The walk to town was... quiet. Not peaceful quiet, more like the uncomfortable kind that stretches out just long enough to make you start noticing every little noise. The crunch of leaves underfoot. The occasional rustle of branches like something was watching us. The steady rhythm of footsteps—Arden's up ahead, deliberate and unhurried, and Sora's barely audible beside me, like she'd somehow trained herself to move without making a sound. And then there was me. Probably breathing too loud.
I didn't know why he brought me along.
He hadn't explained. Not even a vague hint. One moment he was finishing off a knight like it was a midweek chore, the next he just turned to me and said I should join his party. Like that was a perfectly normal thing to ask a traumatized girl whose entire village had just gone up in flames. No context. No reason. Just... "join."
Maybe he felt bad for me. Maybe he needed a placeholder for party slots. Or maybe I'd accidentally impressed him by not fainting on the spot when he split a guy in half. Hard to say. Arden didn't exactly offer explanations unprompted. Or at all.
Still. I didn't have a better option. Wandering off alone into bandit territory wasn't high on my bucket list, and if I was going to cling to anyone for safety, it might as well be the mysterious murder wizard in sunglasses.
Sora walked close to me, her golden hair catching little bits of sunlight through the canopy. She didn't talk much, but every now and then she'd glance at me, as if checking to see if I was still following. I wasn't sure if she was being kind or just mildly paranoid, but either way, it helped. It made me feel a little less like dead weight.
The forest dragged on, the path more suggestion than road. Birds called out occasionally, though even they sounded half-hearted about it. And for a while, that was it—just walking and silence and the growing sense that I was the only one here not pretending this was all perfectly normal.
Eventually, I gave up and asked, "Your magic... how are you so strong?"
I tried to make it sound like a casual observation, as if I wasn't still mentally replaying the moment he had erased a fully armored knight from existence like a smudge on a page.
Arden glanced over his shoulder, deadpan. "Luck, mostly."
I stared at him. "Luck? Seriously? That's your answer?"
He shrugged, as if cosmic power was just something he'd stumbled into on the way to buy groceries.
I opened my mouth to keep pressing—maybe ask if he was secretly a dragon in disguise—but what came out instead was, "You could've just teleported us, y'know. Saved us the hike."
It came out more sarcastic than I meant it to, but to be fair, we were still walking.
To my surprise, Arden actually stopped. Tilted his head, like he was giving the suggestion actual thought. Then: "I would, but I've never been to this town. No teleportation point set up."
That made me blink. "Teleportation point?"
He gave me that look again. The one where I could feel him trying to decide if I was joking or just terminally uninformed.
"You can't teleport to places you haven't anchored," he said, like he was explaining how chairs work. "You need a fixed location. Magic doesn't just bend space for fun."
"Right. Of course," I muttered, doing my best impression of someone who totally knew that already and was just testing him. "No fast travel without save points. Got it."
Arden smirked faintly, then started walking again like that was the end of the lesson.
I shook my head and chuckled under my breath. Learning magic by osmosis from the world's most emotionally distant field guide wasn't how I thought my week would go, but I'd take it.
The sun crept lower behind the trees, the light turning amber and casting everything in long, strange shadows. I was starting to wonder if we'd been walking in circles when Sora pointed ahead.
"There," she said quietly. "Almost there."
And sure enough, through the thinning trees, a shape began to form—large, looming, and real.
The town.
Not a village. Not a hamlet. A town, in all its sprawling, chaotic glory. Towering stone walls, sharp-angled roofs jutting into the sky, smoke curling lazily from chimneys. It looked like something ripped out of a storybook someone had illustrated way too enthusiastically. People from my village had talked about places like this in hushed, almost reverent tones—like cities were rare creatures you only heard about if you were lucky.
Seeing one for myself? It didn't feel real.
Compared to the wreckage I'd come from, this place might as well have been another world. No burnt wood. No blood on the ground. Just sound—laughter, shouting, metal striking metal—and color. Banners, shop signs, clothing in a thousand shades. It was... overwhelming. Beautiful, but in the way that made your chest tighten. Like it was too big, too alive.
My thoughts pulled backward, uninvited. I remembered flames, falling roofs, the screaming. The smell of smoke in my lungs. That horrible emptiness after. I flinched, blinked hard, and forced the memories down like stones into water. Not now. Not here.
We reached the town gates. A few guards were stationed there, wearing half-bored expressions and not enough armor for my liking. Their eyes tracked us as we passed—more specifically, tracked Arden. One of them stiffened, his gaze sharpening for a second like he recognized something and wasn't sure how to feel about it.
He didn't say anything, though. None of them did.
I, for one, was trying not to look suspicious, which is exactly what makes a person look suspicious. I smiled too quickly. Then stopped. Then pretended I had something in my eye.
We walked through the gates and into the city proper, and it felt like crossing into a different reality. The noise hit first—vendors shouting over each other, wheels rattling against cobblestones, laughter and arguments and music bleeding out of alleyways. It was chaos, but the kind that felt safe. Or at least, safer than what I'd come from.
The market hit like a brick wall of sound, smell, and motion. One moment we were stepping off a quiet street, and the next I was in the middle of what felt like fifty overlapping conversations, a cloud of spice smoke, and a child darting past me with a sticky hand and no regard for personal space.
It was chaos. Organized chaos, maybe, but chaos all the same.
Stalls were packed tight together like they'd multiplied overnight and hadn't been told space was finite. Vendors shouted over each other with the kind of practiced intensity that could peel paint. There was food—so much food. Meats sizzling over open flames, bright fruits stacked in precarious pyramids, strange glowing pastries that looked like they were enchanted to taste better than they actually did.
I probably looked like a tourist. The wide-eyed, slack-jawed kind. But after the week I'd had, wandering into a carnival of color and noise was enough to short-circuit my brain a little. Compared to the ash and rubble of home, this place felt like a dream drawn in loud ink.
My stomach growled audibly, because of course it did.
I tried to act like I wasn't eyeing a skewer stand like it owed me money. Arden noticed. Of course he noticed. He always noticed things without looking like he noticed them, which was somehow more annoying than if he just pointed it out.
"Hungry?" he asked, voice flat as ever, but with the faintest twitch of amusement at the corner of his mouth.
I nodded like a starving stray. "Desperately."
Without fanfare or comment, he peeled off toward the stall, handed over a few coins, and returned with skewers. Just like that. No lecture about budgeting. No awkward silence while I tried to justify not having money. Just... food.
I took one, warmth sinking into my fingers like relief. It tasted incredible—smoky, juicy, charred just enough to make the flavor cling to my teeth. Probably not fancy, but right then, it was the best thing I'd ever eaten.
Sora accepted hers with a smile so small it could've slipped under a door, but she took a bite and let out a tiny, satisfied hum. "It's good," she said, voice soft but certain.
I nodded, mouth too full to respond properly. It was good. Stupidly good.
As we wandered deeper into the market, the atmosphere didn't ease up. If anything, it got louder. More people. More stares.
And not at me.
At Arden.
It wasn't subtle, either. People paused mid-argument to glance his way. Shopkeepers tracked him between customers. One guy literally stopped chewing just to stare like he was watching a ghost walk by.
It wasn't fear, though. Not exactly. More like recognition wrapped in confusion, dipped in respect, and rolled in a very thin layer of "should I salute or kneel or something?" I had no idea why. Arden didn't act important. Didn't dress like royalty. Didn't radiate "chosen one" energy unless the chosen one forgot to update their facial expressions.
But still. The air around him shifted when he walked through it. Like even the market could sense it.
I kept my questions to myself.
Eventually, we reached the Adventurers' Guild—which looked exactly like what I imagined the headquarters of people who punch dragons for fun would look like. Big. Loud. Proudly chaotic. Banners on the outside, weapons on the inside, and the unmistakable scent of beer, sweat, and someone having a really intense argument in the back about who cheated during last night's poker game.
Inside, it was all worn wood, loud voices, and scuffed-up pride. Adventurers filled every table, boasting about quests, trading gear, or just laughing too hard at their own jokes. The kind of place where half the furniture had been repaired more than once and every stain had a story behind it.
We headed to the front desk, where a receptionist greeted us with the kind of smile that said, "I've seen too much, but I'm getting paid."
She gave me a quick once-over—neutral, professional, but with that slight narrowing of the eyes that suggested she was already filing me away as "probably not a threat." Then her gaze slid to Arden, and something flickered there. Recognition? Respect? A little fear? Hard to tell. She didn't explain it, and I didn't ask.
"New recruit?" she asked.
I nodded. "Yeah. First time."
She hummed and handed me a clipboard. "Fill this out."
The form was straightforward—name, age, magic affinity, previous experience (I considered writing "emergency sprinting" but settled on "none"). Once I handed it back, she gestured for me to follow her into a side room, where a large crystal sat on a pedestal like it had been waiting its whole life for this moment.
"Place your hand on the orb," she said, already half-looking away.
I hesitated for a second, my fingers hovering above it. I wasn't expecting much—maybe a flicker, a polite spark, something that would at least register I existed.
Then it lit up.
Not just a spark. A glow. Golden and warm and steady.
I flinched back like it might explode.
The receptionist blinked, finally paying attention. "Light magic," she said, sounding faintly impressed. "That's rare."
I stared at her. "Wait… seriously?"
She nodded. "Strong, too. You'll want to train that. Light mages don't come around often."
I didn't respond right away. Mostly because my brain was still trying to catch up. I'd spent the last few days assuming I was the background character in someone else's disaster story, and now here I was lighting up magical artifacts.
Sora appeared beside me, almost like she'd been waiting for the right moment. She gave me a gentle smile—small, reassuring. "See? You're not useless."
I huffed a laugh. "Give me time."
But even as I said it, there was this strange warmth rising up in my chest. Like the tiniest part of me had finally stopped bracing for impact.
Maybe I wasn't just tagging along. Maybe I could actually do something.
The receptionist handed me a bronze plate that glowed faintly, like it was trying its best to look important. "This is your adventurer rank," she said. "Bronze. It's where most adventurers start."
Bronze. Of course. The very bottom of the ladder. I turned it over in my hand, pretending it didn't feel like a polite way of saying good luck not dying. Still, it was mine. A beginning. I hadn't had one of those in a while.
Sora had a gold plate. Arden's was platinum. Naturally. I tried not to dwell on that. Comparing myself to them was like showing up to a swordfight with a spoon.
Once the receptionist finished explaining where to find the quest board and the nearest inn, we stepped back out into the street. I barely processed anything she said—I was too busy trying to figure out what kind of lunatic signs up for a job involving giant rats and optional casualty insurance.
The inn was thankfully close. Arden paid for the rooms without blinking, and the innkeeper gave us a key without asking questions. I suspected that Arden's whole scary-but-respectable aura probably paid for itself in silence.
When we reached our rooms, Arden glanced at me. "Take a bath first if you want. You've had a long day."
He wasn't wrong. I probably looked—and smelled—like I'd rolled through a compost heap. I nodded, already imagining sinking into warm water and pretending the last few days hadn't happened.
Then Sora tilted her head up toward him, eyes soft. "Master, may I share the bath with you later?"
Her voice was so gentle, it barely rose above a whisper. She looked... almost shy. Not embarrassed, exactly, but like this was something that mattered to her more than she was letting on.
And Arden—stoic, unreadable Arden—smiled.
Just a small one. Barely there. But real. I blinked, not sure I was seeing it right. Did his face even do that? Apparently, yes.
Sora lit up at his response. It was subtle, but the relief and quiet joy on her face made it feel like a sunbeam had cracked through the door. Then she looked at me, like she was suddenly aware I still existed, her expression turning slightly sheepish.
I wasn't even sure why. She'd said nothing wrong. Still, I appreciated the gesture—it made the moment feel a little less like I was crashing someone else's story.
The bath was better than I expected. Honestly, it felt like a divine blessing in liquid form. Warm water, actual soap, and a moment where I wasn't covered in dirt, blood, or emotional residue. I sank into it like it might forgive me for the week I'd just had.
For the first time in too long, I let my muscles unclench and my thoughts go quiet. No running, no fighting, no wondering what came next.
Just stillness. Warm, quiet stillness.
And gods, did it feel good.
Just as I was finally starting to enjoy the bath—like, actually enjoy it, not just pretend I knew how to relax—the door creaked open.
"Sora, didn't you say you wanted to take a bath togeth—"
That voice. Arden.
Panic hit me like a lightning bolt. I practically folded in on myself, limbs scrambling to make myself as small and invisible as humanly possible, which is pretty hard to do when you're soaking wet and stuck in a tub. My face went nuclear. I didn't even think—just curled into a soggy panic ball.
Arden froze in the doorway. His expression shifted for a half second—glasses catching the light, mouth slightly open. And then he did something I wasn't prepared for.
He looked embarrassed.
Not dramatically so. No gasp, no fluster. Just a flicker of genuine surprise and—was that regret?
"Excuse me," he said quietly, then stepped back and closed the door like he hadn't just walked in on the world's worst surprise encounter.
I sat there, heart pounding, brain melting, wondering if I'd just unlocked a new level of humiliation. Of course that would happen. Why wouldn't it?
Groaning into my hands, I sank lower into the water like I could dissolve into it and never come back up. I hadn't even done anything wrong. This wasn't on me. I wasn't the one who forgot to knock. But still—why?
The rest of the bath was spent trying to force the memory out of my brain with sheer willpower. It didn't work.
When I stepped out, skin wrinkled and clean for the first time in too long, there was a bundle waiting outside the door.
Clothes.
Neatly folded. A blouse, dark trousers, a light cloak. Even a pair of boots that looked about my size. Not fancy—nothing loud or showy—but new. Untouched. Clean.
There was a small note tucked beneath the top fold. Just five words, written in plain, careful script:
For you. No need to pay back.
That was... unexpected. He didn't seem like the type to write notes, or to make gestures like this at all. But maybe I didn't know what kind of type he was yet. Not really.
I picked them up slowly, pressing the fabric to my chest. They smelled like nothing. Not smoke. Not fear. Not the inside of a wagon or the last place I cried.
Just cotton. Just... peace.
And for the first time since the village, I wasn't wearing the end of the world.
Later that evening, the three of us sat in the inn's dining hall, surrounded by warm light, clinking plates, and the steadily growing weight of silence. Arden had apologized again—calm, even-toned, like someone reading a weather report. Completely unbothered. Meanwhile, I was practically vibrating with leftover embarrassment. His complete lack of visible discomfort somehow made mine worse.
And then there were the clothes. The quiet bundle. The note.
It hadn't left my mind.
He didn't need to do that. He hadn't needed to say anything, either, but he had. Just five words scrawled on a bit of paper, like that was enough to erase the weirdest moment of my year. And, annoyingly, it sort of had. Not completely—but it made it harder to stay mad. Or flustered. Or anything but confused.
Sora, thankfully, came to my rescue. She started talking—softly, sweetly—about their previous adventures. Danger, chaos, the usual traveler nonsense. Her stories had this cozy rhythm to them, like a bedtime tale told by someone who'd actually wrestled the dragon herself. It didn't take long for me to get drawn in, laughing at little details I hadn't expected, relaxing despite myself.
And yet... every few minutes, my mind decided to replay the day in scattered flashes. Surprise Arden. Soaked panic me. The bundle of clothes. The note. Ugh.
Still, the tension between us eased, bit by bit. Arden didn't say much, but somehow that helped. His silence wasn't cold—it just was. And Sora's presence was like balm on the lingering awkwardness, her warmth and light filling in all the conversational gaps without pressing too hard.
By the time we finished eating, the atmosphere had shifted from "unbearable social horror" to something closer to "mildly uncomfortable dinner party." I'd take it.
Back in my room, I collapsed onto the bed like I'd been tackled by exhaustion itself. Everything ached. My brain refused to shut up, and my pride was still quietly bleeding out in the corner, but the blankets were soft and the pillow was basically a hug. It wasn't long before my thoughts started to blur at the edges.
Still, Arden lingered in my mind. Not because of the bath thing—okay, not just because of that—but because of the fight earlier. The way he moved. The strength. The stillness. And now, this: the clothes. The note. That small flicker of something human and oddly considerate, tucked beneath the surface like a secret.
I sighed and pulled the blanket tighter.
Tomorrow was definitely going to be awkward.