The Poor Mage

"If I go along with you and keep playing this boring game, will you let me leave?"

Heaven knew where Ciri had found the courage to say something so provocative to the demon before her.

That was simply Ciri's nature. She had never bowed and scraped to anyone.

Besides, her life was already in Joshua's hands. The worst that could happen was death... Uh, actually, that did sound pretty bad.

But the problem was that Ciri had once tried to treat Joshua with respect. She could barely imitate one tenth of the behavior of those "noble bitches in royal courts who wore refined facades while thinking only about how to seduce men."

She had hoped to trade that for her life, but she found she simply could not do it.

Because she could not sense any threat or oppression from Joshua at all... no demon's contempt for humans, nor any superior's disdain for a servant.

That was why, whenever she spoke with Joshua, she spouted nonsense and completely revealed her true nature.

"That's right. Once this filming is finished, I'll set you free."

Joshua naturally understood the principle of the whip and the sugar. Give her a little hope, and she would work toward it.

"But let me correct you slightly. What we're about to do is make a film, not play some game."

"A demon saving those Villagers—wasn't that just a whim, something to pass the time?"

Ciri muttered that sentence to herself, but she did not deliberately lower her voice, as if she wanted Joshua to hear it.

Ciri had seen plenty of idle nobles like that. They really ought to be thrown into the wilderness for a round of Wilderness Survival, made to experience living off tree bark, so they could understand how precious time was.

Wait... thinking of that, Ciri suddenly remembered that she had not eaten for nearly a day.

The hunger in her stomach made her give up on continuing to bicker with Joshua. She began rummaging through the little bundle beneath her mage's robe.

Ciri found nothing edible apart from a pile of practically useless drawing tools and pens.

No, wait—there was half a piece of dried tree bark at the bottom of the bundle!

Ciri's excitement was no less than that of Demon Hunter Geralt discovering a Gwent master. She had just taken out the piece of dried bark from her bundle and had not even had time to take a bite when she noticed Joshua looking at her strangely.

"What? Never seen dried cocoa tree bark? It's a delicacy in the human world... Well... I mean it."

Ciri could not keep making things up after that. Having the fact that she was too poor to afford food exposed before someone else truly made her lose face.

"What I wanted to ask was, did you draw this?"

Joshua was holding a sheet of White Paper. It had fallen from Ciri's bundle while she was searching through it.

On the White Paper was a sketch-style landscape: a stream, a small grove, a simple grill, and a campfire. The black-and-white tones perfectly captured the scene of a camping picnic beneath the night sky.

"Where did you find that?! Ah, no, give it back to me!"

Ciri suddenly realized it had fallen out of her own luggage. She immediately stepped forward, trying to snatch the drawing from Joshua's hand.

But being a mage, compounded with the negative condition of hunger, meant that Ciri's chances of taking the drawing back from Joshua were basically zero.

Not only did she fail to grab it, but in her excitement, she lunged forward too abruptly and lost her balance. She was about to fall face-first onto the ground.

Considering that this poor girl's last remaining bit of chest assets might be utterly ruined by that fall, Joshua politely reached out and wrapped an arm around Ciri's waist, steadying her.

His arm loosened the instant it touched her, but Ciri still shuddered all over and immediately backed away several steps.

This was the first time in her life that a man had touched such a sensitive part of her body—her stomach! But before Ciri could dwell on that, she discovered that the dried bark in her hand had fallen to the ground!

She hurried over to Joshua's side, picked up the piece of dried bark from the floor, and dusted it off a few times.

It should be fine! Ciri had once heard a famous Archmage say, "If food falls on the ground and you pick it up within three seconds, it's fine to eat."

"Say..."

Joshua crouched down and watched Ciri. He was beginning to feel inexplicably sorry for this poor Miss Mage.

Just how poor did someone have to be to chew dried bark every day?

"If you drew this, I can consider treating you to some meat."

Joshua held the drawing out before her as he spoke.

Perhaps it was an illusion, but when Joshua said, "treating you to some meat," Ciri's eyes suddenly lit up. Her earlier reluctance vanished completely.

"Yes, I drew it."

Judging from Ciri's excitement, Joshua really should not have promised to "set her free." He should have simply said, "Follow me from now on, and I guarantee you'll have meat every day."

"You know how to sketch?"

At first, Joshua had indeed planned to release Miss Mage once the filming was over and let her return to nature.

But the drawing in Joshua's hand proved that Ciri had value worth keeping.

"Sketching? What's that? I drew this with the Charcoal Pencil I use to draw magic arrays. That day, I caught a few fish in the stream. The reason I drew them... was so I'd have something to remember."

Ciri thought it over carefully before finally explaining it that way.

As a traveling mage apprentice, and not a particularly wealthy one at that, the burden of spellcasting materials had already left her utterly penniless.

That life had given Ciri plenty of useful skills. She was especially good at catching fish with Lightning Spell and rabbits with Fire Mist Spell.

And her one other specialty was knowing how to draw a little.

"Did you teach yourself all of this?"

"If I didn't teach myself, who else would teach me? The paints those court painters use cost as much as twenty years' worth of my meals. If I asked them to teach me, I probably couldn't afford it even with fifty years' worth of meal money."

"Very good. Perhaps I'd like to formally hire you, Miss Ciri."

Joshua had not expected this Female Mage to possess such talent for drawing.

Sketching was easy to learn, but difficult to master. Ciri's drawing had undoubtedly entered the realm of mastery.

After all, sketching was the most fundamental skill in learning to draw. Perhaps some artistic geniuses could skip that stage, but when Joshua had studied art, it had truly been ten years of sketching and five years of thick painting.

Considering that Joshua intended to move into game design in the future, he could never have too many talented artists.

"Hire me? Hmm... Didn't you say you'd let me go after the filming was over?"

Ciri took a bite of the dried bark in her hand. She clearly did not believe any of Joshua's promises, including his offer to "treat her to meat."

And this so-called hiring had to be practically synonymous with enslavement!

"Whether you agree is up to you, but I think the price I offer will definitely satisfy you," Joshua said.

"What price?"

"I'll guarantee your food for the rest of your life."

If Joshua wanted to expand his cultural invasion enterprise in the future, he would definitely need a great many talented people. He had not yet worked out the specific terms of employment, but that single sentence was enough to move Ciri.