The Weight of Thirty Days
Valdris City – Lower Market Ring
The morning sun crawled over Valdris like it felt guilty for showing up.
Thin rays slipped between crooked chimneys and patched awnings, smearing gold over a city that was already awake and irritated with itself. Street vendors shouted half-hearted greetings, children darted between legs chasing bread crumbs, and the distant toll of the guild bell echoed through the smoggy air like a reminder that someone, somewhere, was already disappointed in you.
Raygen sat on the edge of the bakery roof—the good one, the one that was always warm because the old baker kept the ovens running non-stop. His legs dangled over the side as he stared across the city at the Adventurer Guild tower. Even from a distance it gleamed, polished stone and gilded plates catching sunlight like it existed just to taunt him.
The provisional B-rank badge on his belt felt heavier than it had any right to. It shouldn't have weighed anything; it was just a piece of metal. But today? Today it felt like a shackle. A reminder.
Thirty days.
Thirty days of "observation."
Thirty days of "cooling off."
Thirty days of being leashed because a noble brat with a fragile ego and too much influence decided Raygen was an inconvenience.
His jaw clenched. He could still hear Lyle Raft's smug voice echoing through the guild hall.
"A stray dog acting above its place. Someone should put you down before you cause real trouble."
And nobody had stepped in. Not the guild staff. Not the guards. Not even the adventurers who had clapped Raygen on the shoulder just days earlier saying he was "one to watch."
The silence that followed Raft's threat had been louder than any shout.
A soft thump broke his thoughts.
Asa landed beside him with all the grace of a cat who'd been raised by wolves. She held two meat buns so piping hot steam curled off her knuckles. Without preamble she shoved one into Raygen's chest.
"Eat," she ordered. "You look like someone kicked your puppy, stole its bones, and then filed a tax report on your grief."
Raygen huffed a laugh despite himself. He took the bun but didn't bite.
"I can't even take a proper quest, Asa. They bumped me down to D-rank tasks. Herb collecting outside the east gate." He made a helpless gesture. "Herb. Collecting. They might as well ask me to sweep the road and smile."
Asa bit into her bun with the enthusiasm of someone biting the head off an enemy. "Yeah. I noticed. Guild's bending over backwards for House Raft like their spines are optional. Lyle snaps his fingers and suddenly everyone pretends he's royalty."
"Everyone always has," Raygen muttered.
"No," Asa said around a mouthful, "they just pretend harder now."
Raygen squeezed his bun until it squished between his fingers.
"He told me he'd 'remove' me if I didn't prove useful. In front of the entire guild hall. And they didn't even blink."
Asa stopped chewing.
The cheerful big-sister act slipped. Her expression darkened into the one Raygen rarely saw—the Asa shaped by four years surviving alone, sleeping with a knife under one hand and a trap under the other. Cold. Focused. Dangerous.
"Then we get stronger," she said quietly. "Strong enough that 'removing us' becomes a punchline instead of a threat. Strong enough that even Raft money can't buy the outcome."
Raygen looked at her.
"…We have thirty days."
Asa shrugged. "Twenty-nine now." She stood and stretched. "And you're wasting daylight moping. Come on."
---
The Market Run
They hit the Lower Ring markets like storm winds.
Armourers shouted over each other, stalls clattered open, alleyway rune scribes peeked out from curtains, and even the shady black-market leatherworker—who only opened shop after the guard shift changed—gave them a curious second look.
Everywhere they went, the same pattern emerged: whispers, stares, then sudden generosity.
Old man Torren, Valdris's crankiest smith, greeted them with a grin so wide Raygen wondered if he'd lost more teeth overnight.
"Heard you made Raft's lapdogs whine," Torren chuckled. "Good. Been waiting for someone to do that."
He slammed two crafted pieces onto the counter.
For Asa: segmented shadow-scale vambraces that seemed to drink the light around them.
For Raygen: crimson-iron plates, thin as paper but dense as guilt, polished to a metallic sheen that looked like captured fire.
"Half price," Torren said. "Tell the nobles nothing. I'd like to keep my forge unburnt."
At the dagger stall, things got chaotic.
A tiny beastkin girl with cat ears, golden fur, and three tails nearly exploded when Asa approached.
"Shadow Blade-sama! I finished them! Please look!"
She practically shoved a pair of daggers into Asa's hands—void-steel blades etched with tiny falling stars.
Asa's eyes sparkled in a way Raygen saw only when she encountered either new weapons or cute girls. Dangerous combination.
Raygen leaned in. "You done?"
"No," she whispered reverently, as if in church. "They're perfect."
The price tag somehow became "please take them and tell people I exist."
But not everyone greeted them with smiles.
A pompous Raft merchant—dressed like someone who wanted to be punched—stepped into their path near the beastkin quarter. Three hired D-rank adventurers flanked him.
"Commoners purchasing high-grade gear? How amusing." His smirk curdled the air. "Young Master Lyle has expressed interest in those items. I'm sure you'll be happy to donate them for someone more worthy."
Asa's smile was sharp enough to draw blood.
"Touch my daggers," she said sweetly, "and I'll wear your ears as a fashion statement."
The man blanched. "T-this insolence—! I'll report—!"
"Do it," Asa said, still smiling.
He scurried away.
Raygen sighed. "That's the fourth one today."
"They're scared," Asa said, rolling her shoulders. "Not of us now—of what happens later. Of what happens when the gutter kids stop bowing."
By midday they were loaded.
Armor perfectly fitted.
Spatial rings packed with supplies.
Potions. Traps. New weapons. Rations. A map printed on a stolen napkin.
Raygen flexed his hands inside his new gauntlets. They felt like an extension of himself.
Asa spun her star-etched daggers until they hummed.
Yet the weight in both their chests hadn't lifted.
---
The Wall They Couldn't Cross
At the edge of the market, Raygen stared at the city gates—swarming with Raft-loyal guards.
"Even if we sneak out," he said, "the guild will flag our IDs the moment we take anything above D-rank. They'll send pursuit before we hit the plains."
Asa kicked a pebble so hard it ricocheted off a stall roof. "So we're trapped. For thirty days. While Lyle gets stronger, richer, and harder to beat. Perfect."
She rubbed her temples, muttering curses in three different languages she'd learned from questionable mercenaries.
Then she froze.
Raygen recognized the look—her "otaku brain" processing every isekai, survival arc, and power-leveling loophole she'd ever read.
Her eyes widened.
"No guild. No nobles. No Raft. No rules."
She spun, scanning the market like something might reveal itself if she stared hard enough.
"We need a place the guild has zero authority. Somewhere far—so far their rules are just bedtime stories."
Raygen's breath caught.
"You're thinking—?"
"Asking would be risky," she whispered. "But maybe… maybe he'll hear us."
Alac.
The name hung in the air between them.
They didn't speak. Didn't pray. Didn't dare call.
They simply wanted.
We need out.
We need space to grow.
Help us—just this once.
Three seconds stretched into eternity.
Nothing happened.
Then—
---
The World Blinks
Reality folded.
No flash.
No sound.
No spell circle.
No wind.
One moment: Valdris. Spice smoke. Shouting vendors.
The next:
Their boots sank into warm, pale-golden sand.
A massive savanna stretched to infinity—tall golden grass dancing under a molten-turquoise sky. The heat hit like a furnace door swung wide. The air crackled with the scent of salt and distant storms.
Towering baobab-like trees rose like ancient giants, their trunks broad enough to carve houses inside.
Herds of six-legged antelope-zebra hybrids thundered across the plains, chased by panther-sized lizards with shimmering crystalline manes that refracted sunlight like fractured glass.
And far, far away—a city.
White stone buildings
Colorful banners
Beastkin silhouettes walking the walls
Wings, tails, horns, fur—all beautiful, alien, alive.
A place with no humans.
Raygen turned in a slow circle, overwhelmed. "Asa… where the hell are we?"
Asa looked up at the alien sun, then at the faint outlines of two moons visible even in daylight. A grin—feral, delighted, free—split her face.
"The other side of the world," she breathed. "Look."
A caravan crossed the horizon: lion-kin merchants, hawk-winged navigators, and a towering elephant-kin hauling a wagon the size of a cottage.
"No humans," Asa whispered. "Not for thousands of miles. No guild. No nobles. No Raft."
Raygen felt something inside him unclench so abruptly it stole his breath.
The weight of Valdris—of Raft, of expectations, of fear—fell away like chains snapping.
Asa laughed. Loud and bright and reckless.
"Thirty days," she said, spinning her new daggers. Their star-etched blades glittered under the alien sun. "Thirty days to get so strong that when we walk back into that guild, Lyle Raft will be the one avoiding eye contact."
Raygen drew his crimson-iron blade. It gleamed like fresh blood.
"Then let's begin."
---
High above them—somewhere beyond mortal senses—a single streak of silent lightning danced across a perfect sky. It writhed, coiled, and vanished.
Alac watched.
He did not smile.
But for one breath, one heartbeat, the world felt like it had inhaled.
Waiting.
Expecting.
Preparing for the storm those two would become.
-End of Chapter 10-