Leon perused the armor stall leisurely. The adventuring district was currently the busiest it had ever been, or at least the busiest since he had become an adventurer. Parties walked from stall to stall upgrading and repairing their gear, the Guild training field was fit to bursting, and merchants were eagerly rubbing their hands together at the potential profits.

  It had been a scant few days since their fateful mission for Baron Wilcoup. The report and the accusations that they had returned with had sent Torid into a whirlwind of activity. Kingdom soldiers had been sent to arrest the baron just three days after they had reported him; those soldiers had not been heard of since.

  As a result, a larger contingent had been sent, some of the finest soldiers in the city heading to arrest Wilcoup. News was that the baron had barricaded himself in his estate with his personal guard, so the progress to arrest him had been slow and treacherous.

  The real stir came from an implication from the report of their mission, however. Scouting parties had confirmed a large band of goblins and kobolds, and numerous silver-tier monsters had been spotted in the west. The presence of such a large roving threat was already serious enough as it was, the lack of many of Torid’s forces only exacerbated the situation.

  Something big was coming, and with such a large contingent of the city's defense away to arrest the baron, there was a good chance even bronze-tier adventurers would be called to the fray. The monsters had already wiped a town off the map, and it was likely that they would continue to slaughter and plunder the smaller communities surrounding the city. Farming, lumber milling, iron mining, all under threat. Should the monsters spread far enough, there risked the serious possibility that Torid could fall into a famine.

  The city was already in lockdown, any trading caravans at risk of feeding themselves to the horde. Shutdown of trade had been met with a protest, which had quickly descended into a small riot. When the cause of the restrictions had come to light, the riots intensified as terrified citizens tried to flee. Normally, such a monster horde would be incapable of besieging a walled city such as Torid, but the reconstructions of the west wall left an all too obvious weakness. Still, they were safer in the walls than running aimlessly outside.

  Guards were out in force now, curfews had been issued, and any gathering of more than ten people was being prohibited. The obvious exception being for adventurers, who were currently gathered in massive numbers.

  Every half-way clever adventurer knew there would be a call to action, possibly involving the entire guild. Everyone else merely acted on what they saw the smarter adventurers doing. This all led to the general rush on ensuring one had the best possible gear. While his own gear was all fairly high quality, he was still missing a few essential pieces of equipment, namely a helmet.

  Ridiculous as it sounded, most bronze-tier adventurers did not own a helmet. The monsters they faced were typically shorter than them, and were only really able to reliably attack their midriff or below. Indeed, in the months he had been adventuring, the only time his head had been struck had been when he had charged the kobold stronghold. He supposed when he had fought his first goblins, their archers might have been able to shoot him in the head. The hobgoblin and silver-tier kobolds also had sufficient height to strike his head as well.

  The thought of how easily he might have died over the past few months was disquieting, and only reinforced his decision to invest in a helmet. Practically speaking, he should have bought one earlier, but the windfall from the mission with the baron, regardless of the fallout, meant he was in a position to afford a decent helmet for the first time.

  There were far too many expenses to living alone, alongside the costs associated with maintaining his current gear. They had netted fifty silver a person for their mission, thirty of that had gone to various other expenses he had, which left him with twenty silver plus a bit he had saved. He was determined to use this coin to purchase an adequate helmet.

  Looking up, he noticed the merchant's irritated stare, the stocky man gestured for Leon to hurry up. He supposed he had been inspecting the wares for a few minutes at that point. It was not as if any of the helmets were poorly made per se, they were just somewhat bland and uninteresting. Picking up a helmet with boar tusks protruding from the mouth, he turned it over and inspected it before placing it back onto the stall. Too gaudy.

  A chestplate with his family's crest emblazoned on it and a rhymesteel greatsword intricately crafted by artisans, his image was supposed to inspire hope in those he wished to protect. Most of the helmets he had seen for the day either lacked any distinguishing features or were made to be intimidating.

  Sensing the merchants rising ire, he left the stall, his position quickly subsumed by another party. Glancing from stall to stall, he looked for another vendor selling helmets, the throngs of adventuring parties walking through the street making it a frustrating endeavor.

  As he attempted to spy a stall through the crowds, he spotted a familiar ginger tail gently swaying in the air. Muscling his way forward, he took a look at what Syra was inspecting. She was bent over a table with various leather and scale armors. Above her was a lithe and young Katiine man making claims about how the materials were from low gold-tier monsters. There was even a knife on display to test the strength of the materials.

  Absentmindedly, he wondered if it would be considered cheating to apply Strong Arm and Keen Edge to the knife. It would certainly be impressive for the armor to hold up even as the table collapsed. Chuckling soundlessly, he shelved the idea before reaching out to tap Syra on the shoulder.

  Glancing at him, she only stood up properly when she realized who he was.

  “Whaddya think?” she asked, waving her hand towards the gear.

  Turning his attention from Syra to the armor, he considered how his companion fought. Taking a few seconds to examine each piece, he grabbed them to feel the material. Eventually, he pointed to a particular leather piece.

  “The others are too stiff,” he said plainly, and Syra nodded appreciatively.

  Turning back to the merchant, she asked, “How much?”

  The man looked down at the piece and rubbed his clean-shaven chin. “Sixty-two silver, but for a fellow Katiine, we’ll call it sixty even.” He smiled in a suave fashion, but his boyish face betrayed the expression.

  Leon nodded. It was a steep price, but the quality of the material and the evident abundance of buyers meant that it was more than fair. Syra seemed less impressed.

  “Normally, something like this would fetch around fifty silver,” she argued.

  The merchant shrugged apologetically. “Lotta customers today. Less stock means more coin,” he explained.

  Looking around the stalls, she considered the other options before returning her attention to the merchant.

  “You can’t bring it any lower, for a fellow Katiine?” she asked pleadingly.

  The young man looked away abashedly and scratched the back of his hair. “Ah, sorry. My pa might kill me if I lower it any more,” he said, a small splash of pink across his cheeks.

  This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

  “You're an apprentice, then?” she asked.

  He nodded, and Syra leaned across the table to bring them back to eye contact, resting her chin in her hand. “That’s good, I’ve been looking for a proper armor maker. I get real scratched up on jobs, need someone to patch me up.”

  He coughed and looked away again. “I suppose for a client, I might be able to provide a small discount. Fifty-four is as low as pa will let me go though.”

  Syra smiled. “Deal.”

  Pooling the coins on the table, she took the armor as he counted it out. Once he gave a satisfied nod, she left the stall.

  Leon was left somewhat dumbfounded at the interaction. It was not until Syra called for him did he begin moving, pushing his way to her side.

  “How did you do that?” he asked incredulously.

  Syra regarded him with a small bit of confusion. “Do what? Haggle?” she asked, and he nodded. “Just… worked it out,” she explained uncertainly, hands gesturing aimlessly in the air.

  He stared at her blankly. Syra could be somewhat infuriating like that; she operated entirely on instinct. The worst part was how spot on her instincts always were. Asking her to explain why she made the right move was like asking her to explain how to build a ladder to the heavens.

  Luckily, he had experience working through her process, and knew to start with the basic premise rather than the full picture. “How did you know that you could bargain?” he decided to ask.

  “You can always haggle,” she answered plainly. “It’s expected. You ask lower, they fight you, eventually everyone settles somewhere where you’re all unhappy.” She gave him a mischievous smile as he suppressed a groan.

  Like pulling teeth, he thought glumly. “And how did you lie so easily?” he asked.

  Syra raised a brow and gave him an inquisitive look. “I didn’t lie. I do need a proper armor repairer, and he needed a proper customer,” she explained. At his bewildered expression, she thought about it for a couple more seconds before continuing, finger tapping her chin. “He’s an apprentice, which means he needs experience. I give him that, I get a discount—you scratch my back, I scratch yours sorta thing.”

  Once he moved past the crude vernacular of her words, he realized what she meant. It was a beneficial partnership; the quality of their work could easily be determined just by inspecting what they sold. Even he had a blacksmith whom he preferred for the quality of their work.

  Could I have been getting a discount on my repair jobs, he pondered. It was little wonder Syra had so much more coin to throw around if this was how she shopped. Seeing his focused expression, she nudged him.

  “What’re you here to buy?” she asked, bringing him out of his stupor.

  “A helmet,” he responded.

  Looking around, she grabbed his arm and dragged him to a stall. Leaning in, she whispered, “Alright, pick one, and then haggle down whatever price they give you.”

  With that she practically shoved him in front of the stall and the very burly looking woman running it.

  Not wanting to dawdle too long with Syra’s expectant gaze on him, he lowered his standards and picked the most well-crafted helmet he spotted, despite its ignoble appearance.

  “How much?” he asked.

  The woman looked down at the helmet and back to him. “Twenty-five silver,” she said.

  It was a fair price, and he had the coin for it. Maybe it was a bit more than he had hoped to spend, but it was a price he was willing to pay were it not for the feline eyes he could feel boring into his skull.

  “Twenty-five is a bit high,” he began, ignoring the irritated expression growing upon the merchant's face. “How about I pay twenty now, and then come to you exclusively for repairs.” From the corner of his eye, he caught Syra gesturing for him to say more. “As the vanguard of my party, I typically require repairs after every mission, so it would be a net positive for you,” he finished.

  Syra was giving him a so-so gesture, but the merchant lady only rolled her eyes.

  “Unfortunately for you, I’m not the smith. I buy from blacksmiths outside the walls and trade their goods here,” she informed him.

  Not quite able to hide his surprise, he blurted out. “You’re not? But you are so—” Noticing her expression, he quickly regained his composure. “So well built,” he finished.

  “Uh huh, price is twenty-six now,” she responded, her voice tinged with irritation.

  Defeatedly, he reached into his pouch, only to be stopped by a hand covering it.

  “What my friend meant is that you’ve got such an eye for quality,” Syra said, softening the merchant's expression just a little. “What he said about being the vanguard was no lie, he just rushes in ahead of us without a care of the danger.” She chuckled a little. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the helmet got so busted up after only a few jobs that he’d need a new one.”

  The merchant considered her words for a second. “And he’d come back to me for that?” she asked.

  Syra nodded. “If you had a good relationship, I’m sure. These are quality helmets, right, Leon?” She turned to him and gave a small nod towards the expectant merchant.

  Examining the helmets, he could agree that most of them were of decent quality, perhaps not at the level of his chestplate, but certainly on par with the rest of the iron gear he used. “They are,” he confirmed.

  Syra smiled and returned her attention to the merchant. She stared at her as if to examine her trustworthiness before speaking.

  “Fine, twenty-two is as low as I’ll go though,” she said.

  Syra gestured for him to pay, and he quickly counted out the coin before handing it to the woman.

  “Pleasure doing business with you,” he said as he took the helmet and left the stall. The woman only gave a gruff sound in response before Syra and he were back in the street.

  “Good job. Soon enough, you’ll be trading with the best of them,” she said, giving him a pat on the back.

  Glumly, he replied, “I did not do anything. You were forced to intervene on my behalf.”

  “Gotta start somewhere, bub. For your first time, you did okay, just gotta work on keeping the conversation up.”

  Examining his new helmet, he sighed at the banality of it. It was an open-faced design, reminiscent of what the guards wore around the city. Functional, sure, but lacking any qualities that he had imagined when he had set out for the day.

  Noticing his mood, Syra nudged him. “Why so glum? You will get better so long as you keep at it.”

  “It’s not that,” he said. “This helmet had not been what I had in mind. I had been hoping to find a helmet that exhorts hope among the innocent, something that tells them they will be safe.”

  She laughed at his declaration, and then again as she saw his pouting.

  “It was not a joke!” he exclaimed, and she held a hand out as she collected herself.

  “I know, I know. I didn't think it was. It’s just so you that I couldn’t help myself,” she explained, wiping a tear from her cheek. Placing a hand on his shoulder, she said. “Listen, Leon, no one will care what you look like if you’re saving them. You could be covered in nothing but mud and blood, and all they’d see would be the archangel Salvor, trust me.”

  Seeing her serious expression, he took another look at the helmet. It was true that it was plain and unimaginative, but it would work to protect him. Had he not already decided to discard his useless pride on such matters? His goal was to get stronger, to protect the innocents, not to waste time agonizing about how his helmet looked.

  “Thank you, Syra. You are right, my appearance does not matter so long as my intentions are pure.”

  “Ah don’t worry about it. What’re teammates for?” she replied, lightly punching him in the arm as she did so.

  “May I ask you something else,” he asked shyly.

  Raising a brow, she gave him her attention. “Sure, what is it?”

  “Can you buy me dinner?”

  Her eyes widened as she stared at him, entire body tensing up. “Wha—” she began before he interrupted her.

  “I think the butcher is overcharging me,” he explained awkwardly.

  Immediately, her shoulders relaxed, and she let out a deep sigh of relief.

  “Obviously, I can compensate you if that is what you are worried about,” he clarified.

  Waving his concern off, she regained her posture before examining his face for something. Once she had or had not found whatever it was she was looking for, she shook her head with a small smile.

  Gesturing forward, she spoke. “Lead on, knight boy.”