It's Over, It's Over

The wages he had just received had not even had time to warm in his hands before he had to set aside two-thirds of them for rent.

His available balance was only 40,000 J.

Last month, the Master had lent Rhode 150,000 J.

There was also the 80,000 J payment for having Hibiki teach him the common language, along with Porlyusica's medical fees for treating his injuries.

The Master had never mentioned making Rhode pay for those two items, but Rhode could not pretend he did not know about them.

"I'll pay back 20,000 this month and keep 20,000 for living expenses. At this rate, I can probably finish repaying it in a little over a year.

"But the seasons will change in another two months, and I'll need to buy a lot of things. I should save up a little more and repay it all at once."

Rhode calculated his debts and earning speed, and the pressure immediately came flooding back.

"Judging by the combat strength of the Stone Beetle and Three Wolves, once I have the frog and Six Birds, I should be able to handle low-difficulty subjugation jobs.

"Considering the possibility of unexpected situations, I should play it safe and wait until either the Red Buff or Blue Buff comes out before taking jobs...

"Better yet, I should team up with someone else."

Spurred on by his wages, Rhode made himself a short-term plan that was urgent yet cautious.

After being certified by the Master, Rhode could actually take on many jobs now. He simply felt it was not safe enough and wanted to train for another month or two.

At the tavern, Macao drank a few extra glasses of ice-cold beer to beat the heat, and his voice became somewhat louder.

"Wakaba, you didn't secretly get divorced, did you?"

"How could that be?" Wakaba asked, puzzled. "Why would you say that?"

"Because I haven't heard you complain about your wife for days." Macao felt his reasoning was impeccable.

At that, Wakaba became even more puzzled.

"For some reason, my wife's been especially nice to me lately. It's like we went back to when we'd just gotten married...

"Other than dressing a little unfashionably and putting on some weight, there really isn't much to complain about."

Macao let out a beer belch, then gulped down several more mouthfuls.

"Damn it! I thought your marriage was as miserable as mine! Why did you suddenly become so happy?!"

"What miserable marriage?" Kana cut in.

"Didn't your wife divorce you because all you did was work all day and completely ignored your family?"

"I'm a man! Isn't earning more money supposed to be for supporting the family?" Macao argued, his face red. Then his tone sank again.

"And I changed! I don't just focus on work anymore. I take good care of Romeo too... Damn it, I want a happy marriage too!"

One look at Macao's expression told Kana that he had drunk too much, so she could not be bothered to argue with him.

Holding her little wine glass, she gazed longingly at the huge barrel of liquor in the corner...

Hmph. He gets drunk like that every day, yet he tells me to drink less.

The drunken Macao was still pestering Wakaba. "Hurry up and tell me, how exactly did you do it?!"

"I told you, I don't know!"

Rhode looked at Mira and signaled with his eyes. Your doing.

Mira merely smiled without saying a word.

Seeing that Macao was being relentless and looked ready to make a drunken scene at any moment, Kana offered a reminder. "Have you encountered anything unusual lately?"

"Something unusual... We got robbed a little over a week ago. Maybe that incident scared her?"

Wakaba said, "You know, Rhode and Mira were the ones who caught the robbers."

To thank Rhode, Wakaba had even coached him for several days... The abundant experience of this longtime guild member had benefited Rhode greatly.

He had even been willing to tell Rhode which issues of "Sosara" were the best.

Completely worthless information!

Rhode immediately decided to remember it and sell the intel to other perverts later.

Macao was still clinging to the subject relentlessly.

Wakaba was driven beyond endurance, and in the end, he could only settle the problem with his fists.

After work, Rhode took a walk around the household goods store.

He had originally planned to buy a bottle of mosquito repellent, but in the end, he bought a mosquito net.

Once the repellent ran out, he would have to buy more, but a mosquito net could be used forever—Rhode's little money-saving tip.

As Rhode was about to head home, he remembered Mira's reminder that tomorrow was the opening day of Honey Sweet Shop, and that he should remember to bring his trial voucher.

So Rhode turned on his heel and headed to a clothing store.

In the end, he still could not save that money.

After leaving the clothing store, Rhode had not gone more than a few steps before turning around again and entering a barbershop.

Not only would he fail to save money today, he would even have to spend a little extra.

The snip-snip of scissors sounded above his head as clumps of hair drifted down.

Rhode stared at himself in the mirror, calmly pondering whether he had fallen for her or simply lost his mind.

That did not seem hard to determine.

The question was what he looked like in Mira's eyes. If she were to label him, it would probably be something like:

A newcomer, a companion, someone who occasionally needed looking after, more well-behaved than Natsu and the others, fairly diligent in training... and so on.

After counting them out for a while, Rhode realized that, like the other companions, he probably only had a basic level of affection from Mira.

At most, because they worked together every day and often chatted, they were a little more familiar with each other.

Rhode sighed. He still had a long way to go.

At the same time, he had gained one more reason to train hard.

Early the next morning, Rhode did some stretches and punched the sandbag to limber up, then washed up and prepared to head out.

He told himself that there was no need to think too much at this stage. He just needed to interact with her normally, as usual.

Yet his body honestly changed into his new clothes, and he even spent a while carefully fixing his hair in front of the mirror.

After finishing the tavern's routine morning work, the two of them headed out together.

Fortunately, the Master was there today, and Sally and Izzy had come to work part-time as well, so it was fine for Mira and Rhode to leave temporarily.

Other than feeling a little uncomfortable under Laki's fiery stare, there was nothing else.

From her gaze, Rhode could tell that Mira, who spent all day gossiping about others, was about to become the subject of gossip herself today.

Mira wore a beige dress today, its hem just covering her knees.

Since the sun had been rather unfriendly since morning, she also wore a sun hat. A large pink bow was tied around it, making her look especially youthful.

Rhode had not paid much attention before, but he only now realized that the top of Mira's head was just a little higher than his shoulder.

Their heights matched pretty well. Peh, peh, peh.

As he walked beside her down the street, a faint fragrance drifted over from her side.

Before coming to this world, Rhode would have assumed it was the scent of shampoo, cosmetics, or perfume.

But he had read in magazines that there were quite a few magical products marketed toward women—magic that could change the color of clothes at any time, and magic that could release all kinds of floral scents.

Rhode was not sure whether Mira had used any of those, but... this outfit looked very good on her, and this scent smelled very nice too.

Mira seemed to be in an excellent mood. "You got a haircut?"

"Yeah, it'd been almost a month since my last trim."

He would feel embarrassed saying he had gotten it cut specifically for today, so he could only come up with a reasonable excuse.

He also wanted to know what she thought, so he asked as if casually, "Does it look okay?"

Mira tilted her head and looked at him for a few more seconds. "It suits you very well. You seem more handsome."

"Really?" Rhode smiled. "Thanks."

It was over. Even knowing that compliment was probably just politeness, he could not stop the joy surging up from the bottom of his heart...

It was over. It was really over...