"Hey."

"Hey!"

"Are you alright there?"

The pain gradually subsided.

"What's the matter, you look like you're in pain."

"I-I'm alright now."

That was weird.

Maybe that was something important to me.

"Here, have some water."

The guard passed me a drink bottle.

"Thanks."

Gradually more and more buildings appeared. We were nearing the city centre. It was getting pretty late into the after, the sun was just beginning to set and we had around fifteen minutes left until we arrived.

"What just happened?" The guard asked me.

"I just had a little headache, I'm all right now."

"Ok."

A purple and orange aura began appearing around the clouds. It was quite a beautiful sunset. There was still a decent amount of light. We made our way into the centre of the city. There was a huge amount of shops. They had an old London feel to them, with lots of brick and stone buildings.

It was very relatively heavily populated, despite it being pretty late into the night.

"We'll find an inn for you."

Our carriage travelled around the city. I kept an eye out for any inns nearby.

The city was quite bustling.

I looked in the pouch I was given to see how much money I actually had. Shaking the pouch around I saw two gold coins, five silver and two bronze. I still wasn't exactly sure of the value of the coins, but I assumed that it was quite a bit.

"Here's one."

We stopped in front of a relatively large old-fashioned building. It had a big sign that said Adventurers Inn - 1 silver per night.

"How much bronze is a silver coin worth?" I asked.

"A silver coin is worth five bronze and one gold is worth twelve silver."

Oh, I see, it was quite an awkward scaling system but it helped me get a grasp of the value of each coin and how much I had.

"Alright, go inside and see if they have room, if they do, tell us and we'll go."

"Ok."

I made my way inside the Inn.

I was greeted by a young girl, who looked slightly younger than I was, dressed in a long brown collared dress, it looked like it could've been a variation of maid uniform.

"Welcome, adventurer!"

Interesting greeting... I wonder how many times she's said that today

"How many people are with you?" She asked.

"Just me."

"I see."

Why are you looking at me like that? It's normal to be alone...

"I'll go check to see if we have any rooms for you."

She walked towards an older maid, who was dressed in a more proper, dark brown outfit.

After a short conversation, she came back over.

"Yes, we have quite a few rooms. Do you want the standard room or the deluxe room?"

"I'll just have the standard one."

She looked at me disappointingly.

Stop... Is this some marketing strategy or something...? It's hurting my feelings.

"Alright, you can have room five. I'll just go get the keys for you."

I used the opportunity to quickly duck out and inform the guard that I was going to stay there for the night.

"Cool, we'll be going back now."

"Isn't it going to be nighttime?"

"It's ok Alister's been training here and he'll be coming back with us so we'll be fine."

"Alister?"

"Yeah, he's Alfonso's eldest child and only son."

"Oh, I see, is he really strong?"

"He's one of Lucia's guards, so he's basically one of the strongest warriors there is."

"Oh, doesn't he need to be guarding her though, why is he going home?"

"I heard that they've just recently trained a new recruit for the guard team so he can take a week off."

"Oh, that's nice."

"Honestly, I'm not sure why Lucia needs many guards anyways." He said.

"How many does she have?"

"Four, but I'm sure she'd be fine without any."

"What? Why's that?"

"Basically her brother's like the strongest fighter in the entire world."

"Are you talking about Fourier?"

"Yeah."

Suddenly I heard a girl calling for me from the Inn.

"Hey! Get in here, do you want your key or not? I've been waiting here for like five minutes while you've been busy chatting with your driver!"

Whoops, I completely forgot about that.

"Well, I'll be off now," I told the guard.

"Ok, stay safe out here."

I quickly made my way back into the Inn.

The sun was almost completely set, there was only a slight bit of light just barely giving me enough vision to see where I was going.

I walked towards the grumpy girl.

"Sorry, I got sidetracked."

"Whatever, it'll be six bronze." She demanded.

"Wait, but didn't the sign say one silver."

"Well, since I hate you so much I decided to raise the price."

Surely you can't do that...

"You're joking right...?"

She looked at me sternly.

"Do I look like I'm joking?"

I was being reprimanded by this middle school girl...

You know what, it's fine, I've got a decent amount of money anyways, getting into further conflict with this girl would just be annoying.

"Fine."

I pulled out a silver coin and a bronze coin.

As I took the coins out she snatched them out of my hand and threw the key at me.

I stumbled as I quickly caught the key.

"At least you have decent reflexes."

This girl...

I made my way up the stairs near the back of the reception area. The stairs made a creaky noise as I walked up them.

Room one... Room two... Room three... Room four... Room six... Room seven... hold on, where's room five?

I saw rooms one to four on one side and rooms six to eight on the other...

I walked around, checking to make sure I didn't miss it.

Where is room five?!

I made my way back downstairs.

I'm going to find that girl and complain. I glanced around looking for the girl.

"Wait a moment!" I heard a loud shout from one of the large customers in the bar section of the Inn. He was a sturdy man with a thick beard and looked quite drunk.

"I'm sorry I just need the payment..." The girl was cowering as she spoke to the man.

"Shut up, get out of here!" He continued to shout at the girl.

She's like fourteen, maybe calm down...?

I looked over at the older maid who turned away as soon as I looked at her.

What is this... Did they have no care for each other...?

I still needed to sort out my room.

"I really need to get the money... otherwise the boss will ge-"

The man slammed his jug of beer on the table. Splashing beer all over the table and the two of them.

"What did I say! Go Away!"

A few of his friends started laughing loudly.

Oh boy...

I didn't care much about this, she deserved it anyways.

I'll just sort out my room issue.

I slowly walked towards the girl.

"Please... I'm begging yo-"

The intoxicated man swung his fist towards the girl, just barely missing her face. The swing blew her hair, swaying it a little.

"You know what?! Come here you brat!"

The man suddenly stood up.

"Hey, I think you gave me the wrong room..." I tried to speak to the girl.

Suddenly she rushed over to me and hid behind me, grabbing onto my shirt.

Not this situation again...

"Hey, kid, what do you think you're doing, holding onto me." I confronted her.

"Please, he's scary..."

"I don't forget my grudges, now get off, you're getting beer on me and it stinks."

I hadn't drunk alcohol before but I didn't like the smell of it very much.

"I'm sorry, please just do something."

Ughhh...

"Why are you covering the girl?!" The man was shouting at me.

Not this again... I wasn't protecting her...

I looked around at the people around me. Everyone seemed to be turning a blind eye to this situation.

I don't want to be here.

The man began walking towards me.

Nope, he's way bigger than me, I'm out.

I shook the girl off my back and scurried towards the stairs.

Why is this literally going the exact same way as that other one...?

The girl suddenly fell onto her knees after I left her. Tears were streaming down her face as she looked up at the man who had his hand in a fist.

Ok, maybe I really should do something...

Help her.

Ow, I felt the voice in my head again.

Ugh... but I don't want a repeat of last time. I was basically disabled for an entire day...

The poor crying girl had her hair all messed and covering her face, her tears dripping to the ground.

"Hey, maybe you shouldn't resort to violence... You could get in trouble..." I tried to convince the man.

"Get your nose out of this!"

This wasn't going to be easy.

He held his arm back as if he was going to punch her.

Crap.

I quickly stuck my arm in, pulling her back by the collar of her dress. His hand just barely stopped in front of her face.

"Stop, you'll get arrested by the guards if they catch you doing this." I tried again to convince him.

"Ha, me? Arrested by the guards? Are you joking?!"

I wasn't sure if he was just drunk or if that was actually the law enforcement situation here. Either way, he showed no signs of backing down.

The man tensed up, looking like he was going to charge at us.

Oh no.

He suddenly started storming at us. I quickly grabbed the girl under her arms and dived out of the way of his path of attack. I was still holding her, the two of us were now on the ground, I could feel my arm getting wet from her tears and the beer that was splashed on her before.

Goddammit, this was not going to end well.