It had been three weeks since Jess first decided that they would be training themself to get back to the point of being confident with going out in to the world and searching for heart fragments as an official searcher of the Sage of the Forest. Already, they were starting to regret that decision if only for the fact that their mother had finally purchased them a fully natural alarm clock that would wake them at an hour they believed to be completely ungodly. The only issue was that they were the one who had decided upon the time and was suffering because of their own choices.

Although, even if it was their own choice, Jess was still no more happy with it. The fact that, at least for these first three weeks, so far they had been waking up every morning incredibly sore and drained. They had always dealt with having a low supply of essence, but now they seemed to be dealing with a lack of stamina. While they were training, not only were they doing regular exercise, but the whole time, they were working to forge a great connection with their new arm which had been going rather poorly. At present, the best indicator of whether they were ready to finally be a searcher was their connection with their arm, so it seemed that, at this rate, it could take years before they were finally ready.

“Darling, it’s only been three weeks. Are you really thinking about quitting so soon…?” Silvia asked at dinner on the final day of the third week when Jess had been especially vocal about their displeasure with the situation.

“That’s not what I said… I just said… at my current pace… I really don’t know how much longer I can sustain this… I’m practically running on fumes as is…”

Silvia frowned at them. She couldn’t pretend that she hadn’t seen the effect that such activities had been having on her child’s health. They had been pushing themself far too hard, but anytime she had attempted to broach the subject with Jess, they had simply retorted that, if they were going to be ready for searching, they would need to be much further along than they were now.

Silvia wanted to inform them that they were already much stronger than most of the searchers who were in the field, even those that had been at it for years, and that was if you ignored the fact that Jess was more capable and powerful with the added handicap of such a limited essence supply. Every time she thought of doing so, it felt that her words would likely come off as patronizing or perhaps that she was denying the process that Jess felt was most necessary for them was not, in fact. While Beth and Jess had been a bit far off from searcher level when they first started training, by the end, Silvia had no doubt in her mind that the two were ready to be searchers.

Silvia quickly shook out of her thoughts, realizing that Jess had been talking the whole time.

“…and… I just think… maybe it would be best for me to… strike out on my own…” Jess looked up to Silvia for approval, but found her in shock.

“You want to leave…? Where will you go? Was it something I did? Please tell me if it was… I never… I was just… trying to be a supportive mother…” Silvia began.

“Mum… No… I just… I’m getting older and if I’m going to be going out in to the world on my own… perhaps it would be best for me to try being on my own here first…”

Silvia calmed herself, realizing that what they were saying was true and that being on their own likely would benefit them, even if it would be hard for her to part with her child. “I can help you out… a little bit… As a searcher, you would be granted a monthly allowance of sorts and… while you have yet to officially take up the role… I could provide you with that same monthly allowance, starting now… That way you can get acquainted with having to live on a more limited supply of money… Not that I was ever indulging us in a very extravagant lifestyle as is…”

Jess nodded, a soft smile creeping on to their face. “I think that would be great. So… how much will I be getting each month?”

Silvia thought for a moment. “Well… we usually start out searchers at 500,000E per month. Although… a good bit of that typically goes in to housing.” As Silvia looked up at Jess, she found their eyes wide. She gave them a confused expression. “What…?”

“I’m going to be making that much per month?!” they asked, a little exasperated.

“Well yes… We certainly can’t pay searchers something minimal, otherwise it would make their travels rather difficult. Searching is a very important job and a good bit of the funding that we receive is for paying searchers,” Silvia explained.

“Okay… so… when do I get the money… How am I going to find a place to live…” Jess asked, readopting their more common demeanor after their sudden outburst.

“Well, I would be more than happy to help you look. Many of the apartments in the central village near the training grounds are actually discounted for searchers. As for when you get the money, first thing in the morning I can send in the paperwork to begin your formal employment as a searcher. Since you won’t actually be searching quite yet, I can have you listed as on medical leave, that way you still get paid, but you don’t have to be actively searching. Being a searcher is a somewhat loose job, but we do keep tabs on you all, making sure that you are actually searching for fragments and not engaging in frivolous behavior.”

Jess nodded along, finding their head spinning a little by the end, a little bit overloaded with information at the moment. Despite the overload, they were actually feeling a little excited for the future now. Even with all of this decided though, they were still left with the issue of figuring out how to adjust their training regimen, so that they weren’t so exhausted all the time. Once they had finished up with dinner, they headed to their room and pulled out a notebook that housed their current training schedule. Looking over it, they found that it was perhaps a little bit intense for someone who was down an arm and just now being discharged from the hospital after over a month.

They began scribbling out some of the tasks, reducing them and adding in a day for rest, realizing that, as of now, no such thing existed within their schedule. Turning back to the first page of training plans, they felt a lump forming in their throat. On the page just before it, there was the training regimen for when Beth and them were working on preparing for the searcher trial. Jess’s hand shot to the corner of the page, wanting to tear it out, but as tear began to roll down their face and land on the page, they released their grasp, their head falling to the desk as they peered at the page.

The sound of a rather loud alarm rang through the young ram’s room, causing them to stir from their sleep, finding that they had fallen asleep at their desk. Groaning, Jess moved out of their chair, hitting their alarm clock and breathing a sigh of relief at the lack of sound. The brief respite was quickly interrupted by the sound of knocking on the door. Jess groaned once more and made their way over to the door, opening it. Greeting them on the other side was Silvia, already fully dressed and looking rather refreshed and excited.

“Good morning, darling! Are you ready to go look at apartments?”

Jess looked down at their attire, showing that they were still dressed in their clothes from the previous day. “I’m gonna need a few…”

Silvia sighed. “Alright… I’ll be downstairs when you’re ready.”

Once she had departed, Jess moved to the closet, picking out an outfit and setting it on the bed before heading to the bathroom to take a quick shower, opting for a cold one to make them up. Once out and dressed, they headed downstairs, met by the smiling face of their mother. Jess loosely motioned towards the door and Silvia rolled her eyes, standing up and following her child out the door.

The walk to the central village was quiet, save for the occasional group passing by and the sounds of animals in the surrounding forest. Once they arrived, they stopped for breakfast, not dining in, simply bringing the food with them as they headed to the first apartment. It wasn’t really anything to write home about, but it was also rather isolated, at least from the other apartments in the block which were all attached to a single tree as though they were the buds. Jess wasn’t looking for anything special, just something to return to each day when they were done training.

Not feeling any particular way about the first apartment, the two headed off to the second choice. This one was a lot fancier and was located even closer to the training grounds, but the price was also significantly more. Jess didn’t really feel the need for something so decadent and so the apartment was scratched off the list. Heading to the third, fourth, and fifth apartment, they found that they were cheap for good reason and so they headed to the final apartment that Silvia had picked out.

As the two stepped inside, they were happy to find that while this location was on the cheaper side, it was also quite nice. Most of the apartment was what Jess would consider compact, but they were used to living in a small space. Luckily, the bathroom and bedroom were rather large, leaving the living area and small kitchen only a little bit of space.

“You know… if you’re going to be living on your own, you should really learn to cook more than just rice… It’s not a good idea to be going out for dinner every night,” Silvia lectured.

Jess rolled their eyes. “I’m not going to eat out every day… I’ll try and learn to cook a few more things…”

“Good… Now… does that mean we’ve decided?” Silvia asked excitedly.

“Yeah… I wanna go with this one…”

“Alright, well then I will let the landlord know that you’ll take it. I’ll cover your first month of rent since you won’t get paid for about a week, but I expect you to pay me back once you do get paid, understood?”

Jess nodded. “Of course, mum…”

With that, Silvia headed out of the apartment and made her way up to the office of the landlord. After plenty of signing forms and going over the rules of the apartments, the apartment was finally Jess’s. With that out of the way, the two made their way home and started the process of packing up Jess’s things. Silvia ended up spending most of the time crying about how her baby was finally leaving the nest and how she would miss them so much. Luckily for the most of them, Jess wasn’t a very materialistic individual and so they had a minimal amount of possessions.

Once the packing was done, the two returned to the apartment, dropping all of the boxes inside and practically collapsing. They had barely had a moment to rest since the day started and now that they did, they were both exhausted. Silvia was about to leave, but then they saw that Jess had fallen asleep. She smiled softly and walked over to them, picking them up and bringing them to their new bedroom, setting them down and covering them in the blankets from the moving boxes before removing their arm and setting it on the desk across from the bed. Once they were properly tucked in, Silvia turned off the lights and locked the door, heading back home.

Jess was rudely awoken the next morning by the ringing of an alarm. As they jolted out of bed, a little confused at first by the unfamiliar surroundings, they realized the clock was not in the room. They made their way over to the boxes in the living room, tearing through them, trying to identify which held the clock. After opening almost all of them, they finally found the alarm and silenced it, tossing it aside and staring at the mess that they had created.

“Well… guess now is as good a time as any to get things in order…” they said as they began to collect the items from the boxes and put them in the right places. Once everything was in place, they found that the apartment felt much more lively.

Making their way to the bathroom, they stepped in to the shower and spent several minutes messing with things to figure out how exactly it worked. Once they got everything working, the shower went rather smoothly. Despite having a slightly different mechanism, the shower was just as enjoyable. With that done, they headed to the kitchen and sighed, realizing that they had no food.

They headed back in to their bedroom and got dressed before hopping out of the window and on to the ground below. Luckily, their apartment was one of the lower ones, so they were afforded several different exits. From there, they found their way to the grocery store and began to purchase some basic food with the money that they still had saved from completing jobs.

They were able to get enough food to hopefully keep them alive until they got their first allowance. Once they were home, they made a small breakfast and then changed in to their training clothes, noting that they were a bit dirty and would likely need to bee washed soon.

“Alright… Let’s get back to training…”