Chapter 23 : Accidental Meeting

A month have passed. Eina was now an official adventurer, and now she was a beginner F-rank. Rigel-san said she'll rank up after 2 more quests, so she was out on a solo mission today.

Also, I promised Eina that after she ranked up, I'll form a party of us too so she can go out in party quests. I'm glad she happily accepted it, to be honest. She was quite busy after all.

While I go out, she always accompany me wherever I go, and when we're home, she always help Mom do housework. No, don't yet the wrong idea; I also do housework sometimes, but Mom doesn't want me too as she said it is a women's job. I was still quite skeptical about it, but I obeyed her.

As the medieval life in this world like back in the Earth suggests, men are still considered above the women. Mostly, when a woman did a job usually the male does, they were often ridiculed and told to just do housework, I'm told.

Yep, "I'm told". It was because that didn't apply in Citrine Kingdom. The first monarch of the Citrine Kingdom was a woman. It was even recorded in history as the first queen was a powerful person that made this kingdom prosper so much, even with the threat of the demons that was much worse back then.

This made the Citrine Kingdom the first kingdom to let a princess rule. Now, princes still rose from the throne as normal, but if a princess succeeded in claiming the throne, then she will be crowned as a queen of this kingdom. The fun fact was there has been 6 out of 27 monarchs that was a queen that ruled rhe Citrine Kingdom.

Well, stopping in my tracks, I directed my thought to the scene happening in front of me. All my thoughts were actually connected to what am I seeing right now.

Our city, the city of Negissa, was looking more active and the people were busy about something. Knights even roamed all over Negissa every day to clean out the roads, making Negissa look as good as the capital, where there was supposed to be hardly any crimes happening.

Also, the people here have begun being busy helping to arrange the streets, and they even got big smiles on their faces. All of this started 2 days ago, actually. The reason?

It was because the 4th prince of the Citrine royal family was supposed to visit here to chack the status of the city. Thus, the noble in charge of this city, who was a Count immediately did all this to welcome the prince. The supposed date of the prince coming here would be in 3 more days, but the Count sure prepared very early, which could only mean this prince was a real big shot.

I mean, it was always portrayed in the novels I read before that while royalties were always welcomed in this sort of matter, others only do really small preparations to accept them because they didn't like them.

But this was by no means small, to be honest. Well, for me maybe, but who knows what they think of this. All nobles were rich people, after all. And the reason I was walking all over the place was because of one thing also. No. not just me, but also the other adventurers.

It was because the shops here have lowered their prices because of the event. All things sold was reduced by 15% of their normal price. Meaning armors, weapons, and other stuffs useful to adventurers will also be at a power price. Because of this, I could buy an armor that I could use. Maybe with my money Dad gave me, I could buy a Lesser Wyvern armor.

Though I said lesser, they were still Wyverns, who were the subspecies of the dragons. Though they were monsters and dragons were considered as a beastkin. Also, wyverns have 3 types, and you could tell them with their colors: Lesser Wyvern, with colors of dark green and gray; Normal Wyverns, with a bigger stature and colors ranging in yellow, orange and red; and High Wyverns, bodies only a little bit small than dragons, and colors of either white or crimson.

And being wyverns, their bodies were strong. Even a steel sword will not penetrate a lesser wyvern if a beginner sword user did it. And with that alone, I could probably have no trouble handling the monsters in the Finlea Forest. Though I really have no trouble doing without even that.

But while walking, someone bumped into me. Because of the impact, I fell... not. Because of my training, of course, I wouldn't fall that easily. Or rather, he one who bumped into me was the one who fell... almost, but I held his hands to stop him from falling.

"Sorry, are you okay?" I asked to the man-no, the boy, maybe just a bit taller than me. The boy was wearing a black garment with a hood.

Fixing his hood to hide his face well enough, he replied,"Yes, I'm okay thanks to you. I am grateful for your help."

"Don't mention it."

I wasn't bothered by it either, so he shouldn't too. Though, what's with the formal words? Well, maybe he's just always talking like that, so let's let it be. But I asked him of something.

"By the way, are you new adventurer here?"

"...Why do you ask?"

"Nothing much, really. It's just because there are many adventurers here who visited to buy new weapons and armor because the price lowered here. Are you one of them too?"

"I see... Yes, I am one. I came here to look for something too. If I may ask, are you a native here?"

"Yep. But, uh... can you stop those formal way of talking? It's kind of awkward..."

"...Is that so? I am sorry, but this was actually me being informal already."

"Ah, that so..."

It was kinda an awkward conversation, but still it was fun, I guess. Then, he suddenly ask a question.

"I am only new here, can I ask you to accompany me while I'm searching for the things I need? Also, can you please lead the way as I still am unfamiliar here? I wouldn't mind if you go to anywhere you still would like to go."

"...Sure? I was on my way to buy my armor, so can we stop by there first?"

"Yes. Thank you, uh..?"

"It's Zen. Just call me Zen. And you?"

"...Aizen. Please call me Aizen."

"What a nice name... well, nice to meet you, Aizen."

"Yes, nice to meet you too, Zen-kun."

And thus, Aizen and I walked to the armor shops. Though never would I thought that he was a big shot person...