"Why did you pay with leafs?! You had a credit card!" Ziyu shouted running all fours, her two tails almost getting pinned by angry goblin spears.
"It's a rite of passage! I have to prove I can conjure money from leafs that can fool a merchant not in on it! How was I supposed to know that restaurant was owned by goblins who can smell the difference between leafs and paper money?" Houki shouted back, his 'tanuki pouch' swaying between his legs as he and Ziyu raced through the shopping mall.
Humans aware of the larger world stayed out of the way to not get involved with the racing pair and the angry short-stack mob, those not aware conjuring some fiction in their minds to justify what they were seeing as long as it didn't involve tanuki, kitsune, goblins, and magic (and many, many, MANY OTHERS THINGS) being real.
"I am NOT ending up a short-stack telemarketer for a stupid goblin queen obsessed with having a bigger pile of loot than the local dragon oil baron!" Ziyu swore.
"Make fox tail stew out of dine-and-dashers!" Shouted a goblin wearing a chef's hat and apron and not anything else, waving about a meat cleaver.
"Or that!"
"I was going to send them the money after we made our get away! I swear! It's not like great-grandpa's good old days where you could pay off your debts with leaves and vanish into the either!"
"Pound tanuki nut sack till it black and blue!" Shouted a goblin waiter wearing a formal jacket and speedo barely containing its own equipment.
Without much choice, the teenagers (by their species' lifespan standards) leapt into the one store in the mall that had a policy of protection and non-violence, and enforced by the most powerful wizard alive.
The pair leapt pass the open space archway, shouting together, "Sanctuary!"
The goblin mob stopped inches from the boundaries of Spells R Us.
Behind the counter was an old man in a blue bathrobe, with a pointy night cab, and sparkly stars and moons looking glued on.
"And what is going on here?"
"THIEVES!" Shouted the goblin chef.
"Misunderstanding!" Ziyu said still on all fours.
"Dine and dashers!"
"Just a little prank! Rite of passage! I swear by Amaterasu herself, I was going to pay the bill for real after!" Houki said on his knee and his hands clasped.
"Demand reparation in labor as stated in gobbo clan charter!"
"They'd pay in minimum wage combined with compound interest and micro-fees that make it scientifically impossible to pay off!" Houki said.
"That 'you' problem," said the goblin chef.
"The only good thing was your wine menu! The appetizer was tiny, the bread was stale, and you soup was mediocre!" Ziyu said.
"Fox's tails unworthy of gobbo soup!"
Merlin sighed. "How much do they owe?"
The waiter presented the bill.
"How is one lunch special worth all that?" Merlin stared.
"It our legal right to set our prices how we may," said the gobbo chef.
"Inflation," said the gobbo waiter.
Merlin sighed. He gestured, and a bag of gold coins appeared in his hands, and he tossed it at the goblins. The bag was greedily snatched it up and greedily began counting. As normal mortals who happened by just turned the other way pretending they hadn't seen the gaggle of short green rear views.
"Two new gobbo slaves would've been cooler," said the waitress.
"Oh they pay... they pay soon enough," the sommelier swore under her rancid breath.
Ziyu started, "My grandma is a ninetails! She can turn a tool shed into a four-star hotel! Whatever you had to pay-"
"Sadly that's not how this works," Merlin sighed. "I paid YOUR debt... which means YOU have to labor for ME, and the featherbedding clauses mean I have to pay you the normal wage for one of my staff..."
"Well, I guess working on the weakness for fifty years isn't-"
"Oh no. The goblins have a sub-clause for this sort of thing sadly... if you don't pay off your labor debt in a work week... you go back over to them."
"It can't be.. that bad..." Houki.
"If I pay you by the hour, you have no hope... but if I pay you by commission... you have a chance... you just need to have transformed 100 humans on behalf of Spells R Us the business via our store and other services."
"One hundred humans in seven days?!"
"Six days. The mall is closed on Sunday. It opens at seven and closes at ten."
"That's... that's just forty-eight hours total... we'd need to transform more than two humans per hour!" Ziyu was going to faint.
"The good news it can be anything, clowns, cheer leaders, baby dragons, golems, love dolls, mannequins, your own kind, mummies, skin-changers, beastkin (aka anthros aka furries), infect them with lycanthropy (no those three things are not the same), genies, you name it, as long as their new incarnation is happy, or if they were already monsters on the inside, their open appearance now matching their nature."
"But still... that many customers in one week... between the two of us... it can't be done," Houki said dejectedly, sitting on his own sack like a bean bag.
"It better be done, or you can spend eternity as green skinned telemarketers selling sketchy timeshares. If you're lucky they'll let you keep your original species ears and maybe your tails as trophies of your old selves Queen Minmin can brag about at the yearly goblin royalty convention in Los Vegas."
"I better tell mom we're I'm gonna be," said Ziyu taking out a cell phone from somewhere on her furry person. One long distance call later, and one awkward call later.
"This isn't Houki's fault I swear, you're not too angry right mom... mom?"
"YOU WRETCHED SACK OF FORESKIN! WHAT'D YOU GOT MY SWEET BABY INTO THIS TIME?!" Roared a feral fox the size of a bear, her growling face looking more like a skull. Five tails (marking her a middle age for a kitsune), waved behind her. Blue flames like the spirits of the dead floated around her.
"Mom don't hurt him!"
"I will have no violence on my house of business madam," Merlin said like he was speaking to any angry customer.
The monster fox shrank down to a humanoid fox woman in a kimono, her hair done-up in several hair curlers.
"You had better pay off this debt you've saddled my Ziyu with little tanuki... or pray to the Okami that the goblins get their filthy claws on you before I do. And Ziyu, don't worry, mommy will protect you from the nasty goblins if she has to. Mommy need to go talk with your father, and with the tanuki's parents."
She turned to shadow and sped away at the speed of darkness.
"Well, no time like the present, here's your work aprons and name tags..."
"Really?" Houki cringed.
"I know your generation are all passionate nudists-"
"We prefer naturalists."
"-but it's store policy."
The teenage couple looked at each other and sighed and put on the official Spells R Us garb.
Merlin pointd at a sign.
-It doesn't cost anything to be polite.
-If you have time to check your phone you have time to work.
-bathroom breaks are not thirty minutes long.
-A job half done is a job not done.
-All customers must pick and purchase products (or accept free samples or promotions) of their own free will.