Advance Payment

Nova followed Mune as he was leaving.

After a bit, Mune turned around and looked at him.

『...Why are you following me?』[Mune]

Nova stopped in his place and had a blank awkward look on his face.

『...I don't know the way back to the dorm...』[Nova]

Mune sighed and pulled out his student ID.

『Here.』[Mune]

He pointed at a button at the top right.

『Click this, you'll pull up a digital map.』[Mune]

Nova pulled out his ID and followed his instructions.

A map appeared with descriptions on how to navigate the area.

『Oh! Thank you, Mu-』[Nova]

Once he had looked up, Mune had already disappeared somewhere.

Nova's hand dropped down to his side, but he began to walk.

The place he was in right now was a building that was a few miles away from the main school building.

「...I thought that we were in the main school area...」[Nova]

He sighed and decided to just get back to the dorm using Area.

『Area.』[Nova]

The dark space enveloped Nova and he found himself back in his room.

「...I didn't get to test out everything I wanted to...」[Nova]

He fell onto his bed.

Nova pulled a Stardrop out of the bag Mune gave him and put it up to his eye and looked at the moon through it.

The moon shined through the candy, with the color dancing through the milky white of the moon.

Nova remembered how Mune looked straight up to the sky with it, back on the small island.

「...Not as cool as with a star, huh?」[Nova]

He silently fell asleep.

....

Nova woke up to a knock on his door.

He woke up, still a bit tired from sleeping so late, and walked over to the door.

『Comin-』[Nova]

As he walked over to the door, the door blew off its hinges and slammed into Nova, sending him several feet away.

『OW! WHAT THE HELL?!』[Nova]

He felt blood flowing out of his nose and moved his hand to stop the blood from hitting the floor.

A stomping noise came into the room.

『Ah! I'm so sorry! Are you okay, Nova?』

Nova looked up and saw Sarena staring at him.

『Sarena?』[Nova]

Sarena pulled a handkerchief out of her chest pocket and pressed it lightly on Nova's nose.

『Are you okay?! You didn't send me any messages after you left, so I thought you died!』[Sarena]

『I… Think I'm fine? Except for the bleeding nose?』[Nova]

Nova took the handkerchief and pushed it onto his nose to staunch his blood.

『I'm so, so, so, so sorry.』[Sarena]

She hugged his head while he tried to stop the bleeding.

『It's okay. Blessed Flame Rebirth.』[Nova]

A little blue flame sat on his finger and began to heal the blood vessels in his nose.

『AHCK!』[Nova]

The blue flame inside of his nose smelled like a mix of ash and metal.

The noise scared Sarena and she grabbed his face.

『Are you okay?! What's wrong?!』[Sarena]

『...Fire in my nose smells weird.』[Nova]

Sarena breathed a sigh of relief and lightly hit him.

『Stop scaring me! What happened yesterday?』[Sarena]

『Mune took me out on a mission with him.』[Nova]

A male scream filled the hallway.

『YOU WHAT? WITH WHO?!』

The voice was very familiar to Nova.

『Is that..?』[Nova]

Oswald's face popped up through the door frame and he began to shout.

『NOVA! ARE YOU STILL ALIVE?!』[Oswald]

He ran in and kneeled down before he put a hand on Nova's shoulder.

『I went on a mission with Mune, because Saeyeon thought I was interesting enough to call him…?』[Nova]

『Oh! He must have kept you safe, then. Why is your nose bleeding?』[Oswald]

『Sarena opened the door too hard...』[Nova]

Oswald looked back and realized that the door was missing from the doorframe.

He then looked back at Sarena.

『...Sarena? Why?』[Oswald]

She covered her face and looked away before she talked.

『I was worried and I was waiting for him to respond! When I heard him speak, I panicked and kicked the door in on reflex!』[Sarena]

『...Did you get that from Reagan..?』[Oswald]

He shook his head a bit before he realized how ridiculous her sentence sounded.

『...Kicked a door in on reflex?』[Oswald]

Nova's nose finally stopped bleeding and he cut off the mana.

『Reagan did that to me too...』[Nova]

Oswald pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head before returning back to the topic.

『So, you've met Saeyeon? Are you alright?』[Oswald]

『I'm alright. I think...』[Nova]

The amount of blood he lost made his mana disappear by a good bit.

He slipped his hand into his pocket and looked down as he pulled out the bag of Stardrops and popped one into his mouth.

When he looked back up, the two of them gave him a weird look.

『...What was that?』[Oswald]

『...Stardrops? Did you want one?』[Nova]

He reached into the bag and held out two of them for Sarena and Oswald.

The vibrant swirl of color danced in his palm and made their stares even more complicated.

『...Isn't this Mune's bag?』[Sarena]

Oswald picked up one of the Stardrops on Nova's palm and popped them into his mouth.

『...They restore mana… He gave you that whole bag?!』[Oswald]

Nova nodded while sucking on the Stardrop.

Oswald's expression changed as he spit the candy out and tried to wipe it clean.

『Huh?! Os-bro, that's gross!』

His eyes changed color as he peered through the candy and examined it.

『These are ridiculously expensive and can only be bought with Cryst! If I wasted it here, I would be an idiot!』[Oswald]

Nova silently stopped the movement in his mouth when Oswald said that.

『...This candy?』[Nova]

Sarena nodded at Nova.

『The lowest quality candy is worth about one mission's worth of Cryst.』[Sarena]

『...These are lowest quality, right?』[Nova]

Nova and Sarena both looked to Oswald.

When he shook his head, Nova's face paled.

『These are probably close to the highest quality. About worth a rank 6 or 7 monster's mission per one.』[Oswald]

Sarena looked at the star shape on Nova's bag.

『...How many are in there?』[Sarena]

Nova opened the bag and realized he hadn't seen what was in it closely before.

Inside of the bag, an amount of candy that seemed impossible laid in there.

Nova reached into the bag that was fit in his hand snugly until his entire hand was in it.

He gently nudged the candies to the side and kept pushing into the bag.

Everyone's eyes widened the deeper Nova got into the bag, until Nova had fit his entire arm into it.

『...I can't go any deeper than this.』[Nova]

Sarena gently grabbed the bag from Nova's hand before his hand came out, spilling several Stardrops onto the floor that had much more vibrant colors than the ones that Nova ate.

『...These are oversaturated with mana. Worth several times more than the ones you just ate. The bag is probably a holding bag with a dimensional circle and a weight reduction enchantment. 』[Oswald]

She returned the bag into Nova's hand before silently waving her hand and fixing Nova's door.

『...How much does that cost?!』[Sarena]

『...All of the candy alone is worth more than the entirety of my Raidagem earnings from last year.』[Oswald]

Sarena was a bit flustered.

『Didn't you work really hard last year?! You were in the top 5 teams for our year!』[Sarena]

『...I made about 10000 Cryst. The bag is probably around 1-2 thousand and the candies are worth about 20 Cryst per. Maybe up to 300 per saturated ones.』[Oswald]

Sarena covered her mouth from the shock.

Nova felt a bit lost in the conversation because of his distorted values.

『...And how much is that, for scale?!』[Nova]

『Imagine you're looking for a dedicated weapon that is better than your current conjurable weapon. If you want a sword that shoots blades of wind capable of cutting a rank 4 brownling whenever you swing, it would cost a little more than 2 thousand Cryst.』[Oswald]

Nova began to break out into a nervous sweat.

『...Did he… give me the wrong bag?』[Nova]

Sarena shook her head.

『If it's him… Then you got into the team, didn't you?』[Sarena]

Nova paused before he nodded his head.

『...That's his way of saying "Thank you for your future service".』[Sarena]

Oswald looked concerned.

『In other words, you're bound to him for the rest of this year.』[Sarena]

Nova looked at the bag again.

『...I'll do my best.』[Nova]