Did the wording of [I'll be your strength my love] mean that I could theoretically get more powerful by getting a divorce and marrying someone more powerful? I shook the thought out of my head. Even if it did, I was neither callous enough to leave Rebecca to her own devices nor charming enough to seduce someone more powerful than myself. And for all I knew the power might just vanish or be replaced by something different. It had already been changed after the Grace had decided that [Limitless Potential] didn't fit me so it might just change into a different power all over. And again. Rebecca had done nothing to me that would actually merit me leaving her and her being treated like an animal again. Let alone thinking about what she might do to me if I tried.

  “So what is the plan for the next three months?”, I asked her during breakfast. As she shovelled porridge into her mouth I noticed how much sharper her teeth seemed compared to a human's.

  “We′re not allowed to clear dungeons yet or take jobs from the guild. But we can still collect bounties or shop around for items and skills.”

  “Wait, how do you buy a skill? You mean like a trainer?”

  “Can be. Some Monsters drop Orbs with random Skills they have. Some Dungeons contain Skill Scrolls and there is the odd Skill someone might awaken randomly that allows the user to transform skills into items or create skills sealed in items from scratch.”

  “Are those skills difficult to get? Or Expensive?”

  “You bet your ass on that.”, Rebecca said before stopping half way in taking another spoonful of porridge. “No, don't do that actually. It's strongly dependent on the skill. Say you're a warlord or a bandit captain. Then you'd want to acquire the [Rage of the Masses] skill for your soldiers or bandits. It's commonly found in Goblins and since there are so many of them and the skill is not very useful the price should be quite low. You could usually get a goblin skill for the price of a week's worth of meals. Which as far as Skills go is very low. But [Rage of the Masses] is valued as highly as a skill a few levels higher than that.

  “What does [Rage of the Masses] do?”, I asked. “If it's that useful for warlords, why isn't it used by individuals?”

  Rebecca snorted. “Cause individuals aren't exactly masses now are they?” She waited, savoring my curiosity before leaning back. “It's a Stat multiplier. Wait, let me see if I remember the number correctly.”, She groaned.and rubbed her temples. “The skill multiplies all your combat stats by 1.5 for each ally who also has [Rage of the Masses] within twenty feet of you.

  “So you take what, six people like that and they all get their level tripled?”

  “Not sure on the math but pretty much.”

  “Why don't adventurers abuse that? Keep a bunch of these skill orbs, hire a few people to stand around and have the skill and always punch far above their weight class.”

  “People did do that." she said. “Which is why adventurers may only travel in groups of two. Usually one Combatant and one Porter. Or a healer or someone who can draw the monster's aggression to themselves.”

  “Do you mind being the Combatant?”, I asked. “I have no combat experience.”

  Rebecca jumped onto her feet so fast that the chair clattered onto the ground.

  “REALLY?”, she asked, her body shivering.

  “I- uh. yes. “

  Rebecca broke out in a giggle, almost leaping over the chair to put me into a crushing bear hug. I could feel my back popping as she did. Her tail wagged like crazy.

  “I got worried that you might want to be the Combatant.”, she admitted as I managed to squeeze out a pained whimper. “Oh. Sorry.” She lessened her grip and let me back onto my feet.

  “You got worried, why?”

  “Isnt that what Rolanders want? Frontline fighting?”

  “Even if I did, I don't have any combat abilities. I have [Emperors Gaze] and [New World Mental Block]“ Rebecca looked at me for a few moments but if she didn't believe me she didn't say anything. Instead she clapped her hands together happily.

  “Im not gonna complain about getting the role I'd rather have anyway. But speaking of, [Emperors Gaze] is the bloodline ability I was referring to before. It's something about visual prowess.” Her smile dropped. “Why did I ask you for it?”, she asked. “I had a plan with it a day ago but I can't remember for the life of me.”

  I shrugged. “My grandfather used to say if you can't remember it, then it can't have been that good or important.”

  Rebecca let out a sigh. “Fair enough for now. I'll remember it later, I'm sure.”, she stirred in her porridge. “What do we do next?”, she asked as I sat back down.

  “How about we sell the gifts I got?”, I ask. “They looked expensive so we could get a good amount of money to start getting equipment.”

  “I like the idea, but are you willing to part with that stuff?”

  “I never even met the people who gave me that stuff.”, I say. “They didn't even care to show up.”

  “And they put poison on your gifts too.”, she said.

  “Pardon me what?”

  Rebecca pat herself down before retrieving the small gem she had ripped out of the chainmail days ago, handing it to me. As my fingers got closer, a red message appeared in my field of view, accompanied by the same pain at the back of my head I had experienced days ago.

  Warning

  This object contains enough poison to kill you several times over.

  I set the gem down. “Henry′s family put poison into a gift?”, I asked.

  If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  “I mean, yes.”, Rebecca said as she pocketed the gem again. “How is that a surprise? I mean they also sent the Instigator Golem to kill him.”

  Now it was my turn to jump out of my chair. “WHAT?”

  “Im pretty sure I told you back then.”, she said.

  “Yeah that it was supposed to kill me, not that it was Henry's family that ordered it.”

  She looked up at me. No, that wasn't quite what she did. Sitting like this she was maybe a few inches shorter than me standing so she didn't need to look up by much. “Is that really that important? The important part is that someone tried to kill you, not who did.” She waited for a few moments before I sat back down.

  “I mean… yeah But still. Would've been good to know. And that still doesn't explain why.”

  “Cause if they frame me for your death it will be considered as me committing an Unjudgeable Crime.”

  “Right the fou-”

  “Oh there are more than four, I just wanted to see if you'd call me out on it. Which you didn't. Nevertheless. The reason they want me framed for an Unjudgeable Crime is that they will not only be rid of the “mutt” ,as your father so charmingly called me, without a trial but also anybody related to me that can reasonably be assumed to have a hand in this. And can you guess how many people that might be, dear husband?”

  “When you′re asking like that… all of them?”

  In response, Rebecca simply gave me a nod decorated by a forced smile.

  I looked at her and she took a deep breath. “Anyway you said we'd sell our wedding gifts. I don't mind at all. She finished her breakfast and got up, walking up the stairs before me. As I looked up at her, I noticed her strong back once more, the defined muscles that made me want to run my fingers along, feeling her skin under mine as I- what was I thinking? I shook my head to lose these thoughts.

  My face felt like it was burning when Rebecca opened the door. “Are you ok?” Rebecca asked, "You're all red.”

  “Everything is ok.”, I managed to press out, not daring to look her in the eyes.

  “If you say so." she said.

  I grabbed the small bag containing the gifts from my backpack. “We should get ourselves an [Inventory] Skill sooner or later.”, Rebecca suggested. “Some Healing Skills too. "What else…”

  With her in her own thoughts, I whispered the command word. “Racecar.” The bag opened again. The Moonstone that had sealed the bag removed itself, wrapping the string that had kept it together around my wrist in the process. The stone remained dull as the bag's contents clattered onto the floor, startling Rebecca out of her thoughts.

  “So the charge is lost after all.”, she complained.

  “Yeah, not ideal. But hey it's useful as is, isn't it?”

  I opened the book to the second half, revealing the individual slots for the Moonstones, putting the discharged one back and pulling out a fresh one alongside a piece of golden chalk.

  _________________________________________________________________________

  Determine Value

  In the midst of all the spells in this book, this one might be actually useful for you. It allows you to determine the monetary value of objects of any kind.

  As you are not awakened to magic I will include the list of components required to perform this spell.

  Requirements:

  1 Piece of Golden Chalk

  A charged Moonstone, Moonphase mostly irrelevant, but I′ve had colleagues swear that those charged in a full moon would work best..

  The official version of this spell asks you to draw a circle and include eight specific symbols aligned via an octogram, further aligned to the current position of the Aranetas, the stars of Wealth. I'll tell you that that's stupid. All you need to do is draw an unbroken shape that you can put the Moonstone into and a line from the circle that you can put the objects you wanna have valued on onto. It's THAT easy, but if they wrote it like that people wouldn't hire Mages anymore. Anyway, put the chalk or something else that can write into the circle and it will write out a number.

  Whisper anything that's at least six letters long while placing your hands into the circle and you shall have your value for your items.

  _________________________________________________________________________

  Rebecca watched as I followed the instructions. “So what do you wanna keep?”, she asked.

  “The tome and the chainmail.”, I answered. “But feel free to keep something if you want to.”

  Rebecca took a look over the pile. “The sword looks nice. Not much use for the gold cup, or the rings.”

  “Do weddings in your world include ring exchanges?”, I ask. Rebecca shook her head. “Maybe among humans, but I′ve never heard of that.” She looked over the rings. “Why, do you want to?”

  “I wouldn't push it onto you if it's not a thing here, we'd need to explain it if we did.” Rebecca tilted her head. “Fair.”

  “Im not even sure what the rest of this is supposed to be.”, she said. “So sell it off for all I care.” I took the remaining chalk to draw a few lines to place the items onto before I whispered a word to trigger the spell.

  The chalk lifted itself of the ground and began writing. “The total value of your items is 7500 Retrae.”

  I looked up to Rebecca. “Is that a lot?”

  “You could probably feed a family for a while with it.”, she answered after some deliberation. “But with a sum like that we can most certainly get some Skills and Equipment.”

  “Lets split the money.”, I suggested. “We can look around individually.”

  In response, Rebecca′s ears laid flat against her head. “Id rather not.”, she said.

  “How co-”, I set out to ask as I noticed how her tail wagged nervously.

  “Right, fair. Sorry. Let's go together.”

  I rose to my feet again, helped up by Rebecca. Her muscular hands were pleasantly warm, yet rough. I almost hesitated to let go.

  “Let's go shopping.”, she said as she pulled me behind her out of the room.

  ________________________________________________________________________

  Current Status:

  Stats:

  Power 2

  Agility: 1

  Toughness 3

  Mental: 2

  Perception: 3

  Mana: N/A

  Effects:

  N/A

  Skills:

  [Behind every great person, there's their spouse] Lvl. 1

  [Emperors Gaze]  Lvl. 1

  [New World Mental Block]

  Known Ritual Spells:

  [Determine Value]

  [Simple Transportation Magic]

  _