Rye woke up, feeling his head spin.
When he turned – he saw Mari sitting near the bed. A disappointed, annoyed sigh. Like mocking his stupidity. "Alright, Rye, you can't keep getting away with this. I know you've awakened."
"What?" Rye flinched. Then realized, his cut fingers and wounds had been healed. Probably got treated by Mari or mom, which means one of them has healing magic. Too quick to be natural, that's for sure.
"Mom healed you," so it was right. "But you can't just run off and endanger yourself. You've passed out twice these past days."
Mari pinched the bridge of her nose, irritated. "I'm not mad you've awakened. What's your pathway?"
Rye's memories came flooding down with the system screen. Yep. He can't say it or he'll die. He didn't want to lie at all, but there was no other way. "I'm not awakened yet."
"Sure."
The scolding was over after that conversation. Mari knew he had to work or they'd get buried in debt.
—
Tomas' crib, east side of the square, Rye walked, feeling half-dizzy, half-annoyed. He'd never worked in his life. This was new. Maybe he could utilize drawing-powers to make it easier… he'd brought the jar of ink in a satchel, after all.
Whatever happens, happens.
Far off the crowd, he saw a cart draped with a blue towel. No mistaking it. The grunted man was behind it too, along with Eirin being shouted at.
"I told you to face the customers!" Tomas said,
"Okay, geez!* Eirin turned the cart to face forward, annoyed. To be fair – the kid looked … more like a girl? He had a high-pitch voice, short green hair, and slim waist. But Rye thought it was just because he was young. He wore boyish clothes, too, and that didn't clarify anything.
In that instance, Tomas noticed Rye and signed at him to move.
"You. Finally." Toms didn't look up from counting jars. "Thought you'd skip out."
"Of course not!" Rye straightened his back. He wasn't such an asshole to skip a promise, even when he nearly died from mana exhaustion.
"Don't care. See those crates?" Tomas pointed at a stack of wooden boxes near the cart. "Carry them back to the stall. Now."
Rye nodded and walked over.
The first crate was heavier than it looked. A large, thick box slumped to the back of a wagon. He lifted it with both hands, shaking.
'Stats are supposed to make me stronger, right? Why does this feel like I'm lifting a boulder?' Rye screamed internally.
Eirin appeared beside him, carrying a much smaller box with one hand. He—she—(?) leaned in and tilted their head innocently. "Need help?" Their voice was a mock-tease, which was reasonable considering the amount of weakness Rye had shown.
"I'm fine." he said, teeth gritted as he carried the crate step by step. Move outta the way!
"Haah, come on. We can't afford to lose that."
"I won't drop it."
Eirin shrugged, then sighed in exasperation. "If you say so."
Rye made it three more steps before his arms gave out. The crate hit the ground with a heavy thud. Glasses clinked, and Eirin snapped her head to look.
Tomás's head whipped around as well. "Careful! Those have glass in them!"
"Sorry—"
"Sorry doesn't pay for broken goods." Tomás walked over and grabbed one side of the crate. "Here. We'll carry it together. You're too scrawny to lift these alone."
Rye's face burned but he grabbed the other side. This was too pitiful. He really, really needed to level up and get stronger. A scrawny kid wouldn't make it far in life!
Together, they moved it to the back.
"Do you eat enough?" Tomas asked as they set it down inside the shack. Crates were everywhere, stacked on top of each other in the confined room.
"What?" Of course he'd eaten enough. Mom and Mari were an excellent family, he wasn't abused or anything. If Rye could guess, he became weak because of the mana-loss. He would recover soon enough and carry these just fine.
"Food. Do you eat enough? You're skinnier than most kids your age." Tomas snapped twice, refocusing Rye's attention.
"Yes I eat."
"Not enough, clearly." Tomas straightened up. Stretched. And started walking out the shack for another round of carrying. "Eirin, get him some bread."
"Eh? We don't have extra. You're pretty strict about this."
"I said get him bread."
Eirin sighed and ran off.
Tomas looked at Rye. "You collapse on me, your Dad's gonna complain." He smiled, "Ryan is a good friend of mine."
Rye blinked. His Dad's name is Ryan? And he's a merchant's friend? Well, that doesn't mean he's a merchant automatically. But that explains why Tomas was so nice.
Eirin came back with half a loaf and shoved it into Rye's hands. "Here. It's from yesterday so it's kinda hard."
Rye bit into it anyway. It was hard. And dry. But food was food.
"Better?" Tomas asked.
"Yeah. Thanks." Rye swallowed.
Rye wanted to ask about his 'father' in this new world. What he does, what he looks like, and if he could use magic. But Rye knew work had to be done… and he was too awkward to keep up the conversation.
"Good. Now get back to work."
***
The next hour was a blur of lifting, organizing, and trying not to pass out. Rye's arms burned. His back ached. His mana was still low, making everything feel ten times harder.
Eirin worked beside him, chattering the whole time. They carried larger, and larger boxes but didn't seem to struggle. Rye suddenly felt weak as a man. Well, Eirin could be a man too.
"—so Dad says we're staying through the festival. Two weeks. Which is forever, but at least there's stuff to do here." Eirin paused. "Oh, have you been to a Harvest Festival before?"
"No." Harvest festival? That's new. Rye could talk to kids just fine, so he pushed forward to ask more questions. Information was valuable. First was just by Mari, now he had connections.
Social anxiety wasn't a reason to stay dumb.
"Really? They're fun. Lots of food, games, performances. And there's a pathway demonstration thing. People show off what they can do and compete for prizes."
"Prizes?" Please don't be vague!
"Yeah. Money, mostly. First place gets a thousand crowns."
Rye's ears perked up. "A thousand?!" He didn't know the exchange rates, but a thousand pesos was a lot in his country. Maybe it's even more here. But … not like he's gonna participate. That'll be hell incarnate.
"Yup. That's why everyone enters. Even people with boring pathways like Fire or Water." Eirin grinned. "You should enter."
"No thank you." Rye flinched.
Eirin looked down. "You're lucky you even awakened early. I have no pathway. If I were you, I'd join in for fun." They swung their head and looked up, smiling. "But that's fine, we could just watch!"
Tomas shouted and stopped their chatter. They both started to carry goods.
Rye learned more information: a Harvest festival. Which was probably a place where he could get paper.
The work was over for the day.
The sun started setting down.
He parted ways with the two.