Kael had a problem.
Actually, he had several, but the one currently staring back at him was the inside of his wallet.
Three copper coins.
One small silver coin.
And a receipt for a meal he barely remembered enjoying.
Kael turned the wallet upside down and shook it.
Nothing fell out.
He shook it again, just in case the money had been hiding out of embarrassment.
Still nothing.
"...I'm going to die of poverty before I ever discover my Path."
It was a beautiful morning outside the academy. Birds chirped, shopkeepers opened their stalls, and people with perfectly functional Paths went about their lives without having to conduct a financial autopsy on their wallets.
Kael had planned to spend the day away from studying and training. A little time outside the academy might do him some good.
Unfortunately, going outside had revealed that existing cost money.
Food cost money. Clothes cost money. Books cost money. Even the little notebook he used to record his observations wasn't free.
And while the academy provided basic necessities for its students, it hadn't provided him with a personal fortune.
Kael stared at his wallet.
Then he looked up.
"Right. Time to become a productive member of society."
He paused.
"How unfortunate."
His first job was advertised on a noticeboard near the market.
LOST CAT. REWARD OFFERED.
Below the message was a drawing of a cat that looked less like an animal and more like a potato with ears.
Kael found the owner, an elderly woman named Mrs. Bell, outside a small bakery.
"Have you seen him?" she asked anxiously, showing Kael a picture of a fluffy grey cat.
Kael studied it.
"That's not the cat on your notice."
"Oh, I drew that one myself."
"I can tell."
Mrs. Bell gave him a disapproving look.
Kael cleared his throat. "I'll find him."
The search took nearly an hour.
He checked beneath market stalls, behind crates, and inside a storage shed where he discovered three suspiciously aggressive chickens. Eventually, he found the cat perched on the roof of a small shop, staring down at him with the smugness of a creature that paid no taxes and had never worked a day in its life.
"Come down."
The cat blinked.
"Please?"
It turned around.
Kael stared at it.
"You know what? Fine. Enjoy your new life up there."
Five minutes later, he was standing on a ladder borrowed from the shopkeeper, holding a piece of fish he'd purchased with his own money.
The cat accepted the fish, allowed itself to be picked up, and immediately scratched his sleeve on the way down.
Kael returned it to Mrs. Bell.
"Oh, thank goodness!" She hugged the cat tightly, then handed Kael his reward.
Five copper coins.
Kael looked at them.
"Was there a mistake?"
Mrs. Bell frowned. "You're a No-Path, aren't you? I thought five coins was generous for someone without a proper ability."
He looked at the ladder still resting against the shop.
Then at the scratch in his sleeve.
Then back at the coins.
"I see. Next time, I'll ask the cat to negotiate my wages."
Mrs. Bell didn't appear to understand the joke.
Kael pocketed the money and moved on.
One job down.
Financial independence was looking increasingly unlikely.
His next employer needed someone to walk two dogs.
The first dog was a small brown creature with an innocent face.
The second was a large, muscular beast that looked as though it had been bred specifically to pull carriages.
The owner handed Kael both leads.
"The little one's friendly. The big one's a bit stubborn."
"How stubborn?"
The large dog immediately dragged Kael three steps down the street.
"Ah."
For the next forty minutes, Kael discovered that his physical training had prepared him to punch wooden dummies, not negotiate with animals that possessed four legs and no respect for human authority.
The small dog stopped every few metres to investigate something.
The large one attempted to chase every bird it saw.
At one point, both dogs decided to run in opposite directions.
Kael stood in the middle of the pavement, arms extended, his expression empty.
A passing man slowed down.
"Need help?"
"No. I'm conducting an experiment on the limits of human patience."
The man laughed and continued walking.
Eventually, Kael returned both dogs safely to their owner.
She handed him a few coins.
"That's the standard rate," she explained. "Though most people with useful Paths can handle the larger one more easily. You're lucky I agreed to pay you at all."
Kael stared at her.
"I have just spent forty minutes being dragged through half the neighbourhood by an animal with the strategic instincts of a falling brick."
"Well, you didn't do it very quickly."
Kael took the money.
He was beginning to suspect that the local economy had declared war on him personally.
The afternoon brought more work.
He picked up litter along a residential street, filled three bags, and discovered that some people considered throwing rubbish onto the pavement a legitimate contribution to public life.
He mowed a small lawn for a shopkeeper who complained about every patch of uneven grass, despite having insisted that Kael use a manual mower.
He helped unload crates at a grocer's stall.
He even spent twenty minutes repairing a loose wooden fence, though he suspected the owner had originally intended to do it himself and had simply seen an opportunity to hire cheap labour.
The pattern became impossible to ignore.
Whenever Kael agreed on a price, his employer seemed perfectly satisfied.
Whenever they discovered he was a No-Path, the price mysteriously changed.
Sometimes they offered him less before the job began. Other times, they found reasons to reduce his payment afterwards.
One man claimed that physical work was worth less when performed by someone without a Path.
Kael had asked whether the man's rubbish would become more expensive if a Path user picked it up.
The man had told him not to get clever.
Kael had decided not to explain the joke.
By late afternoon, his shoulders ached, his clothes were dusty, and his wallet contained considerably more money than it had that morning.
Not as much as he deserved, in his opinion.
But more.
He sat on a low wall near the market and counted his earnings.
Copper coins formed one pile. Silver coins formed another.
He counted everything twice, then a third time because the first two totals were disappointingly similar.
"Not bad," he admitted.
He'd earned enough to buy dinner, replace the notebook he'd nearly filled, and still have something left over.
The work hadn't been glamorous. Nobody had admired his abilities or invited him to join an elite training group. Nobody had told him he was destined for greatness.
A cat had insulted him.
Two dogs had nearly dismantled his arms.
And several adults had demonstrated that prejudice wasn't an exclusive privilege of academy students.
Yet he'd spent the day doing something useful.
There was a certain satisfaction in that.
Kael stood and brushed dust from his trousers.
"Now, the important question."
He looked towards the market stalls.
"What can I buy that I absolutely don't need?"
His first purchase was dinner.
He chose a generous portion of roasted meat, vegetables, and bread from a stall whose owner didn't ask about his Path before quoting the price.
Kael nearly thanked him.
Then he remembered that treating ordinary fairness as a miracle was probably a bad habit to develop.
His second purchase was a small notebook with a sturdier cover than his old one.
His third was a sweet pastry.
His fourth was another pastry.
He justified the second by reasoning that physical labour required calories.
He justified the third by deciding that the first two justifications had been emotionally exhausting.
By the time he finished eating, the sun had begun to dip towards the rooftops.
Kael returned to the market, intending to head back to the academy.
Then he noticed a little shop selling household goods.
In its window sat a collection of jars, wooden boxes, and ceramic ornaments.
Among them was a small pig-shaped container with a coin slot on its back.
Kael stopped.
He looked at the pig.
The pig looked back with the serene confidence of something that had never experienced financial hardship.
"...Perfect."
He went inside.
The shopkeeper quoted a price. Kael negotiated. The shopkeeper refused to lower it. Kael pointed out a tiny imperfection on one ear. The shopkeeper lowered it by one copper coin.
Kael accepted this tremendous victory and purchased the pig.
He carried it back to his room with the solemnity of someone transporting a priceless artefact.
That evening, Kael placed the piggy bank on his desk.
He emptied his wallet beside it and counted his remaining money.
First, he separated half of what he'd earned that day.
That was going into savings.
The other half would cover what he'd spent, with enough left to keep him going until he found more work.
He looked at the pile meant for the piggy bank.
Then at the money he'd spent on dinner, the notebook, and the pastries.
His expression tightened.
"I could have saved more."
He picked up a coin, turned it between his fingers, and sighed.
"On the other hand, I could have spent the entire day being dragged around by dogs for absolutely nothing."
He considered this.
"Somehow, that doesn't make me feel better."
Kael began feeding the coins through the slot.
One.
Two.
Three.
Each coin landed inside with a satisfying little clink.
His frustration returned when he remembered the jobs he'd been underpaid for. He could have earned considerably more if people had judged him by his work instead of his lack of a Path.
He pushed another coin into the slot a little harder than necessary.
"Cheap bastards."
Another coin.
"Every single one of them."
Another.
The pig remained silent, displaying a level of financial discipline Kael found increasingly irritating.
When the last coin disappeared inside, Kael sat back and examined his purchase.
He'd worked all day, been underpaid more times than he cared to count, and spent part of his earnings on things he wanted rather than things he strictly needed.
Yet half of his earnings were now sitting in a piggy bank on his desk.
It wasn't wealth.
It wasn't security.
But it was a start.
Kael picked up the pig and gave it a gentle shake.
The coins rattled inside.
He smiled.
"All right. You and I are going to get rich."
The pig offered no objection.
"Good. I appreciate your ambition."
He placed it beside his notebooks, turned down the lamp, and settled into bed.
Tomorrow, he would return to studying and training.
But the next time he went out to work, he intended to negotiate his wages before anyone had the chance to insult him.
And if another dog tried to drag him down the street, he was charging extra.