Chapter 9

Iris quickly grasped the key point: “This box is very expensive?”

“It depends on the quality. The cheaper ones might cost two or three gold coins, while the expensive ones could be worth dozens of gold coins,” Lei explained.

In this world, the currency system was decimal-based for gold, silver, and copper coins. She had seen job advertisements in newspapers indicating that ordinary clerical workers earned about ten silver coins a week. The White family provided subsidies to students in the advanced training class based on their rank—the lowest rank received one silver coin per week, and after advancing to the first level, she could get three silver coins weekly.

Even if Kay bought the cheapest kind costing two or three gold coins, for a fourteen or fifteen-year-old child, that was still an enormous sum.

Most of Kay’s money was likely spent on this.

However, everyone knew how poor the cost-performance ratio of these boxes was. Iris didn’t believe Kay was buying these boxes just to gamble on hitting the jackpot from a blind box; she must have had another reason.

Iris soon found the answer—Kay was searching for a particular prescription, and she was willing to pay any price to find it!

“Now you see I wasn’t lying when I said I had no money, right?” Kay said before signaling that their meeting was over. “If there’s nothing else, you should leave quickly; I have to go out and earn money tomorrow.”

“Can I have a look?” Iris pointed to the prescriptions inside the box.

Having just earned some money from Iris, Kay’s attitude towards her was noticeably softer than it was with Lei. Since Iris wasn’t a pharmacist anyway, Kay agreed.

Iris took out several prescriptions stacked together, pretending to read the text.

In reality, she slipped one into her system backpack for identification. She repeated this several times, but the result was always—

[Incomplete Prescription]

[Incomplete Prescription]

[Incomplete Prescription]

Iris thought: …So even in this other world, I have to taste the bitterness of failed card draws?

Wasn’t this a bit too humiliating?

After suffering a series of unlucky blows, Iris gave up this aimless, scatterbrained search method.

“Are you going to test each of these prescriptions one by one?” Iris asked.

“…Actually, I know a little trick,” Kay said. “Like using divination to shortcut the process.”

Seeing Kay’s eyes drifting away, Iris realized this wasn’t a method that would be useful.

As she put the prescriptions back into the box, she asked, “Has anyone ever gotten something good from these boxes?”

“Yes. Some factions specifically buy certain special boxes,” Lei said. “Adventuring parties gather unknown prescriptions from ancient ruins and similar places and then auction them off. Wealthy factions buy them and pay for identification magic. They can afford advanced identification spells. Of course, these spells aren’t always 100% effective, but if the spell determines the authenticity of a prescription with over 70% confidence, they will analyze and try to reconstruct it.”

Kay shrugged. “But the success rate of low-level identification is only about 30%, and it costs fifty silver coins each time. Advanced identification? One gold coin per attempt.”

Listening, Iris felt a spark of hope for a sudden windfall.

She wondered if the system backpack’s identification function was equivalent to the identification spell… If so, she thought she could earn some money herself, though it would be best not to do so under her current identity.

Considering the time was already late and they had gathered plenty of important information, they ended the conversation.

Before parting, they exchanged contact information through magic mirrors. Even Kay, who did not appear wealthy, gave Iris a sympathetic look when she noticed the outdated style of Iris’s mirror.

“I noticed just now, your cloak looks nice, but your clothes underneath aren’t as good as mine…” Kay patted Iris on the shoulder. “It must be tough being an adventurer with your build, huh?”

Only when Kay got closer did Iris realize she was actually half a head taller than her.

“I’m still growing,” she said.

Kay gave a perfunctory, “Uh-huh, keep it up…”

Iris: “…”

Although she wasn’t particularly tall back on Earth, this was the first time someone had openly commented on her height and build.

Hopefully, it wasn’t too late to make up for it—she would eat more, drink more milk, and go to bed earlier.

After leaving Kay’s home, Iris walked a while with Lei. During their casual chat, she learned Lei, like herself, was an orphan.

Was survival in this world that harsh?

Was the orphan rate too high?

Lei said he earned money by apprenticing for others and had passed the pharmacist association’s exam, successfully becoming an advanced student. He now lived in the student dormitory near the association.

Before parting ways, Lei taught Iris a bit of binding magic.

Before they separated, Lei asked, “Are you really going to keep searching for ebony wood?”

“Yes,” Iris replied. “What about you?”

“…Let me think about it. Sorry.”

He nodded and walked off in the other direction.

Iris understood his feelings. Lei had worked hard to accumulate so much; he was cautious about risking it all on an adventure.

Before heading home, she checked the price of transformation potions at nearby shops—they cost two silver coins and lasted eight hours.

Common recovery and healing potions mostly cost less than thirty copper coins.

She rubbed her chin thoughtfully at the shop window. If someone asked her for an identification, she could earn enough to buy a transformation potion at once. Right now, she only had seventy copper coins on her. The White family’s subsidy was paid out every Saturday; she had just collected hers yesterday and would have to wait another week.

As she approached the exit of the commercial street, a little girl stopped her, trying to sell matches.

Her worn dress was patched in several places, some patches barely holding on, and the tips of her shoes and hem were muddy.

“Sister, I have cheap matches here. It’s cold; please buy some…” Her sales pitch was unskilled, barely squeezing out any words beyond a simple “Please buy.”

Before Iris could ask how much, the girl stopped.

“…Sorry, I didn’t realize you are a Supernatural Being,” she said quietly.

Her gaze fell on the leg guards Iris wore, where an old dagger from her family was sheathed.

Then she fell silent.

Iris crouched down and asked, “Weren’t you selling me matches?”

“Supernatural beings don’t need matches,” the girl said dryly. “Where I live, those beings use magic for fire or light; hardly anyone needs matches.”

Huh? What kind of Supernatural Being community do you live in?

Are they that worthless?

Iris curiously asked, “Where do you live?”

“Back Alley of the Golden Locust Blossom.”

Iris’s casual expression slowly faded. She tried to look gentle.

“Besides supernatural beings, aren’t there others there?”

“Yes, but nobody needs matches,” the girl said. “People there won’t be around long. No one buys them; they say they’re useless.”

Iris wondered what “won’t be around” meant exactly.

Perhaps seeing Iris had talked with her for a while and given her some hope, the girl asked, “Do you want matches? One copper coin for two boxes.”

“Give me ten boxes,” Iris paid.

The girl’s pale, cold hands quickly pulled out ten boxes from her pocket and handed them over.

She happily took the money and stuffed it into her inner pocket, pressing it down; five copper coins made a reassuring clinking sound.

Iris watched her turn to leave, but before the girl left the street, she ran into two policemen.

“You can’t beg here! Don’t you know that?!” one scolded sharply. “You lazy little cheats! Didn’t the Church provide jobs for you?”

Surrounded by two adults twice her size, the girl’s joy from earning some money instantly turned into fear.

“I’m not, I…” she stammered.

Iris stepped forward, pulling the girl out from between the two men and standing beside her.

“Sorry to bother you both. This child isn’t begging; she’s selling things.”

One officer looked at Iris. “Are you her… relative?”

He thought she didn’t look like it.

Iris said, “I’m just a passerby who happened to buy something from her.”

She took out the matchbox and, in the process, inadvertently revealed her two daggers.

The sharp-eyed officer noticed and softened his tone slightly, calling it a misunderstanding before leaving.

The girl looked at Iris with admiration.

“Do you sell matches here every day?” Iris asked.

“I only come Sunday to Wednesday,” the girl said. “After six… or seven o’clock.”

“Who else is in your family?”

“My mother and brother.”

“How long have you lived in the Back Alley of the Golden Locust Blossom?”

The girl counted on her fingers, “Nine months? Maybe ten.”

“What’s your name?”

“Annie,” the girl answered obediently.

“Annie,” Iris said, “Do you have time tomorrow? I want to ask you about the Back Alley of the Golden Locust Blossom. I’ll pay you.”

Annie didn’t ask why Iris wanted to know; to her, supernatural beings were always different.

“Tomorrow at seven, I’ll meet you by the bakery at the back,” Iris said. “If I’m more than fifteen minutes late, I couldn’t make it, so don’t wait.”

Annie nodded.

Iris then took Annie to a secondhand shop and got her an old robe and inner garment.

She didn’t buy anything too nice—not knowing the situation in the Back Alley, she didn’t want to cause Annie trouble by dressing her too well. Besides, she didn’t have much money herself and had to be frugal.

When Iris tried to give the clothes to Annie, the girl shook her head like a rattle.

Iris found a perfect excuse: “What if the police come to chase you away again tomorrow?”

Then she forced the clothes on Annie.

Though Iris had asked many questions somewhat recklessly and had no right to judge others, before parting, she cautioned Annie once more:

Don’t easily tell others your situation, and don’t go with strangers. Be wary of unfamiliar people.

Bad people don’t wear a sign on their foreheads saying ‘I’m a bad person.’

Back at her dormitory, Iris put away the day’s gains and quickly went to the bathhouse for a shower.

Tomorrow was Sunday, no classes, but she had to go on patrol.

Lying in bed, staring at the somewhat aged ceiling, she thought that this long day was finally over.

Looking back at her actions today, Iris was surprised at herself.

In this world with a completely new hierarchy and power system, the knowledge and methods she had accumulated on Earth to improve social status no longer applied.

Here, a wholly different path to advancement lay before her, and her curiosity, adventurous spirit, and gambler’s mindset—suppressed by monotonous daily life—were now sprouting like seedlings breaking through the soil.

Iris felt unfamiliar and uneasy with this new self, but also a little hopeful.

What would her future hold?

She turned over, wrapping herself in the blanket, thinking:

...No matter what, she would keep moving forward.