Chương 209: Chapter : 209

Ten minutes later, the trio stepped out of the estate gates and into the bright, bustling streets of the capital city. Risa walked in the middle, her teddy bear tucked under one arm and her free hand holding onto Ken's sleeve. Ken walked on one side, carrying two large cloth shopping bags that were currently empty but already felt heavy because they existed, and existing was tiring enough.

On Risa's other side walked Ira, her posture perfectly straight, her face completely blank, her dark uniform crisp and clean, looking like she had been carved from marble and given the minimum required amount of human features. The commercial district of the capital was loud, colorful, and absolutely alive.

Merchants shouted from their stalls, advertising everything from fresh fruit to enchanted jewelry to suspicious-looking potions that promised to make you taller, smarter, or invisible, depending on which one you bought. The smell of grilled meat, fried dough, and sweet pastries mixed together in the air, creating a fragrance that was confusing but wonderful.

People pushed past each other in the narrow streets, some hurrying to get somewhere, others wandering aimlessly, and a few just standing in the middle of the road staring at nothing and getting in everyone's way. Risa's eyes were as wide as saucers. She looked at everything. She looked at the colorful banners hanging between buildings. She looked at the street performer juggling balls of fire. She looked at the old woman selling flowers from a wooden cart. She looked at the little boy chasing a ball down an alley.

Every single thing was new and exciting and magical, not because it was actually magical, but because she had not seen any of it in weeks, and absence made the heart grow fonder, even of loud, crowded markets. And then there was Ken, who was putting on an absolute masterclass of goofy behavior. It started at the first food stall. Ken bought something called a "Mega Spicy Dragon Stick," which was a long skewer of grilled meat coated in a sauce that was so red it looked angry.

He took one bite, and his face turned the same color as the sauce. His eyes watered. His nose ran. He started fanning his mouth with both hands, making a sound like "hwahhwahhwah" that had no business coming from a grown man. Risa giggled so hard she almost dropped her teddy bear.

"Ken, are you okay?" Risa asked between giggles.

"Perfectly fine," Ken wheezed, his face still burning red.

"This is... this is what flavor tastes like. It is an experience. I am experiencing." He took another bite, and this time he actually stomped his foot on the ground like a cartoon character.

"WHY DO I KEEP EATING THIS?!" Risa laughed until her stomach hurt. Ira did not laugh. Ira did not do anything. She simply walked alongside them, her face unchanged, her steps perfectly measured, like a robot on a patrol route. The goofy behavior continued. Ken tripped over his own shoelaces not once, not twice, but three times in the span of five minutes.

Each time, he flailed his arms wildly, stumbled forward in a dramatic, exaggerated way, and barely caught himself on a lamppost or a convenient stranger's shoulder. Each time, Risa laughed harder. The best part was that Ken's shoelaces were clearly tied properly. He was tripping on purpose, just to make her smile, and Risa knew it, and that made it even funnier. The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. He told ridiculous jokes too.

"Why did the tomato turn red?" Ken asked, leaning down to Risa's level with a completely serious face.

"Because it saw the salad dressing!" Risa groaned, which was exactly the reaction Ken wanted. He followed it up with, "What do you call a sleeping dinosaur? A dino-snore!" and "Why do not skeletons fight each other? They do not have the guts!" Each joke was worse than the last, and each one made Risa giggle more, because the sheer awfulness of the jokes was what made them funny. By the time they reached the end of the main market street, Risa was smiling so wide that her cheeks hurt.

She had not thought about her magic, or her fear, or the fact that she was supposed to be careful, not even once. Ken's ridiculous behavior had created a bubble of laughter around her that nothing could pop. And Ira, walking silently beside them, was making sure of it. Every time a cart came too close, Ira stepped slightly to the side, placing herself between the cart and Risa. Every time a loud noise erupted from a nearby stall, Ira shifted her position just enough to block the sound with her body.

She was doing her job perfectly, invisibly, the way she did everything. Eventually, they wandered away from the main market street and into a quieter part of the district. The buildings here were shorter and older, with faded paint and ivy climbing up the walls. The noise of the market faded into a gentle background hum, replaced by the sound of birds singing and children laughing. And there, nestled between two old apartment buildings, was a small public park. The park was simple and charming.

A few wooden benches lined a gravel path that wound through a patch of green grass. There were two large oak trees that provided shade, and under one of them, a group of commoner children were playing in a big, wooden-framed sandbox. The children were building things, knocking them down, and building them again, the way children do when they have discovered the infinite cycle of creation and destruction that is the sandbox experience.

Ken saw the sandbox, and his eyes lit up with the unmistakable gleam of a man who had just found an excuse to sit down.

"Finally," Ken breathed, dropping the shopping bags on the grass with a heavy thud.

"A reason to stop walking. This is the greatest park in the history of parks. I would like to live here." He did not wait for permission. He did not ask if it was okay. He simply walked over to the sandbox, stepped right in, and plopped down on the sand with a satisfied grunt. His legs were stretched out in front of him, his back leaning against the wooden frame, and his arms were spread wide as if he was embracing the ground. The children in the sandbox stared at him.

He was a grown man in a sandbox, and he looked absolutely thrilled about it.

"Time for some high-level architecture," Ken announced lazily, sitting up and rubbing his hands together. He grabbed a small plastic bucket that one of the children had abandoned, filled it with wet sand from the corner of the box, and flipped it over. The result was a lopsided, bulging sand cylinder that looked like it had been designed by someone who had only ever heard buildings described to them over a bad telephone connection. It leaned slightly to the left. It had a crack running down one side.

A small piece fell off the top as soon as Ken removed the bucket.