Magical Girl

Chapter 13

After parting ways with Felido, Marlene returned to the Iris Inn. She swallowed her pride and asked the kitchen staff for some leftover bread, enduring their mocking as she haggled with the kitchen maid.

That night, she once again had to sleep in the inn’s stable. Sleeping on hay wasn’t comfortable, so Marlene’s sleep was light.

In her shallow sleep, Marlene heard a rustling noise, which woke her up. The stable wasn’t particularly quiet, even at night; there was often the sound of horses chewing on hay.

Half-awake, Marlene opened her eyes and, in the moonlight, saw a large shadow approaching her. The rustling noise came from the steps of this large figure as it moved across the hay.

Instantly, Marlene recalled that terrifying night!

She needed a weapon—anything. Frantically, she searched around and felt a piece of wood nearby. She picked it up and shouted, “Stay back!”

The shadow stopped. In the dim moonlight, Marlene’s fragile yet fierce posture made it clear that if the figure came any closer, she would fight back like a wildcat.

The shadow slowly retreated.

Marlene collapsed onto the ground, realizing who the shadow was.

The next morning, Marlene received some bad news.

“You can’t stay in the stable anymore,” the inn’s maid informed her. “A guest was frightened by you and wants us to throw you out.”

Marlene pleaded, “Please, just let me stay by the stable for a few more days. I’ll leave as soon as I find a job.”

“If you want to stay, you need to pay,” said the maid, a short, stout widow in her forties. Despite most people here being taller than Marlene, this woman was actually a bit shorter.

Marlene knew the maid looked down on her. As an employee at the inn, she was generally friendly to others, but whenever she dealt with someone from Auderin, she wore a disdainful expression. Marlene even thought that, given the chance, she would spit into the drinks she served to the Rod family’s people.

No matter how much Marlene pleaded, the maid was unmoved.

“I’ll stay by the stable. I won’t bother anyone.”

“No.”

“Please, I’ve been very quiet, and you know I’d never disturb anyone. I’ll find a job soon—please.”

At that moment, Marlene noticed the maid’s gaze shift to something behind her. Following her line of sight, Marlene’s skin prickled with unease.

The cook was standing at the doorway, watching them from afar. The inn’s cook was a man in his fifties, extremely obese, with a chin twice as wide as his forehead. His face was perpetually red and greasy, probably from years spent in the kitchen. He looked swollen, like an overcooked ham.

—He was the shadow from last night.

“You need to pay to stay,” the maid repeated. “If you pay, you won’t have to stay in the stable. You could have a warm bed…”

Marlene sensed what she was going to say next.

“…the cook could cover it for you. You know what that means, right? All you need to do is…”

“No, thank you.” Marlene grabbed her small bundle and hurried away as fast as she could, not daring to linger a moment longer.

The maid watched Marlene flee, then spat on the ground. “Just a country bumpkin.”

The cook approached her. “She actually refused?”

The maid sneered, “She’s practically a beggar, sleeping in the stables, yet she acts like some noble lady. Everyone in Ammanren knows the women from Auderin are just like street girls. Such pretentiousness.”

A Jetugara bumpkin, turning him down? The cook felt his pride deeply wounded.

“She’ll regret it!” he fumed. “Even if she begs on her knees, I won’t change my mind.”

—

Marlene found a bakery and, although the owner was initially skeptical, she insisted she could work just as well as anyone else. He reluctantly agreed to let her try.

Marlene diligently cleaned and washed dishes for the bakery. The owner seemed pleased, and Marlene thought she had secured the job. But as the shop prepared to close at dusk, he suddenly changed his tune. “No, I don’t think this will work. You’re just not strong enough. I need to hire a grown man.”

Marlene was livid. “You didn’t say that before! You promised if I could work as hard as the others, you’d hire me.”

“No, I never said that.”

Her face pale with anger, Marlene retorted, “Fine. I get it. You just wanted a day’s work for free! You’re despicable!”

“Oh, please. An Auderin native calling someone else despicable?”

At this point, many passersby, curious about the commotion, began to gather. When they heard the owner mention she was from Auderin, their expressions shifted immediately.

“She’s from Auderin?”

“Dirty place, dirty people. How can they show their faces in Jetugara?”

“The council should kick out all the Auderin folk.”

Marlene clenched her teeth. From the crowd’s attitude, she could tell she wouldn’t find any justice here today.

She grabbed a bag of leftover bread crusts from the counter. “I’ll take this as my pay for today,” she said.

“Get out of here! You’re not getting anything, you hear me?” The shopkeeper raised a rolling pin, looking ready to strike. “Get out of my shop.”

Holding back her frustration, Marlene shouted, “This is what I earned!”

Then she took the bread crusts and ran.

The shopkeeper yelled after her, “She’s a thief! Typical dirty Auderin!”

As she ran back toward the inn, Marlene chewed on the crusts with tears in her eyes.

Maybe she’d been wrong. Jetugara wasn’t as great as she’d imagined. Perhaps she should consider going to a bigger city—somewhere where no one had heard of Auderin, a place where no one would care where she was from.

For now, the bread crusts in her hand would barely count as food for today. But what about tomorrow? Or even tonight? She didn’t have a place to sleep. Was she going to have to turn to Steward Neal again? That greedy man—she still owed him a gold coin. Trying to borrow from him again would be next to impossible.

But where else could she go? In this vast city of Jetugara, she had no one to turn to.