I followed Cier through the estate. "Say, which way is north?" I asked.

"North?" He asked, confused.

"Which direction does the sun set, then?" I asked.

He pointed in the direction of where my room was, which meant we were walking toward the east wing of the estate. "North is the direction a compass points, though based on your expression, you don't know what a compass is. How does anyone know which direction to go?"

"Usually, one uses a waystone." He said. "It confers the knowledge of how to reach a certain place, but only along the path the one who makes the waystone travels."

"So, you never have to tell people directions more complex than, 'take a right at this corner and go straight'."

"Which happens to be where we are headed." He remarked. "There are four rooms that are considered dangerous to maintain properly. One is a room full of cursed items, dusting the room can be dangerous as without the proper care, one may end up cursed without realizing it. I will be having you handle a minor cursed item to determine whether or not your resistance accounts for such." He pointed at a door that we passed. "The next is a treasury vault, there are precious items within that must be maintained. A dragon guards them, only my Lady is allowed to touch them as they are her belongings, that courtesy does not extend to staff. As a dragon's breath is magical in nature, your resistance should allow you to avoid harm." He pointed at the large door at the end of the hallway.

"The third is our in-estate alchemist's laboratory, mishandling of magical reagents can cause injury, you will be exposed to a minor one to determine your resistance." He gestured to a door, where a loud bang sounded, followed by a faint bit of smoke coming out. "Lastly is the Focus Crystal, it supplies magic power to anything and everything within this estate that draws on such, it needs to be polished once a week. Unfortunately, the magic power that is suffused in the room is potent enough that anything without the proper protections applied experience mana sickness, which can be fatal, but most do not spend more than an hour inside. I will have you stand inside for one minute and observe you for any symptoms of mana sickness. If you are capable of withstanding all, then you will be paid one Trias for a good job." He gestured toward a metal door and stopped.

"A Trias?" I asked.

"Right, you are an ignorant otherworlder." He remarked. "The currency of this land is made in denominations of Kutras, Velkas, Trias, and Autros. Kutras are made from copper, ten Kutras equal one Velkas. Velkas are made from silver, ten Velkas are equal to one Trias-"

"I'm guessing that Trias are gold, and Autros are platinum, and the ten pattern repeats." I remarked.

"Astute. How did you know?" He asked.

"It's basic D&D." I said. "Which means there is an overlap of reality and fiction." I crossed my arms. "The way this world works is very similar to what we on my world call a 'Role-Playing Game', or RPG. However, it's not an RPG Mechanics 'Verse, otherwise... Well, that's irrelevant at the moment."

"I will have to learn more of these 'Role-Playing Games' at a later time." He said. "For now, have you any questions regarding these tasks?"

"Not at the moment." I said. "If at the very least, I'm capable of doing this much without getting hurt, then I'll be glad."

He nodded and we walked to the end of the hall. He picked up a staff and opened the door. "After you." He said.

The room was massive, I saw a large pile of glittering coins, gems, and other things, atop which was a large, gold-scaled dragon. On either side of me were pedestals with various types of jewelry and pieces of armor and other fancy things.

I walked up to the dragon, who watched me intently. "Excuse me." I said. "The owner of this estate, Lady Lissana Wyrashe, has given me permission to clean some of the treasures in here."

The Dragon stared at me for a few moments before roaring, "Insolence!" Fire shot out of its maw, which while warm, didn't hurt. After the fire ended, the dragon stared at me, its eyes widened.

"I was going to say, before you breathed fire at me, that I request permission to do so, as I recognize it is your duty to guard the treasures." I said. "I apologize if I was rude, I am not from this world."

The dragon stood and towered over me.

"I could eat you, Human." It said.

"You could." I replied. "And I don't think there's much I could do about that. Which is why I'm asking you permission before touching anything."

It lowered its head and looked at me with its massive eye, which had to be twice the size of my head. "A Human is the first to ask my permission, how far this world has fallen if such is the case." It said.

"Does this mean I have permission?" I asked. "If not, then I'll leave you alone."

It stood as tall as it could and looked down at me. "Are you not frightened?" It asked.

"I've already accepted death a handful of times." I replied. "Granted, my seeming lack of fear might be another power I got upon entering this world. I am frightened, but I'm not as concerned as I probably should be."

"Speak your name, and enter contract." It said.

"I am cursed to be unable to speak my real name." I said. "The name I go by is 'Rex' for the sake of communication."

"Then speak, Rex, do you swear to accept the contract I put forward, that you have my blessing to clean that which needs to be cleaned, and nothing more, without taking for yourself that which does not belong to you?"

I considered the dragon's words carefully. "I do not know if contracts apply to me, but I will accept nonetheless."

The dragon nodded. "Then I, Draxkatar, seal this contract."

I felt a strange rush. I took it as the contract taking effect.

"I have with me a servant of Lady Wyrashe who will be instructing me in the proper cleaning of these items. May I ask, in his stead, for permission to do so?"

"Very well." Draxkatar stated. "Do your job, Human."

"Thank you, honored Draxkatar." I said. I turned around and walked over to Cier, who looked impressed.

"How did you learn to speak the dragon tongue?" He asked.

"I was speaking his language?" I asked. "I guess that makes sense, some sort of translation convention set so that I can communicate."

"Hm." He said. "Perhaps that is the case, but I sincerely doubt it."

"You said, 'perhaps that is the case, but I sincerely doubt it'." I said, he looked startled. "I've used that sort of trick multiple times in my own stories, I kinda saw it coming."

He cleared his throat. "Very well, I will believe you and your ever growing list of improbabilities." He then showed me the proper way to clean the various treasures that needed it. Once we were finished, I approached Draxkatar.

"Do you need something, Human?" It asked.

"I'm just letting you know we're finished." I said. "I'll be back in two days, in the meantime, if there's anything I could try to get you, feel free to let me know."

"Perhaps you could teach these ignorant servants how to speak Drakat." It remarked snidely.

"Unfortunately, I cannot." I said. "It seems my ability to communicate to you is magically induced."

"I see..." It said. "Then I would very much like a change in diet. The meals I have been eating have gotten, shall we say, old."

I had Cier approach so I could convey what Draxkatar wanted, Cier gripped the staff he held tightly, my guess was it was required to survive any breath attack from the dragon.

"That will be all." Draxkatar stated.

I bowed my head to it and we left.

"You have nerves of steel." Cier remarked.

"Likely magically induced." I said. "I can still feel fear, but in such situations, it's more muted. I'll have to be careful in the future."

We went to the next room, which was the room with the Focus Crystal. It was a bright orange crystal that, when I stood near it, I could feel warmth radiating from it. It floated above a raised dais, which had some sort of shrine surrounding it. After a few minutes, Cier nodded.

"You show no signs of mana sickness, but please leave immediately if you begin to feel lethargic."

I nodded. It turned out, cleaning the Focus Crystal was as easy as wiping it down with a cloth, it seemed it only became a problem because anyone else cleaning it became too sick to do it quickly.

"Was it effecting you?" Cier asked as I stepped out.

"No." I said. "I wiped it down, scrubbed at a few difficult to remove spots, and used the brush inside to sweep away some dust."

"Impressive, your resistance to magic is certainly a boon in this case." He remarked as he led me to the Alchemist's laboratory. The Alchemist turned out to be a young Human girl, who seemed to be focusing on some sort of glowing blue concoction.

"There, that should do it." She said.

The room was filled with shelves, boxes, fragile glassware, and glass bottles full of various colored liquids, some of which glowed. The Alchemist set the potion on a shelf and turned to face us. "What do you need?" She asked. "I'm busy."

Before Cier could speak, I said, "This is a pretty amazing setup. I'd always imagined alchemists to be dusty old people sitting around trying to make gold, but..." I looked at her. "Well, either you're a prodigy or alchemy's the easiest thing in the world."

"Who is this?" She asked, looking at Cier.

"A guest who has volunteered to clean the more dangerous areas of the estate." Cier said. "His circumstances are unusual, he is from another world, after all."

She looked at me. "At least he recognizes talent." She said. "Even if he looks like a dullard."

"I'll take that as a compliment." I said.

"It wasn't a compliment." She stated.

"I know." I replied.

"My equipment is very fragile, mishandle it and you'll have to pay to replace it." She said. "I use a special magical acid harvested from Feldrakes to clean my equipment."

"Well, I'm extremely resistant to magic." I said. "I withstood Draxkatar's flames and I cleaned the Focus Crystal in under a few minutes."

Without warning, she flicked a green liquid at me that, when it touched me, simply fizzled out.

"Very well, I will show you how to clean my equipment."

I spent the next thirty minutes being taught how to properly handle her glassware, after ten different dirty alembics and tubes, she deemed I was competent enough to handle it by myself. My resistance to magic meant I could just stick my hand in the thick glass barrel without any harm, though a gradual reddening and irritation of my skin did manifest, which was easily countered with a sip from a healing potion.

"At least you're cheap to heal." She remarked. "Most others scream and drop something."

"Yeah." I said. "For some needed context, how complex is alchemy?" I asked.

"As complex as the human anatomy." She remarked. "Though I doubt you would know much about that."

"I'm familiar with anatomy." I said. "Not enough to remember specific names, but I know it's complex enough that there's still a lot that scientists on my world still don't know."

"Oh? Then perhaps you might understand enough for me to ask you a question. Why is it every attempt to return a severed limb to its proper place end up with it rotting?" She asked.

"That depends. Did you put it on ice first?" I asked.

She blinked. "Put it on ice?" She asked.

I nodded. "Yeah. Cold temperatures keep decaying meat from decaying further. It's why on my world, if you're going to, say, transplant a heart, you need to keep it cold. If you take the arm and immediately surround it in ice, the decay will be reduced significantly. However, reattaching an arm is a complicated process, and it doesn't always work right even if you attach the nerves correctly. I'm sure with healing magic, it's no issue, but if all of the cells are dead, then there's not really any way to fix that."

"I see." She said. "What you say does make some sense. Then perhaps you know what causes illness? It is easy for priests to cleanse an area of illness, to purge it from a body, but the miasma is invisible-"

"It's because of tiny single-celled organisms..." I told her what I knew of these things, and while it was pretty basic stuff, it was still leaps and bounds ahead of what was understood. The concepts of cleaning everything with hot water and soap wasn't at all common, baths were seen as more to get rid of obvious dirt, most went unbathed for a long time, with magic being used to cover up the worst of it.

The prayer at dinnertime was an example of such, praying and giving thanks to everything that made the mean possible was said to drive away miasma, which was considered the root of illness and misfortune.

The Alchemist, Beatrice, was impressed with my knowledge, but was annoyed by how little I actually knew.

"Still, someone as intelligent as you should be able to figure out the rest without too much trouble." I said.

"And this constant cleaning is what prevents disease?" She asked.

"Well, it helps, but it doesn't get rid of the problem entirely." I remarked. "For some of the worst, we have what is known as vaccines which give our immune systems enough information to deal with the disease..."

I spent more time answering her questions to the best of my ability than I did cleaning, to the point where Cier actually came in to question if we were okay.

"Silence is never a good sign regarding this room." He stated.

"Oh, I'm just giving Beatrice here a basic overview of medical science." I said. "She's utterly brilliant, by the way, once I get my phone charged up, I've got a bunch of notes I've kept for my books stored in it, I'm sure she'd enjoy that."

"Yes, your copper thread." Cier remarked.

"Copper thread?" Beatrice asked.

"Yeah. I'm going to create lightning to power a device of mine since it's low on power. It doesn't work with magic, as far as I can tell." I said. "The charge needs to be low enough so it doesn't blow up my phone."

"May I see?" She asked.

I hesitantly handed her my phone, which she looked over. "I can tell this has no magic to it at all." She said. "But, I can tell it does contain something akin to lightning." She closed her eyes, and small arcs of electricity parked around her before she handed it back. "I've alchemically enhanced it, what lightning is within will passively generate a small amount over time." I checked my phone, which showed it was charging.

"Thank you, Beatrice, this actually solves a major problem for me." I said.

"Consider it payment for your insight." She said. "Now, I have work to do."

I nodded and Cier and I left...