《A Tale of Peril: Change》 Chapter 1: Crash I hate my phone. Why does it have to ring and wake me up? Turning in my bed I reach for my phone resting on the nightstand. The word ¡°bossman¡± flashes on the screen in tune with the ring tone. I manage to see that the time is just past 4 am and notice a large number of notifications before I slide my finger across the screen to answer. ¡°It¡¯s 4 am boss, why are you calling me?¡± ¡°I¡¯m calling you Tobias since you haven¡¯t reacted to the servers going down. Did you disable your notifications or something?¡± ¡°Shit... Fuck... I¡¯ll get there ASAP, do you know why they are down?¡± ¡°Sorry Tobias, I have no clue, just got up myself with calls from the dev and production teams about no one doing anything. I will head in myself and try to calm them down whilst you get the servers back up.¡± ¡°Thanks, boss, I really can¡¯t deal with them this early when fixing shit. See you there.¡± Putting my phone back on my nightstand I groaned before getting out of bed. Of course, the damned servers had to go down today. It¡¯s always on weekends. And I regret staying up so late gaming last night. Or did I stop gaming today? I¡¯m really not sure. I grabbed a shirt and some jeans that I had thrown on the floor that seem to be clean. Socks, fucking socks, I always end up without clean socks at the end of the week. Grumbling about my sock situation I head to the bathroom and rummage through my laundry basket, grabbing the first two socks I find. They look okay? I am not gonna smell them. Having gotten the socks on I head from the bathroom through my living room. Seems like I forgot to turn off the PC. I don¡¯t have time to turn it off though. So I hurry to the hallway and put on my shoes, grab my keys, and a jacket. I exit my apartment and lock the door before hurrying down to the parking lot. It¡¯s fucking cold. The damn air condition in the car is so slow. Another good reason why I should get a new car. Though the old dodge ram does wonders when I head out for some backpacking. Rubbing my hands together I start the car and head out from the parking lot. The only benefit of driving to work at this time of day is that I can make it within 30 minutes. I think I might even have made Seattle in an hour at this time of day, though I¡¯m kinda glad I don¡¯t work there considering how much traffic there would be on a normal day. Almost exactly 30 minutes later I pull into the parking lot at the office. Looking around there are only two other cars, so it seems that the bossman hasn¡¯t arrived yet. Hopefully, none of the dev or production teams notices my arrival. After parking the car I hurry into the building, stopping in the entrance to show my office ID to our security guy. Once past him I head to the elevator and can my office ID do unlock the server floor. The doors to the elevator close and it heads down. For some reason, I start humming some elevator music on the short ride down two levels. Stepping out of the elevator I cross the hallway to the secure entrance of the server room. Again scanning my office ID before I input my code and the door unlocks. As I enter the server room all I can hear is silence. Or no, there is some whirring coming from somewhere in the room, but not the good kind. All along the rows of server racks there are flashing red lights. Shit¡­ I hurry towards the first terminal we have in the room and pull it out. Come on¡­ Why does the terminal have to take so fucking long to boo¡­ Finally, it is powered on. I quickly find the log file for the terminal server, reading through the file it seems like there was an error or something on one of the dev servers. Now to isolate the server before booting it and finding out why it seems to have killed everything. I leave the terminal and walk towards the culprit. Once there I unplug it from everything but a hard-line to the terminal and power it on. Back at the terminal I remote connect to the culprit server. It boots fine at least and I manage to connect. Finding the log file on the server I start reading through it. Hmm. Not much to go on. After half an hour of searching through the log file and other files, I think I managed to locate what killed everything. One of the fucking devs wrote some garbage code that manages to send a kill command to all the servers. It somehow even managed to get out of the isolated network the development servers run on. ¡°So, have you found out why everything is down yet?¡± ¡°FUCK! Don¡¯t scare me like that boss. But yeah, it seems like one of the gods damned devs managed to write a fucking virus or some shit. We¡¯ll most likely have to purge every server before we can get back up¡­¡± ¡°Of course they did.. I¡¯ll go call in the rest of the team so you won¡¯t have to deal with this alone.¡± ¡°Thanks, man, and please go tell those shits to stop fucking up the servers please.¡± ¡°Hahaha, sure Tobias, if you talk to the CTO and explain everything afterward.¡±This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. ¡°Eeeeeh, no thanks¡­ I¡¯ll just get to repairing this shit.¡± And so I spent most of my Sunday slowly purging and getting servers back up. By the time we managed to finish the work it was past 11 pm. ¡°Good work team, especially you Tobias, I think it is time everyone heads home and get some sleep. It¡¯s Monday tomorrow after all¡­ Tobias, you can come in later tomorrow so you can make sure to get a proper night¡¯s rest.¡± ¡°Thanks, boss, see you tomorrow guys.¡± I wave at the rest of the team and head to my car. It¡¯s still fucking cold outside, and I am really tired¡­ Maybe I should just go up to the office and sleep instead of heading home? Nah, better to sleep in a bed than on the floor or a couple of chairs. I turn the ignition in the car and start driving home. Some might say I should have just stayed at the office to sleep, but I feel more than awake enough to drive the 30 minutes it takes to get home. And there aren¡¯t that many people out driving at this time on a Sunday. As I am driving along Pacific Ave S I see a weird flash in the sky. Continuing on no new flashes happens and there doesn¡¯t appear to be anything else going on, though I pay some extra attention to the sky. Time suddenly seems to slow down as I lose control of my car, it¡¯s almost like someone or something is turning the wheel of the car towards the opposite lane. At the same time, another car is doing the same thing in the opposite lane towards my lane. As the two vehicles approach each other I can start to make out the person driving the other car. It seems to be a young woman. She has shoulder-length dark hair, I can¡¯t tell what color specifically, and wearing glasses. As we get closer and closer I can see the panic in her face, and I imagine she sees the same on my face. The next moment everything goes red, then white. Pain is everywhere. Both white and black fills my vision. I can¡¯t seem to hear anything. Darkness comes. The pain is gone. Did I die? Did the woman die? Are we still in the wreckage of the cars? I try to open my eyes but my vision is filled with white. No, wait a minute, there is something there. Slowly a figure starts to solidify? Take shape? I am not entirely sure how to describe what is happening. But after a few minutes a person, I think, is standing in front of me. Wait? That means I am standing right? I look down and see my legs, huh, I expected to be in the wreck or the hospital if I lived, not here, wherever here is. ¡°-lcome, it seems that you are confused. Well, the reason why you are here is that the accident wasn¡¯t supposed to happen. Or at least not like that. You see, there appears to have been some bug with the system right now which caused this malfunction.¡± Bug? Why would a bug in a system cause the accident? Does that mean that our world is a simulation? ¡°I see one of you is thinking what this means in terms of what this world is, the other just wants to get back home.¡± Did they just say the other? Is someone else here? And this other person wants to go home? I turn to my right and see the woman from the other car. I can now clearly see that her hair is a dark reddish color. She appears to be only a few centimeters shorter than me at roughly 1.62 m. Her eyes seem to be a hazel green color. I don¡¯t get much time to study her before the person that had been speaking speaks again. ¡°Oh, both of you thought you were to only one here? Well, the bug I was talking about caused the crash between the two of you, originally only one of you were to die in this reality. To fix this one of you will have to reincarnate in a ne-¡± ¡°I WILL DO IT!¡± I almost screamed as the person described what would happen. ¡°I want to reincarnate in a new world!¡± Just as I finished saying that a glow surrounded both me and the woman beside me. Looking over at her she reached towards me and hugged me. ¡°Thank you, thank you, thank you¡­ I just want to go home to mom and dad.¡± As the glow around us started to intensify I managed to catch a glimpse of the person that had been talking. What I saw I could only describe as a look of utter despair. ¡°Wha¡ª No¡ª Sto¡ª Shi¡ª¡± Was all I heard as the darkness from earlier returned.
Again the darkness receded. Though what started coming into view was not the white surroundings of wherever that other place was. No, what came into view now was a mix of blue, green, and gray. Slowly blinking my eyes I started to make out my surroundings. It appears that I am currently surrounded by a forest, or at least a multitude of trees. The blue is clearly the sky above me and the grey is the stones making up what appears to be a structure similar to Stonehenge. Now, this is the point where my big blue box appears and tells me what kind of system I got right? Right? Apparently not. No box, no notifications, no system. Or at least nothing with automated messages. Do I have to initiate it myself? System, are you there? Maybe I have to speak it out? Ugh, that is going to sound so stupid. ¡°Uhm, status?¡± Huh, weird, I think something is wrong with my voice. It sounds higher pitched than before. I grab my throat and feel around. I can¡¯t feel any kind of swelling. Hmm, I think my Adam¡¯s apple is gone? Does that mean I got younger in the reincarnation process? That is sweet, though if I am so young that my voice changed I don¡¯t feel safe out wherever this is. I think I better start heading somewhere else, at least somewhere less open. Looking to the sky I locate the sun. Okay, so the sun is there, given the time when I died? I think that it should be rising currently, which would make that east. In that case, I think I will head towards the west, so I can have the sun in my back. Just as I start walking I stumble over something. ¡°Motherfucker!¡± Yeah, that is really fucking weird. And what the hell did I just hit? I look down to locate what I tripped over. What greets me is, I don¡¯t even, it¡¯s just¡­ Wow¡­ I¡¯ve got breasts. No like, really. Boobs. Honestly. And no, I don¡¯t think I¡¯m just fat. At least I wasn¡¯t fat before. I grab the, my, breasts and squeeze them. Yeah, no they are definitely real. Oh, right, I hit something, didn¡¯t I? Looking around behind me I find a stone plaque that I am sure wasn¡¯t there when I first opened my eyes. Looking at the plaque the writing is definitely in English. Dear Tobias, I assume you have noticed that you are no longer in your old body. Why are you in a female body you might ask? Well, that is because Alice was the one of you two who was supposed to reincarnate since her body was the least intact from the crash. However, when you shouted that you wanted to reincarnate into a new world you managed to trigger the transfer prematurely and realign the targeting matrix. Yes, what you are probably thinking right now is correct. Alice returned to Earth in your body, whilst as you are in her new body. And before you even think of asking, not that I could hear you, I have no idea if it would be possible for you to return to Earth or switch bodies in your new world. One good thing though is that you are now younger, lucky you, instead of being 36 you are now a young, healthy 19-year-old girl. Congratulations, and good luck in your new life. PS. You might want to hurry with getting out of the forest, it¡¯s not safe at night and there are monsters here. Shit. Of course. Not only did I not a system or anything like that, but I am now a girl! Is that bad though? I don¡¯t fucking know!? Gaaah. This is fucking with my head so fucking much. I better heed that warning in the end though. No time to wonder what this will mean until I get out to somewhere with people. I stand back up and start heading in the same direction as before. This time I don¡¯t stumble over any new stone plaques or anything else. I even made extra sure that it wouldn¡¯t happen by carefully studying the ground in front of me. Chapter 2: A New World The trees I see as I reach the tree line reminds me of the pine trees you could find in Europe. The sharp, sweet smell reaching me from all around. Reaching out and touching one of the trees I felt the bark underneath my hand. Taking a few seconds whilst touching the tree I listened. All around I could hear the sound of trees moving slowly. Birds chirping, some familiar and some foreign. Interspersed was the sound of various animals, most sounded quite familiar. Stepping away from the tree I continued walking towards the west. Should I perhaps start running to speed my passing? Then again if I run and don¡¯t find somewhere safe I would quickly get exhausted. I might have been fit, but I was mostly just keeping in shape. Not to mention the fact that this is not my body! Calm down¡­ Calm down¡­ No need to panic. Just keep on walking. We will get somewhere safe soon. I am sure. Huh? What was that sound? I stop and look around. Nothing has changed since I entered the woods. Though I think I can make out some birds up in the trees. Hmm, I can¡¯t see anything, and the sound hasn¡¯t come back. I hope it was nothing, but I think I will increase my speed just a little. Increasing my speed to a light jog I continue. Every so often I feel like the sound, if it was a sound, is there again. It is just so faint though, that I really can¡¯t tell. However, I think increasing my speed once more would be safer than risking meeting anything bad. Continuing through the woods I increase my speed each time I hear the sound. Something is following me, I am sure of it. I am starting to get quite exhausted from the running. Not far in front of me, I see some bushes and shrubs blocking the path. Perhaps I can hide behind them? Barreling through the bushes I barely have time to notice the red, green, and brown color as I smash into something. What the hell? I look at what I crashed into, it seems to be a carriage of some sort. There is a door in the carriage, perhaps I can hide in there? I grab the handle of the door and jump into the carriage. Crouching down inside the carriage I try to still my heavy breathing. I hope that whatever beast was following me can¡¯t open doors. ¡°-is-¡± Fucking hell that was scary. What the fuck was that? ¡°Mis-¡± I think my heart is going to burst from running. ¡°MISS!!!¡± ¡°Whaa?¡± I turn around to the sound of someone shouting inside the carriage. Sitting on a bench is a portly man wearing a suit that just about fit him. He has a full black beard, with stripes of white running through it. His hair is short and slick. Besides him sits a woman short of stature with light brown hair done up in a rather fancy style. Her eyes have a look of motherly kindness and lines on her face suggesting an age not far off the man beside her. ¡°Miss, why are you in my carriage?¡± Just as I am about to answer the door I am hiding behind is violently thrown open and someone grabs me by the scruff of the neck hauling me outside. Landing hard on the ground I look up seeing the man who pulled me out. He is quite imposing wearing smooth leather-like armor in the same colors as the carriage holding a hand-and-a-half sword. The portly man from the carriage follows out from the carriage, taking a look around. Seeming to deem it safe he steps down and stands before me. ¡°So miss, would you kindly answer my question? And were you with those wastrels from earlier?¡± ¡°Wastrels? I have been running away from a monster for hours! I saw those bushes over there and thought I could hide behind them when I crashed into the carriage and hid inside it¡± ¡°Ardin, are there any monsters here in the Alm Brook Forest?¡± ¡°No sir, there have been no reported sightings of any monsters. Though hunters do sometimes bring wolf pelts. Perhaps the girl ran into a wolf?¡± ¡°That can¡¯t have been a wolf! It followed me all the way from that Stonehenge place!¡± ¡°Stonehenge? Do you mean the druids circle? What would you be doing out there girl? And you said you ran for hours? That can¡¯t be right, it takes no more than an hour or two to walk that distance. Sir, we should continue on to the city.¡± ¡°But? Wait! Please let me come along!¡±Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°Sir?¡± ¡°Help the men and you can follow us girl.¡± The portly man stepped back into the carriage and closed the door, leaving me outside with the imposing man, Ardin I think. He looked down at me and offered a hand. I grabbed it and stood up. Looking around I could see three other men wearing the same armor as Ardin carrying swords. There was also a man sitting atop the carriage holding the reins of the team leading the carriage. Two of the men were just finishing with dragging what looked to be people of to the side of the road. Though I couldn¡¯t make out for sure. ¡°Just follow behind the carriage, we don¡¯t need any help right now but I will have you help carry stuff when we arrive in the city as payment for the protection.¡± I could only nod at the statement from Ardin. Really, what else could I do? They had fucking swords! Not to mention the fact that I would have an armed escort, of sorts, to whatever city they were headed for.
I followed along behind the carriage as it started moving on the road through the forest. Whatever had been following me in the woods seems to have given up, or at least it has stopped making sounds. They say it was a wolf. Hah, right. No way, whatever that was it was certainly not a wolf. Hopefully, the monster stays away, so that I can make it safely to whatever city we are heading towards. In my panic earlier I didn¡¯t pay attention to them calling me ¡®miss¡¯ and ¡®a girl¡¯. It is still extremely weird being a girl? Woman? Now. But when thinking about it, I don¡¯t have as much disassociation with my body as I would have assumed. I would have assumed that my mind would heavily rebel against the entire situation. Sure I have only been in this body for a few hours at most, so it probably hasn¡¯t sunk in quite yet. Still, I would have imagined that there would have been some feeling of wrongness at the very least. But there is nothing. And looking at the men walking around the carriage I do find that I wonder if they look hot or not. Sure, I wasn¡¯t entirely straight back on earth, but I would still think about girls first. Whilst now I feel like it might have switched around? I still don¡¯t think I am straight, but instead of being most interested in girls, now it seems perhaps guys are my main focus? Gah, this is confusing. Just. Stop. Thinking. Why do I even care what I am attracted to? I am in a new fucking world! There are monsters here! That might mean magic! Fucking MAGIC! That means no time to think of how sex¡­ STOP IT! Magic¡­ Think about magic¡­ Hmm, what magic would suit me I wonder. Casting fireballs sounds pretty epic. Or perhaps striking monsters with bolts of lightning? Wind blades? Water jets? Laser beams? Is that even possible? ¡°Uhm¡­ What is your name?¡± I tapped the man walking closest to me on the shoulder. ¡°Huh, oh, uhm. I¡¯m Cedric, or just Ced, miss.¡± ¡°To¡ª Uhm. Alice. Just call me Alice. Nice to meet you Ced. I was wondering, does magic exists?¡± ¡°Ahahahahaha, you¡¯re joking, right? Asking about magic. Have you been living under a rock or something?¡± I am fairly sure my face turned red. ¡°So¡­ Sorry¡­ I guess it doesn¡¯t¡± Stupid¡­ Of course, magic isn¡¯t real. Why would it be? Just because I got reincarnated or isekai¡¯d doesn¡¯t mean magic is real. ¡°Pfft. Hahahaha. You really must have lived under a rock. If magic didn¡¯t exist how would we still be alive?¡± Wait. What? It is real! FUCK YEAH! MAGIC BITCHES! ¡°Thank you. Thank you. Thank you! I¡¯m gonna be a magic girl whoop whoop!¡± ¡°Are you alright miss Alice? Did you hit your head? And why are you thanking me? I can¡¯t do magic, it supposedly quite hard.¡± ¡°Sorry. I just thought for a second there that magic wouldn¡¯t be real.¡± Woop! I am going to learn magic! Hmm, okay, back to planning what magic I want. Healing magic perhaps? ¡°-ice-o-ea-e-¡± Nah, that is so typical girls in every isekai ever. What magic isn¡¯t used by MC normally? I am fairly sure I have read stories with most magics. Fire is also quite normal. And if not any of those the MC normally gets access to all magic. Necromancy? Ugh, corpses though. I don¡¯t really want to touch loads of decaying people. Do even get to choose my magic I wonder? I should probably ask. Perhaps Ced knows? ¡°Ced! Do you know if I can choose what magic I have?¡± ¡°So you are still there miss Alice. You looked quite lost for some time ahaha. Hmm, but choosing magic. I don¡¯t really know. Though I have seen someone using both fire and water, and those should be opposing elements. So perhaps you can use everything if you get magic?¡± ¡°Hoho, all the magic then! Thanks, Ced.¡± ¡°No pro-¡± What magic should I concentrate on first then? No, first I need access to magic or mana or whatever they use in this world. Hmm, how is it normally done? Just feel for it right? Some kind of underlying force of nature? Does it feel like gravity perhaps? Jumping up and down I do experience gravity as normal. Gravity is as it should be, but is magic similar or not? Perhaps it is closer in nature to the strong or weak nuclear forces? How would I feel it then? I really need to find someone that can teach me. Come on. Come on. We need to hurry to the city. Running to the side of the carriage I look down the road we are traveling and I think I can make out something gray in the distance. ¡°I think I see the city. Hurry everyone! We need to hurry!¡± ¡°Calm down girl. We will get there soon. You are quite energetic despite running from a so-called monster.¡± I try to look angry as I stare at Ardin. Not that I think I am pulling it off. I am way to giddy to be angry. So close to magic. Just a few hundred meters away. Then I can learn magic. ¡°Ardin. Do you know where I can learn magic in the city?¡± ¡°No.¡± Whaa. What¡¯s with that short response? Come on man! Answer a girl. I mean man. I need to know you know! ¡°Come on Ardin. Tell meeeeee. You must know.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t.¡± ¡°Is there a college in the city? A wizard tower? An Adventurers guild? Anything?¡± ¡°When we get to the city you can ask a guard once you have helped unload the carriage.¡± ¡°Awww. Come on Ardin, tell meeeeeee. Pleeeasee. Does your boss know? Can you ask him for me?¡± ¡°Girl, be quiet and you can talk when we finish unloading the carriage in the city.¡± Hmpf. Ardin is a fucking prick. I just want to learn magic you know. Kicking a small rock I slow down and walk beside Cedric again. At least he was being kind and answered my questions. Though looking at him I think he might be laughing at me. So, I punch his shoulder. ¡°Ooof, heh, sorry. Miss Alice, you are quite energetic and funny you know.¡± Well, of course I am. There is magic to be had. No time to waste and all. ¡°Hmpf. Ardin is mean, Ced. How long until we reach the city?¡± ¡°Hmm, I would guess around 10 or so minutes. Then however long the queue to get in.¡± ¡°Thanks, Ced. I¡¯ll just go back to thinking about awesome magic then.¡± Chapter 3: A New City The walls surrounding the city looks quite impressive. I didn¡¯t do too much traveling before, and for the most part just inside of the US. Seeing walls like these is rather amazing. Guessing I believe the walls to rise about 6-8 meters. I do wonder how the houses, roads,and people are inside the city? ¡°Stop, please identify yourselves.¡± Peaking around the carriage at the person speaking I see a guard dressed in what I assume is the cities colors, given the similarly dressed guards around the gate. ¡°Master Emmerich Josef Danks is here to assume the position of the new guild master of the merchants guild.¡± ¡°Guildmaster Danks, finally the merchants will get some new leadership. Well,carry on through.¡± The guard that had stopped the carriage waved for us to continue. When I passed the guards they gave me some weird looks. Why are they doing that? I didn¡¯t get any weird looks from Ardin or Ced or any of the other guards with the carriage. Right? Probably just the fact that someone without armor is walking beside the guards behind the carriage. Yeah, that is it. Once we passed through the gate I finally got a look at what houses looks like in this place. And I don¡¯t really know what I expected. They just look like normal medieval houses. Most of the houses lining the road we are traveling are of off white color. About three stories tall and seems to have been built as large connected blocks. *splash* I immediately turn towards the sound and see only brown. ¡°Hahahahaha. I-¡± I¡¯m going to throw up. ¡°I-I can-can¡¯t, hahaha¡± Get it off. ¡°Miss-ha-miss Al-ha-alice why¡± What did I just touch? OH MY GOD! ¡°OH MY G-¡± Darkness.
Sounds. What just happened? We walked into the city and I heard something. What was it? A splash, right. I turned towards it and then only brown. Oh god. And-and-and then. Then I touched something. A SEA URCHIN. YES! That is exactly what I touched. Nothing else. Nope. Never touched anything else. It must have been a poisoned sea urchin since I fell unconscious. Yup. Poisoned sea urchin. Opening my eyes I see a ceiling? Right they wouldn¡¯t just leave me in the streets. Feeling around me I am definitely lying in a bed. Though I must say it isn¡¯t a comfy bed at all. It feels like I am laying on a large bundle of hay or something. Taking a look around I see three other beds in the room. I lift one of my arms and look at it. It seems like I have been cleaned. And taking a tentative whiff of my hand. It carries a tiny hint of lavender. As I am trying to determine my state the door into the room is opened letting in a matronly woman. Taking a guess I would say she is around 40-45 years old. She is dressed in what I would say is a rather typical servant or maids dress. ¡°I see you are awake, girl. I think this is the first time I have heard of someone first getting a face full of night soil and then falling unconscious. Be glad that Master Danks cares and had you transported to his residence. I was also told that you had been allowed to follow them for security to the city in exchange for helping with unloading the carriage.¡± I couldn¡¯t do much but nod at what she was saying. I also feel rather stupid from what happened. ¡°Now they have already done that, they couldn¡¯t really wait for you. Instead, Master Danks said you would help me and the other girls for the rest of the day in getting the house situated. Luckily you were only out for about an hour, so there is plenty of the day left. So get up, and put on that dress there.¡± She points towards the end of the bed I am lying in, guessing by the other beds having a chest at the end it is probably laid on top of that. As I start getting up and out of the bed the woman is still standing there, looking at me. I quickly put one of my hands down to cover myself. Whilst the other hand with a bit of a delay covers my chest. ¡°Uhm, ma¡¯am why are you just standing there and looking at me? Isn¡¯t this innapr-¡± Right. I¡¯m a girl. ¡°I don¡¯t have all day and I need to make sure you get that dress on. They said you were mind-touched and I am starting to believe them. Now get dressed!¡± Mind-touched? What¡¯s that? Though from the sounds of it I should hurry and get dressed. Walking over to the end of the bed I see that I was correct in assuming the dress was placed on a chest. Lying on top of the dress is a pair of undergarments. Why are there no panties? I mean boxer shorts. Taking the undergarments I put them on. Huh, they kind of reminds of boxers, though looser. This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. Lifting the dress it is quite similar to the dress the woman is wearing. I manage to pull the dress over my head but struggle with making sure it sits properly. ¡°Hmpf¡± Is all I hear before a pair of hands grabs the dress and adjusts it. ¡°There we go. You can¡¯t even put on a dress properly. Anyways, now that you are dressed follow me.¡± I turn around as the woman starts walking towards the door. It takes a few seconds before what she said registers and I hurry to follow her. Walking out the door I am met with the smell of food. Looking around I see two men and another woman working with food on different surfaces. The woman I followed turn back to me. ¡°This is the kitchen, the room we came from is one of the servant¡¯s quarters. There won¡¯t be any food for us just yet. Now follow me upstairs and we can get you started.¡± She turns around and starts walking towards one of the doors leading from the kitchen. I do feel a bit hungry with all the smells around me but not as much as I would have expected. So again I hurry to follow the woman. She leads me through a short hallway with a few doors and up some stairs, though I would rather call the stairs a ladder with their incline. Once upstairs she walks down another hallway and walks into one of the rooms. Following her inside I am greeted by a rather lavish bedroom. I am sure the bed itself could hold five or six people. Around the room, there is a handful of wardrobes and a dressing table. On one of the sides is two large windows and the rest of the walls contain varying sizes of paintings. Standing by the dressing table is another woman dressed in the servants¡¯ attire. She smiles at us when we enter the room. ¡°Anna, I will leave you with the girl, Alice I think Ardin said her name was, have her help you get the room ready for the Master. Girl, listen well to what Anna says, she is second only to me so when I am not around her word goes.¡± I nod in understanding to the woman. ¡°Good, now get to work.¡± Saying so she turns and heads out of the bedroom through one of the other doors. Leaving me with Anna. ¡°So, you¡¯re the forest girl, Alice was it? Just follow what I do and you shouldn¡¯t have much of a problem.¡± ¡°N-yes, Alice is correct.¡± She smiled at me and handed me a cleaning cloth before turning back towards the dressing table and starting to clean. I must say I was very glad there were no vases or such in the bedroom. Had there been I am sure I would have ended up knocking one of them over. Cleaning that bedroom took quite a lot of time. I wasn¡¯t aware that something of that size could take so long to clean. I am fairly certain that if you were to go over the room with white gloves there wouldn¡¯t be a speck of dust to be found. One thing is for sure though, and that is how tired I am from all that cleaning. Why can¡¯t they use magic for this? That would be so much simpler I imagine. Just a wave of your hands or something and poof, clean room. I tried asking Anna about that and basically got the same response as from Ced earlier. I did however learn that there is a guild for magic users in the city. Once we finished cleaning the bedroom Anna had me follow her and lead me to what I assume is the study the desk and bookcases. There I was told to be extra careful so that I didn¡¯t damage anything. Cleaning the study took forever. I mean, by the time I heard what Anna said was the dining bell we were far from finished if it was to get as clean as the bedroom. Leading the way Anna walked back down to the kitchen where I could now see there was a table in one of the corners. Sitting around the table were a few other women, including the one that I assumed must be the head maid. We walked over and sat down, grabbing a plate each of the food that was on the table. I can¡¯t say I am fond of servants¡¯ food. It¡¯s so bland and stale and everything. I mean the dark or black bread was stale and the stew had no taste really. I don¡¯t even think there was any meat in the stew. Whilst eating the servants that had for the most part finished talked mostly about what had been going on around the estate? Villa? Property during the day. What they seemed to find interesting I don¡¯t understand. Like when was it interesting to find out that the Lady of the house had gotten a certain dress? Or that the master had some critique on one of the bushes? When I finished eating I just had to ask them about where the magic guild was. ¡°Anna told me that there was a magic guild in the city, does anyone of you know where I can find it?¡± ¡°Hmm, it is in the central square, though I don¡¯t really see why you would want to know that? Only nobles and rich people go there.¡± ¡°I want to learn magic! I-¡± All of the servants around the table burst out laughing at that. Some of them even laughed so hard they started getting teary eyes. ¡°Wow, that made my day. A commoner learning magic. Well, non of us are going to stop you, girl.¡± ¡°Yes, it sounds rather unbelievable. Alice, Master Danks said that you were free to leave after dinner, though he also said that if you were considering getting some work to come to see him either now or tomorrow in the morning. But if you are leaving I would recommend that you find an inn to stay at. The cheap and safe ones are on the east side of the merchants quarter.¡± ¡°Thank you, ma¡¯am, and when you see, uhm, Guildmaster Danks, please tell him thank you for the offer and safety. I don¡¯t suppose you can tell me where I can find my clothes or any clothes at all? I imagine you would want the dress back?¡± ¡°Anna, don¡¯t you have that set of old clothes still lying around? How about giving them to Alice so she can go and join the mage guild.¡± Anna nodded to the head maid and waved for me to follow her. We went back to the servant¡¯s quarter where I woke up and she opened one of the chests. From there she pulled out some rather shabby looking dress with almost no color except what color it must have gotten from use. She handed me the clothes with a smile. ¡°There you go, Alice. I would recommend you to just go talk with Master Danks, it sounds like you would get an offer to join us servants here. And he is quite a nice person to serve. He loves his wife so there aren¡¯t any problems there and the guards are very honorable. But if you want to go to the guild I can¡¯t stop you. It was nice meeting you and good luck. I¡¯ll let you get changed and wait for you outside in the foyer, that is out the door there.¡± She indicated one of the other doors leading out of the servant¡¯s quarters that I hadn¡¯t noticed earlier before she headed through the door herself. Once I was alone in the room I tried to be quick with getting out of the dress. But not because I felt uncomfortable, it was actually a rather nice dress to wear, but more since I wanted to hurry before it got too late. Quickly getting into the hand me down dress I made my way out to the foyer. In the foyer, Anna was already waiting by a rather grand pair of doors, that I assume is the entrance, and waved me over. ¡°The dress isn¡¯t the best but I¡¯d rather someone have it than throwing it away. Now once more are you sure you don¡¯t want to stay? It is starting to get late.¡± ¡°I need to see if I can join the mages. Who doesn¡¯t want to do magic, and I am quite certain I can do it. I just know it. Thank you for the dress Anna and have a good evening.¡± I waved to Anna and went through the door leading out. Seeing the gardens I stopped almost immediately. They were beautiful, just the spread of color in the different plants and bushes complemented by the greenest grass I think I have ever seen made for an almost unimaginable sight. Shaking my head I resumed walking, I can¡¯t spend time looking at flowers when I need to hurry towards the mages guild. When I reached the gate of the estate I asked one of the guards standing there where the central square and subsequently the mages guild where. They gave me the directions, which basically amounted to follow the road you are on right now towards the right for about 10-15 minutes and it will be the square you reach with the large statue in the middle. The guild itself should be quite obvious once there. On the way over to the square, I passed quite a lot of people, most were rather well dressed. Non really at the level of the guild master Danks, but definitely up there. I guess people at Danks¡¯ level of wealth and nobles wouldn¡¯t walk and rather ride a carriage or horses or something. When I reached the central square I would have to agree with the guard when he said that the mages guild would be quite obvious. After all, it isn¡¯t really hard to find it when it is the largest building in the square. Having what appears to be magical light floating around the entrance and a pair of heavily armed men standing by both the door and the stairs leading up. I stared at the building for almost a full minute before building up the courage to head in. I almost expected the guards to stop me at the stairs, but they didn¡¯t even turn their heads and I continued to the door. Again the guards didn¡¯t even seem to be alive as I pushed open the door. And was greeted by the sight of the reception room of the guild.