Chapter 172: Into the Tunnels - Markets and Multiverses

After leaving Old Mo’s bakery, I took a closer look at Anise, before I remembered something.

“By the way, Anise, what are your stats like this time? I know that you had decent intelligence - at least, higher than mine. But what are the rest of your stats like?”

“Here, let me show you,” she said. A moment later, Anise’s status screen appeared in front of me.

Physical

Strength:  (20+129)

Grade 7

Agility:  (20+115)

Grade 6

Fortitude:  (20+116)

Grade 6

Mental

Intelligence:  (20+106)

Grade 6

Willpower:  (30+106)

Grade 6

Perception:  (20+85)

Grade 5

Essence

Absorption:  (20+74)

Grade 4

Manifestation: (40+85)

Grade 6

Binding: (20+117)

Grade 6

Alteration: (20+83)

Grade 5

“I got pretty lucky this time,” said Anise. “The only real complaint I have is my absorption essence is a bit low, and this world does have some absorption essence. And my Manifestation Essence is a bit lower than I would have liked. But overall, not a bad set of rolls at all.”

I nodded.

Anise’s physical stats were excellent, and her mental stats could be considered all right as well.

“I’m glad to see that your rolls this time turned out well,” I said.

“Your rolls really did turn out nice,” said Sallia. “And once you activate {Phoenix's Last Stand}, you’ll be pretty well equipped to get a bunch of influence Achievement too. Just make sure not to slack off in training until that point. You still need a reasonable level of swordsmanship to take advantage of your sword, even if guns are the weapon of choice in this world.” Sallia grimaced slightly as she said that.

“Do you not like guns?” asked Anise, seeming genuinely curious. “So far, you’ve seemed happy anytime you train with weapons.”

“I don’t like guns much, no,” said Sallia, shaking her head. “I get that they’re useful in warfare, but they’re just… I don’t know. I don’t like them. They’re hard for me to cope with, since I like swordsmanship so much. I had to warp my abilities to handle the presence of guns in this world, and I would have been happier if I didn’t. It’s not the end of the world, but I really would have preferred a world without hot weapons.” Sallia shrugged. “But that’s the way reincarnation goes, I guess. Maybe next time. Or maybe I’ll reach a point where my swordsmanship can overcome bullets. With enough stats or a high enough grade of swordsmanship, it’s probably possible. Just need to reach that point.”

I felt more than a little happy to see Sallia so confidently fighting against a major obstacle to her own growth. Trying to keep a positive attitude when Sallia’s prized swordsmanship was outclassed by a new type of weapon probably wasn’t easy.

With that final thought, the three of us started following Sallia’s directions as we moved through the city.

Felix was located underground somewhere, and while Sallia and I could probably reach him by using our abilities to tunnel through the earth, I seriously doubted the government would simply let us tunnel under the city unhindered.

Therefore, we needed to track Felix through the city’s sewer system.

Which was going to be considerably harder than it might have been in another world. In this world, human waste was a useful alchemy ingredient for some potions, such as fertilizer potions. So the city diverted the flow of human waste towards some underground industrial alchemy mixers that produced potions by the gallon every day and night.

This meant that the sewers weren’t going to be unpopulated. Alchemy workshops and government employees were going to be present in the sewers no matter what time we entered them. And, of course, we also needed to actually find Felix in the tunnels as well - which might prove a challenge.

Finding an entrance to the sewers was the first problem we had to handle. Anise’s parents were a lot less afraid of letting her wander around the city, since she lived in a pretty safe area, so while we were preparing to rescue Felix, Anise had learned what the entrances to the sewers looked like. We just needed to find a sewer maintenance building and break in.

It took us less than half an hour to find one in the red-light district. Hidden behind two buildings where women were enticing customers, we found one of the entrances to the sewers.

The customers and the women were both busy, and didn’t take much notice of us as we slipped past them. I did see one of the women standing in front of a building give us an odd glance, as if she was wondering what a group of four year olds was doing here, but after a moment, she ignored us and kept winking at potential customers.

And so we simply walked past everyone and up to the small, gray building. I glanced around a few times, to make sure that nobody was paying much attention to us, and I was relieved to see that apart from the one woman, nobody else seemed to have even noticed our presence.

The door was locked, of course, but Sallia had a metal-manipulation ability. She simply ripped apart the metal lock using her rune ability, and then we strolled in.

Inside of the building was a pair of shelves. I looked at them with interest, and saw that one shelf was filled with large metal buckets. There were chunks of brown sludge caking the buckets, and they smelled quite… unique. Much like the rest of the room, there was a distinctive odor that made me wrinkle my nose when I entered.

The top shelf was considerably more interesting, and less disgusting. There were a variety of bottles on the shelf, all filled with different colored liquids. I studied them with interest, but I wasn't sure what most of them were.

"Potions," said Anise, without much inflection in her voice. "Those two are bone and flesh healers, and I know that the green one cures sweating sickness. Not sure about the others. Those two blue potions might be related to cleaning? I think I’ve seen my mother use one before, but it might just be similar colors."

I nodded, and scanned the other items on the shelf. I saw something that resembled a biohazard suit, although it was made of a material I didn’t recognize. It looked kind of like a mix of rubber and plastic, and was bright green. It also had a few brown smudges caked on the edges of it, much like the buckets. Finally, there were a few metal tools on the shelf. I had no idea what most of them were, although I did recognize a hammer and a wrench.

After a few moments, I shrugged. My eyes settled on the other door in the room, which likely led into the sewers. I took a step towards it.

And then I hesitated. I started thinking over Sallia's words. How she had said that this world might be hard for me.

And then I eyed the potions again.

I had never stolen before. The idea of stealing was one that I wouldn’t have ever considered in previous worlds. My friends and I had been safe in those worlds, at least for the most part.

On the other hand, the situation of my mother and I in this world was desperate. We barely had enough food, and my mother's drug addiction siphoned away what little she made from her job.

I hesitated for another moment. This might be the property of whoever worked here. Perhaps they kept these potions around in case their child got hurt, or perhaps they were afraid of work injuries. Maybe the owner of the potions was poor, and could barely afford to buy the potions, and these potions were all that they could afford to have laying around. If I took the potion, they might not have a potion when they desperately needed one…

Or maybe this was owned by the city government, and the potions would be replaced in a day after a form was filled out.

Was it really right to steal the potions right now?

With Sallia’s noodle bowl and Old Mo’s work, I could comfortably feed myself right now. I didn’t have enough money for much else, and my dress was growing more ragged every day… but my basic necessities were met, at least for now.

But I had no idea whether that would remain the case after we rescued Felix.

When we broke Felix out, he was going to need food. Anise wouldn’t be able to take care of him - after all, her family was pretty strict this life. They would probably object to randomly feeding a random kid.

Sallia’s family probably also wouldn’t like it if she added another mouth to feed. They were less impoverished than my mother and I, since they didn’t have any family members with crippling addictions, but they weren’t wealthy, either. They still lived in the slums and didn’t have much beyond basic food security. They would shut Sallia down if she tried to help Felix consistently.

Which left me.

My living conditions were the worst of all, but my mother was so out of it that I doubted she would notice Felix’s appearance. She barely even remembered that I was there, since she was almost always high out of her mind.

But I still needed ways to feed Felix. There was no way I was letting a friend of mine live on the streets if there was anything at all I could do about it. He might get stabbed or killed while he was asleep - and there was absolutely no way I would let that happen.

Was it right to take the potions, though? It was still stealing.

But at the same time, I might really need the money soon.

I hesitated.

I didn’t know FOR SURE that I would need the money soon. Maybe I could start selling my abilities as a doctor soon, and my cash flow would even out.

Or maybe I would be able to scrape by using Sallia’s noodle bowl and Old Mo’s food.

Maybe everything would just… work out, even if I didn’t steal the potions.

Or maybe Felix would starve to death.

I hesitated. I hesitated some more.

Sallia glanced at the entrance to the sewers again, glanced at me, and then blinked once.

“Let’s get going,” she said. “Miria, how about I go in front, Anise take the middle, and you take the back? Right now you and I can handle bullets and ambushes the most effectively, so let’s protect Anise in the middle. Right?”

I tried not to overthink Sallia’s actions. Did she know what I was thinking about?

Was it just in my head?

Should I ask Sallia and Anise what they thought?

The thought of asking them what they thought about me stealing potions felt awful. I felt guilty even thinking about stealing the potions.

But my food situation was so unstable…

Did I have a place to sell the potions after stealing them?

Old Mo could probably help me out. He had talked about paydays and kidnapping Anise just a few hours ago with me - and while he had been trying to talk me out of kidnapping Anise, he certainly didn’t seem unfamiliar with crimes. I doubted he would have a problem helping me pawn off stolen potions, and he might have a good channel for it.

“Let’s go,” I said.

Sallia and Anise made their way into the door leading into the sewers.

I hesitated, one final time. Then, I gritted my teeth, stepped forward… and grabbed the potions, before dumping them into my backpack.

And then, because I felt bad, I used a bit of water to clean the outsides of the repulsive buckets. It was in no way a fair compensation for stealing the potions, but it was something I could do in return for taking the potions.

I felt awful.

Then, I made my way to the doorway that led into the sewers. A noxious smell invaded my nostrils. I quickly stepped onto the ladder that led deeper into the darkness, and followed Sallia and Anise into the sewers.

Author’s Note: I thought for a while about whether Miria should take the potions. I had a huge internal debate, since it’s against what Miria herself would prefer to do. At least in her eyes, this is a pretty big decision, although in the eyes of some other characters or readers this might seem a bit more of a silly debate. Idk. I wanted to give Miria’s thoughts and emotions some weight. Not sure if I overdid it this chapter/world, but I wanted to explore who Miria is a bit more.

Also, reminder that I’m going to be taking a vacation at the end of next month. Specifically, the last month of December and the first week of January.

Just a heads up.

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