Y.O.W

Chapter 15: Association

Ren looked at the purple, green bottle in his hand and frowned. Mary who was chopping vegetables at the table in his small apartment noticed his look.

"Ren, you need to take your medicine." She scolded.

He sighed and opened the bottle. He poured just a small amount onto a teaspoon and took a bite. The taste was so bitter that it brought tears to his eyes, and it took his full effort to swallow the foal potion. When he finally swallowed, he let out a sigh of relief. It had been three days since the attack and every morning he had to take the fowl potion. Is this crap even helping? Mary smiled at his effort, which made him feel worse.

For the past few days Mary had spent the entire time with him, taking care of him and answering his questions. What he found out was very limited to common knowledge related to commerce. Ren looked at the potion again and frowned. Apparently, potions really were expensive in the grand scheme of things. Mary sold items like small clothing articles and accessories. Apparently, the boots he'd bought from her only costed five medium coppers. Mary's rent on her tiny apartment for a month was five large coppers. A piece of stale bread from a baker costs 2 small coppers and the cheapest meat from the butcher cost 1 medium coin. The exchange was apparently 100 to 1. So, 100 small coppers made up 1 medium copper and so on. It had been nice to learn about the value of things over the last few days and have Mary take care of him, but right now the information he needed most wasn't money related.

"Mary-chan, I've been meaning to ask, but what about your stall? You've been gone from it for so long..."

Mary paused in her chopping, then sighed. "Yeah, I have. I need to go back to running it tomorrow, but..."

"But?"

She glared at him. "I'm afraid that you're going to get yourself into more trouble."

Ren shriveled under her gaze. "I won't. Actually, I was hoping to find a teacher."

"A teacher?"

"Well... I need to learn a lot of things. Reading and writing in this world, but I really need to learn how to recontrol my magic. Is there a place I can go to find a teacher like that?" Ren wondered how much the cost of a teacher was.

"Do you really need to control your magic? It's almost killed you a couple times now."

Ren paused and saw her lips twitching as she looked at the vegetables on the table. Is she mad?

"I don't have any other skills. Plus, if that thing..." He shivered as he remembered the creature. "If that thing shows up again, I want to be able to protect you."

Mary looked up at him surprised and blushed. "I'm not sure about magic, but there's a school where you can learn to read and write. The best place to find a magic teacher might be the association."

Ren frowned at the new term. "The association?"

"They're like a meeting point for the guilds. I'm a part of the merchant's guild. I had to go to the association when I set up my stall," Mary explained.

"You had to go to the association instead of the merchant's guild to set up shop?" Ren wondered how that worked.

"The main guild is only accessible to high end merchants. Regular stall owners go to the association to register."

"The stuffy big-name merchants don't want to deal with the little people. So, they outsource dealing with them to the association." Ren mused out loud.

Mary smiled at him from across the table.

He fidgeted at her look. "W-what?"

"You're not stuttering as often anymore. I'm glad. It feels like you have gotten used to talking to me now."

Ren blushed and looked at the table. It was true that being holdup in an apartment with someone else had forced him to talk more. He didn't know how well he'd be able to talk to others well, but he could speak with Mary fine. Though I guess I did ok when dealing with that crooked healer.

"Mary-chan, can you take me to the association today?" Ren wondered if he was being too imposing.

She frowned but seemed to give in. "Alright, you seem in better shape now, so I guess it's ok. If I don't take you and you go on your own, I feel like someone will take advantage of you."

Ren blushed. She's not wrong. I still have a lot to learn about this world.