The Saga of Eden

Chapter 2, part 8

The night after killing Narila, Eden sleeps like a baby. He wakes up late in the following morning when Ella is already bustling with activities. Well, he has the right to take his time. Eden just received a vast sum of money, more than his parents can ever make in their lifetimes. Besides, Eden has no plans for today, he can take his time.

Shortly after the morning obligations, Eden puts on his armor, equips his sword and shield, then opens the door to start his day. To his surprise, Lela is waiting for him behind the door. She has been leaning at the opposite wall and staring at the door, waiting for him.

Wait, how long has she been standing there?

“Uhm, how long have you been standing there?” 

“You’re late.” She smirks, completely ignoring our questions. “I almost thought you planned on sleeping for the entire day. That would be unbecoming of a hero in sagas.” 

“Well, here I am!” Eden declares cheerfully, he’s still in a good mood. “And don’t worry, I have daily exercises to do to keep myself in shape. And I’m planning to go on a little shopping today as well.” He says, lightly patting the pouch of money in his pocket, making a little cling sound.

Lela is temporarily distracted by the sound of coins, but she quickly snaps back and looks at Eden. “I’m guessing you plan to upgrade your gears?” She says, looking up and down at his tattered leather armor and chipped sword. His shield is pretty decent, but it is at its breaking point after taking a hit from Narila earlier. “It’s actually been a while since I last visited Ella, but I still remember the place of the best blacksmith in this city, want me to take you there?”

“Thanks, but can you just tell me where it’s at? I’m planning to eat and exercise first before buying new stuff, actually. And I also want to browse to see if I need anything else.”

“Eh, just take me with you. I want to do some shopping too! You wouldn’t leave a young maiden walking the street alone, right?” Lela says flirtatiously.

Honestly, I’m not surprised. I would probably want to date Eden as well if I have a female body… or a physical body… I gotta admit, my standard is not that high though. God, I’m so lonely!

“Uhm… Sure! Just let me have some breakfast and workouts then I’ll go with you.” Eden agrees hesitantly, he notices Lela is flirting with him, but since he had few experiences with girls, he had no idea if he was misreading the situation. So Eden just replies normally for now.

“Ugh, fine,” Lela groans, “but you better not let me wait for too long, mister.” She smiles mischievously while putting her index finger at his hard chest. Then, she returns to her room, maintaining eye contact all the way.

Eden gulps and mentally notes himself to finish his business quickly. He walks down to the ground floor, greets the innkeeper lady, and leaves the place. The moment Eden walks out of the door, an alluring smell of baked bread attracts his attention. Eden used to be a hunter before he came to Ella, so he’s no amateur in tracking scents. He follows the wonderful smell to a bakery not too far away, where waves of customers are forming a line. 

Eden eagerly waits in line, hoping someone would notice him after his achievement the day before. As expected, none of them do, and this drops Eden’s mood significantly. Actually, one of the customers recognizes him, but as the smelly guy from yesterday, after his return. 

“That will be 4 copper coins, please.” The old baker says as he hands Eden his order after half an hour of waiting. 

“Wait, my order is 5 coins in total. Are you giving me a discount?” Eden says quietly, but hopefully, so the customers behind him can’t hear. He was hoping the baker recognized him and gave him a discount.

“Don’t worry about it, son.” The baker says kindly, looking at the worn-out armor Eden is wearing. “Looking at you, times must be tough lately, huh? Consider this something to cheer you up. Don’t worry, I’m sure things will get better.”

“...What?” Eden looks confused, then he follows the old baker’s gaze and looks down at his armor. Finally, Eden understands that the man was pitying him instead of admiring him.

“Uhm... Thank you, but I’m not poor.” Eden lowers his head and pays him the full amount. Then, he quickly leaves before the old man can shame him any further. 

Eden walks quite far away. He’s being embarrassed, thinking that he might have been considering himself too highly. [Perhaps what we did was not that big of a deal. I shouldn’t get my hopes up anymore.] Eden looks around for some place to eat and quickly finds a public bench nearby. As one of the most developed cities on the continent, Ella’s public infrastructure is top-notch.

After finishing his breakfast, Eden finally realizes his mistake. Right now is time for his daily sword training, and usually back home, the village has plenty of open spaces for him to train. Here in Ella, however, the city is crowded with people. He has to find somewhere like a training ground to do it, and walking out of the city is just too far away, Ella is really big. And that’s the biggest problem, he has no idea where to find a training ground. He should have asked Lela or Harmani about the training ground, they probably would know. Eden shrugs, he needs to head back anyway, might as well ask Lela when he gets back. 

And that is when Eden realizes his second mistake: he has no idea where he is, nor where the inn is. He’s lost, like a child who lost his mother in a market.

In the following hour, Eden tries his best to return, to no avail. He tried asking a bystander, but he instead showed Eden to an inn with the same name, but in another district. He’s now completely lost, with no idea where to go next. While inside that wrong inn, Eden tries to calm down and thinks rationally about what to do next. 

Back then, when he entered, the innkeeper glanced at him and saw Eden’s face turned into a frown. She concluded Eden was thinking highly of himself, and that her place is not to his liking. [What an arrogant boy, and with an outfit like that? Ragged armor and sword? Is he some wannabe adventurer?] She was thinking. Since Eden is likely not going to rent a room, she returns to her book and continues reading.

“Excuse me. I think in the upper district there’s another inn also named ‘Boar’s Tusk’. Do you happen to know how to get there? I seem to be lost.” Eden approaches the innkeeper and asks.

The lady was focused on her book, so didn’t fully hear what Eden said. Thinking he was asking for the place of a better inn, her reply is cold.

“I know exactly where you should go. Take a left from here until you find a well, and turn right for 3 blocks. Take a look at that place, and then at yourself before doing these kinds of things again.”

“Uhm...thanks?” Eden says and walks out the door. He is sure that turning left will lead him deeper into the lower district, so he’s confused. Nevertheless, the innkeeper probably knows more than him, so Eden decides to follow her instructions anyway.

  It doesn’t take him long before arriving at the destination. As expected, the place that the innkeeper showed Eden was not his inn. Rather, it is a large weapon shop and a smithy all in one. While the shop looks nothing out of the ordinary, it’s not difficult to realize this place is probably the best weapon shop in the district, if not the city. The axes, maces, hammers, shields, armors, and the likes are all high quality, the steels are perfectly mixed and melted, and the leathers are finely sewed and crafted. The two customers currently inside are from the high nobility, those people tend to have fine tastes in weapons and armors, so this place probably has a good reputation as well. Perhaps the innkeeper sent Eden here to spite him.

Eden also came to the same conclusion that this shop is high-end, which is definitely the place he needs, but not right now. Eden’s priority is to return to the inn, he promised Lela so and he’s already late. Eden begins considering his options and decides to walk into the shop. If Eden returns now, it might take him a long time to find this place again, which is the perfect shop in his mind (it’s worth noting that his standard isn’t high, son of a farmer and all). 

[Besides, surely it won’t take long to buy all the things I need, right?]

Eden opens the door and walks inside. The two customers around his age turn around and look at Eden. They immediately recognize Eden is a commoner, wearing rag armor from their perspectives. The two men frowned and turned back to the shopkeeper, who was talking to them.

“I just realized I have some other things to do, I’ll be back tomorrow,” one of them says.

“Me too.”

And with that, they hurriedly exit the shop, avoiding Eden all the while. Typical attitudes from nobles. While the shopkeeper is a commoner, he’s a well-respected blacksmith and salesman, so ‘status wise’, he somewhat thinks himself to be superior to the poor-looking boy that is Eden. Besides, Eden just chased away two of his wealthy customers. 

“Welcome.” The middle-aged man looks at Eden wearily but politely greets him nonetheless. He’s hoping Eden will be intimidated by the prices and leave soon.

“Hello...” Eden greets back while glancing around the shop and sees if anything catches his attention.

After a few seconds of looking around, Eden finds many good shields, gloves, boots, armors, and other types of equipment that suit him, but he cannot find any swords. He then opens a very small bag hanging around his belt and takes out a folded piece of paper. Inside the paper is… I think it’s written descriptions of the things he needs, I think? His handwriting honestly looks gibberish to me. There are some drawings of a heater shield, armor components, and a sword so I made my guess.

Eden hands the paper over to the middle-aged blacksmith and asks him if he has these items. It takes the man a few seconds to be able to read Eden’s writing, he’s soon impressed by Eden’s great understanding of armor quality, and what is necessary to survive in a fight. After a minute of reading through the entire list, the shopkeeper returns the paper to Eden and says:

“I have to admit, you have good eyes, kid. Except for the sword, most of the other parts are already available,” he points his thumb to the back of the shop and continues, “I need to make a few modifications, but it shouldn’t take long.”

“There are two problems, though.” The smith strokes his beard. “I can make the sword you want, will take me about a week. But I INSIST,” he emphasizes that part hard, “that you buy another weapon if you want to survive out there.”

“I heard people say that a lot. Don’t worry, I’m still kicking.” Eden shrugs.

“Not for long if you keep on like this, but who am I to judge?” The smith shrugs as well. “That leads us to the second problem, all of that will cost you a lot, the sword alone will cost more than the other items combined, though I can’t tell you the exact price yet before I finish. Can you afford it?”

Eden turns nervous at this last question and starts taking the coin out of his pouch. Then, he opens his palm, revealing 20, quote-on-quote, ‘silver’ coins of his. 

*Hahahaha* 

Oh man, he still thinks those coins are silver? Please give me a moment.

…

*Sound of continued laughing from a distance* 

....

Ok, I’m back.

“This is… most of my income. Will they be enough?” Eden asks, his heart is beating fast while the smith’s mouth is wide open in shock. Eden is unsure what that means. 

“Kid, did you rob the Royal Palace or something?” The smith asks with a bewildered look. 

“Uhmm...no? It’s my earning from bounty hunting.”

“Really? But you look so young!” The smith still looks surprised, but less so now that he takes a long look at Eden. It kind of makes sense from Eden's small injuries and tattered armor. 

[Screw it! This one here just helped me make a fortune, I don’t need to ask questions. I can finally expand my shop!] The blacksmith just doesn’t care anymore.

“I promise I’ll make the best sword, worthy of this amount, sir!” The middle-aged man takes a deep bow of gratitude, almost hitting his head to the table. “Come back in a week, my masterpiece will be ready then!”

Eden is surprised at this sudden change of attitude. 20 silver coins is certainly a huge amount to him, but is it really that much for a well-established blacksmith?

Upon the smith’s insistence, Eden decides to stay for a few more hours and waits for the shields and armor parts to be completed. It is worth the wait, the results are even better than Eden would hope. Unfortunately, that means Eden only manages to return home in the evening… with Lela waiting for him right at the entrance… and with his items already bought and in hand.

Needless to say, Lela is once again very mad at him, and women tend to not forget from what I heard.