I half expected the Wayfinder to break. Or to take us to a different country altogether. Or perhaps to stop working halfway through the trip as a random Calamity sprung out of nowhere and decided to eat us for Dinner, in a bout of irony that would at once be fully expected and yet rather shocking. Instead, in the strangest turn of events so far, we reached the market with barely any roadblocks in our way at all. It was actually quite a nice walk, although punctuated by moments of stilted conversation. I still wasn’t sure how to talk to Ellem: I felt sorry for her, but her lack of a memory was more or less the only thing we could really talk about. And talking about the lack of something gets boring very, very quickly.

Instead, I decided to recount some of my own adventures. Ever since Isekai Hero had updated, most of my memories had a kind of film over them. If my memory were the pages of a book, all my memories from before Isekai Hero V2.0 were in a different volume. One that I hadn’t experienced firsthand, but had rather read through. Still, I think I did an adequate job of impressing Ellem.

“So I said, “You may not like the light….but I do!”” I puffed my chest out. “Holy Light, come to me!” I stuck a pose, hand outstretched towards the sky.

“And a large beam of light cut through the sky and obliterated him?”

“Exactly. Do you…remember something about a Holy Light?” Maybe her memory was slowly returning? If the first thing she began to remember was magic of the Holy variety, perhaps whatever was afflicting her was Demonic in nature? I’d never felt anything like the Calamity before, but again, maybe the Calamity was just on a scale of Demonic energy I hadn’t experienced before.

“No, the story just had a rather obvious ending.” Ellem smiled, but unlike with Fay, it wasn’t a mocking smile. Just a companionable one. “Not that an obvious ending is necessarily a bad thing.”

“Most happy endings are obvious. It’s the sad ones that really come out of nowhere.”

“Then tell me a story with a sad ending.” Ellem paused. “But not too sad. Perhaps somewhat bittersweet. Something that would make me think, but not cry.”

Silence fell for a few seconds, and I thought through my adventures. There were so many small arcs, and side quests, and hundreds of little things that I vaguely remembered. But none of them would work.

“It wouldn’t matter. You wouldn’t…feel it correctly.” I struggled to explain. “How could a story be bittersweet, when you don’t know the characters? When you don’t know what they thought, or what they went through? I can’t do anyone a disservice like that.”

“If their story is truly powerful, or melancholic, then you would not be able to do them a disservice. A storyteller is just a tool; The story is powerful with or without you.”

“I disagree. A storyteller breathes life into the story. Two people loved each other, and then died. That’s a story, and told improperly, it’s rubbish.”

“Then tell it properly, Mr. Blanc. After all, we still have a few minutes.”

I thought about. “No, it wouldn’t work. If I tell you about sacrifice, it’ll seem hollow.”

“Because I will not know the stakes involved?”

“Correct. And if I tell you about star-crossed lovers, it’ll seem silly.”

“Because I will not understand their love?”

“Exactly. And if I tell you about the tragedy that struck an entire populace, it won’t strike you as important.”

“For they are far away, or perhaps have never existed.”

“How could you possibly relate to a bittersweet story, told to you in a few minutes, while walking towards a Market on a fine day like this one?” I pondered the question. “Bittersweet stories need…rain. Clouds and gloom and rain, and a cheery fire that gives more light than heat. Blankets, even, and perhaps a little bit of wine.”

“Does that not seem far too comfortable for sadness?”

“Not at all. You need to be sitting on a stone floor, or huddled around a fire. Thunder, actually, would be preferable.” Thunder outside and a fire inside, a warm drink in hand. It was a rare treat, and one I always missed. I hoped that the weather would turn from fine summer to a more grim and dour autumn or monsoon soon.

And so, we passed the rest of the time discussing the intricacies of storytelling. Ellem was strongly opinionated, somehow. It was almost like she didn’t have memories if she tried to reach for them, but if she wasn’t reaching, her personality was more or less intact. I could see the ghost of who she used to be in her speech and her manner of thinking. Clearly, the Calamity hadn’t wiped the essence of who she was away completely.

“Well, Mr. Blanc, I must admit something.” Ellem grinned, cheekily. “You may not be the best storyteller…but your skills for making the time pass are nevertheless quite amazing.”

The Market loomed before us. The road we’d been traveling on was fairly smooth, albeit somewhat narrow. It widened out towards a massive street market, the kind of setup that required dozens of people to more or less individually decide, “Yes, this would be the ideal place for hawking goods.” None of the sellers seemed to be affiliated with each other, although they were certainly trying to outdo each other in terms of loudness and the purported value of the goods they offered.

“Finest Boaka meat in all of Excelsia! Harvested from fresh Boaka!” Shouted one man, darker complexioned, wearing robes of pure white.

“Finer than the Finest! Boaka Meat, preserved and aged to bring out the flavor!” Shouted another who sported a thin goatee. Somehow, even though his voice was loud enough to reach the entire market, his words seemed to be pointed at the darker complexioned man.

“Boaka meat, lowest price, cheapest deal guaranteed!” Shouted a woman with blonde hair. She was standing on a crate, and unsurprisingly, had the largest crowd around her. Quality was all well and good, but economics would always win out.

Well, at least Boaka meat was going to be easy to buy. There were at least three stalls selling the snack, and we hadn’t even entered the market proper! However, none of the stalls at the front of the market were selling more…filling delicacies. Nothing that would work for a full Dinner. Instead, Ellem and I continued to make our way deeper into the market.

Here, things were getting more and more expensive. Some more expensive snacks, at first, and then, suddenly, the stalls began to look more like established buildings of brick and stone than temporary, ramshackle booths. Guards were walking about, clearly more concerned about the goods and offerings here than at the front of the Market. Merchants were demonstrating the many, many uses of their wares, and clearly quite proud. Or at least, they pretended to be proud; The majority of the stuff they were selling seemed like it was overpriced at the very least, and I could almost feel the grease on the men shilling the junk.

“The finest sword in Excelsia, blessed by the Queen herself. At 150 Shields, a bargain my friends!” A short-statured man with a bushy beard of rusty red hair was coaxing a large, buff man into a purchase. “Come, feel the grip! The finest Excelsian steel, forged by my very own hands!”

Ah. I didn’t know if this was a proper dwarf, or just a short man, but he certainly looked like a dwarf. One of the ones from Asheotora perhaps, who mined the desert for minerals and then used them to make instruments of warfare. I couldn’t be certain he was a Summoned, but given that the Excelsian’s I’d met so far had primarily been human (and one Drakul), it was a safe bet.

Come to think of it…I wasn’t sure that Fay wasn’t a Summoned. Something to ask her about, if she ever gave me any more personal information about herself again.

We walked past the stall, where the dwarf was in the process of closing his sale. The buff man looked extraordinarily pleased with his purchase, which, combined with the sheathe, a small canister of oil, and a whetting stone had only cost 300 Shields.

300! That was, extremely literally, 300 loaves of bread, or more bread than a family of three would need in a year. At least, assuming that the book I’d been reading wasn’t hopelessly out of date. Did Excelsia have inflation?

“That grip is rubbish. It will chafe.” Ellem muttered under her breath as we walked by the stall, keeping her voice low.

“How do you know, Little Miss Memory Loss?” I’d taken to teasing Ellem about her memory issues, mainly because everytime I looked at her with pity or some sort of empathy, she seemed awkward and put out. However, when I teased her, or made fun of her, she grinned and then tried to hit me. I figured that the grin was probably better than awkwardness.

“I…do not know. But I do know.” She frowned, clearly disturbed. It had been a tumultuous day for her, and she was obviously annoyed by the odd, inconsistent gaps in her memory. However, I was beginning to form a theory.

“Breathe, and don’t think about it. Think about something else.”

“Like what?”

“Like…Boaka meat.”

“I…Do not know what it tastes like.” She shot a glare at me. “In fact, I do not know anything about this creature. I do not know the size of it, or whether it can fly, or what part the meat comes from.”

Good. She was sufficiently distracted. I let her continue for a second, before interrupting.

“Ellem, what makes a good sword grip?”

“It depends on the user. If you grip your sword tightly, tanned leather is ideal, for it will eventually form an imprint of the hand. If you grip your sword loosely, for example, if you use a saber, then perhaps cloth or a rougher material still, like textured leather straps, so that the sword does not slip. And of course, it depends on the climate, because in the cold, a grip must not turn brittle-“

“And why was that grip bad?”

“It was not sized to the user. It was clearly meant to be used for someone who wields a saber like a quill, not for someone as muscled as that man. He will grip the sword too tight, and the leather straps on it will cut into his palm over time.” She stopped talking and looked amazed. “And I still do not know how I know this.”

“Well, you were a craftsperson. It seems like that knowledge is still around somewhere. Maybe not consciously but your eye is good.”

“I was a craftsperson?”

“Yes?”

“And…you did not tell me?”

“….I…Sorry?” Okay, in fairness, yes, it had slipped my mind. Poor choice of words, that. “I thought you-“

“Do not tell me that you believed I already knew. How, exactly, would I know?”

“…Sorry?”

Ellem was a little miffed, but not for long. As we kept walking by the stalls, her keen eye began to get more and more practice, especially as she relaxed. It was odd. Everytime she tried to focus consciously, Ellem drew a blank, as though the memories and skills were running away from her. But as soon as she let her mind wander, she spotted inconsistencies in patterns, bad craftsmanship, mistakes in design, everything.

“The shield is pretty.” She said, of a large tower shield that was hanging outside a merchant’s tent. It had a label on it for 1 Gold Crown; Cheaper than the sword had been, but still a fairly hefty price for what was essentially a shaped chunk of metal. I’d never put much stock in shields, even though I’d carried one a lot. Two handing a sword was simply more effective, especially when your VIT was so much larger than any other creature you’d ever face.

“It is. The sky blue is quite gorgeous, and the golden trim-”

“It will break if anyone hits it on right side.” Ellem fell silent for a second, gathering her thoughts. I had realized that asking her questions was actually going to interrupt the flow of her thinking. It was better to let her gather them up and speak in her own time, rather than to rush her along. “The steel banding is slightly off, and the paint is meant to cover the shoddy construction.”

“Did you say shoddy construction? SHODDY CONSTRUCTION?!” Unfortunately, as Ellem had gotten more and more observant, clearly somewhat pleased at getting her memory back, she had also been slowly getting louder. A man burst out of the tent, a large blacksmith hammer slung over his shoulder. “Oi! Did you call my work shoddy?”

Goddamit. And it had been a pleasant evening too. Hopefully we’d still get back in time for Dinner.