming, morons.'' Ss grinned. He was also really bad at names, but at least he didn''t refer to a circle as a square.


    "Do you believe in the Gilea religion?" Ss asked with a bit of nervousness in his voice.


    Keira was surprised to hear such aplex questione out of his mouth. Believing and not believing was something even adults struggled with, yet from that question, it felt like Ss knew what it meant to believe or to not believe.<novelsnext></novelsnext>


    "No." She sighed and closed her eyes.


    "No one in our family believes in it." She exined.


    ''Thank goodness. Life would have been difficult if I was forced to live among people who worshiped the they were standing on... Well, the greeks did that but that one doesn''t really count.'' Ss shrugged, putting the issue into the ''none of my business'' category of his brain.


    Once they reached the merchant square, Ss began to look around while following behind his grandmother.


    There were several merchants, yet they all seemed to sell different things. Of course, there were some who sold the same things, but from what he saw, those groups usually fought a lot, so he wanted to stay as far away from them as possible.


    ''I think I just learned a ton of new curses.'' Ss smiled after walking past the squabbling merchants.


    "Can I have two silvers worth of goat meat? Can I have it after the, you know what?" Keira asked.


    Why was a butcher right next to all these merchants?


    Ss didn''t know, but he quickly turned to one of the stands that were selling books.


    "Miss? Can I ask you how much these books are?" Ss asked the woman behind the stand. She wore a yellow robe as well as a yellow wizard hat. She had brown hair and eyes and wore bright orangentern-like earrings that allowed him to see her face clearly despite her hat creating a shadow on it.


    "Can you read?" She asked with a raised brow.


    "Yes," Ss replied.


    "What does this say?" She asked while pointing at the title of the book.


    "Advanced Magic a€“ The Working of the Earth Element," Ss replied manner-of-factly, making the woman widen her eyes slightly before grinning.


    "You want to buy it?" She asked.


    "Yes, please." Ss smiled; however, he wasn''t sure if his grandmother would allow him to buy it. She had seen him reading "Magic 101," and even though she probably didn''t think much of it, it was highly unlikely she would choose to "waste" money on a book that she was certain he wouldn''t understand.


    "5 gold coins." She spoke matter-of-factly.


    "..."


    "Pay up." She extended her hand toward Ss.


    ''Does she think I''m stupid?'' Ss thought to himself.


    ording to his knowledge, money was broken into three categories: Copper, silver, and gold.


    It was quite simple actually. 100 copper was equal to 1 silver, and 100 silver was equal to 1 gold...


    Yet, to understand how much of a scam this woman was trying to pull on a child, one must look at the average prices and wages.


    Arlen, Syra''s tutor, was paid 1 gold a month for his sses. However, he was a respectable mage, so such a thing was expected.


    From what he had seen earlier, you could get about 2 baked circr pieces of bread for a copper coin. She was practically saying that the books were worth 100,000 pieces of bread.


    Ss simply looked at her with a dumbfounded expression.


    Maybe she had assumed he was from a noble family because he could read at such a young age?


    "Don''t have that much money? Hey, how about I lower it to 1 gold, huh?"


    ''That''s still 20,000 bread! That''s $6,600!'' Ss thought to himself. There wasn''t much of an economy left after the apocalypse, but he still remembered the price of freshly baked bread.


    ''This stingy son of a-''


    "Oh, Ss? I see you''ve met the stingy witch?" Keira sneered, and even though Ss was surprised that Keira knew the woman, he nodded at the name she had given her.


    "Oh? You''re the grandson of this old bag of bones?" The woman sneered back.


    ''Isn''t she the same age as you?'' Ss wanted to ask, but he knew that a woman''s age was a fragile subject no one should ever touch upon.


    "Let me introduce you two. This stingy witch is Erin Quagmire. We used to be in the same adventurer group before we took different paths. As you can see, this stingy witch chose to be a scammer. Don''t be a scammer in the future, okay Ss? Scammer is bad!" Keira lectured him before turning toward the woman.


    "This kid here is my grandson, Ss Skrk. He''s a cheeky brat, but he has a good head on his shoulders." Keira patted him on the head.


    "Grandma..." Ss looked up at Keira before pointing at Erin.


    "This woman is trying to bankrupt us! She told me that this book was 5 gold!" He spoke with tears in his eyes.


    "Hehehe... I wouldn''t call it bankrupting." She awkwardlyughed, yet Keira wasn''t staring at her. Instead, she was staring at Ss


    "Since when do you know the value of money?" She asked with narrowed eyes.


    ''Oh crap...''


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