Aaron was walking and listening to a conversation when the young woman in front of him suddenly stopped.

He could avoid the collision, but it required a martial technique that would attract the attention of the local guards and merchants. He corrected his path as much as he could using no skills and lightly bumped into her.

"Sorry," he said and left immediately.

Bumps in a packed market like that were relatively common, especially when someone stopped walking abruptly as the girl had done. Yet, just to make sure, he also left without delay, hoping she would forget about him as soon as possible.

Unfortunately, the opposite happened; she started to watch him closely. Whatever he did, wherever he went, he noticed her looking his way. After a while, she approached with a weird grin on her face.

Aaron pretended to find an item he was looking for in a stand and went into an alley. After turning on an intercession, he stopped and waited for her to appear.

When she emerged and got startled by his presence, he inspected her. Around twenty-one years old, long red hair held in a braid, blue eyes, tall and thin. Her skin had no blemishes associated with working in the sun, it was smooth and well cared for.

Clearly, she came from a wealthy or high stature family, enough for her to keep her skin beautiful and — he looked at her hand and didn't find a wedding bracelet, the local custom — stay unmarried.

She wore a tight, worn-out black leather armor that had been designed specifically for slender, curved bodies, and a gray hooded cloak over it. On her waist, she only carried a long knife with a brown handle. Her black leather boots, brown leather glove in the left hand, and gray metallic ring in the right hand were all in pristine condition.

Her equipment was superior to what he had seen on the market, which further evidenced her wealth. However, the worn state of her most eye-catching equipment — armor and long knife — showed a desire to be seen as someone much less well off.

Energy-wise, she had only one energy inside her, Qi, in the same amount as the king and the summoner had had — around a tenth of the Royal Guards he had killed. Listening to conversations in the market, Aaron had discovered that all Royal Guards were at the Two Star level or above. Since she had more energy than an Inept, he estimated her level to be One Star.

Combat-wise, she had some training if the way she walked was any sign, but it was of ridiculously inferior quality by his standards.

All in all, he concluded that the king was unlikely to have sent her. She wasn't strong enough to kill him or discreet enough to investigate him.

The entire analysis took a mere instant. Finally, he looked her in the eye and went straight to the point.

"Who are you, who sent you, and what do you want with me?"

Her eyes widened in surprise, and she took a step back. Aaron just stood there, staring her down impassively.

"I- I..." she stammered before closing her mouth, taking a deep breath, swallowing hard, and continuing. "My name is Tia and I have a job offer for you."

He quickly thought about what she had seen him do in the market and inferred that she wanted him for his skills as a thief or informant, which picked up his curiosity. He adjusted his posture slightly to look like someone suspicious of her, looked around as if searching for hidden observers, and frowned.

"Why me?" he asked.

She smiled when she saw his actions and raised her hands in a gesture of peace.

"Don't worry, if I wanted to call the guards, I would've done it already," she said, and Aaron had to restrain himself from laughing. She was a terrible negotiator. Talking about guards at the beginning of the conversation would make most legitimately shady figures leave at once. "I need someone with your exact set of skills."

He took a step back. "Skill? What skills? I have no skills."

Her eyes widened for fear that he would run away. "Hey, hey, calm down! I just want to talk, okay? Just talk."

Her insistence increased his curiosity. Why would a rich girl with no experience in dealing with the darker side of society want the services of a thief, slash, informer so badly?

"Then talk," he said dryly.

"My name is Tia—"

"You already said your name," he interrupted.

She was getting anxious, shifting the weight of her body from one leg to the other and gripping her hands with each other.

"Sorry, I never did this before. How can I... Hire you?"

"Why would you want to hire me?"

"I need someone with your skills..." She stopped talking when she realized she was repeating the same words that had made him retreat. "Wait! I need you, okay? Traps! I need someone to disarm traps and maybe open locks for me."

So, she wanted someone with the skills of a thief. Things got more and more interesting. Aaron nodded. "Let's say, and that's just a conjecture, that I'm capable of that. Go on."

She smiled slightly. "I'm an imperial mercenary. I need a..." She whispered the next word. "...Rogue for a commission."

"What commission?"

"The Sky Splitter Sword."

Aaron nodded again. He had heard about imperial mercenaries, Rogues, commissions, and the Sky Splitter Sword at the Royal Market.

"I want half the reward," he said dryly. It was time to start mingling with the ambitious people of the world to trick the Cage.

Her eyes widened for the third time in that talk. "Never!" she shouted.

Aaron took another step back and started to turn away from her. She came over and held his shoulder, which would be stupid to do if he was an actual shady person. He could easily strike her down.

"Wait!" she begged. "Sorry, I was just surprised." She took a deep breath. "Okay, half."

He smiled. "And you need to pay for my guild registration, transportation, and food expenses."

She frowned. After sighing one more time, she spoke through her teeth, "Anything else?"

His smile widened. "I'm but a humble person who was lucky enough to find an honest job during a simple walk through the city streets. How could I dare to ask for more?" he said in the most cynical voice he had.

Tia released her grip over him and took a deep breath. "Can we go register you at the guild now?" she asked, visibly using all her willpower to keep herself from cursing him.

"Sure! Wow, look at the coincidence, I'm starving, and I heard that the guild has excellent food!" He gestured for her to lead the way. "Please, lead the way."

Controlling herself to say no more, Tia turned and started walking.

Aaron felt slightly guilty for what he was doing to the girl. He could take the life of entire enemy armies without losing a second of sleep, but in her case, she was desperate for the services of a Rogue and he had taken advantage of it. In his first weeks or months in that world, he would need to gain economic advantages whenever possible to deceive the Cage, but exploiting beings he considered weaker than ants when compared to himself hurt his pride.

Aaron decided that he would return her favor after he had properly established his disguise; he just needed to find out how. So he started probing.

"Tia, huh?" he said. "I'm Aaron. Nice to meet you."

She grunted and nodded.

"Aaron Ironblood," he insisted. "What is your last name, if I may ask?"

"Thenor," she replied, still sulky.

"Thenor, as in the empire?"

"Yes."

The Illyria Kingdom, where he was, was a vassal of the Thenor Empire. Within the Empire, children with unknown parents were given the surname Thenor as a way to state that they were everyone's children. At least, that was what the Imperial Court liked to say.

Aaron had assessed that she was just trying to make herself look poor, so her lie was obvious. The general culture of this kingdom was very similar to Earth's medieval society, and abandoned children back then rarely became wealthy, if ever. This was doubly true for naïve ones like her.

Realizing that this topic would lead nowhere, he decided to change it. Also similarly to Earth, the people in the market had liked to brag about their possessions, so he commented on the most expensive item she carried.

"How much did your spatial ring cost? I want to buy one too."

Tia froze as soon as she heard those words. She turned slowly, glaring at him. "How did you know?"

He didn't understand the question. "How did I know what?"

"Don't play dumb!" she shouted. Luckily they were still in a deserted alley, so she didn't attract unwanted attention. "How did you identify my ring?!"

Enchanted items released a considerable amount of energy. However, Tia's ring and some others Aaron had seen in the market released almost nothing unless their owners were moving items into or out of them. Since many of these items had been exposed in merchant stalls with no apparent identification, he had thought that identifying them was a common skill, regardless of the amount of energy they released.

Realizing that he was wrong, he used the greedy and unscrupulous character he had just created to thwart any suspicions.

"Oh, it is a spatial ring, then?" He smirked and looked at her ring with greed. "Good to know, very good!"

Tia had made a mistake.

She had already known that he was a Fifth Grade Rogue — that's why she had agreed to pay so much for him! Identifying magical items protected by veils, like the one over her spatial ring, was something entirely within the reach of someone with access to high-grade skills.

But he had pissed her off so much when he greedily set the terms of the employment, that she lost her mind and reacted immediately when he pretended to identify the ring.

Now, it was clear that he was just fishing for information. The worst was that it had worked. Even though he couldn't identify veiled items, she had admitted to having a veiled spatial ring!

Spatial rings were valuable items, veiled ones even more so, and having one would raise suspicions about her actual identity. Unfortunately, the damage was done and there was no way to remedy it.

Now even angrier than before, this time with herself, she turned her back to him and resumed their journey.

For the rest of the way, she refused to respond to his attempts at conversation.

Aaron smiled. She was very naïve, too easily manipulated. Unless something changed, it would be a miracle for her to reach her thirties without someone stealing everything she had. He already knew how to make up for exploiting her: he would help her become less naïve.

They left the alley and still walked for a long time. Illyria, the capital of the kingdom of the same name, had ten million inhabitants spread out over houses up to five floors high, making it an enormous city. Aaron guessed that magical items of poor quality were relatively widespread to keep so many people fed with no obvious disease in most of them.

The city was divided into five layers surrounded by high walls, like circles within circles. They were named according to their proximity to the central circle where the Royal Palace was located. The wealthy, noble, and influential had dwellings in the first layer. The further a layer was from the palace, the less fortunate its inhabitants were, and it showed in the decreasing quality of the constructions.

Their destination, the guildhall, was in the second layer, near the wall to the first layer where they were. They reached it in the early evening.

The three-story building had been built with defense in mind. The massive doors were made of black metal, and the windows were no more than vertical slits, too thin for anyone to pass through, but great if someone wanted to shoot arrows or spells from the inside. The architecture looked like ancient Roman, but he suspected that the white walls were made of a stronger material than usual.

'Not bad,' he assessed in his thoughts. 'Worthy of an organization calling itself the Imperial Mercenary Guild.'