The sound of coins on the table still made me uneasy.
Elara organized everything carefully, separating small piles, writing down values on a simple sheet of paper. Vespera watched in silence, sitting at the other end, while Liriel rested her chin on her hand, distracted, following the process as if it were something curious and distant.
"How much does this cover?" I asked.
"More than half of what we still owed," Elara replied. "The orc mission helped a lot. The escort covered the rest."
I let the air out slowly. "So this is it. For the first time since I arrived here, we are… almost free."
"Almost is the right word," Vespera said. "Something new always appears."
She was right. It always did.
We paid what we needed to pay that morning. We went to the guild, to the smaller creditors, to the places where our name was still marked by old delays. Each door that closed behind us seemed to lift an invisible weight off our backs.
Not everyone reacted the same way.
Some were surprised. Others were suspicious. There were those who accepted the coins without looking at our faces, as if that was simply expected now that we were Rank S.
"Funny," I murmured as we left one of those houses. "Before, no one believed we would pay. Now, no one is surprised."
Elara adjusted the bag on her shoulder. "The world changes quickly when you rise."
Liriel watched the street, the ordinary faces, the people passing by without knowing who we were. "And it changes even faster when it thinks you owe it something."
We returned to the mansion in the early afternoon. The place was calm, too organized for someone who was still getting used to that life. Servants worked in silence, efficient, as if they had always been part of our routine.
I sat in the main room and let my body sink into the sofa. The exhaustion came all at once.
"So," Elara said, sitting beside me. "We are almost without debts."
"Almost," I repeated.
Vespera leaned against the wall. "Mansion maintenance. Better equipment. Noble taxes. Rank S costs."
"And more dangerous missions," Liriel added. "Which require more preparation."
I closed my eyes for a moment. "I should have known the feeling of freedom doesn't last long."
Elara smiled lightly. "It lasts long enough to breathe."
At night, we had dinner together, without hurry. We talked about simple plans. Training. Equipment adjustments. Possible upcoming missions. Nothing grand. Nothing urgent.
After dinner, I stayed alone for a while in the garden. The sky was clear, and the city lights shone in the distance. I thought about the cramped inn, the days counting coins, the silent promises that one day things would be different.
Now they were different.
But they were not simple.
"You're thinking again," Liriel said as she approached.
"I'm thinking if we will ever stop owing something."
She sat beside me. "Maybe not. But now we choose who we owe."
Vespera and Elara joined us shortly after. We stayed there, in comfortable silence, looking at the sky.
When we went to sleep, I understood something with unexpected clarity.
Financial debts can end.
The others only change shape.
And now, the ones that were appearing were bigger, quieter, and connected to something I was still learning to accept.
Responsibility. Status. Expectation.
Even so, for the first time, I did not feel crushed by it.
Only attentive.
Because, in the end, we were still together.
And that was what truly mattered.