Jhed was still in Daichi's house. Silia had gone.
"So that's how it works here. There's still so much about this world I don't know." Jhed tied his coin pouch to his waist, left the rest of his things with his satchel in the room.
"Coin pouch — check. Sword — check. Everything else stays here." He looked around the room one last time.
"Every time I look at this pouch, I think about those ten gold coins I gave Andrev. Why did I give so many." His head started to ache. Money has a way of doing that — reminding you of your worth.
Jhed stepped out of the room. He walked to the front door and put one foot outside.
The moment his foot touched the ground, sweat broke out across his skin. His heart started pounding. His stomach churned. All of it — fear. The same fear that had followed him from his old world.
He wiped his forehead with his hand. But the churning stomach, the pounding heart — those weren't things he could switch off.
"Why is this happening now? It had stopped for so long — I thought I wasn't afraid anymore. Why now? I was confident." What Jhed had forgotten was simple: every time before, someone had been beside him. That confidence wasn't his — it was borrowed from their presence. Now he was alone, and it showed.
Jhed pulled his foot back inside. He looked out at the street.
People were glancing his way. Some seemed to be talking about him. Some seemed to be laughing.
The fear deepened.
"Why are they all looking at me? Why are they laughing? Am I that strange-looking?"
None of it was real. Hallucinations. The people outside were just going about their day — ordinary glances, ordinary conversations. But Jhed was seeing things that weren't there.
"I should have just gone with Silia when she left." He shut the front door.
He sat down just inside it.
"I'll go later. I'm just resting for a bit. I'm not scared. I just wanted more rest — that's why I didn't go out." He kept trying to convince himself.
He went back to his room, set the coin pouch and sword beside the bed, and lay down.
Outside, voices drifted up from the street below.
"I sent my husband out for carrots this morning and the idiot came back with radishes," one woman said, laughing.
Jhed lay there listening.
"Don't even get me started. Mine calls himself an adventurer — spent all morning at the guild staring at that new girl at the counter. When I found out, I hid his guild ID. No ID, no quests. And I told my son — don't let your father leave the house."
"So Silia's new then."
Jhed listened to their voices until sleep pulled him under. That explained the crowd at the guild — Silia was new, and word had already spread.