Testing My Luck in the New World

 We ran straight back to the Lazy Cat Inn and dropped off Yua's luggage in my room before heading straight back out. Thankfully, the innkeeper wasn't posted at her counter to see us up. I really couldn't afford to be charged for a second person staying in my room right now. For this reason and a mountain more piling up behind it, we left as soon as we came.

Yua made sure she didn't lag too far behind while we walked, but she also made sure to keep her distance. Nevertheless, she followed me dutifully, looking annoyed each time I looked over my shoulder to see if she was still there.

No idea why she didn't used my distracted state to just run away and save herself. It's not like I gave her an order to stay beside me. There may be a magical contract binding us now, but I couldn't think of a reason why she wouldn't want to high tail it out of here after Alphonse's threat.

I was sure my worries must have been plastered all over my face, because everyone we encountered did their best to swim away from me while I passed through the ocean of people milling about like I were a shark's fin through the water's surface.

Arggh! Enough with the similes and metaphors.

What the hell am I supposed to do?!

The simplest answer to my new money troubles was to head to the dungeon, even if the things I found in it were worth more than what I found from regular forest animals, there was no way that we could beat enough of them and do so fast enough to make up the absurd price of her contract. Not to mention that, unless there was a huge number of enemies on the first floor, there were likely other adventurers already progressing through it, killing everything before we even had the chance to get there. For all I knew, everything on the first floor was already dead. Then I also had to consider the time it would take for the enemies to respawn the next day.

God... Goddess, I never even considered asking what Yua's actual price was. For all I knew, he lied about that too. And now I only have three days before she... and I...

I gulped and felt for my neck as if there were already a rope coiling around it. Which, for all intents and purposes, there was. Even if I could callously push aside the gruesome fate he had in mind for Yua, I'd be forced into slavery for failing to pay him what I owed. From there, I would most likely be sold off as a fighter or laborer, forced to toil in the hardest jobs imaginable until the day I died.

"..."

We didn't have time to spare. We'd just have to do what we could today and be the first ones in tomorrow. I didn't really want for her to fight and needlessly risk her safety, but now I had no choice but to beg for her assistance after seeing her capabilities in a fight.

After a while of neither of us speaking to one another as we made our way through the city, Yua finally quickened her pace to catch up to speak to me. I managed to find in myself some semblance of calm in the cute way her the cat ears atop her chestnut hair twitched curiously, though there was no matching amusement in her expression.

"Hey, Master, where are we going?"

She asked just as we entered the city's shopping district. I wasn't too sure how I felt about her calling me "Master," nor did I have the time to consider the tone she used when she did, but I didn't complain. I was much too busy worrying about what to do next. While I didn't know exactly where to go, I did have at least the beginnings of a plan cooking up in my head for how we could start.

"I'm taking you to a blacksmith. We need to head straight to the dungeon if we want to have any hope of making some coin. And I don't have a sword for you to use. Hopefully the coin I have left will be enough for you to at least get a knife."