After getting out of Lyla's house, the trio turned left and walked straight. Around fifteen minutes of walking from their apartment buildings and passing the Royal Hearts—the name of the rivers; by a short but wide bridge, they found the gateway into the markets district. The gateway was so thick with magical signature that even Lyla could feel and spot the mana and its spell structures in her head. It's like random scratches and symbols that could give you a headache if you stare at it too long.
The gateway was a pair of pillars on each side of the road. It's called the Auburn Staff, the given name from its inventors, known by his Class,
Near the gateway there is a Watch-Post on either side of it. The building was simple looking but not out of place with other buildings around it. The post emblazoned with the Symara ’s Insignia, the Capitals of the Nine Crown Isles. It looked like a cross between a tower and fortress with nine stars around it.
----
The markets district was one of the most robust districts besides the factory’s. While strutting in the pedestrian side, she could see the very pictures of prosperity. From the clean air, magical vehicles that passing by on the main road, to the building structures like the public transportation, the public park and even the transparent water pipe lines that distribute clean waters while also becoming the source of energy for the districts, are placed at the bottom and between every crevice of every single buildings. From the front side of the district until the very end.
The sound of rushing waters was so lively with the mixture of people haggling and laughing that it made Lyla's mind at ease. She was the ‘city girl’ that Greg and Jack always whispered behind her back. She always was, besides she kinda likes that name, 'cause it feels so fit with her.
After following along from behind Greg and Jack, she started remembering those moments. In this district, Lyla actually encounters the duo. While walking, she looks at the duo, wondering why they just always look and feel the same. Even from one year ago.
The impression she had about Jack and Greg gradually changed, especially before and after the ‘incident’.
Before the incident, she instantly knew that Greg and Jack were new to the city. That time, she was just bored and wandering around.
Greg and Jack's demeanor was what made Lyla instantly curious. How the two tried so hard to suppress their urge to look like locals was so silly that she chose to follow them around. In that short time, she saw how Greg was always nudging and poking Jack, so as to not lose focus, and start aweing. Meanwhile Greg is always greeting every passerby. Of course that makes him more noticeable.
But what piqued her interest was when Greg and Jack started helping one elderly man in the middle of organizing his shopping goods.
The duo politely greeted the elderly first, and asked him if he wanted them to carry his bags. At first, the man looks at Greg and Jack suspiciously, but thinking he's safe in the market district, he accepts their unusual offer. The two start following him around while carrying his shopping bags which look extremely bulging. After three hopping stores, back and forth, Greg and Jack still not losing patiences, start asking if he can share any stories to the elderly man.
Their interactions, after that, was just as if the two of them were his own grandchild. The man grows more warm to the two. That somehow made Lyla feel jealous and warry, expecting it as some kind of tricks. She expected the two would rob the man blind. So she steady her pulse and hastened her step, ready to help the elderly at any moment.
If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
“What if the two don't operate alone?” Lyla began to feel her adrenalin piqued up. She began to move her awareness around, suspecting to find the duo associates.
Until the elderly finished and found his vehicle. They started talking more intensely near the vehicle while the two never stopped passing the shopping goods into the vehicle. After all that was done, the elderly man tried to give them money. They refused, politely, then he tried inviting Greg and Jack into his place. They seemed hesitating a little, but after some more talk, the man finally found their answers good enough, exchanging goodbyes, he began to depart.
After that they start walking aimlessly until they find another elderly. This time they just accompanied her while likely asking her some stories too, because she started laughing and talking so fast the two leaned their bodies.
Then, finally they’re approaching the park, talking with a little girl and the girl starts pulling Greg's hand, likely persuading the two to play with the others in the park. They both agreed.
She even laughed at Greg and Jack’s antics.
Their behavior was so random that Lyla forgot about the time, to the point that she didn’t even notice, that the Watch was eyeing her.
‘I’m so creepy back then, following people around’. She grimaced remembering those moments and accidently bumping her shoulder with a man.
“Ah. Sorry, sir.” She said, flincing.
“Be careful next time.” The man curtly said.
Then they kept walking, Greg and Jack lost in what Lyla assume was their own style of bickering. While leaving Lyla busy with her own thoughts.
—-
Every storefront was always lighting up every prime product the shops could display, even in the middle of the day, in hope to lure every potential customer in. One of the shops in fact have giant oval shaped glasses that display the sprawled and scattered, the ever lazy, cute and sleepy lesser elementals, which took the standards of ‘cuteness and fluffiness’ onto different tiers. The top of the glass is written ‘The Safe’.
She and Greg in an instant stood in front of the display glasses while making noise like squeals, there were quite many passersby who were stunned and entranced by. This store's name was 'The Safe Planes. Lyla and Greg’s most favorite place in the entire city, the reason was because the shop have a delicious variety of drinks and light snacks while the customers also could receive the expert ‘touch’ from the lesser elementals. Some people call it ‘pet-café’. The lesser elementals were pretty similar with conventional pet-café, but what makes these places more popular was because the elementals could conjure the fluff and all that aspect of cuteness into something more.
But that's not all the reasons this place became her favorite. because in this exact place they finally meet each other. The story goes from her being baited by the two so the Watch could capture her in the open—suspecting her as some kind of amateur
Because they thought the lesser elementals in the display were for sale, Greg forgot his job as a bait—making her realize that she was being followed by another Watch.
Panicking, Greg and Lyla stumbled in front of the Old Billy restaurant, making him alarmed and chose to fall into them when seeing the Watch—also suspecting her as a
That was when the Watch started not just capturing her, but also Greg and the still standing Jack. And that ‘incident’ was the role of Fate that Lyla was so grateful for—not including or counting the ‘capturing’ part, of course.
After the Watch dragged the three and asked Old Billy to follow them to the Watch-Post for his testimony, he easily agreed. Until in the Watch-Post, they could finally clear up that misunderstanding. That too was what especially made Lyla change her impression for the two. Because it turns out Jack already knew she was following them from the beginning, so too why the Watch started following her because of Greg's subtle military hand code he sent to the unsuspecting Watch and also the reasons Greg became known around the Watch in the market district so too with Old Billy.