Cinti woke her surprise guest at the crack of dawn.

  “Get dressed. We have lots to get done and we need to get our chores out of the way first.”

  Kuro rolled off the bed and flopped to the floor groaning. Even in his old life, getting up before the sun required effort and discipline he never had. As he sagged on the rug rubbing tiredness from his eyes, Cinti tapped her foot in the doorway.

  “Will I be here long enough to have chores?” he mumbled.

  She nodded. “It’s your choice, but it's not like you have another place to stay. Besides, you’re clueless about how things work here. You need a guide.”

  She helped Kuro to his feet, adding, “I’d also be grateful for the help and the company.”

  When he’d splashed cold water on his face to clear the grogginess, he found new clothes put aside for him. A sackcloth-coloured shirt and tattered pants.

  “Peasant chic?” he thought.

  He wanted to ask Cinti about it at breakfast, but she beat him to it with her own request.

  “So I was thinking… we could form a party together. What do you think?”

  Kuro slowed his chewing to look at her. She kept her eyes glued to her plate, face flushed.

  “How are you so trusting?” he blurted.

  He choked down his food and scrambled to explain when he saw the way her eyes went wide.

  “I just mean, inviting a strange man to come live with you. How can you be sure I won’t do something inappropriate?”

  Cinti was tearing up. Her shoulders were trembling.

  “Did I hurt her feelings?”

  He raised a hand as if to surrender. “Sorry—”

  She burst out laughing and wiping her eyes, before breathlessly saying, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to laugh, but at your current level even a child would be strong enough to resist your ability.”

  As she calmed herself, she leaned in with a devilish smile.

  “You should be worried about your own chastity.”

  Kuro coughed. He made a furtive glance around the room, visibly flustered by her sudden forwardness. Cinti slapped her hand on the table and stood abruptly.

  “Enough of that. We have work to do.”

  Cinti walked him through the various chores that he would be responsible for on her tiny homestead. The last task she showed him was repairing a section of the perimeter stone wall.

  She hauled bags of cement from a vine-covered storehouse and rolled out a wheelbarrow of quarried stones. After handing him a mixing hoe, she reached for the buttons on her blouse and popped them one by one. Kuro jerked up when she pulled off her shirt. He stared at her in paralyzed, gaping shock. All she had beneath was a black bust band, wrapped around her chest for support and laced like a corset at the back. Kuro looked away quickly and hoped she hadn’t noticed him gawking at her robustness.

  Cinti tossed the blouse aside and, using her own tool, started the task of mixing concrete. Kuro’s job consisted of pouring the water for now. As she worked, a glistening sheen of perspiration built up on her exposed skin. Kuro was in awe at how muscular she was.

  Her modest clothing had hid her true strength. Now, when she lifted those heavy rocks into place, her triceps, biceps, and deltoids flexed and swelled. His envious eyes soon fell to her waist where a six pack rippled.

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  For a second, he glanced at his own tubby stomach and swept across the rest of his chunky figure.

  “What the heck…” he muttered.

  Clearly, she was used to working hard on her own. And from the condition of her body, she’d been at it for years.

  After a while, his jealousy morphed into arousal. Beads of sweat slipped between her cleavage and her hair, glistening like spun gold in the sunlight, stuck to the rounded tops. Her cheeks were flushed pink. And as she bit her lips, deep in focus, they filled out like plump cherries.

  Kuro tried to stay focused on the tasks, but it was difficult with such a beautiful girl around—and half-naked to boot!

  “Hello? Kuro, are you still there?”

  She waved a hand in front of his face and he blinked.

  “Sorry,” he said, glancing away nervously.

  “You got everything I showed you? Cause it seemed like you wandered off there for a bit.”

  Kuro wiped his face, trying to refocus. “Yeah, got a bit distracted there, but I got most of it.”

  Cinti offered to reexplain so long as he stayed focused this time. But he shook his head gravely. There was no way he could when she was topless in front of him. Squeezing his eyes shut and taking a deep breath, he said, “Can you please put your clothes back on first?”

  She made a confused face and jerked her chin back.

  “Why?”

  Kuro’s eyebrows nearly leapt off his face. For a second, he wondered if she was jerking him around.

  “It’s just… kind of distracting.”

  Her expression was becoming more and more pinched. Leaning on the handle of her hoe, she let out a frustrated sigh.

  “Suck it up, Kuro. I know I’m not the most attractive thing to look at, but it can’t be that bad.”

  That shocked him all over again.

  “What? That’s not it at all. Actually, you’re the opposite of unattractive.”

  He blurted all that and instantly wished he would stop putting his foot in his mouth. If he’d tried those clunky lines on his ex, she would never have given him the time of day. Except, when he looked at Cinti, her face was pink.

  She glanced back at the stone wall and the work tools and brushed him off, muttering, “Ah, okay. I guess that’s all you need to learn for today anyway. I’ll entrust the rest to you while I head into town.”

  ***

  By midday, Kuro was sweating like a pig and his fingertips were raw from moving fieldstones. Each one was a quarter of his own weight and rough with unpolished serration. Just as his pace slowed to a crawl, Cinti returned. She leaned over the wall holding a mug of iced juice.

  “Come take a break. I’ve got news for you.”

  “Thanks,” Kuro panted.

  “I see you got a whopping six stones into the wall. At this rate you'll have the whole thing done by fall.”

  Kuro made a face.

  “I would have you know I did a lot of work here. You can’t rush quality,” he sniffed.

  While he was still speaking one of the stones tumbled down with a useless thud.

  “Uh huh. You were saying?”

  Kuro deflated and she patted him on the back, laughing.

  “It’s fine. Enough chores,” she said. “Wash off and come inside. It's time for the real work to begin.”

  She left him wondering what she could possibly mean by real work? Glancing at his shredded fingers, he wondered what could be harder than this. Once he was clean and settled at the dining table, Cinti explained the situation like an army commander to her troops.

  “I acquired a handful of quests for us at the local guild. There’s one that I believe you should be able to accompany me on.”

  That peaked his interest and he leaned in.

  “What is it?”

  She broke into an approving grin.

  “Glad you asked! Our task is to kill muskrats.”

  Kuro flung himself back on the chair, looking bored.

  “Pass.”

  Cinti looked taken aback.

  “So are you prepared to build stone walls, dig ditches, and tend to livestock for the rest of your life? Because if you don't want to be an adventurer then you're going to have to be a labourer. There are few ways for people in your position to earn an income.”

  “Huh? What do you mean by my position?”

  “You’re undocumented without any formal training or knowledge of magic,” Cinti said, raising her palms defensively. “And you’re also not much of a craftsman, so that rules out the trades. Not to mention, no school will take you in your current state—you’re much too old...”

  Kuro slumped back again. He didn’t know what to be more disappointed at. The fact that he was essentially an illegal immigrant with no prospects, or that Cinti had called him old.

  “How much do adventurers make?” he sighed.

  “Depends on the jobs they take. For some, one copper, for others, hundreds of gold pieces. Back when I was in a party, we made a decent living; ten to fifty silver a fortnight. Of course we were great at what we did. Given you’re just starting out, we’ll have to take low level jobs for a while until you get the hang of it. But I can safely say you should be able to earn about two to three silver a week.”

  That didn’t sound too impressive, so he threw out a follow-up question.

  “And how much do labourers make?”

  “Thirty-five coppers.”

  “Well, that’s not too ba—”

  “A month.”

  His eyes almost popped out of his head. Clearing his throat, he raised a weak fist into the air and muttered, “Let’s go hunt some rats...”

  She laughed.

  “That’s the spirit!”