Neither Mark nor Anthony knew how to find enough iron for the plows. The only thing they knew was that if they didn’t find enough, then they would bring just a single mold plow to the Archdemon.

  “The giants in the mountains must have iron,” Fiona, as someone who was invested in their quest, had given them a day or two to think before they went to the Archdemon.

  “We can take the scenic route,” Anthony continued. “And take our time getting there. You can swindle the locals for their teeth and freedom.”

  That was the strangest thing Mark had ever heard. But he decided that he should listen to Anthony. After all, the man had won the award for “Best Bck Market Smuggler” three times in a row.

  There was something about the way he was short that made people think he was incapable of doing anything wrong.

  Which begged the question of why there were at least three searches being conducted for Mark. After all, he was short as well.

  He should be left off the hook.

  “And, if we manage to make the plows out of steel, then all the better,” there was a slight hitch in this pn which Mark saw but was sure that Anthony did not.

  “The amount of plows we need would mean that there should be a water mill connected to a forge to get the most out of the steel,” Mark protested.

  Those were expensive to construct.

  The few that existed were exquisitely used to power the ever hungry Slime Industry. Using the power of the water wheel to produce slimes for beginner dungeons.

  “The Dungeon Protection Act has one loophole,” Anthony told him with a wink. “Every dungeon can use a water wheel, should it just register!”

  Mark blinked; Anthony chuckled.

  The brunette human knew that one day, he could hold Mark. Not having him perch on his shoulder. Or fly around him.

  One day, they will be Mr. And Mr. Luchino! But before that could happen, Anthony had to make sure that Mark survived.

  “So? We find a new dungeon, and then what? We ask it to ask for steal mold plows?” That didn’t sound like it would fly.

  Mark knew a couple of dungeon cores. Most of them just thought about how to turn living, breathing, beings into mana points.

  “There is no creature viler than a dungeon core, true,” Anthony had to agree. He hated having to supply the dungeon cores with schemas. But, still, he did it. Time after time. “But we don't need any dungeon cores. All we need is a cave!”

  The pn began to unravel before Mark’s eyes, but he still tilted his head to the side.

  “Anthony, no offense, but have you smoked something before I came?” Because, if one pyed the dungeon core, and got found out, the protestors would tear them a new one.

  “No, hear me out,” Anthony began, as he pced a hand over Mark’s tiny one. Letting his thumb fit into Mark’s palm. Holding the tiny hand gently. “You are a magical creature. The clerks at the dungeon registration bureau are moles. They can’t see you. The only thing you need to do is to let out mana poofs!”

  “Mana poofs?” Mark had never heard it being described so.

  “Yeah, you know! The thing you did when we first met!” That had been no poof, Mark didn’t want to admit that it was a full-blown panic attack.

  Because he had thought that Anthony was a slightly overgrown fairy. And, as such, was going to file Form #99 for “Illegal Teeth Collecting”.

  Which would have seen Mark with trine duty until the end of time.

  “Uhm… about that,” Mark began. He didn’t want to show himself as weak before Anthony, but he still didn’t want to go alone.

  There was something about knowing that 999 of your kind had bitten the dust that made him apprehensive of the journey ahead.

  “There are no ws in pce for punishment for trying to pass for a dungeon core,” Anthony insisted. “Come now! I still remember how brave you were when I tried to swat you with the fly swatter! You know, flying towards my pillow. Always with my tooth in mind!”

  That had been a full-blown panic attack, Mark wanted to say. That he only wanted the tooth because if he didn’t get it, he would go hungry that night.

  That had been a time from before he had learned that swindling magical creatures out of their teeth was something that could make sure that he not only had money to buy groceries, but also pay his bills, afford a nice and colorful moving picture, and access to the Dark Web.

  Which was the webbing of the only Bck Widow Comedian Spider this side of the forest.

  Why was it the Dark Web?

  If you booed Agatha, she ate you.

  That begged the question of why so many people would risk life and limb to listen to jokes about flies, eating flies, and, and Mark shuddered to think about that, ex-husbands.

  But he found it good when Agatha, who loved it when he ughed at her silly jokes, let him collect the teeth from the corpses.

  There were nights when he was the only one left standing.

  Considering that most of Agatha’s public were escaped criminals that wanted her to clear their criminal record, Mark didn’t feel bad about collecting their teeth.

  Heck, most nights he even got a couple of golden ones!

  “Earth to Mark!” Anthony was waving his hand before Mark’s eyes. The fairy rubbed the bridge of his nose. Thinking that this time, he was going to get the pout to end all pouts.

  His eyes nded on the sack with the goblin and ogre teeth.

  “Tony, come with me to trade the teeth this time, will you?” There was something about going through the streets of the bck market perched on the shoulder of someone who could swat most of the goons there that made Mark think that maybe, just maybe, he should not turn Anthony into a fairy.

  But then he looked at soft lips, at dimples that were quick to show themselves, and he yearned.

  He yearned for someone to cuddle with. He yearned for someone to whom he could bring flowers and pce them in their hands.

  Not someone who was about ten times bigger than he. Not someone atop whose shoulders he could perch.

  “Fine then,” Anthony said, as he picked up Mark. Soon, the sack with the teeth was in Anthony’s hand, and he was leaving his tidy house to go down the street.

  Where one of the many entrances to the Bck Market was hidden from view.

  They passed by the beggar woman who ate dogs when someone forgot to bring their Fluffy back home from their free-range walk.

  Then they passed the elf who liked to talk to his cats. All 99 of them. A house which reeked even worse than the open sewers which were not doing their jobs.

  Well, if one thought that their jobs were to overflow the streets with dung every time it rained, then they were.

  Mark looked at the overcast sky, which was still spilling its content over their heads. The orange umbrel which Anthony had over their heads was turning brown.

  “Do you think that the wizards are experimenting again?” Mark asked.

  Mirstone had a couple of Academies. Trying to point out which one of them had done the unthinkable and had pyed with the weather just to name a new Archmage was not something one spoke about.

  Openly, that is.

  After all, the academies were the only institution in town which paid their taxes.

  “Maybe. Hey, if we get the Archdemon’s favor, we might convince him to bring order in here!” Anthony said with a smile.

  He had been a mage, once. But that was something he rather not think about.

  After all, one did not think much about the school they had dropped out of.

  “The Archdemon? Why?” Mark didn’t know much about the Archdemon Asmodeos. Apart from what he had glimpsed in “Famous and Gmorous!”

  Which was that the man liked long walks, to meditate, and, apparently, liked to fast for 16 hours per day for religious reasons.

  “Well, believe it or not, he has actually graduated from the Royal Academy for Aspiring Archdemons,” which was to say, that he had very rich parents. “And from the Necromantic Union Royal Academy.”

  “So, he can summon demons and zombies which can talk,” Mark began, as he looked at the umbrel again. What a lovely orange. It would take bleach to get rid of the filth the rain was spshing on it. And then, the orange color might end washed up as well. “Big deal.”

  “There are Law Lectures in those academies,” Anthony said, turning a corner. “And if he knows the ws, then he can apply them!”

  It wasn’t every day that someone said something like that.

  It was a wless world, their smelly and corrupt Forestria.

  It was a world where a tooth fairy had to swindle goblins and ogres off their teeth just to make ends meet.

  It was a world where a mage had to make love potions to keep the pancake batter ever flowing.

  “And you think that we can save the world, if we are to go to the Archdemon and ask him to come and rule over us all? The only thing I need is his teeth,” Mark protested.

  He had been a dreamer, once. Then he had gone a whole month without so much as a pancake, and he had learned the hard way, as he had eaten nuts stolen from squirrels, that money made the world go round.

  “Why not?” Anthony asked, as he stopped before a door. The face on the knocker looked so, as if someone had stolen all its teeth.

  “Did you have to?” Anthony asked with a slight shake of his head.

  “Yeah. The teeth were golden,” Mark was proud of that one. He burned with the desire to tell Anthony how he had done it, as well.

  Only to see Anthony take some of the goblin teeth from the sack and begin to use magic to glue them on the knocker.

  “Hey!” Mark protested, only to hear tutting.

  “This door used to lead to the secret passageways of the Royal Pace. It was golden and protected with magic. The teeth were mana stones,” Anthony said. He didn’t know when Mark had stolen those teeth. But… “Did you do this the other day when I gave you the rum? Didn’t you say that you were going to use it for cough syrup?”

  Mark shrunk in on himself. He had said many things, but that didn’t mean that he kept his word… often.

  Not even to Anthony.

  “Oh, Mark,” Anthony pced more of his mana inside the teeth, turning them into mana stones. “Just don’t do it again.”

  With that, the human finally knocked on the door. It swung open.

  The ghost who oversaw the passage gred at Mark, smiled at Anthony, and then pulled out a heavy ledger.

  “The visitor’s tax is one golden coin,” the ghost said, as it looked from Anthony to Mark. “Per person.”

  Mark was about to protest. That was the first time someone had ever asked him for a visitor’s tax.

  But, instead, he looked on, as Anthony took out a coin purse and took out two golden coins.

  “Here you go, sir,” the human handed the gold to the ghost, who bit through it with teeth that Mark couldn’t help but note looked like they belonged to a goblin and then waved them over.

  “Now, the tour is as follows,” Mark blinked again. No one had ever given him a tour of the Bck Market before.

  “Wait up! How come I never got a tour?” The fairy asked.

  “Because you stole the knocker’s teeth,” the ghost said in a snarky tone. “And since you stole the teeth, there was no way to check if you give golden coins or not. That is why you were let inside the “Swindler’s Bck Market” and not in the Bck Market Proper.”

  For the first time in his life, Mark felt so as if he had been swindled. Because of his own actions, no less.

  “See, Mark?” Anthony told him in a soft tone. “I know that you are only trying to make ends meet, but that doesn’t mean that you should steal. There is more than one way to earn money from the Bck Market.”

  It was easy for Anthony to say, Mark thought. The man was a wizard and an alchemist to boot. While…

  Mark shook his head.

  His ck of education was not something that Anthony was responsible for. No, there were many free materials. It was the tradition of a tooth fairy to be a, well, tooth fairy.

  But what if Mark made something more of himself? What if he became something more than a tooth fairy?

  “Tony, do you still keep your old books?” They were going to be on a long journey. Mark could learn magic, if he just applied himself. Of that much, the fairy was certain.

  “You can learn codding,” Anthony told him. “Make visual magic!”

  Mark blinked.

  Him… learn codding?

  Wasn’t that hard? Didn’t it need for someone to know more about math than a mathematician?

  “And if I can’t learn?” Mark asked.

  “Everyone can learn. Unless they don’t want to. Then, of course, they can’t learn,” the ghost told him, as he took out a small moving picture with a keyboard.

  Mark had seen the keyboards only a couple of times in his life. They were a new invention, which Visual Wizards used to type in their runes and phrases.

  “I suggest you start learning HTML,” which was something Mark had heard had gone out of fashion about a month ago when someone had found out that they could automate the whole visual magic thing with just a magical picture and keyboard.

  “And if I can’t earn money from it?” Mark asked. Because he had created a site, as the wizards called their magic, just the other day.

  It had been easy. Not only easily, but about as profitable as washing undry.

  “Look, you have to start learning magic from its roots,” the ghost insisted. “Even if you end up pants at Math Magic, you might still be able to implement some of it in your daily routine. Besides, if you don’t use your brain, you are going to end up losing it.”

  The ghost sounded so, as if he had said that sentence more than once. Mark himself had used something simir to talk children into giving up their teeth and quit trying to swat him to death with a fly swatter.

  But his sentence went something like this:

  “If you don’t give me your teeth, the Tooth Fairy Police will come, put you under arrest, and confiscate all your teeth. But if you do give me the tooth, you can have ice cream tomorrow for dessert!”

  Which in some cases was even the truth. After all, those children were given money when the parents followed tradition.

  And a spanking, when they did not.

  Mark had many little enemies. That was why he never went in the same house twice.

  “Fine,” Mark was not going to argue over something he was going to be doing for one hour every day. After all, the journey was going to be a long one.

  He felt as Anthony began to walk again.

  “You know, this is a good thing,” Anthony told him, as he rounded a corner. “There is a great demand for Full-Stack Magicians.”

  “I already have a job,” Mark was going to do this as a hobby. Or so he said to himself.

  “Really, Mark? And you want to swindle goblins for the rest of your life? Don’t you want to make an honest living?” Anthony stopped by a box. “Let us get rid of these.”

  He pced the sack with the goblin teeth. There was a number over the dispy, which Mark thought to be with golden coins.

  Only for the coins to come out in silver.

  “Hey!” The fairy protested. “I used to get a lot of gold for the teeth in the other Bck Market!”

  “Yes, Bitcoins,” the clerk behind the box said. Mark blinked. What was a gnome doing in the Bck Market?

  Those were just mini farmers!

  “I know what you are thinking,” the gnome began, as he eyed Mark so, as if he had insulted his entire family. “You think that I should plow the fields, or the raised beds, as it is, and hum?”

  Mark began to shake his head. The st thing he wanted was to get in trouble in the Bck Market!

  “Well… I used to do that. But then the goblins raided my farm,” the gnome began, looking more like someone who wanted to tell him his life’s story, than someone who was going to yell his head off. “And then I lost it all. I lost my house, and my three raised beds, and even my food forest.”

  Mark nodded. Man, that made him feel so, as if he should go and swindle the goblins who did it.

  “That’s a side quest,” Anthony said, as he offered his hand to the gnome. “And we will take it.”

  “What?” Mark asked.

  A quest?

  He was already on a quest!

  “Mark, come now. The man just wants his home back. He is working on minimum wage here,” which, seeing as he was a gnome and didn’t need much, Mark thought, was just fine.

  “I heard that!” And the gnome seemed to have a mind rune on him, darn it! “You are a fairy! You work for minimum wage! Is that just fine for you, Sir Fairy?”

  “I am sorry,” Mark was not. He just wanted to get the giants to cough out the iron or steel for the plows.

  Maybe even make them for him, while they were at it…

  “No, you’re not!” The gnome yelled. “If you don’t take my quest, then you will need to pay 4,000 Karma Points!”

  Mark did the math in his brain. He had about four million negative Karma Points. If he got another 4,000, he was going to start making the five million karma points. And if he did that, then he was going to end up in jail.

  But he was a Swindler deep in his heart. There was no way that he was going to just accept a quest without getting the maximum out of the other party.

  “And, if I take the quest, get your farm free of the goblins, pnt your raised beds, and find a way to salvage your food forest,” Mark blinked at his own words. Man, this gnome really liked all of them new age stuff. “How much money and Karma Points do I get?”

  The gnome took out a sheet of paper and a calcutor. Mark nodded. That was the sign of a good quest giver.

  Not someone who just had the reward on a sheet of paper with no calcutions to back it up.

  “Let’s see: Two raised beds, pnted with turnips, beans, and lettuce makes for 300 copper coins and 3,000 Karma Points,” the gnome began.

  Mark blinked.

  Turnips… beans… and lettuce???

  “One food forest repnted with apples, blueberries, raspberries and wheat makes for 100 copper coins and 10,000 Karma Points!”

  That sounded too good to be true!

  Mark could use magic to just use teeth to restore that, which was lost, and get the reward with the teeth of the very goblins which had brought upon the ruin of the gnome’s farm.

  If it was in the quest info, that is.

  One did not work for free if they had to.

  “Now, for the house,” the gnome began, as he began to list this and that.

  New wallpapers were mentioned alongside new plumbing.

  Mark was beginning to think that the gnome had needed a renovation even before the goblins.

  But when he got the final reward, Mark couldn’t just stay put and not go and repair the gnome’s house.

  For:

  “All in all, after converting the copper coins into gold coins, you will get about five gold coins and 10,000,000 Karma Points!”

  “Oh, hell yeah!” Mark yelled, doing a fist bump! “Anthony, will you come?”

  “Sure,” Anthony didn’t need to share in the reward.

  Unlike Mark, he didn’t have a negative Karma Points value.

  Even if he had only 1,000 good Karma Points, it was still better than nothing.

  “Ok, I accept the quest! This is my health insurance number!” Mark said, for the gnome had to foot the bill if something went wrong.

  “Wait… you want me to pay for a hospital stay?” The gnome began to back away.

  “And for the hospital food, should the need arise!” Mark said. He knew his rights. He was a citizen, even if his Karma Points were going to see him as a fugitive soon.

  “Mark!” Anthony accepted the quest for the both of them, smiling at the gnome. “There won’t be any need for a hospital stay, dear sir Calghan! And now, we will pick up the supplies.”

  Mark sighed. Oh, if something happened, he would have to go to the Fairy Union. Fiona was more likely to bash his skull in than foot his bill.

  But if Anthony wanted him to leave the gnome be, then he was going to do so.

  “This is your area of expertise, Mark,” Anthony whispered. “What will we need?”

  “Meat,” Mark said, as he began to whip a pn inside his brain. “And arsenic.”

  “Mark!” Anthony protested.

  “Fine… meat and something that can help one relief themselves after a month of not being able to poo,” Mark corrected himself.

  And so, they went from shop to shop. Mark knew which herbs he needed for the Runny Joy, as he liked to call it. The very thing he had used more than once to get children and goblins alike to give him their teeth.

  More the goblins than the children.

  Mark was a fairy, a cut-throat one, at that, but he wasn’t someone who was cruel to children.

  When the shopping cart was full, they made it to the checkout.

  “Huh, the regur Bck Market is very clean,” Mark mused.

  A hag in front of him snorted.

  There was green smoke coming out of her ears, which was the fashion among the hags that year. So, as if by giving off smoke they would look wiser and scarier than the wizards who, unlike them, could do magic.

  “What was that?” The hag turned around, leveling Anthony and Mark with a gre. “You think I can’t do magic?” She pulled out a small purse from her sleeve. “You want a rash on the privates or something?”

  Mark began to shake his head. He didn’t know what he could say to calm the woman down.

  “Kind dy, it is nice that you offer to sell us this medicine,” Anthony began, as he tried to salvage the situation.

  Man, he loved Mark, wanted to turn him into a human with all his heart, but the fairy had no brain to brain filter, or brain to mouth filter, in some cases.

  “And we would gdly pay the full price!”

  The hag leveled Mark with a gre, who was holding the only weapon he had: his pliers.

  “Come at me, bro!” the hag challenged.

  Mark didn’t want to be a coward in front of Anthony, but he still tucked the pliers in the inside of his army jacket.

  For every tooth fairy was a soldier. Their lot was to get teeth, even ones covered in blood, and to bring money to those who had time to grow up.

  His fight was a good one. He had to live to fight another day.

  Besides, if he did fight at that moment, he would lose his Peaceful Citizen status.

  “I will pay for the powder,” he had to suppress the urge to think he was swindled.

  He needed to trust in Anthony.

  After all, Anthony was a wizard. And if he thought that the powder was good enough to buy, then it was!

  And so, a fairy bowed his head to a witch.

  Who got carted off to the prison cell she had escaped out of just a couple of minutes after for lifting a grano bar.