An Unbound Soul

I sat in my dorm room and pondered my choice of clothing. On the one hand, my usual village outfits were not exactly high class, made of cheap cloth and each containing their own unique collection of patches, scuffs and stains. None of them were the sort of thing that one should presumably be wearing in front of a noble. On the other hand, kinky leather bodysuit. In the end, my lingering embarrassment won out, and I put on my least worst set of village clothes. I'd worn them before when visiting the library and no-one had batted an eyelid, so they must be fine.

That was another nice thing about this world; there wasn't any discrimination against poverty. I could walk around the town wearing this and still get friendly smiles from the far richer citizens. I could walk around in rags and it would probably be the same. Saying that, with the money I had now, I could certainly afford something better. I would be growing out of these clothes soon, so perhaps I should. But then Mum would miss out on making my outfits herself, which I knew she enjoyed doing... Hmm... Maybe I could buy her some higher end materials as a present? I wouldn't have to worry about jealousy from the other villagers. But then I wouldn't want to play with the village kids anymore, because I'd worry about damaging my expensive clothes... Why did life have to be so complicated? I'd just need to get both sorts then. Cheap outfits for day-to-day village life, and a more expensive one for when I was randomly summoned by the town lord.

Reaching the mansion, I paused in confusion. When we came last time, we'd knocked on a side door, but this time I'd been summoned. Did that make a difference? Should I use the main door? If there were guards hanging around, I could just ask, but there was no-one. I decided to stick with what I knew and went for the side door, which was opened by Cliff. Seriously, that guy already looked like he should be in a nursing home three years ago. Just how old was he? [Appraisal] told me that just like his race, his class was not in fact dapper gentleman, but it was [Master Butler] which was close enough. I wonder what skills that granted? Given how quickly the door opened after knocking, I would guess some sort of interior teleportation was among them.

If I'd come to the wrong door, he didn't comment on it, instead leading me to Lord Reid's study, where I immediately spotted my music box on the desk in front of him.

ding

Skill [Privacy] advanced to level 9

I was really going to miss my appraisal detector once it hit max level.

"Please understand that this is a request, not an order, and that you have no reason to be frightened of me, but could you tell me where you came up with this idea?"

I wonder what he made of me on our first encounter. I was convinced he was responsible for brainwashing the whole town, and that when he found out I wasn't affected, I was going to be imprisoned or worse. Despite how I'd treated him, he still came to our defence when our village got attacked. I suppose those slimes must have been Erryn's fault, too. But now I needed to fear him no longer. Heck, Erryn had gone so far as to give me her blessing to start spreading my knowledge.

"You were right the first time, when you said that a high intelligence stat wasn't enough and you need to experience things. I was born with a full set of adult memories, but they were memories of a different world. Common sense was different there, so it led to many misunderstandings. Not least the first time I was here."

Lord Reid's eyebrow did its thing. I'd heard of the expression 'raising an eyebrow', but the way Lord Reid's behaved made it look more like it was some sort of independent parasite clinging to his face, and that it had sucked all the rest of the animation and expression out of him.

"And that's the truth? So you created this box of music using this knowledge from another world?"

And once again, the no-lying rule kicked in and cut half an hour off this conversation. Wait... No, it didn't! He started by questioning if that was the truth! He shouldn't be able to do that... Maybe he thought I was joking, rather than suspecting a lie?

"Yes. It's not complicated though. There's not anything in there that any competent smith couldn't recreate. This civilization just hasn't been around for very long, so people haven't had time to come up with ideas like these."

"Oh? And how old was yours?"

Good question. When did we count the start of civilization from? The obvious and largely ambiguous answer would be 'thousands of years', but how advanced did a civilization have to be to count as a civilization? Even my little village had hygienic indoor toilets, and I was pretty sure we didn't have them on Earth a few hundred years ago. Magic really threw a wrench into things.

"A few thousand years. But it's not really a fair comparison. We didn't have magic, so the way it developed was completely different."

The life-form sharing Lord Reid's face continued to wriggle around. "That must have been... inconvenient." He frowned as he looked down at the music box. "Then there's something I do need you to answer frankly. The last time we met, you gave the impression that it wasn't actually your conflicting affinities that were attracting attention. Is this it? If you start spreading knowledge from outside of this world, will you be putting Dawnhold in danger?"

"About that, I've actually had a talk with... umm... with the responsible party. She's fine with it, as long as I don't start spreading around methods to build weapons. I don't believe there's any danger to myself or anyone around me."

Lord Reid's pet eyebrow gained another new lease of life as he sat and fiddled with the music box. The sound that came out was a well known Christmas carol, chosen primarily for being one of the few songs I could remember well enough to use and because Remous was utterly tone deaf.

"And if I ask who this 'responsible party' is, I don't suppose you'd answer?"

"I... probably shouldn't."

"Then another question. Can you teach this knowledge to others?"

"I can share what I know, but I don't know much. There's also no guarantee that all of my knowledge is applicable in this world."

"Reasonable enough. And evidently at least some of it is applicable," he said, nodding at the music box. "Then could I ask you to run a class this summer? We can start with ten hour-long sessions, and make other arrangements if you need more time. I'll leave the choice of topics to you, but please pick things that you believe would benefit Dawnhold. Your audience will be the craftsmen of the town and others likely to be able to make use of your knowledge."

Woah, that progressed quickly. Could I come up with enough stuff to fill that much time? Almost certainly, but could I come up with enough useful stuff to fill that much time? "I'm sure I can do something, but I'll have to spend some time thinking about what would be best."

He nodded again and then gestured at Cliff, who stepped forward and held out a gold coin. I blinked in disbelief.

Gold Coin (rank 3)

Yup, even [Appraisal] agreed. I'd never even seen one of those before! Why was he trying to give it to me?!

"That's your payment for this music box and a retainer for holding a summer class. You can consider the debt for your equipment repaid too, although I would still like to hear of any new class evolutions you unlock."

"Th... Thank you." Okay, now I was absolutely going to have to get some new clothes. Not to mention I could buy out the whole delvers' guild magical item supply. Or perhaps I should not spend any of it, and save it towards my Emerald Nest visit instead...

It wasn't until I'd left his mansion that it really sunk in what I had just done. I was going to be holding classes to deliberately teach Earth science, as best as I could remember it, to this world! Why was I surprised at a gold coin? I shouldn't have been surprised at a platinum. Then again, he'd said this was just a retainer. Despite no longer being afraid of him, I still wasn't able to go and casually have a conversation with the person who was effectively my ruler, and perhaps I'd rushed out of there without asking all the questions that I should have. It hadn't helped that he'd distracted me with gold the second I'd agreed, either. Now I'd added something else again to my list of summer work, and even worse, it was something I was going to have to spend time beforehand planning rather than just turning up to.

I visited the fabric shop, the first store other than Henry's that I'd ever visited in this world. Hanging around Mum while she worked had given me more than enough knowledge to pick out what sort of things I wanted. The shop was still as assistant free as it had been three years ago, but unlike Mum, I didn't want entire bolts of cheap cloth. Was I supposed to just cut it myself? Probably safer to check. I found a bell marked 'ring for assistance' at the back of the store and gave it a jingle. That turned out to be very much the correct thing to do. The problem only came when I tried to pay, the store having insufficient cash on hand to change a gold coin. Fortunately, I had enough in silver and coppers, avoiding the need for a mad dash to the merchants' guild.

The delvers' store could change the gold coin, because merchants had a skill to break up or merge coins into different denominations. Because of course they did. In a world in which alchemy was a respectable profession, why should I even be surprised at watching someone wave his hand over a gold coin and turn it into ten large silvers?

I splashed out one of them on a bracelet of martial skill, which the delvers' store happened to have in stock that day. It was advertised as giving plus one level to all weapon proficiency skills, even if the skill was already capped. Given that I would be capped at twelve indefinitely without taking a combat class, I considered an item to bump it to thirteen to be a worthwhile purchase.

I'd grown used to skills trickling knowledge into my head, but in this case, removing the bracelet cost me a skill level, which was a different experience entirely. I resolved to always keep it on, as far as possible. The number of ways in which the System could cause nausea continued to impress me.

The next day, I was due to travel back home with Henry. There was nothing new in the village, but Mum was greatly impressed with her gift of posh cloth. Even if it was mainly for me, I'd brought enough for the whole family. Of course, that didn't stop Dad asking where his present was, in reply to which I brought out a bundle of orc jerky. The sight on his face when he bit into a piece was almost enough to make up for the occasion he'd watched me [Far Step] straight into a wall. The remaining pieces ended up visiting the tavern with him, where they turned into some sort of test of courage.

Experimentation with Kari revealed that [Greater Mana Control] wasn't sufficient to produce mana of my attuned affinities, at least at my low level. Given how far back she stood while I tried, I lost my enthusiasm for producing raw space or time mana. At least, not without finding someone who knew what it would do beforehand. I didn't want to accidentally open a portal out of the world and bleed off our atmosphere, or speed up the passage of time around my hand without the rest of my body.

The rest of spring passed without incident. I continued bouncing between Dawnhold and the village, delving as deep as the dungeon's sixth floor. While I hadn't had any use out of concealment on the upper floors, largely thanks to my inability to move with it active, I was able to use it to great effect against the roving goblin riders of floor six. I brought home a collection of monster cores of levels one to six, along with dire wolf claws and fangs, in case I could learn a crafting skill that made use of them. After a couple more skill levels of [Dismantling] I even managed some hides, although I still needed to pay a dismantler to use one of their skills to turn them into leather, and then they got poached by Mum before I could store them. Giving her the new materials to work with seemed to have restored some of her childhood enthusiasm, giving her the final push she needed to break through to rank three. Apparently it wasn't just the children of the village I'd had an influence on; Mum was the second adult I'd accidentally ranked up this season.

Strength increased by 1

Wisdom increased by 1

Skill [Strength] advanced to level 6

Skill [Strength] advanced to level 7

Skill [Dexterity] advanced to level 6

Skill [Endurance] advanced to level 6

Skill [Enlarged Stamina Pool] advanced to level 9

Skill [Dismantling] advanced to level 6

Skill [Dismantling] advanced to level 7

Skill [Concealment] advanced to level 4

Skill [Concealment] advanced to level 5

Skill [Concealment] advanced to level 6

Skill [Enhanced Mana Recovery] advanced to level 8

Skill [Mana Perception] advanced to level 4

Skill [Greater Mana Control] advanced to level 3

Class [Body Mage] advanced to level 6

Summer rolled around, and the children's school broke up for summer holidays, which were a thing even here. That freed up the classroom for its extra summer classes. I had three to attend; runecrafting and alchemy, and then the one that was completely new for this year; otherworldly science.