Chapter 89

Basically, MC getting his barings before he starts moving with a purpose. Aura should be soon, and other things to come after.

**

“It looks good, I’ll give you 4,500 Lien.”

“4500?” I rolled my eyes. “Why don’t you just rob me. 10,000.” I countered.

“I can’t make a profit with 10000, it’s gotta be 5,500 at the most.”

“9500.”

“6000.”

“Look, can we just skip this song and dance and meet at 7500?” I offered. “And throw in an old Scroll.” I thought for a moment, looking around. “Also, I’ll take a small box of your fire dust.” I pointed over to a display with several vials of ‘dust’ shown off.

He mulled that over for a moment. “Fine, it’s easy Lien even if it takes a bit to sell, and you can pick out one of the old scroll models” He grumbled giving me a stack of money from this world.

I pushed a small stack of gold coins his way. “Pleasure doing business.” I happily accepted the money and walked out of the little pawn shop, new phone in hand. Granted, it wasn’t called that here, but that was pretty much what it was.

A scroll, I walked past one of those stores that explicitly only sold these items, as well as seeing people walking around with them, it wasn’t hard to put two and two together to realize it’s their version of phones.

Pretty neat, I’m excited to see how it works.

Found this place fast after I left the ‘airport’ or whatever they call that here as well. Unfortunately, gold isn’t as valuable here as it is in other worlds. While still a ‘precious metal’ that most would kill over, I would say it only retains about a third of its value compared to Earth. Maybe I would be better off selling some jewels and jewelry?

Regardless, I doubt I can keep going around selling gold without attracting attention, probably going to need to find a secondary source of revenue because there are many things I plan on buying and I have to fully explore this place.

Walking out the place, I did remember a book store I passed about a block down.

“Tukson’s Book Trade – Every book under the sun.” I muttered, staring at the sign outside.

Sounds like my kind of place.

The little bell on the door signaled me walking inside, the owner behind the counter immediately perked up to look at me. “Welcome, feel free to browse or ask if you want anything specific.” He gave a smile that I couldn’t help but notice the sharper teeth.

Interesting.

“Thanks, just browsing for now, but I’ll probably ask for a few things later.” I gave a polite reply as I made my way into the rows of bookshelves.

Oh man, I love this feeling, so many things I simply don’t know, and they’re all here, available for me.

I pulled a random book off the shelf --- Ninjas of Love 3

[I’m sure you could learn a lot from that book]

I rolled my eyes and pulled open a random page, flipping through a few unstil I stopped and read a quick passage.

“Wow.” I whispered.

I mean, he was being sarcastic, but he wasn’t wrong…..

[Oh, that is some surprisingly hardcore porn for a book with that name.]

And how would you know that?

[I’ve seen your memories.]

….touché.

Lets just put that away for now….

Hmm, what else…fiction, fiction and more fiction.

Ah, here we go.

‘Proper handling of Dust’

Not exactly what I was looking for but anything is good right now.

I began taking a few more books off the shelves here or there, before deciding to put one or two back.

‘The nature of Aura’

‘What semblances mean, a look into our souls’

‘The history of Vale.’

A few looked a bit dry, but I wanted to know some more about this place. I hefted my stack of books up and brought them up to the counter.

Tukson sat up straight, pushing a book he had open to the side. “Hoh.” He smiled. “Found everything you wanted?”

“Eh, more or less. Unless, you got anything more scientific on the nature of Dust, Aura, Semblances, and Grimm?”

He blinked for a moment, seemingly mulling over my question. “I do have a few things in the back, some textbooks and some other stuff, they don’t really sell so I didn’t set them out.”

“Oh, wonderful.” I was happily surprised.

He stepped away, only to return a moment later with three more books to add to my pile. “Sorry, most people here are looking for fiction, or the occasional beacon student wanting to find a textbook second hand. “

“Huh, when does the next year start?” I knew very little about Beacon, figured I should know a thing or two since the topic has come up a couple times now.

“Jeese, what month is it now?” He looked up, lost in thought for a moment. “Should be about 8 months give or take. This current year is rapping up, most classes are pretty much done, but end of year exams and things like that usually take up a bit of time.”

“That’s probably why I saw a bunch of kids with weapons walking around.”

“Ah, newcomer?” He rubbed his chin. “Yeah, beacon kids aren’t a rare sight, and it’s pretty easy to pick them out of a crowd. But around this time they all seem to ‘let loose’ a bit since the school year is practically over.”

“Am I that easy to read?” I gave a small smile. “Came from outside the city, just a small village.” I wanted to test my ‘backround’ see if I needed to amend it at all.

“Yeah, that’ll do it.” He nodded “You got that ‘new guy’ look about you.” He let out a laugh. “Atleast you aint snapping your head around like a tourist, pickpockets would be all over you.”

“Well, I do have some street smarts.” I chuckled.

“Good, just stay out of the rougher neighborhoods, most human gangs around here won’t bother you past maybe taking some Lien, but if you find some Faunus with a bone to pick….” He sighed.

“How bad are the racial tensions here?” I questioned. I didn’t really know what was going on between these Faunus and humans, but I could take some depressingly accurate guesses off what he said.

“Outside of Menagerie, probably the best place for Faunus…..but it’s still not great.” He frowned.

“Yeah, I don’t really understand it.” I shook my head. “Got a cute little foxy daughter myself.” The hell is Menagerie? That sounds like a place, but the name seems kind of offensive.

He blinked a bit of surprise on his face turning into genuine happiness. “Really? It’s rare for humans and Faunus to have children.”

I just shrugged. Race isn’t really a big deal with me, even before I reincarnated and became a half-devil. “What do I owe you?” I changed the subject.

“Oh, I almost forgot.” He chuckled. “Lets see, it should be about 217 Lien all together, lets call it an even 210.”

“210 it is then, thank you.” I happily offered up the money.

“Please come back if you ever need another book.” He replied with a genuine smile on his face.

Nice guy.

“Oh.” I stopped before I pushed open the door. “Would you perhaps have a good recommendation for somewhere I can sit down and eat with a book in peace?”

“I know several places, any other specific requests?”

“Hmm, by chance do you know one that would allow a pet to accompany me?”

****

“Welcome, have you been here before or is it your first time?” I was greeted by a woman in, I wouldn’t call it a maid’s outfit, but it was close. But what stuck out were her rabbit ears ontop of her head, completely real as they had a little bounce to them.

“First time, Tukson recommended me.” I replied. “He said that pets weren’t frowned on?” I tried to gauge her reaction.

“As long as they aren’t too big.” She said quietly, perhaps looking for said pet.

I of course took off my hat, flipped it upside down and let Sir Wiggles pop his head out.

That got a small giggle out of the girl. “Right this way.” She gestured towards an open table.

I let Sir Wiggles out, he happily sat at one end of the of the table, not running around.

“I’m Velvet, I’ll be your waitress.” Her voice wasn’t very loud, honestly her demeanor in general screamed unconfident. “Can I start you off with anything to drink?”

“Hmm..” I hummed as I opened the menu, look at what they had. “I’ll start off with the Mistralian Dark Roast coffee…..two sugars and a spurt of milk. Oh, and one of those strawberry pastries.” I looked up at Sir Wiggles. “And would it be possible to get a small bowl of water and perhaps some veggies for my companion?”

She actually perked up with a small smile, looking over at Sir Wiggles.

I know that feeling all too well, his floof is hard to resist.

“I’ll get him something from the back.” She replied, scribbling a few things down and walking away.

Figured Sir Wiggles deserved a treat. I keep stuff in my hat to occupy him, but it might get cramped every now and then.

I took out one of  the books, it was the textbook on Aura. I started reading, but a lot of the material was a bit streamlines, I could only roll my eyes when they just emphasized the ‘power of the soul’. I wanted to know more than that, like how was this power activated? How did they discover a way to actualize their soul in the physical world?

I was about to close the book when one line caught my attention.

‘…..While the act of awakening another person’s Aura is usually one of intimacy and reserved for friends and family, it can be done by any other person with their Aura already awakened….’

Oh, well isn’t that interesting?

Should I find someone to ‘awaken’ my aura then. I don’t even know if I’m compaitable with this mystical phenomenon, and apparently someone needs to poke my soul with their aura for it to happen.

A curious thought crossed my mind, how did the first person awaken their aura if it needs someone to awaken it for them?

“Sir, your coffee and pastry….also I have a small plate of lettuce for your…..pet.” Velvet said quietly, holding a couple plates.

“Thank you.” I smiled at her, mentally reminding myself to give her a decent tip, seems like she needs a win today.

I feel like a lot of information is still left out.

I closed it for now, most of the remainder was meant for kids studying it under combat intentions, I could already devise many uses of the nature of aura without a book.

With a sigh, I took out the book on Dust. It was perhaps an equally curious avenue of research when compared to aura.

What exactly was dust?

I could tell immediately it was somewhat magical in nature, but I didn’t delve into that yet. Hell, I could feel the magical energy from the few small vials of the dust I had just purchased.

‘Nature’s Wrath’ is what the book described it as, but all I could think about was that it basically mimicked elemental magecraft corresponding to the ‘element’ of the dust.

Red – Fire.

Blue – Ice

Those were obvious for anyone, but the more I read the more I was intrigued.

Gravity dust?

It seems this ‘dust’ branched out from just the basic elements….

Curiouser and curiouser……I bet gramps would love to get his hands on some of this infact –“

“P-please don’t move those….ah” I looked up to see Velvet trying to rein in a few guys pulling chairs from other tables as they put two together so they could all sit down.

“Why are we even here? They let animals just walk around.” He swept his gaze around, eyes landing on me. The other seemed to notice as well.

“U-um sir…the policy – “

“Oh hey, there’s a rabbit in here too.” He cut her off much to the laughter of his friends.

Ah, they were calling Velvet an animal….

Briefly, the thought of Velvet being replaced with Kunou flashed across my mind.

I knew it was irrational, but who said I always have to stick to rationality?

I slid my foot across the around, pulsing magical energy all into the floor. I targeted a leg on the idiot’s chare and overloaded it.

A small crashing sound and he rolled on the ground as the chair fell backwards.

I despise baseless hate like this. If you hate someone, you hate someone, why does it have to be because of something beyond their control?

It’s just….the pointlessness of it all that really drive home the annoyance in me.

“I think these chairs have an upper weight limit.” I said idly, but my voice carried.

The gentleman who rolled on his ass was a bit heavy set, I wouldn’t call him obese and even say he has quite a bit of muscle, but he definitely spends a lot of his time sitting down with a beer in his hand.

Velvet stepped away from the fuming racist. He surprisingly didn’t’ direct his annoyance at the target of his racism, instead looked at me, fuming. “You think you’re funny?”

My lips curled up. “As funny as you are fat.” I wonder if that was a nerve for him.

“You some kind of tourist brat? Don’t you know who we are?” His other friends stood up, following his lead. “We don’t like your types around here.”

Did he really just say that? How cliché…..

“Funny, handsome, fit?” I hazarded a guess.

By the looks of them pulling weapons out, that is indeed not what they meant.

I hope some of them had Aura, I wanted to stress test that a bit before getting some of that for myself.