Chương 21: Chapter 13 : The Five Relics

The small square was gradually returning to its peaceful rhythm after the bustle of the late afternoon. A few children were still running around the fountain under the distracted gaze of their parents, while several office workers lingered to enjoy the last rays of sunlight before heading home. Emma had been sitting on the bench in silence for several minutes. Her eyes absentmindedly followed the passersby, but her mind kept replaying the three apartment viewings they had just gone through.

She slowly turned her head toward him. Aldric was studying the buildings surrounding the square.

"May I ask you a question?"

"Of course."

"If you'd been wearing a suit today, if you'd had a normal haircut, if no one had seen your armor or your sword. Do you think the landlords would have accepted your application?" The knight remained silent for a moment. He genuinely seemed to consider the possibility as though he were analyzing a new strategy.

"I don't know," he finally replied.

"A different appearance might have changed their first impression." Emma gently shook her head.

"No. At first, I thought it was because of the way you dressed. Then I convinced myself it was the way you answered their questions. But I was wrong. The problem is much simpler than that." She took a small notebook out of her bag, tore out a blank sheet of paper, and laid it on the bench between them. After a brief hesitation, she drew a large rectangle in the center of the page and wrote a single word inside it. Apartment. Beneath the rectangle, she drew a vertical arrow and wrote a second heading. Requirements.

"This is what landlords actually care about," she explained, pointing at the page with the tip of her pen.

"They almost never make their decision based on the person standing in front of them. First, they check whether all the requirements are met. If even one is missing, they'll usually choose another applicant." Aldric followed every movement with absolute concentration. Emma wrote the first item. Identity.

"You have to be able to officially prove who you are. Without that, almost no important paperwork is possible." She added a second line. Bank Account.

"Rent is paid through a bank. Landlords want to be certain the payments will arrive every month without any problems." A third line appeared beneath the others. Salary.

"You need to prove that you earn money on a regular basis." Then she added a fourth. Guarantor.

"If one day you're no longer able to pay, someone else agrees to pay in your place." Finally, she wrote one last entry. Income.

"And that income has to be high enough to cover the rent. Landlords want to reduce their risk as much as possible. They're not just looking for a pleasant tenant. Above all, they're looking for someone who offers solid guarantees." She finally set down her pen and looked at the sheet for a few moments. The five words seemed almost insignificant. Yet the entire day had just shown them that they represented a series of obstacles far more difficult to overcome than finding an apartment itself.

Aldric didn't answer right away. His eyes moved slowly over the list, returning to each item several times as though trying to understand the connection between them. In his old world, earning a fortress required convincing a sovereign, defending a border, or completing an extraordinary mission. Here, the kingdom seemed to demand a series of approvals, proofs, and documents whose purpose he still didn't fully understand. Even so, he found nothing unreasonable about the system.

The rules had changed, but the principle remained exactly the same. Before earning an important reward, one first had to satisfy a number of prerequisites. He slipped a hand beneath his breastplate and pulled out a small leather-bound notebook, already worn from the many journeys it had accompanied. Emma watched with curiosity as he turned through several pages filled with neat handwriting.

She caught glimpses of notes he had made over the past few days: Samir's name, the cost of a night's stay at the hotel, several observations about the metro, the euro symbol, and even a rough sketch of a pedestrian crossing. Reaching a blank page, Aldric took the pencil tucked into the notebook's binding and carefully copied, one by one, the five requirements Emma had just listed. Emma watched him write for a few moments.

She had expected to repeat her explanations several times, answer dozens of questions, or clear up countless misunderstandings. After copying the five items into his notebook, Aldric remained motionless for several moments. His gaze shifted between the page Emma had filled out and his own notes. Every line had been written with remarkable precision. The letters were perfectly aligned, the ink never strayed, and not a single word had been crossed out.

Emma noticed that he even left exactly the same amount of space between each entry, like a royal scribe copying an official record. When he had finished, he rested the pencil against the notebook's binding for a few seconds before finally looking up at Emma.

"What do you call these objects?" Emma followed his gaze to the list she had just explained.

"Which ones?"

"These." He pointed at the five entries.

"They're simply administrative documents."

"Administrative documents..." He reopened his notebook to the first blank page immediately after the list. Carefully, he drew one long horizontal line. Then a second, perfectly parallel to the first. Between them, he wrote in large block letters. Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. △ FIVE SACRED RELICS △ First Relic Identity Card Second Relic Bank Account Third Relic Payslips Fourth Relic Guarantor Fifth Relic Income"What are you writing?"

Aldric turned the notebook toward her. Emma lowered her eyes to the page. She read the title first, then the five items he had copied in remarkably neat handwriting. Identity Card. Bank Account. Payslips. Guarantor. Income. For a few seconds, she assumed he was simply copying down what she had explained so he wouldn't forget it. Then she noticed that he was already adding a new column on the right. Beside the first entry, he carefully wrote First Relic.

Then came Second Relic, Third Relic, Fourth Relic, and finally Fifth Relic. Emma watched the movements of his pencil, unable to look away. Her first instinct was to think the whole thing was completely absurd. An ID card was obviously nothing like a legendary artifact. A payslip was just a printed document. As for a bank account, it didn't even exist in physical form. None of it resembled the sacred treasures found in fantasy novels or video games. Despite herself, a smile tugged at the corner of her lips.

At first, she had wanted to tell him how ridiculous the comparison was. But Aldric's logic, strange as it was, possessed an almost disarming consistency. The knight calmly finished the column before closing his notebook for a moment. He seemed to think, then opened it again to reread the entire page from the beginning. Once he appeared satisfied with the organization of his notes, he finally looked up at Emma.

"In what order would you recommend tackling this quest?" Her eyes drifted to the open notebook between them. The five relics had all been carefully numbered. Two long seconds passed. Slowly, her mind connected that simple question to every conversation they had shared. He wasn't joking. He wasn't trying to be funny. The image formed in her mind all by itself.

She pictured Aldric walking into a bank with the same solemn determination he would bring to an ancient dungeon, confronting an administrative form as though it were a legendary monster before raising a payslip with the satisfaction of a hero who had just claimed a holy sword. The more she imagined the absurd scene, the more strangely coherent it became. This was exactly how he saw the world.

To him, there was no difference between a divine relic and an administrative document if both were essential to completing a quest. That thought finally broke her. A laugh escaped her. She immediately covered her mouth with one hand, but it was already too late. Her shoulders began to shake as she lowered her head, trying to catch her breath.

Every time she looked back at the notebook, she pictured those 'Five Sacred Relics' carefully stored in treasure chests, guarded not by dragons, but by civil servants sitting behind service counters. The image was so vivid that she burst into laughter all over again. A few passersby glanced toward the bench before continuing on their way, puzzled by the young woman who couldn't seem to stop laughing. Emma wiped away a tear that had formed in the corner of her eye and took a deep breath.

"I'm sorry..." She tried to calm herself, but her eyes immediately fell back to the title written across the top of the page. Five Sacred Relics. Those three words alone were enough to send her into another fit of laughter.

"I'm really sorry," she finally managed between breaths.

"I'm not laughing at you. It's just... no one has ever compared government paperwork to sacred relics before." He had absolutely no idea what could possibly provoke such a strong reaction. From his perspective, his question was perfectly serious and perfectly logical. So he waited patiently for her to recover, trusting that she would eventually be able to answer. Emma slowly caught her breath. Her laughter gradually faded into a smile that she still couldn't quite get rid of.

She discreetly brushed another tear from the corner of her eye before gently shaking her head. She had worked with dozens of people every week for years. Some clients had been pleasant, others difficult, and a few had been downright unbearable. Not one of them had ever made her laugh so genuinely.

"Sorry," Emma whispered at last. Aldric gave a slight nod.

"Why are you apologizing?" She lowered her eyes to the notebook lying between them.

"It's just..." The words failed her. Her gaze drifted once more to the carefully written title. Five Sacred Relics. A quiet laugh escaped her despite herself.

"I'm really sorry. It's just that no one has ever called a payslip a relic before."

"And yet these objects seem just as difficult to obtain as a legendary artifact."

"Now that I think about it," she murmured at last, "you might not be completely wrong." Emma reached out her hand toward the little notebook.

"May I?" The knight handed it to her. She studied the five neatly numbered entries for a few moments before taking out her own pen. Her first instinct was to arrange the relics in a logical order, but she quickly realized that several of them depended on the others. She drew one arrow, immediately crossed it out with a quick stroke, struck through a line, and started over.

The more she thought about it, the more she realized that their mistake from the very beginning of this quest had been a simple matter of getting the priorities backward.

"Wait," she said, almost talking to herself.

"No... that's not how it works." She crossed out the list a second time.

"You can't get this before you have this..." She drew another arrow. Then another.

"If you find a job," she explained, drawing the first box, "you'll start earning a salary." She connected the first box to a second.

"And with that salary, you'll be able to prove that you have an income." She drew another arrow.

"That income will make it much easier to open a bank account. And once you have all of that, your application will already be much stronger." She added one final box at the end. Apartment. Work ↓ Income ↓ Bank ↓ Apartment She finally set down her pen.

"There." Aldric studied the diagram. His eyes followed each arrow in turn. He traced the path back to the beginning several times before slowly nodding.

"I understand. So the first dungeon wasn't the fortress."

"No."

"It was the job."

"Exactly." △ MAIN QUEST UPDATED △ Acquire a Home △ CURRENT OBJECTIVE △ Find Employment"Thank you."

"For what?" Aldric closed his notebook and slipped it back beneath his breastplate.

"Without a guide, I would have explored the wrong dungeon." Emma lowered her eyes with a small smile. It was probably the strangest way anyone had ever thanked her. And yet, she found it completely sincere. More sincere than all the polite thank-yous she heard every week at the agency. She finally stood up from the bench.

"So, if your new quest is to find a job..." Aldric rose to his feet as well.

"Then we must prepare for the expedition." Emma let out a quiet laugh.

"Yeah... I guess you could call it that."