Shion listened to Eren's warnings without a single interruption, giving the former guard plenty of room to exhaust her arguments before she finally offered a response.
"I understand what you're saying," Shion said at last, her tone entirely unhurried. "But the capital is still a long way off. We have time."
Eren folded her arms across her chest, her brow furrowing. "That doesn't mean we should just ignore it."
"I'm not ignoring it." Shion reached down to hoist the strap of her heavy travel pack, adjusting the weight before turning her boots toward the sprawling market district. Eren quickly fell into step a pace behind her. "We can prepare right here in Reka. We can prepare in whatever backwater town Lucien sends us to next. If the people in the capital decide to become a problem, we'll deal with them when we actually cross the threshold."
"You always make it sound so simple."
Shion offered a light shrug. "It usually isn't. But burning through your energy worrying about it right now won't change a damn thing."
Eren opened her mouth to argue, a deep frown carving into her forehead, but she stopped when Shion glanced sideways at her.
"I do appreciate the concern, though," Shion added quietly.
The sudden, soft admission seemed to instantly take the wind right out of Eren's sails. Her shoulders dropped, and she quickly looked away, clearing her throat. She knew Shion meant it; the mercenary just had a drastically different way of navigating the world.
For a long stretch, they walked in a comfortable silence, letting the vibrant chaos of Reka wash over them. Merchants bellowed out prices from beneath brightly dyed canvas tents, heavy transport wagons rattled over the uneven stone roads, and sweating laborers strained against wooden carts, steering massive crates of cargo toward the riverside warehouses.
Eventually, Eren let out a long, defeated sigh. "Maybe you're right."
Shion immediately arched a dark eyebrow. "Only maybe?"
"Don't get used to it," Eren shot back, though she couldn't stop a faint smile from tugging at the corner of her mouth.
As they pushed deeper into the throngs of the market, Eren found her eyes drifting back to her companion, watching her with a newfound curiosity. She wondered if Shion truly was just taking the looming threat of the capital lightly, or if she had simply spent so many years running face-first into suspicion, distrust, and casual bigotry that she'd learned to stop wasting precious energy on problems she couldn't fix in the present moment.
Eren's mind drifted back to Trivale. She thought of her parents, the familiar neighbors she had known since she was a child, and the merchants who greeted her by name every morning. It had been a sheltered life where 'belonging' was a birthright, never something she had to fight for or earn.
Had Shion's childhood been entirely devoid of that safety? Had every single town been an uphill battle? Every village, every roadside tavern, every merchant, guard, and stranger judging the blood in her veins before she could even utter a greeting? Eren realized, with a small pang of guilt, that she had never actually asked. And looking at Shion's stoic profile, she wasn't entirely sure she was ready to handle the answer.
The market grew progressively denser the further they ventured from the plaza. Stalls practically overflowed with supplies: dried fruits, rows of smoked fish, heavily salted meats, hard travel biscuits, and neat bundles of preserved rations.
The two women focused on practical survival first. They picked out slabs of dried meat that could survive weeks in a backpack, a sack of dense bread, and a couple of fresh waterskins to replace one of their weathered, cracked containers. Shion also tracked down a vendor for flint, tinder, a small folding cooking tripod, and a brand-new iron kettle after discovering a hairline fracture in her old one.
"At least this one won't dump half my tea all over the bedrolls," Shion muttered, shaking the iron pot.
Eren blinked. "You've been carrying a leaking kettle this whole time?"
"It wasn't leaking when I bought it."
"And how long ago was that?"
Shion paused, genuinely trying to calculate the months. "A while."
Eren shook her head, rolling her eyes. "You are absolutely impossible."
With their basic survival necessities secured, their wandering path inevitably dragged them toward a much less practical, far more alluring sector: the armorers' district.
Rows of open-front workshops stood shoulder-to-shoulder, their displays practically gleaming with polished breastplates, heavy steel shields, intricate chainmail, and rows of honed weaponry. The synchronized, rhythmic ringing of blacksmith hammers echoed off the stone walls like a heartbeat.
Both women naturally slowed their pace. Then they stopped entirely, completely giving in to the urge to wander aimlessly through the forge smoke. One smith was proudly displaying a longsword with delicate silver inlays running straight down the fuller; another offered a suit of layered steel reinforced with polished monster bone. A few high-end shops kept enchanted gear locked safely away behind heavy glass cases protected by shimmering warding runes.
Eren stopped dead in her tracks, staring open-mouthed at a stunning suit of scale armor crafted from some exotic, deep blue creature hide. "That looks incredibly expensive."
"It is," Shion replied without stopping.
"How can you tell from over here?"
"Because if a shop doesn't bother posting the price tag, it means normal mercenaries aren't supposed to ask."
Eren stole one final, longing look at the blue scales. She reached down, patted the depressing lightness of her coin pouch, and looked back at the armor. The math was not in her favor.
A few blocks over, it was Shion's turn to halt. She stopped right in front of a weaponsmith who had displayed a massive greatsword nearly identical in size and weight to her own. The steel caught the afternoon sun perfectly. The craftsmanship was undeniable—flawless balance, clean forging, and not a single visible imperfection along the edge.
Shion stepped closer, spied the handwritten price tag dangling from the crossguard, and immediately spun on her heel to walk away.
Eren burst out laughing, jogging to catch up. "You didn't even touch the hilt!"
"I didn't need to."
"You looked absolutely enamored."
"I was."
"What changed your mind?"
"The numbers on that card happened," Shion muttered dryly.
That earned another genuine laugh from Eren. For the next hour, they simply drifted through the district, admiring the masterworks of craftsmen whose creations existed entirely beyond their financial reality. It was strangely freeing—there was no pressure to buy, just a mutual appreciation for good steel and hard work.
By the time they returned to the main commercial avenues to finish the last of their errands, the afternoon sun had begun to dip, casting long shadows across Reka.
Shion shifted the weight of the supply bags hanging from her shoulder. "I'm going to track down the local library."
Eren blinked, completely caught off guard. "The library?"
"Yes."
"After a full day of hauling gear?"
"I enjoy reading."
Eren stared at her. "You voluntarily read books for fun."
Shion stopped and leveled her with a perfectly flat, unimpressed look.
Eren quickly raised both hands in mock surrender. "Alright, alright! I'm still adjusting to the details. Go on."
"Do whatever you like with your afternoon," Shion said, turning away.
"And you're seriously going to spend the whole evening reading?" Eren called out.
"Probably."
"You're a strange creature, Shion."
"So I've been told."
They split up near one of the crowded central plazas. Shion followed the casual directions of a passing fruit vendor and eventually found herself standing before a grand, weathered stone building tucked quietly between the governor's administrative offices and a marble temple.
The interior of the library was silent—a wonderfully profound, heavy quiet that made the chaos of the market feel miles away. Rows of towering wooden shelves stretched into the high ceilings, packed to the brim with leather-bound books, ancient scrolls, and historical maps. Only a handful of robed scholars occupied the wide reading tables. Shion parted with a few copper coins at the front desk for temporary access and immediately vanished into the labyrinth of shelves.
She started with the practical: treatises on advanced swordsmanship, military histories penned by veteran generals, and detailed accounts of historical siege tactics. Some sections covered fundamentals she knew by heart, but others introduced complex theories on individual combat techniques that she had never considered. Eventually, her fingers drifted toward the arcane sections—elemental theory, the structural mechanics of spellcasting, and the delicate relationship between raw mana and physical matter. She found herself lingering over text describing how active enchantments bound themselves to forged metal. When she finally moved to the alchemy section, she hit a wall; many of the books assumed a level of institutional vocabulary she simply didn't possess, reading more like dry merchant ledgers than practical guides. Still, she managed to systematically harvest fragments of useful knowledge, even if it just served to remind her how much she still had left to learn.
Meanwhile, Eren explored the rest of Reka with absolutely no itinerary. She simply walked, letting the city handle the entertainment.
It was a fascinating place when you weren't hunting bandits. Children sprinted through narrow alleys playing tag, street performers drew crowds near the fountains with illusions and music, and messengers dashed through the streets clutching sealed wax documents. She eventually wandered near the massive southern gates, watching a fresh company of city guards marching out to relieve their exhausted comrades. The entrances to the city were still completely bottlenecked with incoming merchant caravans waiting for mandatory customs inspections, the lines stretching far out past the stone walls. Some of the traders looked ready to murder someone out of sheer frustration, while others were completely resigned to the wait, napping on their wagons. The guards looked thoroughly running on fumes, but they kept processing papers with mechanical precision.
Watching them sent a strange, deeply familiar ache through Eren's chest. For years, that exact routine had been her entire existence. The rigid shift work, the endless patrols, the meticulous inspections, standing at attention through freezing rain and biting wind. Yet, watching them now, she felt oddly detached from it all. She wasn't sad about losing it, nor was she overwhelmed with relief. She just felt... different. Like she was looking at a coat she used to wear that no longer fit her shoulders.
As the daylight began to soften into gold, she wandered deeper into the wealthy quarters, admiring the sheer scale of the architecture. The stone townhouses, the sweeping decorative arches, and the intricately carved wooden facades surrounding the merchant estates were breathtaking. Twice she nearly walked straight into pedestrians because her head was tilted entirely toward the sky.
An elderly woman tending a fruit cart actually let out a bright crackle of laughter when Eren barely dodged a crate of apples. "First time in the city, girl?"
Eren stopped, sheepishly rubbing the back of her neck. "Is it really that obvious?"
The old woman smiled kindly, rearranging her stock. "Only tourists look at the rooftops more than the cobblestones. Watch your step."
By the time the sun finally touched the horizon, painting the sky in deep shades of orange and violet, Eren realized she had spent half the day doing nothing but looking. Observing. Just existing in a space without a crisis to solve. For perhaps the first time since the tragedy in Trivale, her mind wasn't trapped in the image of the troll, or the blood of her captain, or the weight of the life she had abruptly walked away from. She was simply enjoying the novelty of a new horizon.
And, though she wouldn't admit it, she was already mentally cataloging every single thing she'd seen, eager to tell Shion all about it the moment they met back at the inn.