The three of us arrived in Warrington the next afternoon. Unimpeded by assassins from the Harrowed Vindicators, we reached the city without any problems. When we walked through the gates, a guard stopped us and looked us over.
“You are… the adventurers that went to investigate the [Cultists] in the towns northeast from here, right?”
“Uh, what seems to be the problem—”
“We are!”
I answered without hesitation; Daniel glanced over at me and stared. He opened his mouth, but resignedly sighed.
undefined“Right, we are.”
“Hrmph, well, the captain has been awaiting your return. He told us that you should report to him in the eastern barracks of the city. Tell him what you found out.”
“We don’t have to go there immediately, do we?”
My Human companion glanced down at himself. His clothes were torn and bloodied— mine was too, however my Blue Jacket covered it all up.
“Because, uh, we’d rather not present ourselves to your captain dressed like this.”
“He didn’t say when. Just told me to deliver you the message.”
“I see, thanks.”
He nodded at the guard and started to walk off. I followed after him— leading Rachel by the hand— and slowed once I was next to him.
“You were upset.”
I pointed out.
“No, I wasn’t upset by what you did, Salvos. Just would’ve preferred if you weren’t so open about who we are.”
“Why not?”
I cocked my head. While I was getting better at reading Humans and their emotions, there was still a lot about them I had yet to learn about.
“Because we’re being hunted right now. We don’t know how far the reach of the Harrowed Vindicators stretches. If they have some influence in Warrington— and that was some kind of trap to get us arrested…”
“Hu—”
Daniel shot me a glance.
“Please don’t say ‘huh’.”
“...hm.”
Sighing, he rubbed at his temples.
“I’m just telling you, Salvos. We have to be a little more careful next time, ok?”
“Sure!”
“I agree with Princess Salvos!”
Rachel piped up from next to me; I grinned and triumphantly held up her hand— she chose to walk with me over Daniel this time— and showed it to the Human man.
“My subject and I will be careful. So there’s no need to worry! As long as you follow me, you’ll never be in trouble, right Rachel? It was because I taught you how to punch an annoying person, grumpy Daniel is still alive.”
She happily nodded her head with me.
“I’m telling you, she’s not even a… nevermind. Just don’t teach her to punch me down there, and we’ll be solid.”
“But we are solid. See?”
I tapped my hand, showing how my skin took the impact of my finger. Then I cocked my head and Rachel copied me.
“You know that’s not what I meant. And can we be serious for a moment? We have other things to discuss.”
“Like what?”
“The Devil.”
We were passing through a busy market with voices drowning out any single conversation from being heard, yet Daniel spoke in a hushed whisper. He faced me with a dark look; his eyes were shadowed over, fear and worry written all over his body.
“If this person… is actually able to beat you just like that. And appear anytime he wants. What if he comes back for you— like when you’re trying to collect summoning collars again.”
I huffed and waved a hand off.
“He told me he liked me. He found me funny! So he wouldn’t kill me.”
“You don’t actually believe that, do you?”
“...nope.”
Daniel gave me a judging look but I just shrugged.
“Anyone can die at any time. So why worry about someone who can just teleport behind me and cut off my head before I can even react? It’s fine!”
“I know… I’m just thinking about what you said last night, you know?”
“About the Valiant Dreamers Company?”
He nodded.
“Yeah, they may be good people and good fighters— according to Edithe— but that’s exactly why I don’t want to give them too much trouble. If they get targeted by both Demons and the Harrowed Vindicators because of us… I don’t want that.”
“Well, if you really want, I can get Saffron to help us—”
I began to reach into my bag, but Daniel grabbed my hand and stopped me. He gave me a pleading look.
“Please don’t. Once again, we don’t know who they’re affiliated with. And I don’t know if we can trust a noble.”
I frowned.
“But she’s nice!”
I protested as I walked next to him— then slowly felt something lightly tugging at my hand and came to a stop. I turned to face Rachel who was standing still. Her arm was extended, pulling me back.
The little girl’s gaze slowly spun around the busy market. She went from stall to stall, looking at shops and food stands, her eyes bulging and her mouth watering. I bent over next to her and peered past her shoulder.
“Do you want something, Rachel?”
She jumped and faced me.
“Me? I— no.”
Rachel’s gaze slid off my face and to the ground. She spoke shyly as she shuffled her feet.
“I-it’s just my first time in a big city. Daddy… never brought me to one, but mommy would always tell me stories about it. And there’s so many things that she talked about here. I was just… awed. That’s all.”
“Do you want anything?”
I gave her a curious look. She backed up and waved her hands in the air.
“No, no, no! It’s fine! I was just looking. We can continue!”
I exchanged a glance with Daniel and he gave me simply wrinkled his brows. I spun back to her and gave her a thumbs up.
“I told you, I’m a Princess. I’ll get you whatever you want.”
Rachel slowly perked up. Her eyes widened and she stared at me with those orange-yellow irises of hers. She hesitated for a moment, but eventually spoke up in a squeak.
“Then— then I want that!”
The little girl pointed at a doll being displayed at the front of a small shop set up on the side of the street. I beamed back at her, nodding.
“Of course!”
Then I turned around.
“Daniel, can you get that for her?”
“You… haaa…”
The Human man shook his head.
“You can’t even buy her a cheap doll and yet you call yourself a Princess…”
“Listen! From what you told me, Princesses get people to do things for them!”
“I mean, fair. But you can't just make promises you aren’t able to deliver on.”
“But I can deliver on it. I’ll just ask you to buy it, see?”
“You’re lucky the [Cultists] had some spare money for us. Otherwise, we’d be broke right now.”
“Didn’t we just get paid by Saffron?”
“We used the coins to buy healing potions, remember?”
“Huh.”
The three of us went to the stall and bought the doll from the shopkeep. Rachel jumped up in the air and spun with it. She stared into its black button eyes, rustled its curly blonde hair, and fluffed its purple dress. Then she hugged it.
“I’m going to name you Princess!”
I blinked and Daniel snickered.
“Hey! Wait—”
“Regret your decision now, Salvos?”
I scowled and crossed my arms. But Rachel did not even notice me, continuing to play with Princess, waving her in the air.
“Hmph! It’s fine, but I’m sure she knows who the real princess here is. Since I am the one who bought it for her, after all.”
“I’m sure she does.”
The girl giggled, twirling the doll around and stopped. She sniffed the air as a scent wafted its way to us. Her stomach rumbled and her face turned red.
“I, um—”
Rachel looked over at us but did not say anything. I realized what was going on too late; Daniel smiled and stepped forward, bending down to meet her gaze.
“What’s wrong, are you hungry?”
She nodded slowly and Daniel beamed.
“Well, that’s alright. Come on, thanks to Princess Salvos, you can have anything and everything you want to eat here in the market. Don’t be afraid to just point out any food stand you think looks yummy and you can have it.”
I stared on, aghast, as the two conspired about having food. I caught Daniel glancing back at me with a wicked face, reveling in his vengeance against me. I jabbed a finger accusingly at him.
“Whatever happened to an eye for an eye makes the whole world go blind?”
He shrugged.
“I’m not G——i.”
…
“Who?”
—--
After spending the whole day walking up and down the market of Warrington, Rachel left the street fully satisfied, hugging Princess and patting her tummy. Meanwhile Daniel and I glared at each other, both of us swearing to settle this grudge match at a later date.
For now, we found our way to the captain that had called us to the guard barracks back during the afternoon. It was now evening, and while Daniel was not too ecstatic to make a report despite not getting any rest, he was almost out of money and we were supposed to get paid for our mission.
The guards led us to a small office located on the second floor of the building; there, the three of us entered the room and found the same Human man from before.
“You’ve returned. And with a… friend. I take it this means you’ve found something?”
“Yeah. We found the hideout of the [Cultists].”
He nodded grimly. Daniel opened his mouth to continue, but the captain raised a hand and cut him off.
“Please spare me the details. I… don’t want to know what kind of atrocities they committed.”
His eyes stayed off of Rachel— even though we had bought her new clothes, she was still dirty and slightly bloodied from the fight with the assassins.
“I just want to know if they’ve been taken care of and where my men can find proof of this.”
“Right.”
Daniel walked up to the captain's desk and began pointing out on a map the rough location of the cave from the town where the Traveller’s Inn was located.
“There’s a collapsed cave there. You won’t be able to find much evidence since a lot of things were destroyed in the fighting—”
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