“Hey, Sharon,” I said, opening the front door.

  As usual, there was no response, so I just plopped into bed.

  For not only killing the Core, but assisting the other students, I was given top marks, even if Ardenidi’s powers were used in the process.

  The nurses did not feel the same.

  I was rushed to the infirmary for several fractures in my neck, shoulders, and lower back.

  A little healing magic, and I was basically good as new. Better than new, really. I’d expanded my power. I was ready for anything. I was unstoppable.

  I rolled to the other side of bed.

  It was Sunday, which meant there wasn’t any class or court fights. The Exam was over and students needed at least a single day without grueling missions early in the morning and dungeon raids to pay off student debt.

  We could do whatever we wanted today.

  And I was bored out of my mind.

  “Transform,” I commanded a piece of paper.

  Sometime after the exam, Xoiae increased the pressure on my bands.

  The slightest lip of the paper shifted upward.

  I groaned, pulling the covers over my face.

  The nurse suggested that I didn’t pressure my Mana channels. Something about lasting afflictions due to continued strain. Anyway, between that, the day off, and the mental bands, there just wasn’t anything I train, even if I wanted to.

  Besides, what was the rush?

  I’d been bumped up to the seventh court, so I’d win stats from my fights. Not a lot, but something. I could work with something.

  Cool wind rustled in through the window.

  “Cheer up, Grind,” I muttered to myself. “When was the last time you had a day for fun?”

  Since the moment I reached the second area, there had always been some sort of thing to do, or someone who needed beating, or some atrocity that deserved my full attention.

  Now I could enjoy the fullest extent of human progress within Tetratera. Except that I was broke, thanks to that stupid debt, which limited my options by quite a bit.

  Maybe I could hop out of bed and…walk around. And see things.

  “Today’s a bust,” I grumbled, pulling up a screen.

  {Clock}

  [5 : 03 Am]

  It was five-o-three in the morning, Sunday.

  I rolled up into a ball of thin sheets, waiting for the cold embrace of a good sleep.

  After hours, I checked the clock.

  {Clock}

  [5 : 03 Am]

  “COME’ON!” I shouted, flinging the clock through my open window. “Could something PLEASE HAPPEN ALREADY!?”

  There was a knock at the door.

  Ardenidi barged in, leveling a sword to my neck. “Grind! I challenge you to a duel!”

  I laughed, launching myself from bed. “I could kiss you!”

  She stopped.

  “Figure of speech,” I stated, waving a hand.

  “Not really.” She took a step back. “Are you feeling okay? I want my honor again, but I guess that would wait til tomorrow”

  “I’ve never been better,” I snapped. “Where’s the fight?”

  “The courtyard—”

  I hurtled myself out the window.

  Aredenidi swallowed. “Huh. He’s in an interesting mood today.”

  Since she wasn’t holding back, and I could use absolutely none of my special abilities, the fight lasted exactly three seconds.

  First, she punched me in the gut.

  Then, I crumpled onto the ground, wheezing for air.

  “That’s it?” She snorted. “Aren’t you going to use your tricks?”

  “No, no,” I whispered in pain. “I’m good. Good fight.”

  Ardenidi frowned, summoning her black spear and planting it in the ground for dramatic effect. “As per our deal, you will become my student now, and are forced to obey my commands—why are you smiling?”

  “No reason,” I said, smiling.

  “I just beat the crap out of you,” she grumbled. “And I’m about to humiliate you. You’re fine with that?”

  “All good.”

  “You…” Ardenidi rubbed her forehead. “Never mind. I have errands for you to run.” She tossed a sheet of notes into my hand. “Be snappy about it.”

  The ghost of a smile flickered across her lips. “Of course, you’ll use your own money to buy these.”

  I blinked. “Sorry. I’m broke.”

  “No you’re not,” Ardenidi hissed. “I know the union paid you something for the dungeon you cleared—”

  “Oh that all went to my student debt,” I chuckled.

  “You—” she shook her head in disgust. “How much student debt do you have?”

  Union debt count : {Union Debt}

  [Current balance : -999,998,243 Qualms]

  Ardenidi sat on the floor with her head in her hands. “How…just…how?”

  “You’re not one to talk,” I murmured.

  “Oh?” She summoned her debt screen.

  If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

  {Ardenidi : Union debt count : {Union Debt}}

  [Current balance : -99,980 Qualms]

  “Well I’ve been making pretty good progress,” I stated. “That’s mostly because I’m forced to. If you’re not trying to pay off your debt, they send thugs to your apartment and beat you up.”

  She blinked. “That’s not a thing.”

  “It sure feels like a thing.”

  Ardenidi was massaging her head again. “Well, for you…if you’re not paying that off they might actually kill you. A billion qualms in debt. That’s just...”

  “Yeah, so, groceries?” I asked, glancing at the list.

  She scowled, grabbing the paper from my hand and ripping it in half. “I can’t afford all that! If I couldn’t I wouldn’t be using your money in the first place. Just go and buy milk and cheese or something.”

  After she transferred some Qualms into my account, I wandered to the grocery store, grabbed a couple items, and staggered to her apartment.

  It was almost twice the size of mine, with much nicer furniture.

  “Wow,” I said. “Do they give experienced players better housing?”

  “No,” she hissed. “You have to pay for it.”

  “It’s an awfully large room to pay for.”

  “I…I usually have friends over, so,” she shrugged. “Anyway, it’s not that expensive.”

  She tossed me a bucket and a mop. “Clean everything. And no mind powers. I have more chores when you’re done with that.”

  “Won’t be a problem,” I said.

  Moping, scrubbing, wiping, dusting, rearranging and emptying the garbage took no less than three hours.

  “Next?” I asked.

  Ardenidi just watched me. “Uh…well nothing now…good work.”

  I blinked. “Next?”

  “I told you there’s nothing—”

  “Next?”

  “There’s nothing left—”

  “Next?”

  I spent the next five hours washing the entire apartment building, cleaning the parking lot, and weeding the gardens.

  The maintenance crew sat a little ways away, muttering about the strange boy doing all their hard work.

  I went back to Ardenidi.

  “Next?”

  She glanced up, jolting away from her book. “---Gah!”

  I was covered in dirt and dust. “Are you alright?”

  “You look terrible.”

  I sniffed under my arms. “Meh.”

  “Go…away.”

  “That’s not a job,” I said, frowning.

  “I don’t have more jobs!” She hissed. “Besides, I never expect you and all your stupid powers to have an ironclad work ethic!”

  One of her neighbors poked her head into the room.

  “Ardenidi? Are you okay? I heard a scream” she recoiled, letting out a squeak. “---Gah!”

  “It’s just my student, Grind,” Ardenidi grumbled.

  “Grind?” She brushed back her white hair. “Weren’t you his student—”

  “That was yesterday.”

  The neighbor blinked. She looked at me. “Hi! I’m Bella!”

  “I’m cleaning. You got anything needing cleaning?” I asked.

  Bella thought for a moment. “Cleaned…for free?”

  Ardenidi perked up. “He cleans for a small charge. One qualm per apartment.”

  Bella stopped in shock. “Just one?”

  “One.” Ardenidi grinned like a shark. “Spread the word.”

  I spent the next two hours cleaning her apartment. My arms were getting tired by then.

  Ardenidi leaned closer. “Once word gets around, you’ll be doing nothing but cleaning, day in, and day out—”

  “Next?” I asked.

  “I said—”

  “Next?”

  “But we don’t have any customers—”

  She had me break into people’s houses and start cleaning for free. Whenever they came back, there was a moment of confusion—and I got punched in the face more than once—but we worked things out. It helped that my cleaning was immaculate, naturally.

  “This is too slow,” I mumbled to myself, using only one hand to wipe a window.

  I was down to a mere hour of cleaning per apartment. My skills continued to improve. I began to secretly utilize a very minor mental energy technique, keeping my body rested even while I worked. It put strain on my mind, but after hours of mind numbing work, I’d grown stronger.

  Yes.

  I was becoming stronger faster on an unprecedented scale.

  First, fifty minutes.

  Forty-five.

  Thirty-five

  My power blossomed. I was dusting with one hand and washing with the other, maximizing efficiency. I began to expand my power, relying on instinct to navigate at faster speed. Each apartment was roughly the same layout, with the same union-mandated equipment models. Soon, I moved with such speed that dusting was no longer necessary, thanks to the vortex of fluctuating air pressure behind my wake.

  Sip glanced into the room, suppressing a shudder. “Look at him! What kind of a monster is he?!”

  “I don’t know,” Ardenidi whispered. “I don’t know.”

  My most recent customer looked at her scaldingly clean dishware in confusion. “Those come off?”

  Another customer scratched his head, bending down by the once-broken frame of his door.

  “How’d he fix that?”

  I was using three tools at the same time. Mop in the right hand. Rag on the left. Hammer clenched between my teeth as I scuttled along the counter top.

  Ardenidi shrieked, jumping away as I landed in the parking lot, having lunged from the balcony.

  “Y-you can stop! Okay? You made your point!” She said, “You’ve regained immense power, and I took advantage of a time when you were weakened! I’m sorry, okay!”

  I looked her in the eyes.

  She took a step back.

  My gaze hardened, to the dead soul of a blackened night; to the core of eternal storm in the fog of evening.

  I blinked hard. “What are you talking about? I’m just cleaning.”

  She blinked too. “That’s it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh. Well you can stop you know—”

  “No.”

  “I said—”

  “Next.”

  “But—”

  “Next. Please.”

  “B-b–ut—”

  I blinked.

  She swallowed. “Well. There’s the D-block apartments.”

  We made a hundred and fifty qualms by nightfall.

  Our business was becoming quite popular.

  So popular, the union sent a bunch of guys to shut our work down, stating something about the structural integrity of the job market, and anti-soliciting laws.

  Ardenidi walked with me, hands in her pockets. “You reek.”

  “Really?” I sniffed under my arms. “Hoo! You can taste that.”

  She gagged. “I would’ve expected you to be helpless without those mind powers.”

  “I was still using them,” I whispered. “But the changes were more internal.”

  “You cheated?”

  “Ah, I recall you saying I couldn’t use them while cleaning. So I used them when I wasn’t cleaning.” I smirked. “The time between brush strokes isn’t really cleaning, for instance. Be more specific.”

  “Fair enough.”

  It was a cool, dark night, where the sounds of the city simmered down.

  She stopped at my apartment, looking into the pane of broken glass. “You don’t have to be my student. Actually, please don’t be. My reputation is bad enough without you hanging around.”

  “Thank goodness,” I sighed.

  She huffed. “You don’t have to look so relieved.”

  “Any more cleaning might be dangerous,” I chuckled, holding up a hand. Several of my digits had been dislocated in order to fully utilize my ultimate cleaning technique, so I cracked them back into place. “Today was fun, though.”

  She paused. “Yeah. I guess it was. See you around.”

  “See ya.”

  Once I got all the grime off my skin, it was midnight. I changed into some comfy pajamas and pulled the covers to my chest.

  Today…was nice.

  Today was very nice.

  I drifted asleep, oblivious to the cracking sounds from my potted plant.