High Anticipation

Returning back to the present, it was already the next day and Kies hadn't returned to the inn at all. He stayed on the wall all night and fixed the mess that he made. It took him almost the entire night to fill the two holes until they were not notable anymore. He had to take the sand from the surroundings and he almost leveled the place by almost an entire foot. Hopefully, people wouldn't notice that the height of the desert dropped by so much.

Kies finished the repair just in time too. The first caravan left a minute after he fixed the land and they didn't look like they noticed a thing. While the carriages were driving away, Kies listened in on their conversation from on top of the wall. The men escorting the caravan, especially the guards, were on high alert for some reason.

"I'm gettin' the chills..." one of them said nervously, holding tightly onto his sword and looking around.

"What are you talking about?" the guard riding beside him asked. "It is rather cold right now, but the sun is coming up, don't you worry," he told him reassuringly, thinking that he was talking about the temperature.

But it wasn't that. "I'm not cold," he said as a matter of fact. It was something else. "Did you not hear all the noise last night?" he asked, yawning and rubbing his eyes. "Because of it, I didn't get a wink of sleep at all."

"Noise? I heard nothing. Must've been a sandstorm or something."

"Sandstorm? No. It wasn't a sandstorm, that, I'm sure of."

"Well, get some sleep now," the second guard suggested to the first, seeing how tired he was. "I'll wake you when we come across a threat."

Although the first guard didn't like the sound of that and looked like he might protest, the fatigue took over and he gave in. "I suppose... A short nap wouldn't hurt..." he said, yawning twice while saying the sentence, once halfway and once at the end.

With that, the guard got off the front of the carriage and disappeared inside of it.

The caravan rode away from Otane slowly. Its destination was unknown to Kies but they weren't unlikely to face many dangers along the way. Last night, Kies wiped out a lot of the wild beasts roaming the desert for the sake of getting used to his magic again. The loud noise that the guard heard was probably him.

"He was able to hear that...?" Kies was somewhat impressed. He traveled quite far away from the city to practice his magic, and aside from the first two spells he fired, the people here shouldn't have heard anything at all.

But nevertheless, Kies has to be a bit more careful in the future... Just like with that mountain giant... Even after regaining control of the winds, he had a hard time defeating it since the towering giant refused to fall quietly. And yesterday's match too...

Kies barely managed to scrape by due to sheer luck. If he just unleashed all of his magic from the start, even without breaking his seal, he would've won. Instead, he gave the soldier some time to activate his magic scarf and it almost killed him.

But, he won't make that same mistake again, at least not today. Rui was an opponent that he needed to take seriously. Taking her lightly and fighting her without his full strength would result in his defeat, guaranteed.

And just in case as well... Kies reached into his pouch and poured as much magic as he could into the moonstone until it could not take anymore. There was no reason for Rui to have the anti-magic scarf, but in case something did happen, he would have a backup plan. Even still, the anti-magic magic, given that it is powerful enough, still couldn't block the magic from the moonstone, but it was handy to have a backup plan anyways.

After Kies was done replenishing the moonstone's magic, he jumped down from the wall and went back into the city. People were starting to wake up and the streets were starting to become busy. Now that he wasn't wearing his mask or cloak anymore, he was attracting a lot of attention, even more than before. Everyone that he walked past would glance or stare at him with fruit-sized eyes.

"Hm? Is it my clothes?" Kies wondered, not understanding why people were paying so much attention to him. He took a look at what he was wearing. He forgot what he had on all this time since he always had the cloak on.

His shirt and pants were a little small and barely fit him, but they covered up his body just fine. He didn't grow that much after his transformation. He didn't see what the problem was.

Kies felt eyes all over him and felt uncomfortable. Was it because he didn't look like a native here? Even Nyana, who was an elf, didn't get as much attention compared to him.

Using his winds to explore the place, Kies found the area with the least people and made his way there quickly.

After fleeing the unwanted gazes, Kies stopped and took a moment to look around, and found a stall that was still being set up. There was an elderly man with burns all over his back managing it all by himself. Next to him was a box containing fabrics.

Kies approached the man and asked him if he sold clothes. The man turned around, startled by someone suddenly calling out to him when he was still setting up shop. He took a long look at Kies, raising his eyebrows.

"Yes, I do," he answered. The man stopped what he was doing and slowly hunched over to a box lying behind the stall and kicked the lid off of it, revealing a bunch of folded clothes.

They were by no means fancy. They all looked pretty worn out, but Kies wasn't picky. "How much for a set?" he asked the merchant, already reaching into his pocket to pull out the right amount of coins to purchase them.

The man pondered about the price for a moment. The wrinkles on his face grew and he scratched his head. "Don't know. How much do you reckon they cost?" he asked Kies instead of giving him a price.

"You're asking me to decide?"

"Yes."

"..."

Kies reached out with his hand and the merchant handed over a shirt to him. Kies inspected the quality of the shirt. It wasn't good, but it wasn't terrible either.

"Hmph... Shopping for clothes... It really takes me back..." Kies found himself smiling with him knowing it. He usually just took whatever he wanted from bandits, criminals, and his foes, but here he was, spending time and money to purchase something, and clothes of all things.

"I really wish they would make these things more durable..." he mumbled to himself. He'd be very happy if he didn't have to constantly replace them after every fight. He didn't really need a new set of clothes as the current ones still fit but it was too inconvenient to fight in them now that he was this size.

Kies closed his eyes and thought about an appropriate price. "Thirty-three, and give me a pair of pants too," he proposed a deal that he thought was fair to the merchant.

"Isn't that a bit stingy?" the old man frowned.

"..."

Kies offered another price to the old man, a bit more than his previous price but he shook his head again. After some back and forth, they finally agreed on a price and Kies paid the merchant, feeling as if he got ripped off.

"These things better last me today at least..." he grunted.

Kies chose to not head back to the inn and instead went directly to the colosseum. He still didn't want to face Iris just yet, and especially not in this form. He found an empty alleyway and quickly changed into his new clothes, throwing the old ones away. They didn't mean much to him.

If Kies' memory serves him right, he stole them from a scammer a while back who gave him the wrong price for some materials, making a massive profit off of him. When Kies found out the truth, he went back to the scammer and taught him a lesson.

It wasn't like he was planning to switch back to his younger and smaller form either. Even if he did, baggy clothes were better than ones that were too tight.

From there, Kies headed straight to the colosseum, still getting a lot of glances from people around. "So it wasn't the clothes..." Whatever it was, he wouldn't know unless he asked and he really didn't want to socialize if it wasn't necessary.

When Kies got to the colosseum, he saw that he wasn't the only one who wanted to get there early. There were still hours before the match but the place was already quite crowded. Luckily, they were too busy trying to find a way into the colosseum and didn't pay much attention to him like the others did. He blended in and waited until it was his turn to enter.

"Your ticket, sir," the person in the front stopped him, holding his hand out for the ticket.

"Ticket? I'm one of the-" Kies stopped himself. He took a quick look around. There were too many people here. No one recognized him yet since he changed his appearance, and it probably wasn't a good idea to let them know who he really was. "-Er, I was one of the contestants," he said. It wasn't too far off from the truth. Anyone that participated in the tournament had free entry and he could enter without any problems. Well, except there was one.

"Was?"

"Yes."

"Can you prove it?" the guard asked skeptically, not recalling seeing someone who looked like him at the tournament.

"Proof? I'm not sure how I can prove it," Kies shrugged his shoulders. He had the number that was given to him when he registered but if he showed it then people would know that it is him.

The guard's eyes narrowed. He had his hand resting on the hilt of his weapon. For a second, Kies thought that he might ask him to leave but something surprising happened. The guard sighed and stepped aside. "Go in. You have the eyes of a warrior. Though I cannot say that I remember you, you should know the consequences of lying," he warned him.

"Of course." Kies thanked the guard and entered the colosseum.

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