“I’ll give you twenty gold for that, and no more.” Meriel said, his tone not leaving any more place for haggling. Already, he spent too much time just trying to buy the trio of Rock-Oxes that cost a small fortune, and buying these stupid birds was making him feel as if his hair would surely start falling out any second now.

  It wasn’t like he couldn’t create anything of value to trade for the birds, of course, but he didn’t want to catch anyone’s attention by bringing so many magical trinkets. Enchantements seemed rare enough for some reason, if one didn’t count the magical swords of the Spellswords.

  “Alright, lad. Last offer. 30 gold doucats, and that’s the best ya will get outta me.” The old man said, and offered his hand in a handshake. Meriel fought the scoff. This was a damn daylight robbery. 30 gold? Would the birds lay golden eggs to make that worth it?

  Yes, they were beautiful and exotic, their colorful feathers and giant wings giving it a completely alien appearance. He also hadn’t seen such large avians outside of dungeons. Meriel almost felt bad for needing to kill it for his purposes.

  “Listen, lad. These birds?” The bald man turned sideways, and showed the caged birds off once again. “These come from the Battauri Empire, from the northern-most ends of the continent. You won’t find better messenger birds in all of the continent, that much I can promise. 30 Doucats for three of the birds is already too much, and my wife will beat me when she hears.”

  This time, Meriel couldn’t suppress the roll of his eyes, though, if the merchant saw, he didn’t react. He thought about it for a while longer, deciding what he should do to trade for the birds. He couldn’t just leave them, sadly. The dragon would need enough mass and feathers for it to fly. He didn’t have dragonscale anymore, and he couldn’t create a small dragon like Ziggy just to wait a century again.

  Finally, he was about to offer something, risk getting even more glances from the shopkeeps who already found his gold nuggets suspicious, but a small hand caught his sleeve and tugged slightly, bringing Meriel’s and the merchant’s eyes both down.

  Ziggy stood there, on his face a very displeased expression, his eyebrows turned down in anger. “Slave, I told you to procure those birds minutes ago. How dare you leave me alone?”

  Meriel felt his breath catch, and almost went to retort, ask what, by the all hells, was Ziggy saying, but he saw the look that the small dragon gave him. A look shared many times, in the darkness of a cave, one that symbollized trust more than any other.

  Silently, Meriel nodded, careful not to bring his eyes back on the merchant.

  “So, what is it, slave? You fail to do even such a simple task? How am I to browse the Lavarza Kindom’s wares, if my slave cannot even procure some birds?” Ziggy stepped beyond Meriel, going straight toward the merchant, and offering the money pouch he pocketed from Meriel.

  He hadn’t even noticed when. That small dragonling was scary fast when he needed to be.

  “I do not know what the reason for the hold-up here is, but please sell me three of these colorful birds. I believe my slave might have made some mistake.”

  “Umm, sure, young lord. That will be thirty doucats, as I told your slave.” He looked at Meriel again, a weird sense of pity on his eyes. Slavery was long forbidden in Lavarza, of course. The kingdom priding itself on it’s etiquette, strong but non-numerous fighters, and grand buildings, wouldn’t rely on the suffering of others.

  But that wasn’t the case everywhere, far from it in fact. The other countries practiced it, to either lesser or larger extent, and Egoros, where all Elves came from, wasn’t any different.

  “I am sure that you’re mistaken.” Ziggy said, his voice gone cold. “I will give you twenty, as is normal, and you can be glad for not losing that lying tongue of yours for trying to deceive me. Now hand them over before I change my mind.”

  The man’s eyes went wide, but he hurried to comply, quickly stacking all three of the bird cages on the wagon that Meriel rented earlier that day. A soft clink of coins hitting wood soon followed, and then Ziggy joined Meriel in walking away.

  “What by the gods was that, Ziggy?” Meriel finally asked when they made some distance.

  “That? Oh, just some negotiation. It was Mary’s idea, actually.” He said, smirking as if it was a genius idea.

  “The point of me not creating any items for payment was that I’d not attract any attention. You just brought the eyes of everyone in that part of the market on us.”

  “Relax, Meriel. The market is huge!”

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  Meriel scoffed, and another thought creeped into his mind. “How do you even know about the elven kingdom, at any rate? You’ve been in society for barely a week.”

  “Dragon learning, I suppose.” Ziggy smiled, but then chose to actually answer in place of a jest. “I seriously do not know, Meriel. I suppose it’s because of how you created me? It’s easy to learn new things, especially after not being able to learn anything while locked in the bubble.”

  Meriel swallowed. “Sorry for bringing you into that bubble, Ziggy. It was the only thing I could think of at the time.”

  Ziggy only waved his hand, and Meriel was once again reminded of how mature Ziggy truly was. It was sometimes hard to keep in mind when he was doing some childish antics along with Mary, but he was truly an adult, deep inside. “It’s no matter, Meriel. It was all I knew, and though it was a bit boring, you are a fun person, and I never blamed you. You’re my master, and I knew that we’d get out so I could serve you properly eventually.”

  It was… nice to hear that he wasn’t blaming Meriel. He did oftentimes feel a bit regretful about bringing Ziggy there. He often told him that, of course, but it didn’t alleviate the feeling of guilt when Ziggy couldn’t answer back.

  He also did his best to ignore the pang of guilt at the dedication and loyalty that Ziggy had shown. Meriel made him that way for a good reason, but it was harder not to feel bad when Ziggy was a humanoid instead of a beast with razor-sharp teeth.

  “Anyway,” Ziggy said, a bit awkward, “I learned about the history in the classes. You should really stop skipping history, it’s all pretty interesting stuff.”

  Meriel chuckled. “To you? Maybe. I learned it by memory back in my academy days. Do let me know when you stop learning about the old era and learn about the current era.”

  Ziggy scratched his long ear, looking around. The market was still busy, with the stench of animal waste and sweaty humans mixing into a pungent smell, which was thankfully somewhat dissipated due to being under the clear sky.

  “What counts as recent history? I doubt the system creation does?”

  Meriel chuckled. “That’s more of a guess than true history, but yes, that doesn’t count. Neither does the creation of Battauri Empire, arrival of the elves, or the re-emergence of the Lake of Memories.”

  “Uhhhh.. I haven’t learned about those yet, Meriel. You’re skipping ahead! Stop that!”

  Meriel chuckled at how Ziggy once again looked his physical age again. “I meant from the last century, dummy.”

  “Well, as I said, we’re still quite early on in the semester, so not much? Maybe you should ask the professor, though. She’s nice. I don’t really even understand why we have to learn history, but it’s fun at least. Better than magic foundations.”

  “You find those boring because you understand all of it already.”

  Ziggy scoffed. “Of course I do! I have a mana heart instead of a gut! I’ve been ‘absorbing mana’ since before some of those old farts were even born!”

  “Don’t let yourself get overconfident, Ziggy.” Meriel chastised. “Overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer. There are always ways to improve.”

  “Really? Look at you! You could probably take over this kingdom with how weak the mages are here!”

  “We haven’t seen most of the higher ups yet.”

  “Oh please! You could defeat the ones on our entrance ceremony with a flick of your finger.”

  Meriel paused, not letting himself to get goaded. “What are you trying to get to, Ziggy?”

  Ziggy paused, twiddled his thumbs for a moment, and then met Meriel’s eyes. “Master, why are you hiding who you are? I talked to some kids, and you seem to be a legend to most mages. The way magic is done has been changed for the worse, and you could change it for the better if you showed them their errors. Why do you insist on being hidden?”

  Meriel looked at him for a moment, unsure of the answer himself. Why did he hide his identity, truly? For safety of Elsa? If Jonathan wanted to hurt her once he was locked away, he’d already do so. To protect his two apprentices? Maybe?

  But truly, when he looked deeper inside, he found the answer right there, staring at him.

  He simply wanted to go back to his life before the fame. Before he joined Jonathan and his delver party, hells, before he left for the academy even. Just a life of going from day to day, without anything much to take care of.

  But would he be able to? He was always a man of strong conviction, and already he found himself slipping into his old shoes after his return.

  In the end, he stared into the eyes of Ziggy, and he only managed to get three words out. “I don’t know.”

  “I didn’t want to offend, Merie—”

  “I know. I don’t know, Ziggy. But thank you. You’ve given me something to think about.”

  In the end, he still wished for his life to be simple, but if that were his only goal, then he’d leave the city and teach the two children in private, somewhere where he wouldn’t have to hide his identity and confuse the children with two types of instruction.

  “Anyway, we should head back. I don’t even want to know how much the stable will cost for all of those rock oxes and birds.” Meriel though a little about cutting a small part of himself to make the dragon be able to transform just like Ziggy, but he wasn’t completely sold on the idea yet.

  It seemed fairly worth it, considering that hiding an elf was significantly easier than hiding a giant dragon, but Meriel still found the idea… grotesque.

  “Meriel?” Ziggy said, shock in his voice.

  “Yeah?” Meriel answered.

  “Have you seen Mary in the last couple of minutes?”

  Meriel looked around, but he realized that he didn’t, not since he went to talk with the bird merchant. “I thought you two talked before you pretended to be a slaver?”

  “But I haven’t seen her since!”

  Meriel looked around again, but she was nowhere to be seen. “Fuck.”