Sara was furious—obviously. That much I expected, so her sharp eyebrows and clenched jaw felt natural and warranted. What I didn't expect was for her to dress up for my execution—but she had done just that. She had traded her guard uniform for a casual white blouse and green shorts, and then pulled out her ponytail hair tie, allowing her golden hair to spill over her shoulders. The casual shift from “hard guard” to “normal woman” was so striking that it was hard for me to worry about her anger.

  Sara was too incensed to notice my surprise. She turned to the swordsman, who was still standing, shifting his furious glance between her and me. “What’s going on?” she asked. She wasn’t forceful, but he seemed to choose his words carefully.

  “He just spat on me,” he said.

  She glanced at my beer. “On purpose?”

  He pushed off the table and turned away in protest, knowing full well where things were going.

  “Okay, then move aside,” Sara ordered. “Because if anyone’s gonna beat this asshole’s face in, it’s me.”

  The haggards grinned, pounding quick swallows of beer as if they were afraid to miss something while they were drinking.

  “‘Cause unlike you!” Sara said loudly and slowly so everyone could hear it, “This man screwed me on purpose!”

  The troll beside me slapped the table, roaring as he looked left and right, searching for everyone's reactions. Everyone's faces said “Fight!” especially the swordsman's. He stepped aside with a thin smile and said, “By all means,” letting her sit across from me—praying for blood.

  “Can I at least finish eating?” I asked with a pout, hugging my bowl defensively.

  “Take a bite, see what happens,” Sara warned.

  I pursed my lips and hesitantly dipped the spoon. She probably planned to snatch it from me, but she stopped when the table erupted with piercing laughter. The hopeful’s mage covered his face, knocking his beer over with his elbow; the person he splashed was laughing too hard to notice.

  Sara looked around, laughing because others were laughing. “What?” she asked, flashing a bewildered smile. “What's so funny?”

  I didn’t answer. I used the confusion to take another bite. That was a bad move. The second the stew touched my lips, one of the haggards jumped to his feet, pointed at me, and yelled, “There it is! Boyo’s lovin’ up on that slop!”

  “God, the moans,” the archer said, swaying drunkenly. “I wish a man would make me sound like that.”

  I angled my nose toward my stew, becoming grumpier by the second.

  “Wait… you’re serious…” Sara muttered.

  “Damn straight I’m serious!” I snapped. “The hell’s wrong with you people? How in the world did you conclude this tastes terrible?”

  Sara looked at the stew in my hand and back with parted lips. There was a moment of silence as people processed her aggressively baffled expression—

  And then they exploded with laughter.

  I dropped my bowl with a loud clank. I had lost my appetite, and I wouldn’t be able to eat even if I hadn’t.

  Sara was giggling now, covering her mouth—clearly losing whatever anger she had when she arrived.

  I stared at her numbly.

  Sara forced down a grin and said, “You know… I want to be angry at you, but…” She didn’t finish her statement. She just stared at me with sputtering lips, and for some reason, I couldn’t stay grumpy. I guess I was kinda an asshole to her, so I’d absolve her of her sins if she absolved me of mine.

  We stared at each other for a moment, and then she glanced around and said, “Let’s go. This isn’t a good place to talk.”

  A clamor broke out when she circled the table, grabbed my wrist, and pulled me out the door.

  “Oh, thank the Maiden,” I said when the door shut. “I didn’t even realize how suffocated I was.” I took a deep breath of the fresh evening air. It had rained while I was indoors, and the two moons glistened green and blue across the cobblestones. It was heavenly. Unfortunately, Sara's expression hardened again, as if she remembered she should be angry, and it soured the atmosphere.

  “What?” I asked. “If you’re angry about the coin, I’m sorry. I just imagined how cute your face would be and—” Her cheeks flushed a vibrant swath of crimson. “Funny!” I corrected. “Cute, funny. We already went through this.”

  Sara turned away. “Yeah, we did. That’s why we shouldn’t be doing it again.”

  “Why not? You seemed to like it.”

  She shot me a warning glare. I put up my hands in surrender. She kept eye contact, and then sighed.

  “You know… I had so many questions I wanted to ask you. Then, Celia called and told me not to ask you any. Now, I can only complain about that dick move of yours, and I don’t even want to anymore.”

  “Suggested or demanded?” I asked. “Because I'll answer some of your questions, if it's cool with her. Well, the ones I can, anyway.”

  Her eyes lit up. “Really?”

  “Yeah… sure.”

  “Okay, well, if you’re sure, I’m not holding back. Because I had to stop a riot after that little stunt of yours, and I told three sets of officials that I thought you were a requia. So you owe me.”

  “I’m… still not sure what a requia is. But… sure. Go for it.”

  “Okay…” Sara closed her eyes, took a deep breath through her nose, and said, “Question number one...” Her eyes snapped open, she planted her foot, and thrust her finger at me with a full, extended elbow. “Why do you have a barrier up? Do you think I’m going to kill you?”

  I followed her finger to my hand. A post-rain mist had formed around the thin, invisible barrier I always had around me, revealing it like a sweating glass in the summer heat.

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  “Oh… It’s an aura barrier,” I answered. “I always have this on me.”

  “Always?”

  “Yeah, even when I sleep. It’s kinda… a habit at this point. My master made me use one as a kid to hone my mana control. She had me use it around the clock, and ‘accidentally’ spilled wine on me to make sure it was up. Though… I’m pretty sure half of it actually was accidental, in retrospect. She’s a rowdy drinker.”

  Sara stared at me blankly. “Wait…” She paused to let my words sink in, and then she burst into laughter. “She trained you by spilling wine on you?”

  I thought about it seriously and shrugged. “Teach what you know, right?”

  Sara forced herself into silence, stared me in the eye, and broke out into laughter again. Thus began her “interrogation” session—if you could even call it that.

  Sara walked me through the streets, hands behind her back, hopping between cobblestones. She told me about her adventuring career and how she was on contract to guard the fountain once a month; I told her stories of Sleya, albeit without naming her. Sara got a kick out of those stories—and was left bewildered by my gruesome honesty regarding Sleya’s drinking problem and bizarre training techniques.

  “Ah… I just can’t believe it,” Sara said. “You really did grow up in a cabin…”

  “Yep. It wasn’t completely isolated. She had friends that would stop in and tutor me, or spend a few months with us to research this or that, but at least six months of the year was just hunting and cabin fever.”

  “Oh… then is this… the first time you’re talking to a girl like this?”

  I smiled wryly. “Is it that obvious?”

  “So yes…” In a confusing twist, her eyes dimmed, as if she wanted me to be popular with women. It was a confusing response, and I didn't know what to say, so the atmosphere between us grew quiet, filled only with the sound of a flowing river moving through the city.

  Think of something… I thought, kicking myself for my awkwardness. Just… ask her an easy question or something…

  I turned to her. “Can I ask you a question?”

  She whirled to me sharply, but then panicked and looked away. “Sure.”

  “What’s that tower over there?” I pointed to the bell tower with the circular face. “I don’t sense any magic from it, but the bell has a strange effect on the people here.”

  Sara stopped, staring at dead air before hesitantly turning to me. “You mean the clock tower?”

  “Uh… yeah? The thing with the moving array thing on it.”

  Her lips curved, and she burst into a wild fit of giggles.

  I folded my arms uncomfortably. “What? I’m new here.”

  “New…” Sara giggled harder. “You really were born in a cabin… Here, come with me.” She grabbed my wrist and led me to the blighted river, sitting us down on a nearby bench. Once we were sitting, she unhooked the chain on her silver artifact and clicked the cover open.

  My eyes widened when I saw what was inside. It had the same face as the “clock tower,” and when I looked between the artifact and the tower, I saw their lines were moving in sync. “But how…” I muttered, activating [astral gaze]. “There’s no magic…”

  Sara saw my eyes glimmer and erupted into a new wave of laughter.

  “What?” I cried. “I’m serious!”

  “Yeah, I know. That’s what’s funny…” She covered her mouth and then calmed down. “Here, I’ll explain. This is a pocket watch. It tells time. It’s kinda like… Here. Say you and I want to go out to eat somewhere. The question is: when? Right? If I show up later than you, then you won’t find me, and vice versa. If we both have a pocket watch, and the hands are in the same position, we’ll get there at the same time.”

  “Whoa… that’s so convenient!” I exclaimed.

  “How’d you do it before?” she asked.

  I shrugged. “I don't know. Master never carried communication discs. So I usually just flew around until I…” I paused when I saw her eyes widen.

  “You can fly?” she muttered.

  I smiled nervously. “Figure of speech.”

  She pouted.

  I pointed at the pocket watch. “These runes. What do they mean? I’ve never seen them before.”

  Her laughter returned. “They’re not runes, silly. Those are numerals. Numbers. One… two… three… six… twelve.” She gently grabbed my finger and traced the numerals on the watch. My pulse quickened.

  “In what… language?” I asked breathlessly. “I thought the numbers were… 1… 2… 3… 6… 12…”

  She watched in wonder as I traced the numbers in sigil lines, leaving lingering green lines that hovered and glowed in the darkness.

  “Pretty…” she whispered.

  I smiled dimly. “It seems everything I do here is pretty strange, isn’t it?”

  “Not really… I know plenty of magic. It’s just… the way you use it is… beautiful.” Her eyes drifted away.

  “The purification was pretty, wasn’t it?” I mused.

  “It was…”

  Sara and I made eye contact, and the atmosphere stilled. The sound of the bubbling river water swallowed the tick of the watch, and soon the river blended into a single sound, too.

  It was nice—a very special and comfortable moment. And then:

  A loud crack and sound of shattering glass captured our attention. I turned just in time to hear a man scream: “There you are! I’ve been looking everywhere for you!”

  Sara’s smile curled into a scowl as she turned toward the man. He was only a bit older than we were, and the word that came to mind when I saw him was rich. He wore a button-up under his adventurer’s jacket. The outfit suggested that he had been wearing a suit, but abruptly remembered he was going to a guild, and thus threw on something “guildy.” He was also tall for most people (albeit significantly shorter than me), six feet at an upper estimate, and he lacked half my muscle. I sized him up in an instant.

  Sara did the same, moving her eyes from his flushed cheeks to the mug he had shattered on the pathway, focusing specifically on the frothy foam spilling over rocks and glass. “Are you drunk?” she demanded, moving her gaze back to his eyes.

  “Hey, don’t put this on me,” he said. “I was looking for you!”

  “Rassan—you’re drunk. You just broke our—”

  “No, I’m not!” Rassan blurted, cutting her off. “And who's this?” He pointed at me. “Who the fuck is this?”

  “Rassan!” Sara snapped. “What are you doing? We agreed that you wouldn’t—”

  “I don’t want to hear it. We had a meeting!”

  “No. We didn’t have—”

  “And where were you?” he snapped, cutting her off. “Who the hell knows? Certainly not with your party members—you know, the people who depend on you. And then I come here and… this? Who is this? Who the hell is this?”

  Rassan approached me sloppily, staring at me as if I were a mouse that had crawled out of his loaf of bread. He looked like he was ready to slap me—and I was prepared to slap back. That surprised me. I had never fought anyone before, at least out of anger, but just as I felt a magnetic pull to Sara, I felt an instant revulsion toward this man. It was so bad that I remembered an impactful comment Sleya had made one night.

  It’s quite remarkable. Magic has the power to perform miracles—bring water during droughts, mend wounds, and cure diseases. Yet its primary usage is war… simple, simple war. And the thing that’s so fucked up is that no matter how good you try to be, war comes knocking—and you go answering.

  There was deep regret in Sleya’s eyes when she said those words—but now I understood. Thick veins had webbed across my arms, quickening my pulse. I had no intention of killing the man, but if he tried to touch me—oh, it’d get ugly.