“Why did you use a spell to keep me awake?” Chelsea asked, forcing the question out. It took more courage than she expected.
Adriane blinked, caught off guard. “A spell to keep you awake?” she repeated, then her expression shifted as realization set in. “Oh. No, that wasn’t for that.”
Chelsea looked up at her.
“The awareness is just a side effect,” Adriane explained. “It’s an ability that lets me monitor your life force. I used it to keep you alive.” She studied Chelsea for a moment. “You’re harder to kill than you should be. Especially at level one.” She shook her head, “The ability is meant for killing powerful beasts. It allows me to keep track of the enemy and where to strike next to cause the most damage. Keeping the beast awake and aware is what balances out the skill. It makes the creature more… challenging.”
Chelsea let that sit for a second, then shifted the conversation slightly, grounding herself in something more tangible. “How long was I out? We’re deeper in the forest.”
“Three days,” Adriane answered.
Chelsea’s head snapped up. “Three?”
Adriane nodded. “We’re about a day and a half from the city now. Dewey’s been carrying you.”
Chelsea glanced down at herself, then back at Adriane, absorbing the information in pieces. Three days. That explained the distance. The disorientation. The lingering exhaustion she hadn’t quite noticed until now.
She nodded slowly.
“Can I ask something?” she said after a moment.
Adriane raised an eyebrow slightly. “Go ahead.”
“And don’t get mad and go all grumpy S-ranked big sister on me,” Chelsea added quickly. “I’m trying to understand how this world works, and I can’t do that if you launch me across the forest every time I say something wrong.”
Adriane’s lips twitched, not quite a smile. “Fair enough. Ask.”
“What’s the deal with the no luxury thing?” Chelsea asked. “And please explain it in Chelsea language. Not Wixx adventurer language.”
She lowered herself to the ground and leaned back against a nearby tree, needing something solid behind her.
Adriane watched her for a moment, then mirrored the motion, sitting against another tree across from her.
“Chelsea language, huh?” she said, a faint smirk crossing her face. “Alright. No luxuries comes from the idea that comfort makes you weak. If things are easy, you stop pushing. If you stop pushing, you fall behind. And in this world, falling behind gets you killed.”
Chelsea tilted her head slightly. “That can’t be the whole story. That sounds like a philosophy someone made up after the fact. Why did it start? Why that specifically?”
Adriane let out a slow breath and leaned her head back against the tree, looking up through the canopy.
“You really are too smart for your own good,” she muttered.
Chelsea didn’t respond. She just waited.
“It started with our father,” Adriane continued after a moment. “He put our family into debt. A lot of it. And instead of admitting we couldn’t afford things, he would say, ‘Wixx don’t get luxuries.’”
Her voice shifted slightly as she mimicked him, rougher, more dismissive.
“When he died, all of that debt became ours.”
The humor in her voice disappeared completely.
“At first, it just felt like an excuse. Something he said to cover his mistakes. But over time…” She paused, her expression tightening slightly. “I realized there was something useful in it. The pain training was real. That part matters. I’m still sorry for how I introduced you to it. But the luxury part…”
Chelsea looked away briefly, not wanting to dig into that memory again. Not yet.
“Tell me about the debt,” she said instead.
Adriane shook her head immediately. “Don’t worry about that right now. Focus on getting stronger.”
“No,” Chelsea said, more firmly this time. She leaned forward slightly, her tone shifting. “Don’t do that. I might not understand magic or skills yet, but I understand numbers. I’m probably the best one here when it comes to that.”
Adriane watched her carefully.
“It’s not something you solve by being good at numbers,” Adriane said. “It’s something you survive until it’s gone. Then maybe we get to have luxuries again.”
Chelsea frowned. That answer didn’t sit right with her.
“I’m part of this family now,” she said. “And I want luxuries.” She gestured vaguely. “Real ones. Not just surviving until we don’t have to suffer anymore. Give me the details. Let me help. Worst case, I sit on Dewey’s shoulder and cook you all food so good you forget what misery tastes like.”
The words came out faster than she intended, and as soon as she finished, she realized she might have pushed too far.
Adriane stared at her for a long second.
Then she laughed.
It wasn’t cruel. It wasn’t mocking. It was genuine, surprised, almost relieved.
“Why,” Adriane asked through the laughter, “do you want to ride on his shoulder?”
“Uh, because I fit up there perfectly, duh,” Chelsea said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “And picture this. The Wixx family walking into an adventurers’ guild. You in the front, all legendary and terrifying, Dewey behind you looking like he could crush a building, and then me on his shoulder. Not tiny. Not small. Just… slightly shorter than average. That’s how you make an entrance.”
Adriane stared at her for a second, then let out a laugh. It was lighter than anything Chelsea had heard from her since… before.
“Chelsea,” she said, shaking her head, “you are a lot smaller than you think you are.”
“That was the ‘slightly shorter than average’ part, and I’m sticking with it,” Chelsea shot back immediately.
Adriane smirked. “No. I think Bea is slightly shorter than average.”
Chelsea’s arms dropped to her sides. “But she’s huge. How small am I?”
Adriane studied her for a moment, not unkindly, but not sugarcoating it either. “There’s a reason everyone calls you a child or little demon girl. You look younger than eighteen. It’s actually hard to believe you’re even fifteen.”
Chelsea blinked. “How young?”
Adriane tilted her head, considering. “Ten, maybe. Eleven at most.”
Chelsea groaned and dragged a hand down her face. “Great. That’s fantastic. So the only guys I’ll ever attract are creeps.”
Adriane’s expression shifted, her eyes narrowing slightly. “Speaking of, you seem to be getting closer to Dewey.”
Chelsea waved her off immediately. “Nope. Nothing like that. He’s nice, sure, but no. Also, he’s my brother now. That shut down any possibility of that real fast.” She paused, then added, “I still like his voice, though.”
Adriane blinked, caught off guard. “His voice?”
Chelsea nodded, trying to put it into words. “It’s… really deep. Like, the kind of deep where you feel it more than hear it. It makes my stomach do this weird thing. It’s like… weightless for a second.” She frowned slightly. “I used to get the same feeling when my mom drove over this one bump on the way into the city back home.”
Adriane went quiet for a moment, thinking it through. Then something clicked, and her expression sharpened with interest.
“I think I know what that is,” she said. “His voice is extremely deep. You know what else has voices like that?”
Chelsea looked at her cautiously. “I feel like I’m not going to like this answer.”
“Male demons,” Adriane said simply.
Chelsea’s face scrunched up. “No. No, that’s not—”
“It would make sense,” Adriane continued, more focused now. “Your body is reacting instinctively. It hears something it associates with its own kind and responds without you thinking about it.” She studied Chelsea more closely, her brows furrowing. “Which raises a different question.”
Chelsea didn’t like where this was going.
“I wonder where you got this body from,” Adriane said.
Chelsea straightened slightly. “What do you mean? We already established Magalesa messed up the summoning.”
“I don’t mean the transformation,” Adriane clarified. “I mean the body itself. This isn’t just a random form. You’re a demon in every sense. Your diet, your appearance, your instincts. That kind of consistency doesn’t come from nothing. So whose body was it before you were put into it?”
That stopped Chelsea.
She hadn’t thought about that. Not once. Her face, her build, even the way she moved now, none of it matched who she had been before. Not even close. Her eyes went wide. “The scars. There are scars on this body I don't recognize.” She shows Adriane her thumb and points out a scar on her collar bone.
The thought made something uncomfortable twist in her chest.
“Okay,” she said quickly, pushing it away with a deep breath. “We are getting way off topic. The debt. What is it from, how much is it, and what exactly are we dealing with?”
Adriane’s expression shifted again, the curiosity fading back into something more guarded.
“I still don’t know what you think you can do with that information,” she said. “But fine. It’s a gambling debt. Our father’s. It wasn’t that large at first, but the interest stacked faster than we could keep up with. By the time I was strong enough to start earning real money, most of what we made was just covering the interest.”
Chelsea leaned forward slightly. “How much?”
Adriane hesitated for just a fraction of a second before answering. “Four point two million gold.”
Chelsea let out a low whistle. “That’s… yeah. That’s bad.”
“There’s a lien on our family,” Adriane continued, her tone tightening. “Almost everything we earn through the guild is automatically taken to pay it down.”
Chelsea processed that quickly, her mind already shifting into problem-solving mode. “So it’s basically a garnishment,” she said. “Is this public? Like, is this what the Wixx name is known for? Owing millions of gold?”
Adriane’s expression darkened immediately. “No. Of course not. It’s one of our most closely guarded secrets.”
Chelsea raised her hands in surrender. “Hey, I’m just figuring out the situation. No judgment.”
She leaned forward a little more, her focus sharpening.
“Alright. What’s the interest?”
“Interest is the amount added to a loan so…”
“No, sorry,” Chelsea cut in quickly, holding up a hand. “I know what interest is. I mean the specifics. What’s the percentage? How often does it compound? Daily, monthly, yearly? And what percent gets added each time?”
Adriane stared at her.
It was not annoyance or anger. It was something closer to confusion, like Chelsea had just asked a question in a language she did not fully understand.
“I… don’t actually know,” Adriane admitted after a moment, shaking her head slightly.
Chelsea blinked, surprised. “It has to be written somewhere,” she said. “There’s no way a debt like that just exists without terms. Otherwise, anyone could walk into the guild and say Bea owes them three million gold and suddenly everything she earns belongs to them. There has to be a contract. Rules. Something enforceable. Where do we find it?”
Adriane hesitated, then answered more slowly. “When we reach Junstruce, the guildmaster there should be able to help us track it down.”
She paused, then added, more firmly, “But Chelsea, this is a dead end. You aren’t going to solve this. We work. We pay it off. That’s how this ends.”
Chelsea didn’t argue immediately. Instead, she leaned back slightly, her mind already turning the problem over, picking at it from different angles. Four point two million gold. Unknown interest. Unknown terms. A hidden contract. That was not a dead end. That was incomplete information.
Which meant there was a solution somewhere inside it.
She looked back at Adriane, a small, confident smile forming.
“Your little sister already has a few ideas,” she said, adding a wink that she hoped landed somewhere between charming and reassuring. “Don’t worry. I’ve got this one.”
Adriane’s expression softened, a quiet amusement breaking through. “It’s when you do things like that that I forget you’re eighteen.”
She pushed herself up from the ground, brushing off her hands. “Come on. Back to camp. Finish eating, and actually get dressed.”
Chelsea stood as well, but instead of turning to follow right away, she stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Adriane.
The movement surprised both of them.
Chelsea buried her face against her, holding on just a little tighter than she meant to. “Thanks,” she said quietly. “For not being a psycho just for the sake of it.”
Adriane froze for a brief moment.
Then, slowly, she returned the hug.
Her arms tightened around Chelsea, firm and protective, almost too much, but Chelsea didn’t pull away. Not this time.
After a second, they separated, and without another word, they headed back toward camp.
The others were where they had left them. Dewey looked up first, his posture relaxing just slightly when he saw Chelsea walking on her own. Bea glanced over but said nothing. Edgar remained still, watching in that unsettling, unreadable way of his.
Chelsea grabbed her clothes and moved behind Dewey, using his massive frame as a barrier while she dressed. Once she was covered again, she returned to the pile of food and resumed eating, her hunger catching up to her now that everything else had settled.
She noticed the others watching her a few times, though none of them commented. It was still strange to them. She could feel that much.
When she had finally eaten her fill, the group gathered and set off again.
This time, Chelsea walked on her own.
Edgar moved alongside her, his presence as quiet as it was unnerving. The porcelain mask hid everything, leaving only the faint sense that he was always observing more than he let on.
“Have you decided on a weapon yet?” he asked. “I haven’t seen you use one.”
Chelsea shook her head. “Not yet. When I got my class, it gave me options for swords and axes, one-handed and two-handed, but none of that really feels like me. Adriane has me carrying this bow, but even that doesn’t feel right. Can I change it later?”
“You can,” Edgar said. “A general warrior can become proficient with most weapons over time.” He paused slightly. “Wands are the exception. Though, in theory, you could sharpen one and use it to stab someone.”
Chelsea glanced at him. “That is not helpful.”
“It was not meant to be,” he replied evenly.
She shook her head, then looked ahead again. “What other kinds of weapons are there? Any suggestions?”
Edgar’s tone shifted, just slightly more serious. “I can tell you what exists. I will not tell you what to choose. Your weapon is an extension of you. If you take someone else’s suggestion too early, you risk shaping yourself around it instead of the other way around.”
Chelsea nodded slowly. “That… actually makes sense.”
“I can still teach you the basics,” he added.
“I’ll take that,” she said immediately.
“Then listen,” Edgar continued. “All melee weapons fall into three primary categories. Bladed, blunt, and pointed. From there, each branches into more specialized forms, each with its own advantages, weaknesses, and style of use.”
“What exactly are pointed?” Chelsea asked, her brow furrowing as she tried to picture it. “Aren’t swords both bladed and pointed?”
Edgar nodded slightly. “They are. But when we say pointed, we are referring to weapons whose primary function is thrusting rather than cutting. Spears, pikes, lances. Weapons designed to pierce rather than slice.”
“Spears?” Chelsea repeated, the word catching her interest immediately.
Something clicked in her memory. One of those random articles she had read back on Earth, the kind you skim without thinking too hard about it. It had talked about how spears were one of the most versatile weapons ever made. Easy to use, long reach, effective in almost any situation.
At the time, it had just been trivia.
Now it felt… relevant.
“I think I’d like to try a spear,” she said, more to herself than anyone else.
She hadn’t even noticed Dewey had moved up beside her until he spoke.
“Little sister, you don’t have to decide right now,” he said, his voice low. There was something in it this time. Not quite concern. Not quite disappointment. Something softer, harder to place.
Chelsea glanced over at him, catching it, even if she didn’t fully understand it.
“I wouldn’t mind trying your axe too,” she added, half teasing, half curious.
Edgar let out a quiet, humorless breath. “His axe is nearly the same size as you.”
Dewey nodded in agreement. “I doubt you could lift it, little sister.”
Chelsea narrowed her eyes slightly, a stubborn spark lighting up. “If you can hold it out like that, I can lift it. I’m stronger than I was when we fought.”
Dewey didn’t argue. He reached back and unhooked the axe from where it rested across his back, bringing it forward with ease.
“Go ahead,” he said, offering it to her.
Chelsea reached out and grabbed the handle.
For a brief moment, it felt manageable.
Then the weight shifted.
The head of the axe dropped immediately, slamming into the ground with a heavy thud that sent a small jolt up her arms. She tightened her grip instinctively, struggling to keep hold of the handle as it tilted downward, threatening to pull completely free from her grasp.
The noise caught the others’ attention.
Bea and Adriane both stopped and turned, and the moment they saw what was happening, they burst into laughter.
Chelsea’s face flushed. “It’s not that funny!” she snapped, straining against the weight.
She adjusted her stance, planting her feet more firmly, trying to use leverage instead of brute strength. The handle was far too wide for her grip, forcing her to wedge it awkwardly into the crook of her elbow just to stabilize it.
She took a breath and heaved.
Nothing.
She tried again, putting more of her body into it this time.
Still nothing.
On the third attempt, she felt the faintest shift, just enough movement to encourage her. She gritted her teeth and pushed harder, summoning everything she had, her muscles straining as she tried to force the massive weapon upward.
Then she glanced back.
Dewey was holding the top of the axehead with one hand.
He was smiling.
Chelsea froze, the effort draining out of her all at once.
“It’s okay that you aren’t good at everything, little sister,” he said gently.
With almost no effort at all, he lifted the axe, Chelsea still clinging to the handle. He raised it smoothly, as if her added weight meant nothing, then gave it a small shake.
Chelsea lost her grip and dropped the short distance to the ground with a soft thud.
She sat there for a second, staring up at him, equal parts annoyed and embarrassed.
Dewey simply rested the axe back across his shoulder like it had never left.