1

The town of Mescala served as a model example of mankind’s ability to flourish in places where no natural animal community would consider settling, for no particular reason or attachment to the land, but simply as the unwitting side-effect of trade. It was a convenient stopping point between the northern and the southern realms; just about close enough to the civilized lands for even smaller trader vessels to reach, yet far enough for the grip of the Law to grow suitably loose. Whatever honest trade failed to provide was made up for by entrepreneurs of the less honorable kind, and sometimes the difference between a good merchant and a dishonest one got elusive. Stolen goods from the south would trade hands here before being passed onto the north, where their old owners knew not to look for them, whereas the smugglers would return home bearing impersonal coin, now provably their own, all evidence of lawlessness disposed of.

Being a fruitful venue for less virtuous businesses might have made Mescala seem like nothing but a den of villainy in the eyes of a reputable citizen, but the locals saw their home in a different light. Criminals were ultimately humans too, complete with all assorted complexities. Nothing stopped a thief from acquiring legitimate merchandise via the proper channels, even while he added to the selection from wares not entirely his own. There was no reason why a counterfeiter couldn’t have genuine quality products for sale too, right next to worthless ones, all at equally reasonable prices. Surely it was only the customer’s own fault, for not having a more discerning eye, if they bought something which was not what they thought it was? An old witch trading bogus fortunes and impotent charms was hardly the worst offender in the world, even if not the most upright citizen either, and could still brew excellent tea. None of these people would consider themselves even a little evil; they were merely seeking to make a living in an unforgiving world, the best they could. And all these low-grade reprobates loathed and feared killers, slavers, and such like menaces with a passion no lesser than a saintly school teacher, and would have been severely offended by any attempt to group them all together. The majority of the people of Mescala had no part in anything too sinister, although they also knew to look the other way when in contact with activities of the darker variety. For their own good.

The town lay nestled at the muddy bottom of a small bay, whence the cape of Mescala extended northwest. The houses and walkways drew partly over the shallow water, facing the sea with a mixed barrier of sketchy wood piers and store shacks. The main part of the town was but a dirty, gray heap of wretched, matchbox buildings, most with thin plate roofing, partially painted by rust, others with barely a few sticks across for cover. A rough wall of clay brick circled the area, inside which the houses were crammed closely together, like rodents seeking warmth from one another, forming a delirious maze of barely arm-wide alleyways, impossible for a new face to navigate. There were only a few larger lanes for the heavier traffic, and it was wisest for travelers to keep to those and refrain from exploration.

Every time Izumi visited the town on her unavoidable shopping trips, she could feel the stares of numerous eyes on her. No matter how well she tried to blend with the crowds, her foreign looks and bearing drew attention. She was certain that should she turn her back, she would find her horse eaten to the bone, or worse.

It was mostly only her paranoia. Nothing too terrible happened.

No one tried to rob or kidnap the woman, and no one touched Masamune or the cart where she left them. Izumi did get accosted by various merchants when they learned she had money—at first—but they generally believed a firm “no”. And when they didn’t, a tight wrist-lock, or a judo throw would drive home the message for the more eager vendors. In a couple of weeks, they already knew what to expect and left the odd woman in peace.

Buying a house and settling down also helped Izumi’s case. Even the criminals had their own code of sorts. “You don’t eat from your own cart” was an ages-old principle of theirs, saying that targeting the locals was off-limits. Tourists, soldiers, pilgrims, uninducted merchants, and such like passing guests were all free game, but it would have been only short-sighted to chase off a stable source of income.

Over the course of her stay, Izumi also became familiar with the more reputable businesses around, including the general goods store, blacksmith, tailor, herbalist, butcher, and carpenter. Though they were initially wary of a foreigner, they did value her patronage and always made sure to include something extra to her orders, to ensure she would come back with more coin. And, in turn, to ensure that she remained in their good books for the days to come, Izumi would tip them with a suitably generous hand.

Like this, the summoned champion’s retirement days in the land of Melgier passed with unexpected calm and ease, almost like in the many fictional novellas she had read in her land of origin. The horrors she had been through were a thing of the past now, and even if she got a bit lonely at times, Izumi had no particular cause to regret her decision. But life in such a desolate corner of the world wasn’t going to remain spotless sunshine for all time, and there eventually came a day when Izumi made closer contact with the less desirable sides of her new home.

In the eastern part of the town was a shop Millie had told her about, where a local farmer sold seeds and buds. Buying a bagful of additions for her vegetable garden, Izumi headed back to the central square, where she tended to leave her cart at the common hitching post. Then, carrying the goods in her arms, busily rearranging the garden layout in her mind, Izumi ended up taking a wrong turn by accident.

All of a sudden, the tall, rundown buildings around her weren’t so familiar anymore. Not at all. But retaining a fairly solid grasp of the general directions, trusting in her mental mini-map, Izumi wouldn’t turn around but walked on, thinking she would get around to the marketplace sooner or later anyway. It was a small town, after all.

But time after time again, Izumi met a dead end and had to go further around, straying only deeper and deeper into the labyrinthine slums at the northern Mescala, growing steadily more restless in the process.

There was no one to ask for directions—no one decent, that is.

Sitting in the mud by the doorless doorways, resting their backs against the slanted, worm-eaten walls, or leaning out over the rotten window sills were grim, dried, wrinkled, malnourished people, most of them quite aged and sun-parched. They followed the woman’s every move with their sunken, piercing eyes, their expressions spite itself. It didn’t need to be said that Izumi didn’t belong here, she felt it all too keenly in her bones. And while she would have gladly left immediately, she couldn’t tell how.

To get away from the haunting stares, Izumi quickened her steps, and turned to pass through another dark, cramped crack between the buildings. And then, turning again from the next corner, she found herself suddenly face to face with a highly eccentric character, worlds apart from the general populace.

There was a man dressed in a curious outfit, like a circus director; a gray-blue tuxedo and expensive leather shoes, complete with a dandy topper. Although, the outfit was also rather worn, and the trousers caked in mud from the knees down.

Nevertheless, the man pivoted to face Izumi with the composure of someone spotless clean—or rather, someone who had never known cleanliness in his life.

“Greetings,” the man told her without a hint of surprise, as if he had stood there the whole day just waiting for her. “Might I have a word, milady?”

As Izumi unwittingly stopped in surprise, the man lifted his hat and courteously bowed. He had a trimmed, blond mustache and a short goatee, and short hair, combed to one side, though the damp sea air made it look rather dirty and sticky. But he was not old, probably not over thirty yet, and pale like someone who favored night instead of day.

Everything about the man approximated decency, yet was somehow off and unsavory at the same time. One look into his light blue eyes made Izumi frown with caution. It was an unflinching, steady look he gave, and all human emotion was absent from it.

Izumi knew that gaze well. It was the look of someone completely heartless and mad.

The man stood at the corner of a tall building, painted sky blue, looking markedly newer than the others in the neighborhood. Beside him was an open doorway, and above him hung a sign board saying simply, “Loyd’s”.

“My apologies for the interruption, milady,” the man spoke as Izumi remained quiet, putting his hat back on. “But little birds have told me you are a proud new resident of our merry little community. On behalf of myself and my company, I wish to offer you a few words of welcome.”

“Uh, thanks?” Izumi replied, unsure if she should start running already.

“I have also heard you are one of considerable wealth,” the man continued. “I have been looking for the opportunity to make your acquaintance, and now that one has been given, I was wondering if you wouldn’t be willing to hear me out for but a little while longer?”

“My, my,” Izumi sighed and shook her head, “have I been splurging too much, or do you say that to every lost gal you see?”

“Not at all,” he replied. “Mind you, it is not a bad thing, by any means—to have money. Giving such an impression couldn’t be farther from my intentions. Our world revolves around money, around those with money, for those with money, and this is well. It is exactly as it should be. I have no intention whatsoever to part you from your property, milady, but on the contrary, to help you hold onto it yet firmer, and make it grow to new heights. For the presence of generous patrons such as yourself in Mescala is sure to bring prosperity to the community as a whole. Such is my firm belief.”

“So, what are you selling?” she asked. “Let me guess, life insurance?”

“No.” The man answered. “I trade labor, milady.”

“Labor?”

“Indeed.” He nodded. “Working hands are always in high demand, wherever humans gather and live. The more talented the better. The cheaper the better. You live alone, by what I’ve heard. Taking care of an entire household is a lot of work for one person. I know this. And it will not get any easier for you in time. As a person grows older, their strength leaves them, until only standing and breathing seems like too much trouble. You will want someone strong by your side when the time comes.”

“Could you not make that sound like it’s an immediate concern?” Izumi blankly asked. “I’ve filleted people for less than that.”

“Goodness, take it not as an insult, milady!” the man replied. “It is an inevitable law of life. I am merely asking you to recognize the truth. Surely you do not wish to end up like old Mrs Wafcher from house twelve? She barely holds onto life, yet is too prideful to ask for aid. The rich need not ask, they command. Employ a servant and they will do what you alone are unable or unwilling to. That is what my business is all about. Helping hard-working people find employment, helping employers find worthwhile labor, thereby forming bonds of mutually beneficial cooperation. For but a small investment, it is possible to acquire loyal, tireless workers. Not only will the quality of your life significantly improve, you will soon make back the cost through the increased profitability of your estate. Your paltry vegetable plot can be made into a garden to feed dozens. Would you not like to hear more?”

Izumi hesitated. She couldn’t easily deny that she could’ve used a helping hand. She had never been a hard worker in her life, and the house project was indeed kind of tiresome. But she also had enough life experience to see that a company employing such a suspicious person would likely not be her shortcut to easy living, if not the opposite of it.

“Just to be sure,” she said. “On a scale of one to ten, how willing is this cheap labor of yours?”

“As willing as they should be?” the man answered with a shrug. “Life gives us precious few choices, as far as I can see: work for what you eat, or else go hungry. Freedom of will is the luxury of the rich. Judge not those who have nothing! As I said, all I do is help motivation meet opportunity. The rest is entirely between the employer and the employee. Our responsibility as a company ends there.”

The man gestured towards the doorway.

“Would you like to have a look at our wares?” he asked. “Only looking costs you nothing. Please, step inside, and we shall see if we may come to an agreement.”

Izumi knew it was a bad idea, yet driven by morbid curiosity, confident in her strength, she ended up departing from the street and followed the man into the building. They passed through a shady little lobby, where a fat man resembling a giant toad sat behind a desk in the corner. There was a large, bouncer-like fellow in the back, imitating a Chinese statue, and they passed him deeper into the building, coming out in a large, dark hall.

There were no lights, only a tiny little window high up in the gable, but Izumi’s eyes gradually adjusted to the shadows. And as they did, she was able to tell exactly how terrible a choice she had made to enter.

There were no separate rooms or furniture.

The open hall was full of cages, wooden containers of various sizes. Through the gaps between the loosely spaced boards, one could see that inside were no circus animals waiting for a show, but the wares the man had been speaking of, his “labor”, the motivated employees looking for “job opportunities”. And they were people treated as no different from beasts, locked up and barely dressed, men and women of various ages. There had to have been dozens of them in all.

As if their treatment weren’t unsavory enough as it was, not all of them were strictly human. One looked like a gekko the size of a slim man, standing up in his box, tailless and green. One was like a lynx, covered in short, spotted, orange-white fur, eyes wild and piercing, but with human hands and legs. In one cage in the back was a creature that looked like a black bear, but had no visible face, eyes, or mouth, pacing restlessly back and forth in the small cubic space.

Izumi had to exert every ounce of self-restraint to keep her expression neutral. The heat emanating from the captives was enough to warm up the room. The smell was beyond description and made hair stand on the back of her neck.

“Did I take a wrong turn somewhere and end up in Morr**ind?” she muttered, half to hide her fear.

“Please pay them no heed,” the topper man said, walking on. “Curse victims, freaks of nature, and the like. They are of no use to anyone, yet there are collectors out there who will pay handsomely for any peculiar characters. The subjects find themselves a caring home, out of the wild where they would only needlessly perish, and our community is that much wealthier for it. This way, if you will. I believe the materials up ahead are more suited to your needs.”

The man led Izumi to a taller container, where they stopped. Inside the box stood an enormous giant of a man, muscular and dark, clad in only a loincloth, a dangerous gleam in his eyes, his expression grim and sullen.

“This Estuan is finely suited for manual labor,” the topper man told Izumi. “Strong, loyal, hard-working, tireless. Everything you could ask for. Highly virile, he will not disappoint in the bedroom either, should that be your will.”

“Err,” Izumi forced herself to grunt, barely daring to breathe. “And what’s keeping a tank like him from making a slave out of me?”

“All our talents are insured with a charm, courtesy to our house mage,” the man answered. “Once you sign the certificate of ownership, you will have absolute control of your worker, willingly given, as per our terms of service. They will not be able to harm you, though they may refuse orders that would be harmful to them. You see, we take the well-being of our merchandise very seriously and would not gladly see them be misused.”

“And what do you think about that, big guy?” Izumi asked the slave.

The Estuan would say nothing but continued to stare at her through the holes of his prison.

“I’m afraid they are not allowed to speak at present,” the topper man told her. “Until you have signed the contract and paid for them, that is.”

“That sure doesn’t seem sketchy at all,” Izumi remarked.

“Why, if they could make so much as a sound, there would be such an infernal racket going on we wouldn’t be able to converse at all. Since they would all be only too eager to win your favor and enter your service, milady.”

“Whatever you say.”

“Would you be interested in purchasing the Estuan then?” he asked. “He is our finest asset at the moment, but as a first time customer, I am willing to give you a handsome discount. His talents shall be yours for only forty-eight marks of gold.”

“Almost fifty gold? Pricey!” Izumi commented.

“For a man’s life, skills, and obedience? I wouldn’t say so.”

“Well, I’m going to have to pass, anyway,” she said. “His, uh, doubtless great skills would only go to waste at my little cottage.”

“I see,” the topper man nodded without taking offense. “Mayhap this one would be more to your tastes then?”

They moved on, to another cage further down, where stood a different man, barely any less of a brute than the Estuan, and just as lightly dressed, but paler by complexion, clearly showing the long scars running across his torso. His hair was long and honey-brown, framing his scruffy, bristled face.

“This man hails from Fienna in the north,” the topper man introduced. “Trained with sword and shield from a young age, he would make for an excellent bodyguard. With little guidance, I am certain he would become an apt farmer too. But he is of a barbarian race, inexperienced, and unfortunately illiterate, which makes him quite a bit more economic than the Estuan. His strength shall be yours for only thirty marks of gold.”

“Um, sorry, gonna have to pass up on this one too,” Izumi said outright, trying hard not to puke.

How can I get out of here without painting a huge target on my back, damn it!?

By now, she could tell well enough that the true nature of this company was exactly as she had guessed at first, or even worse. If she bought no one and walked out while making a big show of morality, the slavers were likely going to consider her a risk to their operation. That was going to complicate things. But if she bought someone at random, it was going to mean a lot of trouble in its own way. What would she even do with a slave? Reality rarely worked out like erotic fantasy novels, and money wouldn’t buy anyone’s sympathy. She should have never come in but kept going without looking back!

Now it was too late.

Against Izumi’s innate wishes, the tour went on.

Following after the slaver, thinking he was probably the Loyd the business was named after, Izumi happened to glance across the aisle. A few paces ahead, gripping the boards of her little cage, staring intently at the woman with the whites of her eyes glowing in the dark, was Riswelze.

“Hi——!?”

Izumi jumped with a sharp gasp and staggered back a step, bumping into the cage behind her. She failed to hide her shock this time. It was pure reflex.

Looking again, she didn’t see the ghost of the rogue assassin anymore, but only a random teen. The girl had similarly curled hair, but that was as far as the likeness went. She was paler and her eyes were blue, not green. And she was younger, skinny, not a killer or an acrobat, just a child.

“What are you doing?” Loyd asked the slave. In his hand had appeared a black cane with a silvery knob, which he used to smack the front of the box, driving the slave back. “Can’t you see you are frightening our customer?”

The girl retreated but continued to stare at Izumi without blinking. That stare was downright haunting. Looking away to escape it, Izumi mustered what was left of her shattered composure and kept walking.

They neared the end of the hall. Loyd made various offers.

There was a woman older than Izumi herself, good at cooking and cleaning, supposedly, but not very strong, past her best before-date, thirty silver. A young man, the son of a deceased noble, quick to learn but inexperienced and not all that strong, forty-five silver. A man with magical aptitude, affinity for water, trained by a witch from his home village, albeit weak in potency and unaccustomed to manual labor, thirty-two silver. A woman, an ex-prostitute who couldn’t pay her debts, secondhand but healthy, twenty-four silver. Izumi let the sales pitches flow in through one ear and out the other, thinking she had to get out, or else she’d go insane. She had seen a lot in her life, even before coming to this savage world, terrible things from dark confines of the internet. She had thought she was beyond care. She had been wrong. Standing there in the physical presence of these very real and tangible people, their madness and plight, no one could be left unaffected. No one with a soul, that is. Mr Loyd, on the other hand, appeared completely at ease, as if merely showing off the vegetables of the season.

On the way back to the entrance, they passed again by the cage with the girl resembling Riswelze. Izumi unwittingly met her eyes again. The girl kept on staring at the woman. What was she thinking? What would she have said, if given the freedom to speak?

Izumi stopped. She hadn’t meant to and tried to keep walking again, but her legs wouldn’t listen to her. It was a bad idea, a bad idea in a list of so many bad ideas today, yet there was simply no helping it.

“This one…” Izumi quietly spoke. “How much is she?”

Loyd stopped and turned slowly around.

“My dear lady,” he said, “I would not recommend this one to you.”

“And why’s that?”

“As you can see, the girl is young and weak,” he explained. “We received her in a rather poor condition. We would not normally accept such subpar goods at all, but her circumstances were slightly...special. She is still in the middle of her training, and has barely learned how to read. She is unsuited to manual labor, possesses no magical aptitude, nor any other talents worthy of note. I’m afraid she would be of no use to you. Therefore, I couldn’t trade her to you in good conscience.”

“I see,” Izumi said. “Well, skills and such don’t really matter to me. If you don’t need her, I’ll take her off your hands. Wouldn’t that be more convenient for you?”

Loyd glanced at the slave, hesitating.

“As you wish,” he then answered with a slow nod. “The customer is always right. The child shall be yours for forty silver.”

“Forty?” Izumi repeated, stunned. “And how’s that any fair? How is someone you just labeled as useless suddenly more expensive than a working adult? Where’s that big first-time discount you promised?”

“Why, markets are always dictated by demand,” the man replied. “You have just created the demand.”

“And I’m starting to think you’re not giving me the whole story here,” Izumi retorted, growing irritated. “What’s wrong with the girl, for real?”

Loyd wouldn’t immediately answer. He stood frozen, hands behind his back, and while the look on his face remained blank and vacant, he was doubtless performing various obscure calculations in his mind. However, his brainwork shortly came to an end and he faced Izumi again, flashing a most unpleasant smile, and said,

“Take it or leave it.”

2

Finally out of the terrible building and in broad daylight again, Izumi drew a deep breath, and exhaled a sigh of relief, as if she had been diving in deep waters for all this time. She felt to the soul stained by the visit to that terrible den of evil, and it was going to take a good while, before the vaguely nauseous feeling, the smell, and the horror would leave her. She then resumed her trip to the marketplace and her horse.

By becoming willingly involved in their shady business, Loyd shouldn’t have had any reason to consider Izumi a threat, nor trouble her afterwards. Or so she hoped. All Izumi wanted was to go back to her uneventful daily life, and not start a personal war with the slave traders and all their associates in the region. The law was not on her side here. Even only a cursory look had told her that the local town guard was a joke, and most likely bought out by the villains. Playing law-abiding citizen and reporting Loyd to the authorities was liable to land her in jail herself—if she was lucky.

But she had made it. Or had she? Even this outcome was, as expected, plenty troublesome on its own.

Izumi glanced over her shoulder. A few steps after her plodded the girl she had bought. A furtive creature touched by fear, looking even paler in the sunlight than she had indoors. Her eyes had dark circles, her nearly black hair was all tangled. Had she lived in a cave for all her life, or had she been stolen from some noble’s castle? Izumi didn’t think she even wanted to know.

The slave was dressed in a simple, gray cotton dress that reached her bony knees, and had little cloth shoes, probably provided by the establishment. No necklaces, no earrings, no jewelry, nothing to identify her by. There was a tattoo on the side of her neck, on the right, depicting a fat spider, barely hidden by her locks. Likely not her own choice.

Even now, the girl kept staring at Izumi, her face unreadable.

Great. I’ve gone and bought a slave. I’m the bottom rung of isekai protagonists now. What the heck am I going to do with her?

“Say, you can talk now, right?” Izumi asked the girl. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“I do,” the girl glumly replied and looked away.

“That’s good. I’m no mind reader, you know? But it kinda looked like you had a lot to say back there. No need to hold back now. Whatever you’re thinking, you can just come out and say it, I’ve no rules about that.”

Whether she did or didn’t have anything on her mind, the girl wouldn’t explain herself, but stepped quietly along.

“So, what’s your name?” Izumi asked.

“Iris,” the girl answered.

“Iris? That’s a surprisingly normal name, for a fantasy girl. Even I can pronounce that well enough. Do you have a family name too, Iris?”

“No,” Iris answered.

“No? You sure about that? What were your mom or dad called?”

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t know?” Izumi repeated. “You do have a mom and dad, don’t you? You weren’t born into slavery, were you?”

“I was not,” the girl muttered, but said no more.

“So you don’t wanna talk about them? Your family, I mean. Do you know where they are now?”

Iris shook her head.

“No?” Izumi asked. “Do you remember at all where you used to live? What kind of a place was it? What was it called?”

Iris shook her head again.

“Nothing? Was it hot, was it cold? Desert? Forest?”

“I don’t know,” Iris only said.

“What about other relatives? Aunts? Step-moms? Greasy uncles? Anybody?”

The girl shook her head to all questions.

“Kinda drawing a blank here,” Izumi groaned. “Geez. Taking you back to your folks would’ve been the most obvious next step, but what can I do if you tell me nothing?”

The girl made no reply. Izumi walked on, trying to think.

“How are you feeling?” she asked. “He said you were in bad shape when they got you? They did at least give you some food, right?”

“Yes,” Iris said. “I’m not sick.”

“I suppose so. Would be bad for business if they didn’t take care of their 'merchandise'. They wouldn’t get far like that. But you are definitely gonna need a bath, young lady. And a comb. And a change of clothes…And a sandwich. Lots of sandwiches.”

Again, Iris wouldn’t comment. Apparently, asking anything about her past, parents, or the company was not allowed, and if no direct response was required, she kept quiet. Unfortunate, but predictable. It was going to take some time to convince her she was safe enough to speak now.

“Uh, how old are you, by the way?” Izumi asked. “With the rating committee in mind.”

“Sixteen,” Iris said.

“Should’ve said thirteen, might’ve believed that.”

No comment.

“Really, where on earth did they pick you up…?”

One way or the other, they found their way back to the central plaza. Masamune was still waiting with the cart at the hitching post on the south side, and Izumi wanted to sing out of joy, when she could finally throw her shopping bag in the cart.

“Well, here’s the thing,” Izumi said, starting to unravel the horse’s leash. “Once we get you cleaned up, washed up, and properly fed, let’s look for a—huh?”

Feeling an abrupt shifting of weight on her hips, Izumi turned around. Iris wasn’t next to her anymore. Instead, the girl was dashing away at full speed, weaving past the market stalls and customers filling the plaza, towards an alleyway directly in the north.

“The heck…?” Izumi reflexively tapped her coat pocket. Her money purse was gone.

She didn’t need to ponder too hard how she had lost it.

“Hey! Stop!” she called after Iris. “That’s—that’s an illegal move! Stop! Stop! This is an order, Iris! You have to stop!”

Izumi’s yelling had no discernible effect. Iris continued to run, disappearing into the narrow, shaded crack between the houses, and was then out of sight. Judging by the girl’s utter lack of reaction, she hadn’t even expected anything to happen either.

The command spell wasn’t working. Had such a thing been real to begin with? Most likely not.

Stunned, Izumi had no choice but to face the facts.

She had been royally fooled. Again.

“Damn.”

Iris wouldn’t slow down to look back, but ran on as hard as she could. She had the route memorized. Right from the first turn, then left from the second. Straight ahead for a hundred yards along the narrow, uneven cobble lane, which curved between the blackened hovels. Laundry ropes dangled like cobwebs overhead, dirty rags fluttering on them like flags in the sea wind.

Ahead was a T-crossing, but she was not to take either turn. Directly ahead was an alley full of garbage, blocked by a simple chickenwire fence. But there was a hole in the bottom corner of the fence, much too small for a regular adult to squeeze through, but just about wide enough for a lightweight girl.

Iris had to rein in her panic and take it slow there, so as to not get her hair or dress caught in the fence. The money pouch was heavy and slowed her. It took long, much too long, but there was no sound of anyone pursuing her. At last, getting all the way through, she tiptoed past the heaps of forgotten trash bags, where the stench of rotten fish hung thick, and ran on.

To the right from the next turn. The path drew a tight L-turn in the squeeze of the surrounding apartment buildings. Up ahead from the corner, to the right, was a blacksmith’s shop, through which she could take a shortcut. The blacksmith was a drunkard, hardly ever to be seen behind the anvil, the bellows untouched. No sound of a hammer could be heard today either. Iris passed in through the open backdoor, ran past the smelter, straight for the equally unobstructed front entrance, on to the empty street beyond.

From there, a wider street carried straight on, to a ruin of a fountain about two hundred yards away. Taking the middle path at the following three-branch split would bring her back to Loyd’s shop, completing the circle.

Iris never made it that far. As soon as she stepped out of the blacksmith’s door, a hand landed on her shoulder and pulled her forcibly aside.

“Yep, that’s about far enough,” Izumi told the girl.

Iris nearly fell over in shock. The woman had been left far behind at the markets—even if she knew the streets and could guess which way Iris would go, there was no way she could have gotten this far ahead of her in so short a time. It was unreal!

Yet, it was the same woman, no question about it.

“Don’t say ‘old’,” Izumi told the girl, “but this auntie wasn’t exactly born yesterday either. I wouldn’t normally take running steps for only a handful of silver, but there’s over twelve hundred miles to the nearest ATM, and I’m here to stay. Every penny counts, so you’re gonna have to give it back.”

Izumi tightened her grip. The girl was practically nothing but skin and bones, and she didn’t have to squeeze very hard for Iris to surrender the money pouch with a grimace. Izumi tossed the bag briefly on her palm to check if it had grown any lighter. All the coins appeared to be in place.

Something else was not.

“This too!” she then angrily shoved her fingers in Iris’s slightly bulging dress pocket, and retrieved the diamond ring from the bottom. “This thing’s worth more than your whole crappy town, young lady! Anything happens to it, I’ll be angry for reals. And trust me, you don’t want to see me like that.”

Iris stood staring off with a sullen face, obedient only for the fear of pain. It seemed she regretted her failure more than the criminal act itself.

“Okay, listen here,” Izumi told her. “I wasn’t looking for a slave. I bought you because...well, there are things you just can’t not do. I guess I thought I was being noble. Sucks to be me, right? I didn’t have any real intention to keep you, so as far as I’m considered, you’re already free. You don’t have to stick with me if you don’t want to. That’s fine. Do whatever you please. Go back to your real masters, if that’s what you want. If you do, then tell them I’ll gladly pay forty silver for this life lesson, so long as I’ll never have to see Mr Loyd, or his associates again. And if I do happen to spot that top hat somewhere another time, I might have to go out of my way to remind him why fraud is generally a really bad idea. Got it? Then this is bye-bye.”

Having said all she had to say, not too sure why she even bothered, Izumi released her hold, turned her back on Iris, and returned to the marketplace. Making sure her seed bag and other purchases were properly in the cart, she untied Masamune, boarded the cart, and rode quietly out of Mescala by the northwestern lane, mindful of the other traffic, glum and angry.

No game would have such pointless, annoying detours. At least not the good ones.

Some quarter of a mile after the town gate, Izumi unwittingly turned to look back.

A stone’s throw after the cart’s back board, she saw march one frail figure of a girl.

Frowning, Izumi pulled the reins and waited for Iris to come closer.

“What are you doing?” she asked the girl. “Is it just me, or does it look like you’re following me?”

“I can’t go back empty-handed!” Iris replied, helpless frustration adding weight to her voice. “They—they won’t like it!”

“That’s too bad, but sounds a lot like your own personal problem Ms Sweet Sixteen,” Izumi said and turned to go on.

“I have nowhere else to go!” Iris said. “I’m sorry.”

“…”

The apology didn’t sound terribly sincere, but it was annoyingly effective nonetheless.

At least the girl wasn’t a complete stranger to manners.

Izumi sighed deep, shaking her head, and sat for a moment in silence, trying to come to terms with her conscience. As angry as she was, she already knew she was wasting her breath arguing, or pretending not to care. Her decision was made back in that dark hall, and she couldn’t lie to herself about it.

If this was destiny, then it was truly inescapable.

“…I catch you with anything that’s not yours again, I’ll do like the Arabs do,” she said, facing forward again. “If you can agree to that, then hop on the cart and I’ll show you how Sk**im begins.”