Marc was sweating, but he hesitantly gave the guard his bag.
Malcom didn't think anything about the sweat, as he thought it was from the pain.
He grabbed the bag and opened it, only to freeze in place.
"What is all this random shit you have in here? There's even a bunch of gold coins and magic training books!" he said suspiciously.
"Well, that bag is what you could call my inheritance. I received it from the orphanage before I was kicked out. My dad gave it to them before his terminal illness ended his life. Ah, and my mom died the day she gave birth to me," Marc started spilling the bullshit he had come up with before.
'No wonder his mother died at birth, the kid probably was born with a school diploma in hand,' Malcom thought, saying nothing.
"In fact, this bag is the reason I got my hand sliced in two. One of the orphanage's kids saw the contents inside, then followed me as I started coming here, and tried to stab me to steal the bag. I placed my hand between the blade and myself and punched the kid in the face, then I turned around and ran away." After lying, he told half-truths.
It was certainly another kid that did this to him, and it was to get the bag. He simply didn't tell him that it was after robbing a noble's house.
The guard looked at him like he'd just heard some wild story, then he took two gold coins and said:
"Well kid, you know what? You've been nice, so I'll grab one gold coin to pay for the potion and other stuff, and another one for myself. Then I'll ask no more questions. Take it as a life lesson: money can buy anything, and if it cannot, it means you don't have enough of it. Off you go then, welcome to Verring. There's an inn at the right of the plaza — with the money you have, you can afford it for sure. And make sure you practice the books you have, they'll turn into your greatest weapon."
Malcom spewed a monologue.
But it was all beneficial for Marc. Every bit of information the guard said was, so he took another gold coin and tossed it to him.
"This is as a thank you for all the info, old man," he said as he left.
"HAHAHA! You learn quick, kid!" Malcom laughed loudly and pocketed the other coin.
Marc then left the guard cabin and headed inside the city.
Like Malcom said, at the left of the plaza there was an inn called Traveler's Rest.
'How unoriginal. It's like calling a shop "The Shopper's Shop" or something like that,' Marc thought and went in.
The first thing he did was book a room for ten days. Then he went and ordered some warm food, and sat at a table to wait.
He was silent, and after a while, his food came.
He started eating like a maniac, as if he had been starved for days.
While eating, he could hear a pleasant, soft voice say:
"Tomorrow we'll set for Rilven, then from there to Braywick. We'll see after that."
Marc, after hearing that, sneaked a peek at where the voice came from.
At a table in the corner of the diner there was a group consisting of three girls.
Two of them had what looked like maid uniforms, and the other girl had a pointy red hat with a red dress.
'She clearly is a mage, and she's headed to Rilven,' Marc thought, suddenly remembering the girl and what Alex had said.
He gathered his courage and approached slowly and cautiously, so as not to startle the girl.
And the girl, seeing a man approach, stared at him with fierce eyes.
'Not another dude hitting on me,' she thought, clearly annoyed.
"Need something?" she asked him.
"Sorry for bothering you, but I couldn't help overhearing that you're going to Rilven," Marc began.
"Yes, and?" she asked with a cold voice.
"Do… do you take requests? I'll pay," said Marc, hesitating at the woman's cold tone.
"Why don't you take care of your own stuff? An adult ought to be self-sufficient," she replied, thinking that at least he didn't hit on her — but still finding the intrusion annoying.
"I'm not an adult yet…" Marc said. He was already getting tired of being mistaken for one.
"Lies," she said flatly.
Marc, instead of trying to explain, took out his ID and passed it to her.
The mage took the ID and looked at it. Her eyes widened a little after seeing that he was, in fact, not an adult — he was still two years away from being one.
"Okay, Marc, where are your parents then?" asked the lady, now with a softer voice, knowing she was dealing with a kid, even if he was unusually big.
"I'm an orphan," Marc replied.
"Then why are you not in an orphanage?" she asked, knowing well how the wars were making quite a lot of kids orphans.
"I was kicked out of the orphanage in Rilven after I wasn't adopted," Marc replied.
"Don't they kick people out only after they reach adulthood?" She was a little pissed that the kid was thrown to the streets at such a young age.
"They gave us a lot of excuses and kicked us anyway," Marc answered again.
"But that's not what I approached you for. I wanted to commission you for another thing," Marc said, trying to get back to the topic.
"Oh… and what might that be? And can you afford it?" The mage was curious as to what a child could possibly ask of her.
Marc then began to explain what he had seen in the forest that day.
The psycho noble, the small girl, the brutal scene — all of it.
"That… that fucking brute!" The mage was now furious.
Even the maids had their faces twisted in disgust.
She had already been pissed that a kid was kicked out of the orphanage, and now he told her something that was nothing remotely close to what a kid should see.
No matter how heartless she seemed, she still believed in the system — in protecting those who could not yet protect themselves. And this kid, though big, was still a kid! He didn't know the way of life nor had the means to do anything.
"I want to commission you to take him to justice. The guards there are all probably bought by him, so I could do nothing about it. Ehm… I'm willing to offer twenty gold coins."
"And you have that amount of money?" she asked, intrigued and trying to calm down so as not to show the kid a disgraceful behavior.
Marc put his hand in the bag and counted the coins, then took the counted coins and placed them in two stacks of ten coins each in front of the mage.
The lady was surprised. For her, twenty gold coins weren't too many, but she knew that for a kid, it was a fortune — he could buy plenty of candy with that amount!
"…You know what, I'll take the commission," she said, and took the coins.
Marc was glad that the girl was going to get justice for what that noble had done to the little girl, a smile unconsciously forming on his face.