7: The Shelf

After quite some time, the group of four had settled down for camp.

“We’re only a day’s travel away, now,” said Theodore. “But if we keep going like this, we’ll get tired in no time.”

The group had left the forest, and were now traveling along a dirt road in a valley. The road was quite worn, with tracks from wagon wheels visible in most places alongside it.

Eliza, who was writing down letters in the dirt and teaching them to Lily, did not mind quite so much.

“That’s good,” she said. “I’m somewhat excited to have an actual bed to rest in, now. I’m sure Lily would also like to have a comfortable bed to sleep in, too.”

“Yeah!” Lily responded.

Though, Eliza was sure Lily only responded positively because Lily trusted her mom so much, not that she yet understood how it felt to have a nice bed.

The group shared a pot of soup made with meat, herbs, and several vegetables found along the way, and Eliza fed Lily a mixture of plants that the system recommended for her diet before they were planning to go to sleep.

“I always wonder,” Theodore began. “You feed Lily such strange plants… Could you mind explaining why?”

Eliza paused, then came up with her answer.

“These are the stems of the Roam and Yelse flowers. They’re good for the bodies of children, especially if their teeth aren’t strong enough to eat meat, yet…”

Eliza looked down at her daughter, who was eating the food absentmindedly.

“Mom, I want soup too!” Lily shouted.

Eliza sighed. She realized that Lily may have gotten a bit bored of the paste mixture Eliza made for her after having it so much.

“Well, they’re healthy for kids her age.” Eliza scooped up a bowl of soup for Lily, picking out the meat and anything else that wasn’t properly softened for her.

Eliza kept worrying, wondering if the food was okay for her, even asking the system if anything in the soup could harm her, or be a choking hazard, but the answer she got was that everything was okay.

“Are there… a lot of ingredients for sale, there? I’d like to make different types of food for Lily, now that I’m thinking about it.”

Theodore nodded.

“If you’re interested in ingredients, there’s a person who’d be able to answer your question better than us. You’d be better off speaking to her than us.”

At Theodore’s words, Sorin shivered slightly, causing Eliza some confusion, but she didn’t vocally express it.

After a while, they had gotten up fully rested and continued on their journey, interrupted only by a group of goblins that vastly overestimated their strength.

And just one day later, the group arrived.

The Shelf, a city nearing a sea route. Just half a day’s travel from a port city, The Shelf is the intermediary between the empire, the kingdom, and the ocean. And thus, a lot of products travel through this city.

However, they were merely on the outside, witnessing its massive stone walls and the gate, of which there were dozens of people waiting in line to get in, themselves included.

“Swords, magic tomes, any food the world has to offer, almost anything you can imagine is available for trade here.” Sorin said, smiling.

At the word magic, Eliza’s interest was piqued. She had assumed magic existed, but she didn’t know anything about it.

“Magic? How does… magic work?”

Theodore frowned.

“Unfortunately, neither me nor my master were ‘qualified’ to learn magic. They say the qualification comes from your imagination, so parents who wish to raise their children to be mages in the future try their best to encourage imaginative thinking.”

Eliza looked at her creativity stat… By now, it had reached 489. She assumed creativity and imagination were the same thing, so just how much would one need to be able to cast magic?

Lily’s creativity had skyrocketed recently, going from 28 to 54 in just the mere two weeks they had been on the road.

“So… how much better does one have to be than average to learn magic, you think?” She asked, making small talk while the line moved ahead.

She could see several wagons traveling in, and they each individually had to be inspected

Theodore sighed.

“Don’t get too excited. They want people who through imagination alone can exert influence on the world. It’s similar to the way sword experts do it with willpower and your inner world… Unless one experiences lifechanging events, adults can hardly ever improve their imagination like that.”

After a moment of thought on Theodore’s words, Eliza came up with her answer.

‘Around 750 imagination? That feels about right, then.’ she believed.

“It’s not even worth considering.” Sorin stated. “Anything a mage can do, a swordmaster can do too. You want to shoot out ice? You already can do that. Ya wanna shoot out fire? All you need to do is expand your inner world with things you ain’t experienced before. Being a mage is for noble brats who have rich parents. Being a swordsman is for real men!”

Eliza looked at Sorin dumbly.

“... I’m a woman, though.” she said, despite having been a man nearly a month ago. 

Eliza had honestly been completely used to everything by now, even if there were certain parts of it she still dreaded. But with a proper city that treats her normally, and the potential to be able to buy ‘certain things’ to alleviate her dread, she wasn’t quite so panicked. It nearly had been a month, after all.

Sorin coughed twice,

“Ahem! Yes, well… You’re twice the man any mage would be, even as a woman!”

Theodore sighed. “Master, you need to learn when to keep quiet sometimes.”

Sorin coughed some more, then continued speaking.

“Ah, I’ll change the subject!” he said, hurriedly. “That Baron, you’ll need some level of protection against him. You should think about becoming a noble of the union.”

“The union has nobles?” Eliza asked, confused.

“Indeed it does,” Theodore stated. “And they have many of them. The union may have a government with elected officials, but when nobles flee from the empire or kingdom, they are offered titles if they are able to provide something of substance to the government. This typically occurs when the kingdom or the empire captures territory from the other side. A noble title shows that you’re protected by the union, but that’s all it offers. You don’t gain land or anything like that, but you’ll be safe.”

‘Is this like modern day England, then?’ Eliza wondered, having remembered there being noble titles on earth, too, even if they didn’t serve a purpose.

Though, they still held immense wealth, from what she remembered.

“Are you a noble then, Sorin?” Eliza asked.

Sorin coughed again, and Eliza sighed, realizing this old man isn’t as impressive as she first thought. At that moment though, Lily spoke up while being held by Eliza.

“Do we go in next?  No more people are in front of us!” Lily said, reaching out and pointing towards the gate.

Looking forward, they saw that Lily was correct, and somehow during their conversation, the line had progressed to the point where they were holding the line up. Eliza felt embarrassed, while Sorin and Theodore went up to the guards and began speaking to them.

“Thank you Lily.” Eliza said. She never wanted to make Lily feel like she was unappreciated, even if she didn’t know how to do that. But the barest minimum she felt like she could do was to thank Lily when she did well, like how she helped them now. She gave Lily a hug for a moment, before realizing she was in the way of the people behind her on the road.

Eliza quickly walked up to Sorin and Theodore, who were arguing with the guard at the gate.

“Look, master, just give him the coin.” Theodore said, tired.

“Theodore, when we left, there was no such gate fee. It’s more than likely that we’re being conned.”

The guard looked genuinely angry, but he didn’t express his displeasure.

“No gate fee, no entry.” The guard said, looking tired. He was out in the hot sun all day

Theodore was clearly upset. “Master, it’s just a single silver flint each, you still have what you brought to that unnamed village, right?”

At Theodore’s words, Sorin blushed, and continued to yell.

“This is ridiculous! We’re not merchants, so why is a gate fee being levied against us?” Sorin shouted angrily.

Eliza, who realized what the holdup was, got angry. She quickly withdrew 4 silver flints from the system and tossed them toward the guard, who caught them with ease.

The guard looked at the coins, then back at Eliza.

“We don’t count children towards the gate fee, ma’am.” he said gently. Clearly, Eliza was the responsible one of the group. Somehow.

Eliza thought about his words for only a moment.

“Just… keep it. As an apology for having to deal with the old man.” she said. Sorin showed a frown on his face.

"Old man? I'll have you know, I'm only-" he said, being cut off by the fact that Theodore and Eliza both were walking ahead, ignoring him completely.

They continued moving, and eventually made it into the town proper.

The town was filled with buildings made of white stone with blue roofing and the streets were cobbled, built to last.

“This is The Shelf. As you can tell, with the big outer wall, expansion is difficult here, so that’s most likely the reason housing is expensive here.” Theodore said, looking back.

With a moment of pause, he looked at Sorin.

“I’ll go tell her what to expect, so… Mentally prepare yourself, master.”

Sorin had visible sweat on his forehead.

Eliza eyed him suspiciously, having slowly been disillusioned with Sorin over the past few days.

“I… Follow me, Eliza.” Sorin said, looking down.

Pretty soon, they were standing right in front of a rather large inn, named ‘The Honeyed Bee,’ where Eliza could see dozens of people coming and going. It appeared to be a rather popular place for adventurers, based on the amount of people with weapons entering and leaving.

“Why are we just waiting outside? Shouldn’t we go in?” She asked.

“I-I…” Sorin said. “Okay…”

With that, they walked in, and the moment they did, an innkeeper serving at a table saw them both. 

The inn itself had a dining room downstairs with several deep red colored tables, and a kitchen area with a teenage girl running it.

“Grandpa, you shit!” the innkeeper lady shouted.

‘Grandpa?’ thought Eliza before the lady ran right up to the two of them.

At that, the innkeeper, a young woman with brown hair tied up in a bun wearing a brown skirt, white blouse and brown bodice with string tied up, screamed at Sorin.

“Ugh, grandpa, you always do this!” The young innkeeper shouted. “Ya can’t keep just bringing every random person with talent you find here an’ let em stay here! This ain’t your inn, it’s mine!”

“But…!” Sorin shouted, his face scrunched. He clearly wanted to retort, but he held his tongue.

Eliza sighed, realizing Sorin was a lot less dependable than she had even previously thought before.

Luckily though, the system did pay her.

“I’m sorry, miss. I can pay for me and my daughter to stay here. I do have money.” she said, preparing to pull out however many flints it would take for a month's worth of stay.

At that, the innkeeper sighed.

“Look, honey, I ain’t charging you a dime. My gramps promised you a month at an inn, and I’ll give ya a month at an inn. The name’s Olivia. The little one in yer arms there, I have a young one just like er, an’ I know it can be hard every now an then, so of course I’ll help ya out! Teddy told me the gist of it already. I eard all about ow some noble bastard treated ya poorly, an I ain't gonna do nothing like that, not after what you've been through."

Eliza felt… Weird. She had heard Sorin have a drawl before, but he seemed to not display it anywhere near as often as Olivia did.

More importantly, why did this world have accents? Would Eliza ever learn the reason why?

“Look, Olivia, I… just thank you…” Sorin said, looking ashamed.

Olivia laughed at Sorin’s words.

“Maybe ya can thank me by givin me half a gold arrow for once! Rather than drinkin on the daily! I’d bet that’s why the missy ere ad to pay the gate fee for you!” Olivia shouted, poking Sorin in the chest.

“I-”

“I don’t wanna hear it! Miss Eliza, come on over ere with me, okay? To the back, okay?”

Olivia made her way to a room near the back of the inn. Eliza looked back at Sorin, who was pouting, then made her way to the back room with Lily in hand.

In there was a small girl with black hair wearing a green dress who looked no more than 4 years of age.

“This ere’s me daughter. Teddy already told me you know ow’ to read. Could ya teach er how to read too? That’d do for your pay. Little Mary here’s smart as can be, and me husband don’t seem inclined to pay someone to teach er, can’t say I disagree either. Plus, with your little one, maybe they can be friends when they grow up, eh?”

“I’m… Mary.” the girl said. Eliza felt her heart warm, just like when she heard Lily speak.

Lily looked down at Mary, strangely. For Lily, it was her first time ever meeting another child. She seemed shy, just like how she was afraid to speak her mind around Sorin and Theodore when the two week travel first began.

Eliza nodded. She felt like it was a fair deal, even if she had to do adventuring on the side for a short bit. And somehow, she felt like she could trust Olivia quite a bit.

“Oh, and don’t worry bout doin it everyday. Just once er twice a week will do.” Olivia responded. "I'm nothin if not fair!" Olivia boasted.

“Thank you.” Eliza nodded. “I mean it… I was worried about finding a place for Lily and I.”

“Oh, don’t mention it. I jus’ want you to do that small thing, hell, if you teach Mary well I’d let you stay ‘ere for a year, even. Much better than those scholars. They want nearly 25 gold arrows jus’ for a year’s worth of learnin? That’d take us years to save up fer! Now, I still have work, so make up yer mind, huh?"

Eliza smiled. For the first time since coming to this world, it somehow felt like she had made a friend she could actually, genuinely share her mind with.

Eliza didn’t notice when Lily reached her hand out towards Mary, who seemed just as shy as Lily was. When she noticed, Eliza’s heart warmed so much that she felt like she could fly.

Eliza made up her mind for certain at that moment. If she could have Lily make a friend... It was worth whatever price... Even better, considering it was free.

“I’ll do it. Thank you, so much.” Eliza said at seeing how friendly her daughter got with Mary.

“Good!” Olivia said. “Now, let’s show ya to yer room, eh?” Olivia said, making her way upstairs.

Eliza looked at Lily, who still seemed confused at seeing a child for the first time, but she didn't have much time to think on it. Olivia was waiting.

'I'll do whatever I can for you.' She thought to herself.