Chương 6: 03-2: New Clothes, Work, and Obligations

When we made our way down the groaning staircase—me first, Jessi padding behind with steps bordering on cheerful—Lucas was sitting beside the cold ashes, carefully polishing his precious platinum identification plaque with a damp, moldy cloth. He looked up at me first. Then at Jessi, whose lightness of step was unmistakable. Then those slightly hollow eyes of his narrowed with the precise expression of a scholar observing a suspicious phenomenon.

"What happened?" His tone carried genuine academic weight.

"Nothing." I kept my face blank as stone. Jessi, naturally, had no intention of letting me off. She strolled past Lucas with a bright smile, gave my shoulder a companionable pat, and made her announcement with the gravity of a public proclamation.

"Only that our sixteen-year-old little lordling has finally experienced the kind of morning that belongs to grown men." I nearly spat cold water across the room. Lucas blinked once. Then his gaze moved between me and Jessi with methodical, scholarly attention. Finally, in a tone of absolute calm that had no business existing in this situation, he delivered his verdict.

"I see."

"What exactly do you see?!" Lucas appeared not to hear me. He adjusted his glasses and kept his analytical gaze on Jessi.

"Jessi," he said thoughtfully, "the way you're smiling right now—you look exactly like a vixen who's just found a lost lamb." Jessi blinked. Then she smiled, wide and genuinely satisfied.

"You know, bookworm—every once in a while, you actually say something worth hearing."

"You two..." I set down the canteen, feeling the burning shame in my chest cool into something considerably quieter—and more lethal.

"If we don't move now, I'm leaving you both behind." We reached Flint Town around midday. Unlike Hemlock Town—suffocated under the weight of soldiers and lumber, gray and barely breathing—Flint Town was chaotic, crude, and aggressively alive. Wagons, shouted prices, screaming arguments, barking dogs, and coarse laughter from no identifiable source churned together like a pot of stew that had never once been cleaned.

The air reeked of horse manure, cheap barley ale, unwashed bodies, and the sharp bite of poorly cured leather. Frankly, the place had no dignity whatsoever. Unfortunately, I was no longer in any position to be particular about that. The streets had been carved into deep, muddy ruts by countless wagon wheels. Broken stone and churned earth mixed into a color that offended the eye. I led Bruce forward, his old bones producing a faint, hollow clop with every step.

A few merchants along the road let their eyes settle on him, gazes crawling with familiar greed and contempt. The horse is old, but butchered for meat, it's still worth more than the man holding the reins. I noticed. I said nothing.

"You're not seriously thinking of buying that, are you?" Jessi spoke up suddenly, pointing toward a canvas-covered farm wagon parked beside a livestock pen, her tone saturated with disgust.

"That's what old farmers use to haul wheat and hay, little lordling. Sleep in that thing and you'll be dreaming of moldy straw for weeks." This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"We need cover. We need load capacity." I answered flatly, eyes staying fixed on the wagon. The frame looked solid. The wheels were worn but hadn't fallen apart. The canvas was passable. For what we were now, that wagon was practically a luxury estate.

"Lucas needs somewhere to meditate," I continued.

"And we need a space where we can sleep without being stacked on top of each other." The moment those words left my mouth, I saw Jessi's expression shift. That familiar, dangerous, spark-carrying smile surfaced again. She leaned close to my ear, warm breath grazing the edge of it—close enough to make me twitch.

"Oh?" Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial murmur.

"So you're already missing last night's deep interaction? The wagon canopy would work nicely for that—dark enough, cramped enough. Whatever you want to get up to in there, I really don't mind."

"Shut up." My hand flew to my sword hilt on pure reflex, and I walked faster toward the livestock pen. Her laughter followed from behind, bright and completely unrepentant. And for what felt like the hundredth time, I found myself seriously evaluating: If I tied her up and left her in a haystack right now, would that legally qualify as self-defense? The livestock pen's owner was a fat man with a mouthful of yellow teeth.

He stood at the fence slapping the hindquarters of a brown draft horse—noticeably sturdier than Bruce, though its eyes carried the same deadness that comes from being thoroughly beaten down by life. The moment his gaze found us, it slid over all three travelers and my old horse like a snake tasting the air. That look was familiar too. Every merchant wore it when a promising target wandered into range.

"That wagon. And that horse." I raised a hand toward the canvas-covered cart with its dull ochre tarpaulin. The fat man followed my gesture, and his mouth spread wide, revealing that stomach-churning row of yellow teeth.

"Good eye, young man. Pure hardwood frame, canvas got a fresh wax coat just last month." He rubbed his fingers together, voice sweet as poisoned honey.

"Fifteen large silver. Honestly, looking at the state of you lot, I almost didn't bother quoting a price—figured you couldn't scrape together the change." My stomach dropped. Fifteen large silver. That number might as well have been the height of the capital's spires. Our total available funds came to roughly three silver coins—and that was before accounting for tonight's food and lodging. He wasn't selling a wagon. He was using the price to politely tell us to get lost.

"Fifteen?" Lucas stepped forward half a pace, adjusting his glasses. Face gaunt enough to show the hollows, but his voice still carried that particular academic arrogance that apparently survived starvation.

"The rear hooves on that horse show significant uneven wear. The wagon's axle is leaking oil. According to Imperial Royal Economic Principles—""This is Flint Town, not your fancy Royal Academy, scholar." The fat man spat and cut Lucas off without ceremony.

"No coin, get lost. I've got real customers waiting—no time to listen to you recite textbooks." Lucas's face went stiff, like a man discovering for the first time that academic theory wasn't worth a handful of copper scraps in the mud. Jessi stood off to the side, idly working her thin wire between her fingers. After a moment, she drifted over with studied casualness.

"Little lordling, that kind of money problem is actually easy to solve."

"I have a very bad feeling about this."

"You could sell your muscles at the underground fighting pits, or sell your looks down the red-light lane. Either way, you'd have enough pretty fast."

"..." She said it so smoothly I couldn't even decide which part to object to first. But she clearly wasn't finished. Her gaze slid toward a handsome carriage parked nearby—bearing a merchant guild crest, flanked by armed guards. The wooden frame was banded in polished metal, neat tassels hanging from the door—a picture of wealth that made our ragged group look even more pitiful. Jessi lowered her voice, smiling like a nocturnal predator sizing up its evening plans.

"Or I could always go borrow a little from over there."

"Behave yourself." I shot her a warning look, keeping my voice equally low.

"I genuinely cannot afford to bail you out a second time. If you get caught here, I'll have to seriously consider selling you to slave traders to cover the debt."

"Tch. Not cute at all." Jessi clicked her tongue, and for once didn't push back. Even she recognized that the guild carriage wasn't something to touch casually. The fat owner had apparently caught a few words. He snorted and jerked his chin toward the other end of the street.

"No coin, check the guild board at the tavern. Luck's on your side today, maybe you'll find some grunt work." He paused, then dropped his voice.

"And tell your light-fingered friend to forget the guild carriage. Those guards' crossbow bolts don't care who they hit—die for nothing if you try." I nodded, accepting the unfriendly advice for what it was. Before heading to the tavern, I reached into the inner lining of my shirt and pulled out a silver coin, still warm from my body heat, and held it out to Jessi. She looked at the coin, then at me.

"What's this?"

"Buy some clothes." I kept my voice steady, meeting her eyes.

"You can't walk into that tavern looking like that." She blinked, and that familiar, dangerous smile began its slow climb.

"Oh? What's wrong with how I look?" She stepped half a pace closer, voice carrying its usual wicked edge.

"Worried some other man will get an eyeful? Or scared your branding iron might accidentally fire up again?"... Right. She remembered. And clearly had no intention of forgetting today. This time I didn't take the bait. I just held her gaze steadily and kept the coin extended. We stared each other down for a few seconds before Jessi, apparently unable to tolerate my unblinking patience, made a small sound of reluctant surrender and snatched the coin.

"And get yourself a proper weapon while you're at it." I added to her retreating back.

"Stop carrying that piece of scrap metal around like it's going to rust through completely any day now." She didn't look back—just raised the coin in a lazy wave.

"Yeah, yeah. Nagging like somebody's mother, little lordling."

"..." I stood there in silence for two seconds, then decided to let it go. Otherwise I wasn't going to get anything useful done today.