A New Star Chapter 18

"The hell is this shit, Pietr?" the woman snapped. "You got kiddies running errands for ya or what?"

"I fuckin' wish," Pietr snarled back. "This little bitch thinks she's the boss."

The woman with dark black hair turned to me, showing she had a long scar from under the right side of her chin up to her right ear, giving me a once over. "She don't seem like much…"

"She's stronger than all the fuckin' dregs in either of our crews, though not the bruisers," Pietr said, slamming a fist on his desk, which he often angrily did to emphasize points, before he sighed. "She's also way too important to try to cow into submission."

"Oh, a little lordling, huh? Daughter of the mayor or some shit?" she asked, giving me a hard look.

"She's their kid, Robin," Pietr said in a gruff voice.

"They…oh, shit. Oh, fuck!" Robin said, standing up. "You know what, kiddo, I just remembered a lot of, uh, real important shit I gotta do. You play with Pietr now, yeah?"

"Firstly," I said, staring at the woman coldly, "I am not nearly as immature or foolish as you imply. Secondly, I believe it would be better for you to sit right back down. I believe we can have a very productive chat. Lastly, they don't have any involvement in my business here, so you can put your mind at ease."

"Well, but still-" Robin said before Pietr cut her off.

"Sit down, Robin. This won't take long, anyway," he said.

"It might, it might not," I said, looking between the two. "First, here is the latest stock."

I walked up to his desk and pulled five jars out of my satchel, setting them down in a row in the middle of his desk. Four of the jars had small red labels on and one had a small blue label. I closed my satchel and shifted it on my back before turning to face the two thugs, looking them up and down briefly.

"The pills, as promised," I said.

"Pietr, are you having a child, their child, make pills for you?!" Robin asked him.

"Not those kind of pills, you dolt," Pietr said. "She's an Alchemist."

"That doesn't make it any better," Robin said.

"I'm making affinity pills that Pietr sells on the side," I explained. "I don't want my activities to be traced, currently. So, I use Pietr to sell my goods. He makes a tidy profit, and I'm off the books."

"Well, okay, that's better than what I assumed," Robin said, the scarred woman still looking like a cornered rabbit.

"If she keeps producin', I'll cut you in," Pietr said.

"I'm not sure I want any involvement that can go right back to, uh, them," Robin said.

"Relax. Don't we have the best cover in the world right here?" he asked, jabbing a thick finger at me.

"I thought you didn't get along with the other criminals in town?" I asked.

"I'm not that scumfuck Robert," Robin said hotly.

"Yeah, two different people, kid," Pietr said.

"Sure, but then, who are you?" I asked, fixing the woman with an icy stare.

"I, uh, deal with some business, here and there," she replied, shifting her weight back and forth on the chair.

"She trades between Umberton and some of the cities further south," Pietr clarified.

"Fuck, Pietr! Just give the whole game away," Robin hissed.

"Not like she couldn't find out if she wanted. Or didn't already know," he said, muttering the last part.

"I'm not bothered by such small matters," I said calmly. "Pietr, do you have more business for me, or are we done?"

"We're done," he said. "Though, I don't know if you wanna walk out into that storm."

"There are ways to solve problems like that," I said, turning and walking into the dark. I heard Robin gasp behind me as I did so, but I ignored her surprise and continued forward, through the door of Pietr's office and through the common room.

****************

Robin

"Fuck, how could you just spill the beans like that?" I hissed at Pietr, resisting my strong desire to reach across this desk and slap him.

"The fuck 'm I s'pose to do?" he retorted. "She's the daughter of those two, and she's not someone to mess with."

"Yeah, great advice, so why are you doing business with her?" I snapped.

"She came in here one day a couple months ago, following those useless half-wits, Tad and Mick, and then proceeded to beat the shit outta two-thirds of my crew. Alone," Pietr explained, and I sat back in my chair, feeling my eyebrows climbing towards my hairline, though it wasn't a long climb. "Then, she fought against me and held her own, even though I didn't go all out. So, I figured, might as well actually do somethin' smart fer once and figure out what's really happening. Then, she offered me a deal and, well, I didn't see anything wrong with takin' advantage."

"This is stupid, Pietr. You're going to get hung out to dry and nobody'll give a shit. We know how nobles are," I said, shaking my head. I frowned at the man, wincing just a bit as that damned old scar pulled tight.

"None of us are bound for anything good," he replied darkly. "But we can get something out of this and, hey, maybe the girl can shield us from some of the blowback."

"You're gambling on, on, hell, everything here, Pietr," I said.

"You're right, but what choice do we have? I'm a two-bit gangster that can't even beat out the competition, and you're a black-market transporter that can't even compete with the 'legal' transporters on your own routes," he grumped. "What are we supposed to do, slowly lose out until we wither away? This is a chance, a chance for change, a chance to go big, one I'm going to take. And that means you, by extension, will be transporting her goods, so you better get right with it, because it's happening."

"Dammit, Pietr, this'll all blow up in our faces," I said, though the wind had gone out of my sails by this point. "Fine, whatever, count me in. What are we transporting?"

"Take a look," Pietr said, grabbing one of the jars and throwing it at me. I grabbed it out of the air with a flick of the arm, finding it was just an ordinary stone jar. I frowned at Pietr, but he just stared at me, providing no help. I popped the lid on the jar, which had a blue stripe on it, and instantly a frigid feeling wafted out, along with a chilling sensation pervading my body.

"Pietr, this…" I said, tilting the jar and pouring out a single, pea-size pill onto my palm. I could feel cold energy from the pill seep into my hand and chill the air around it.

"She's a prodigy, in more ways than one," Pietr said, calmer than I had seen him in, well, years.

"This, this has to be at least C-grade," I said, examining the pill before returning it to the jar, popping the lid back on with a satisfying snap.

"They are. Four jars of C-grade Lesser Fire Heart Pills, and one jar of C-grade Lesser Ice Heart Pills. Each jar should have fifty pills inside, meaning two hundred and fifty pills for sale. And she delivered me almost two hundred pills just five days ago. Whether she's using her family's money or connections, she's not just playing. We're talking about a serious supply here, Robin," he said to me, giving me a serious look.

"This is more than Umberton can handle," I said, sitting back and rubbing at the mar on my face. "You're talking about five hundred or more pills a week, Pietr. There aren't enough people in this town to be taking that many affinity pills a week. There aren't enough people that would need them, would buy them from the black market, and would use them consistently to buy that many pills a week, hell, a month."

"A month is pushing it, but you're right about a week," Pietr acknowledged. "I need to start expanding the market. And she's still a child, and still a novice in alchemy. Imagine as she grows and learns more about alchemy. Imagine when she's making a thousand G-grade pills a week. Or five thousand."

"What else, Pietr?" I asked, knowing there was more to it.

"Potions, elixirs, beast parts, and even more," he said, a glint in his eyes. "She's sourcing about half as much as my entire gang does for the black market. And, again, I cannot stress this enough; she's four. Sure, she could just shut us down, but if we work with her, just imagine how much she'll bring in, even when she's fourteen."

"At fourteen she'll go off to academy," I said with a snort.

"You think somebody who's C-rank at four years old will go to the academies? I doubt it. Even so, she'll be in the capital then, and you do business with the black market there. We'll still have sourcing," he said, rubbing his knuckles with a far-off look in his eyes.

"Well, fine, I'm in," I said, sighing.

"Excellent," said Pietr, a real shit-eating grin on his face.

"But you still owe me," I barked, causing that grin to turn into a frown in a blink.

"I know, but I'm giving you an opportunity here," he said.

"And that doesn't pay my bills or my people, Pietr," I said coldly.

"Fine, have it your way," he grumbled, taking out a key and moving over to his money chest.

*************

Another few months went by, and my fifth birthday came and went. I had a small party, but it wasn't anything outstanding to note. I had continued to work on my affinities, paying particular attention to the new lightning affinity, which I found allowed me basically unlimited manipulation of electricity. I didn't neglect my other affinities, nor my physical training, pushing both higher during this period. I pushed my mastery of the sword through the end of Apprentice, pushing it to Peak before moving into Early Journeyman. My other affinities progressed nicely, though I thought it was a bit slow. The real breakthrough was what I had just completed working on in my copious free time.

I stared down at an entire tub, though not one nearly the size of the one in my suite, in the middle of my lab. It was made of burnished copper and had been in storage, coated in dust and a few cobwebs, but a quick clean had shined it right up. It was now more than three-quarters full, though any more of the liquid and it would spill when I entered. I had finally gotten a simple lock for the door and had engaged it before stripping out of my clothes and entering the bath, fully submerging myself. The pain started immediately, feeling like leeches and biting worms were tunneling through my skin and flesh before cracking into my bones.

I was, of course, undergoing a medicinal bath to temper my body, something common in my last life, but utterly unheard of in this one. The time to do such things was ripe, and my alchemy was enough that I could make simple baths to start the process. I was hoping this would go a long way towards increasing the grade of my body, which had only advanced to B-grade despite nearly a year of effort. That being said, I did have a tier six body, so that would obviously slow things down at least a bit, but I wasn't happy with the thought of settling for less. I dismissed such thoughts as I fully submerged myself, letting my head go completely under the water. I could not afford to not have any part of me tempered by the liquid, but that was how it worked in my old life. With how affinities governed everything here, I wasn't quite sure that all the same rules applied in the same way.

The bath was incredibly painful, but I had faced pain before, pain so overwhelming my nerves had fried themselves. Compared to that kind of experience, my body aching for an hour as it absorbed the medicinal fluid was nothing, and the pain was well worth it. I emerged from the bath, using an overhead faucet in the corner as an impromptu shower to wash off before drying myself with flames and re-donning my clothes. I looked at the result, more than satisfied by the outcome.

Body Affinity upgraded.

Affinity: Body of the Godslayer

Grade: C

I had improved the grade by one, completing a couple months of effort, and it felt good. I flexed my muscles and cracked my knuckles, twisting my neck and hearing the vertebrae of my neck pop. I felt a newfound strength coursing through me, a strength I hadn't felt in a long time. It was nowhere near the heights of my last life, but this was more a feeling I was familiar with compared to that weak child's body I had been forced to deal with so far. Every grade was a marked improvement, though it wasn't quite exponential. It was, perhaps, something a little closer to logarithmic? I knew that every jump in grade at the high end, such as going from U-grade to V-grade, was a monumental improvement in power. The early grades were still significant, but they weren't anything like the later grades in terms of difference between grades.

It was time I started to journey further out, but for that, I would need preparations. I was well-versed in killing various animals and beasts and skinning and dismantling them, but I didn't want to rely on foraging for provisions. I would need food, dried meats and grains, as well as some way to cook them, though I did have the power of flame and could just build a fire anywhere. I could also combine flame and ice to create water using mana, but it would be nice to have a canteen. If I were a little older, I would take a flask of brandy or whisky, but that was a bit much for a five-year-old, even a precocious one. I would also like to get as powerful of potions as I could make, as well as some bandages and other supplementary supplies.

I put together a little medical kit, including a bottle of disinfectant, which was basically just a highly concentrated alcohol, though I would have to see about whipping up some hydrogen peroxide sometime soon, as that was a better disinfectant and still relatively easy to manufacture. I had managed to secure some jerky that would last a few weeks in its packaging, as well as some travel rations that were basically grain bars that would last a couple weeks. I intended to take a trip of a little over a week, though it was better to plan as if the trip would go wrong and it would take up to twice as long. My idea was to begin an initial exploration of the Untamed Wilds, though just the mountainous area to the north of the estate, but I didn't intend to take quick day trips. My very first trip would be just for a day, but I would still take a pack with the medical supplies, camping supplies, and a few rations, just in case.

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