Astoria
We walk back to Bellken silently. "Casteu." I call out to him but he does turn to me. "I know." He responds. I nod. Of course he does, it would haunt us forever. Kioi, who we thought had taken over by the Everchange was quite alive and well. Kioi, who could have eviscerated us through his will alone did not do so only because of the passage of time. Kioi, who was the sole reason we won that fight against Everchange.
We arrive at the guard's main station. Their base of operations. "Here, your reward." He throws a bag of coins towards me. Surprisingly, it was heavy. My eyes widen a bit, and I look at Alcor and the rest to confirm what I was seeing. "Holy, this a lot, this'll last me for months!" I mutter audibly, smiling as my eyes reflect the colors of coin. "Or a few days of alcohol more like." Alcor retorts. In my head I wanted to bite back with, "How's your woman?" But that is a bit far.
"Oh shush." I say stepping on his foot. We chuckle a bit but Freya interrupts. "I, uh, I'm not a mercenary, so, should I really have this?" She says looking at bag then to Casteu. "You know this reward has been here since Kioi started his war, right? We've been slowly increasing the reward to attract of more of you mercenaries to fight Kioi himself but nobody voluntarily joined so I had to force some of you to actually join me." He said that while slowly taking his armor off. No wonder he called me out that night. "Technically, I gave you guys extra or does Hu have problems with it?" He asks Freya. "No, the abstract culture does not reject financial rewards even to priests and priestesses doing their religious duties."
"Damn you guys get paid for being a priest? If that's the case, I'll gladly take those off your hands." I smile widely at her, a smile so fake yet one the greatest merchants always wear. "I'd…rather not." I shrug my shoulder. We pass the time for bit inside Casteu's office until he speaks up once more. "Speaking of which, where the hell is that noble kid? I know he fucked off somewhere but I expected him to arrive here at least." Apart from me and Casteu, the rest looks around the room but found no weird noble loitering around. Casteu sighs. "Whatever, Astoria, give this to him, will ya?" He tosses me a bag of coins "The hell, since when am I your slave?" I retort. "Well, you know him, don't you? And considering Alcor and Kin have other priorities; you're the best option right now."
"Okay but what if I don't?" I ask. "Sure, if you wanna piss off a noble that is." I sigh. He points at his map and with finger, taps a specific house. "That's where he lives?" I say as I look at the map of Bellken. "Uh, no, I saw him sleeping at this house's roof so start with that place first." I sigh. "Whatever."
A guard enters the office, nods at Casteu and looks at Alcor. "How's she?" Alcor asks. "She'll recover, though the cracks might take months to recover from." Alcor sighs in relief. "Is that all?" He asks. "Yep, just standard mana depletion." Both Kin and Alcor leave the room and follow the guard to another room, leaving me and Freya left in the room.
"How about you, Freya? What're you gonna do about Everchange?" Casteu points at the weapons wrapped in cloth with magical symbols written on its surface. "Well, my mission was to just fight the monster within the Everchange, and since the abstract culture does not allow grave robbing, especially when the item is quite connected to the individual who once used it, we'll probably just purify it then bury it." She explains.
"Well good luck with that." Casteu sighs heavily and looks at the ceiling. "For now, I deserve a long rest, a warm meal, a mug of beer, and of course, a trip to the brothels." He says waving us goodbye as we find ourselves outside the building.
I look towards her. There was a bit of dirt on her cheek and clothes and her staff looks rough. I narrow my eyebrows "Though, from the looks of it, it's been like for a long time." I look at her again and saw her eyes looking at me as well. "You free after this?" I ask, smiling slightly. "Yeah, though I need to get back to our sanctuary first so…"
There is a bit of awkwardness as she trails off. "Cool, I'll come with ya then, or…would you rather not?" She smiles. "Sure, celebration is in order now that Kioi's dead and I'd rather not celebrate alone." I look upon the streets of Bellken, there was a glow within everyone. Of course there is. The gears of this country are starting to turn and a new era is now possible to achieve.
"Shall we then?" I ask, she chuckles at that. "What?" I tilt my head. "Sorry, it's funny seeing you just casually combine from rough mercenary lingo to a more eloquent noble-like speech." I shrug my shoulders. "Blame the bards, when you listen to them long enough, you tend to learn a few big words that feels nice in your tongue."
We walk towards the sanctuary and we arrive in its pristine halls. I stay put seeing as I am not a follower of Hu, I cannot exactly follow Freya to the inner halls. I look around but weirdly, there wasn't a single idol of Hu around but there are a lot of books around. Most of them were history about a lot of things, some topic I recognize while most of it, I do not know anything about.
"Excuse me, visitor, are you a friend of Freya?" A priest approaches me. "I mean we did just fight for our lives not long ago so…" I smile at the priest. "Ah, Astoria, how long has it been? 18 years since your last visit, right?" I raise my eyebrows. "I'm surprise you remembered me." I nod at him and he does a gesture of upside down "T" at me. "Well, when you don't get a lot of visitors, it's kind of easy to remember the ones that do."
"So, what about Freya?" I inquire. "Oh nothing, I was just curios, I barely see her outside of these halls, much less with somebody." I nod. "It's none of business but I do hope you return, our halls are welcome to souls such as yourself." I nod once more. "Perhaps." He nods and leaves.
"How awkward…" I scratch my nape softly. Before I could reminisce, Freya appears beside me. "You know Aloso?" She asks. "Yep, long ago, what about you? You done with your business?" She smiles slightly and nods. "So, where to?" Freya asks.
"To some guy's roof probably." I say lifting the bag of coins up to her. "Ah, I think I remember where Casteu said he was." And she did in fact remembered as we find ourselves to an alleyway. Freya points the house next to us and I look at the ladder in the alley.
I see a woman hanging her clothes outside her window and I call out. "Excuse me! You know a guy around here? Looks like a noble, sleeps in random people's roofs apparently." She looks at me with a bit of surprise. "Hmm? Oh yeah, I saw go up a while ago." The woman points at the ladder.
"Thanks!" I say as we began climbing the ladder. And there he was sleeping like a baby. And like a baby, stealing from him would not be hard at all. But I will refrain for now. I set beside him and Freya sits beside me. She looks at him with contemplation as her expression hardens a bit and her eyebrows scrunches with subtlety.
"You know him?" I ask. "The opposite, I don't recognize his face which is weird since he's apparently a noble" I look at his face. Whiter than anything I have ever seen. I spend a few second trying to recognize him before giving up. I then lay down but quickly got up. "Ow, how the hell can he sleep like this."
"Must be tired I guess, so…are you gonna wake him up?" Freya asks. "Eh, let him rest. I'll wake him in a bit." I look beyond the wall. "Hey, Freya." I call out to her as I continue to look beyond the wall. She tilts her head at my call. "What do you think is gonna happen now?" She stays seated, looking at wall.
"I…well, with Kioi dead, Bellken can finally start expanding but he's only one of many obstacles this city must face so I guess, not much really." She had melancholic look as she says that. "Personally, there's one more thing that you can do with him dead."
"Which is?" I breath out and point beyond the walls. "Adventure." I look at her face and saw a confused face. "Adventure? The thing that happens is old stories?" I nod. "Anything outside our walls has always been considered dangerous. But with him dead, that level of danger is somewhat reduced."
I sigh and look at her. "I want to go beyond the walls. To discover old ruins, to relearn forgotten knowledges, and hunt down evil. I…I've always thought about this but now, it's actually possible." I look deeper into her eyes. "Freya, you don't need to answer but…should the day comes that I finally decided to journey the walls, if you want…it'll be great if you can join me."
Freya's eyes expand in surprise. "I…is…this from your mercenary instincts?" I smile at that and I nod. "I guess so, your eyes…I see that your eyes are longing for something. Like me." She seems to blush at that. I chuckle at her reaction but spoke once more. "I mean it. Well, I don't plan on doing anything yet so just think about it."
I look at the noble who was still sleeping peacefully. I grab the bag of coins and drop it in his face. "Heh." I say as I grab the bag once more. His face hardened yet it stayed expressionless until finally he opened his eyes. We make eye contact and I open my mouth. "Yo, your reward, from killing Kioi." I hand the bag to him and I look at Freya as I make my way to the ladder. "Next time, try to show up for your reward or I'll keep it for myself." I say as I climb down the ladder. Freya passes him and they both nod to each other.
In the alley, I look at Freya once more. "You drink beer?" I ask, smiling slightly. "I'd…rather eat." She responds. "Alright then, to the tavern then!"
Himura Satō
I scratch my head as I look inside the bag. "Damn, this is a lot, looks like I won't be fighting for a bit." Internally, I smiled widely. With my financial problem temporarily secured, I climb down the ladder and start walking around. "I need a way to write, so a notebook and a quill and ink or a pencil should do the trick." I say to myself knowing damn well that I what I plan to do.
I look up into the sky. Being in a good mood was rare nowadays but then again how could I not? I just survived to see another day and now I have enough coins that from the looks of it, could last me for months. "If you don't get robbed that is." I stay for a few seconds. I wanted to curse myself for saying that but I do have a point. I need a place to sleep in that isn't some guy's roof.
"But to do that, I need to know how to talk." I sigh. After buying some food, I found myself a top the wall. Sitting by the edge I look at the gate of the city. There were noticeably more and more people leaving and entering. I look at each of them. There was a glow on them. Like a happiness that cannot be contained. I breathe out and look back at the city.
"I can't stay here…I'm not one of them." I tell myself. I look up into the sky and I was reminded of the past; my professor says that there is no need to reminisce about the past yet I cannot help it. Everything here is so foreign yet I associate them with things in my own world.
"…" I began to ponder. "I don't completely agree with his viewpoint. How one should not care for anything but the present. About the past? I completely agree, but the future? I couldn't find a reason to agree." I look back into the forest and beyond it. I began to imagine those hills, that gigantic monster, the ruins, and the commander and his army. "But…he does have a point. Why should I care about the future when every day, there's a chance I'll just die randomly."
I look at my gauntlets. I inspect the cracks, the lines from the commander engraved with his weapon. "I'm not nearly strong enough." I have been saying that every single day now but I cannot help it. I do not care if I am not strongest, all I want to be strong enough. Strong enough to survive. Strong enough to be better. That is all.
I sigh. "I should really stop doing this, every time I try to talk to myself, it just devolves to reminding myself how weak I am." I shake my head. I walk back down to the streets of this city. "I need to buy some thing before the sun goes down." I say to myself.