This Beast-Tamer is a Little Strange

After a moment of stunned silence, Kain opened his mouth. "So is it possible for you to just wish for Cherry to be released? Or for the powerful beast-tamer running this place to die?"

Even before Kain finished talking, Serena was already shaking her head, "I already said that I can't know the equivalent price to be paid until after the wish is granted, and the most Balins can help me is ensuring that the price doesn't fall on me directly—my friends and family are fair game."

"If I make that wish, are you okay with another child, or even one of your other siblings, being kidnapped by someone else in exchange for Cherry? If I wish to kill that beast-tamer, are you okay with the director of your orphanage suddenly dying from a heart attack or freak accident in exchange?"

Serena just listed a few examples, but they immediately shut his mouth. He got the point.

Although the skill of her contract was fantastical and practically balance-breaking, the potential consequences of it were also terrifying.

"The exchanges are always equivalent, right? So I'm sure by now you've come up with a general set of rules to somewhat predict what the price may be. After all, you used it to drastically reduce the breakthrough time for you and your contracts right? That must mean that you weighed the possible price to be paid and considered that it was worth it."

Serena didn't deny it, so Kain continued. "What if we just made smaller wishes? Like wishing for the strongest individual in the building to suddenly suffer from intense stomach cramps or have to leave the building due to an emergency? What would be the possible price for that?"

Serena briefly went silent, thinking.

"If we have the strongest individual here suddenly fall sick, there are many possibilities for a possible price it considers equal: we or someone close to us may also fall ill, or an important enchanted item may suddenly break or be lost."

"However, making a wish for an emergency bad enough for him to leave, would mean that emergency would actually need to happen…and a similarly severe emergency may also befall one of us or someone close to us in the near future."

"It's best to make harmless wishes that don't actually result in any of them actually being harmed…we could make a wish for information instead… but it would likely result in some important knowledge being forgotten by us as well…" Serena finished.

Kain's jaw tightened as he mulled it over. "What about something else small, then? Like asking Balins to make sure the guards don't notice us when we move through the hallways?"

"That could work," she said cautiously. "The price for that might be less severe, something like one of us becoming temporarily less perceptive or losing track of time at a critical moment. However, when going into a dangerous environment, being less perceptive may result in the death of one or both of us."

"I think knowledge is the safest bet… let's start with something relatively small. The knowledge of Cherry's exact location within the building? It would save us time from running around looking for her."

Serena hesitantly nodded. Kain could tell by how reluctant she was to even make such a simple wish that she was very averse to making wishes and would probably not have summoned Balins if the situation were not so dire.

Making eye-contact with her contract, Kain assumed she was communicating the wish to Balins.

The next moment a very clear 3D blueprint of the building with all rooms shown and Cherry's location appeared in his mind, available to be accessed whenever he wished.

A glowing dot, which Kain assumed represented Cherry, was in one of the many rooms in the basement level of the building.

"Magical…" Kain revelled at the information that spontaneously appeared in his mind, "What was the price? I don't feel like I'm forgetting anything…?"

"You wouldn't know what you were forgetting anyways, I'll ask." Serena communicated with her contract and then answered Kain, "The price did fall on you, and you are going to have a very difficult time navigating the campus when we get back since it seems as though all that information was taken from your mind."

Kain shrugged, not too worried. Although, now that she mentioned it, several of his memories navigating the campus appeared to be blank. However, having to re-learn his way around campus was a small price to pay for having a better chance of getting Cherry.

Kain then looked at Serena wondering if they should make another wish, only to receive an eye-roll. "This is also why I don't often reveal Balins. It's hard to stop after just one wish, but just because the first price was something you could easily live with, doesn't mean that the next will be."

"You said that Balins is able to prevent the consequence from falling on you, can he at all direct it to someone specific."

"No. I've tried it in the past. To direct the price to an enemy or someone I wouldn't feel too guilty about harming, but it was never successful in the past—"

Jingle jingle

Suddenly the chains attached to its scales jingled as it shook them around trying to get Serena's attention, causing her to pause in the middle of speaking.

"It says if it has a target fully willing to bear the price, then it would increase the probability of it falling on them. Likely, subconsciously, you had no resistance to bearing the price for the previous wish, which is why it fell on you…but I've never had a target fully willing to bear the price before, so I'm not sure exactly how much an 'increase in probability' means."

Kain nodded, that had been precisely what he was hinting toward. If the price couldn't be directed to any enemy of theirs, he had hoped that it could be directed to just him instead, sparing the members of the orphanage from potentially ending up as collateral damage from the wish.

"I am willing. Let's make some more wishes…"