“They just left! On horseback! I can’t catch up without your familiar, you know? Please help me at least with that!” Kirche started crying. Tabitha finally nodded. So that’s why… you need my familiar to catch up.
“Oh thank you so much… so… let’s hurry up!” Tabitha nodded again. Kirche was her friend, and she couldn’t help it if her friends had their problems that they couldn’t take care of themselves. It was a bit annoying, but she didn’t have a choice. She opened her window, and whistled. The sound of the whistle rang in the azure sky for a moment. She then jumped out of the window.
Those who did not know her would have found it weird, if not alarming. Kirche, however, followed close after Tabitha and jumped out the window without a thought. Just a note – Tabitha’s room was on the fifth floor. She tended to forego the door altogether when she had to go outside since jumping out the window was far quicker for her.
Strong and tough wings spread out to the wind. Then, a wind dragon flew into the air and received its two passengers.
“Your Sylphid is still so awesome no matter how many times I see it!” Kirche grabbed a protruding spine and sighed in admiration. That’s right – Tabitha’s familiar is an infant wind dragon.
The dragon, which got the name of the “Fairies of the Air” from Tabitha, swiftly and perfectly caught the upward draft around the tower, and reached 200 mails in the air in the blink of an eye.
“Where?” Tabitha succinctly asked Kirche.
Kirche immediately cried, “I don’t know… I was panicking.”
Tabitha didn’t mind and commanded her wind dragon, “Two people on horseback. Don’t eat them.” Her dragon made a short grunt, showing understanding. Its blue scales glittered, and its wings flapped strongly to the wind. It flew high in the air, scouring the ground for a horse; a simple task for a wind dragon.
Satisfied that her familiar was doing its job, Tabitha snatched her book back from Kirche’s hands, leaned back against the dragon, and started reading again.
Meanwhile, Saito and Louise walked briskly on Tristain’s city streets, having deposited their campus-loaned horse at the city gate’s stables.
Saito’s sides ached profusely, it was his first time on a horse, after all. “My sides hurt…” Saito moaned, walking slowly.
Louise glanced at Saito and frowned. “You’re useless. You haven’t even been on a horse before? Commoners are just…”
“And you’re annoying. We’ve been on that thing for three straight hours!”
“Well… we can’t walk our way here now can we?”
Despite the pain, Saito curiously looked around. White cobblestone roads… feels like a theme park here. Compared to the Academy, there were far more people in common garb here. On the street side were vendors selling fruit and meat.
Saito’s love for exotic places momentarily rose. But this was a weird world. There were people briskly walking and people frantically running. Males and females of all ages walked the streets. This bore no difference with Saito’s world, though the streets were a bit narrower.
“A little bit tight here…”
“Tight? This is a really wide street as it is.”
“Just this?” Not even 5 meters wide. With this many people walking around, every step felt cramped.
“Bourdonnй Street, Tristain’s widest avenue. The palace is straight ahead.” Louise pointed.
“Can we go to the palace, then?”
“What business do we have visiting Her Majesty The Queen?”
“I want to ask her to increase my portion of food.”
Louise laughed.
The streets were filled with shops. Saito, full of curiosity, could not take his eyes off them. When he looked at one weird-shaped frog in a jar on a trader’s mat, Louise pulled him by the ear. “Hey, don’t walk around corners. There are lots of thieves and pickpockets here. You are looking after my wallet in your jacket, right?”
Louise said wallets are for servants to carry, and mercilessly gave that duty to Saito. The wallet was heavily filled with gold coins.
“I am… I am… very carefully, too. How can anyone steal something that heavy?”
“With magic, that can be done in a second.”
But there was nobody around that looked like a mage. Saito learned how to discern between commoners and mages in the Academy. Mages always had capes on, and they looked really arrogant when they walk. According to Louise, that was a noble’s walking stance.
“Aren’t they all commoners?”
“Of course. Nobles only take up 10% of the population, and there’s no way they will walk in slums like these.”
“Why would nobles steal?”
“All nobles are mages, but not all mages are nobles. If for whatever reason a noble is disowned from their family, left the family name on his or her own accord, dropped status to be a mercenary or a criminal… Hey! Are you listening?”
Saito wasn’t. He was too fascinated by the street signs.
“What does that bottle-shaped sign say?”
“Brewery.”
“And what does that sign with a big cross say?”
“It’s a recruiting center for guards.”
Saito stopped at every meaningful sign, and Louise had to pull him away by his wrist every time.
“Okay, okay, I understand, you don’t have to be in a hurry like that. Where’s the blacksmith’s shop?”
“Over here. They don't just sell swords though.”
Louise walked into an even narrower road. A revolting stench, coming from piles of trash and other dirty things on the ground, soon hit their noses.
“It’s really dirty here.”
“I told you nobles don’t come here that often.”
At the fourth intersection, Louise stopped and looked around.
“Should be near Peyman’s Potion Shop… I remember it’s around here somewhere…”
She saw a bronze sign and happily cried, “Ah! Found it!”
A sword-shaped sign dangled under it. It looked like this was the arms dealer’s shop. Louise and Saito walked up the stone stops, opened the door, and entered the shop.
Despite the bright daylight outside, the shop was a bit dark inside. A gas lamp flickered. The walls and shelves were filled with unorganized weapons. A detailed suit of armor decorated the room. A man in his fifties smoking a pipe eyed Louise suspiciously. That is, until he saw the pentagram on her golden button. He removed his pipe and said, “My lady! My noble lady! All of my wares here are real and reasonably priced! There’s nothing criminal here!”
“I’ll be your customer.”
“Oh… that’s rather weird… a noble buying a sword! Quite strange.”
“Why is that?”
“Well… priests wave sacred staffs, soldiers wave swords, and nobles wave wands. Isn’t that the rule?”
“Oh, I’m not the one using it. My familiar is.”
“Ahh… a familiar that can use a sword, huh?” The shopkeeper spoke in a lively voice, and looked at Saito. “I believe that would be this gentleman over there?”
Louise nodded. By this time, Saito had already been pulled in by the shop’s vast collection of swords, periodically making cries of “whoa!” and “this one’s awesome!”.
Louise ignored Saito, and continued, “I’m not very knowledgeable about swords, so please show me anything that is reasonable.”
The shopkeeper jubilantly walked into his warehouse, silently rambling, “Oh, this is too great… I can raise the prices so high with this…” shortly afterwards, he returned with a longsword of about a mail in length. It was a very exquisitely decorated sword. It looked like one could swing it with just one hand. There was even a hand guard on the short handle.