The journey to Agnor’s Rest was a quick one on horseback. Grass-eater, as Akemi had gotten into the habit of calling the horse, was startlingly fast once she was motivated. They made it there in under thirty minutes, hugging the trail of merchants as they inched into the village.

Akemi had been ready for some substantial defenses by the way Volo was talking—a legion of guards, a prickly, spiked wall—but the village was almost as defenseless as a porcupine’s belly. It was surrounded by shallow, flimsy wooden barriers, the kind a teenager could hop over if they tried. A few guards dressed in chainmail dotted the borders, but they were few and far between, and far more concerned with their lunches than defending the town’s perimeter.

Even if the place looks defenseless, I should keep my guard up. Volo might still be planning a surprise for me.

Akemi trailed the merchants as they all culminated by the stables on the outskirts of town. There, they turned their horses over to the stablehand, and then carried their goods barrel by barrel past the city gates. The guards didn’t even give them a second glance, too preoccupied with scarfing down bread and cheese by the pound.

Just how I like my guards. Blissfully unaware.

“Ten silvers to watch yer horse,” the stablehand informed Akemi as she strolled into the one remaining free stall. She prickled, not expecting him to actually notice her arrival, but he seemed dead-set on collecting his toll from every merchant.

She jumped from Grass-eater’s saddle and hauled a crate of eggplants out of the wagon.

“How about twenty of these instead?” she said, opening the top and wagging one of the vegetables in front of his face. “That’s worth way more than your measly ten silvers.”

“Is that some kind of ugly purple cucumber?” the man asked, scratching his chin. “Looks mighty worthless to me. In fact, maybe it carries some sort of disease—that color just ain’t natural.”

“Nonsense. It’s a very exotic, very expensive fruit,” she said, summoning her inner salesman. “It has all kinds of magical qualities. Eat ten of them, and you’ll suddenly be ten times stronger.”

The stablehand hummed, giving her a skeptical look. In the corner of Akemi’s System UI, she saw something she hadn’t noticed before—a dice roll. She noticed that when she focused on it, she could see the actual math behind each persuasion check calculation.

Persuasion Check (18)

Roll: 2

Modifier: +3

Total: 5

Needed: 18

Failure!

Akemi clenched her jaw. Oh, come on.

She was going to have to work on that Charisma stat, and quickly.

“Yeah, yeah, that’s what they all say,” the stablehand said, waving her off. “If you don’t got the gold, then you can’t park your horse here. Stablehouse rules.”

She groaned, then got back on the wagon.

He has to have some silver in here somewhere.

She ravaged through all his containers, mindful not to open the one with Micky’s rotting corpse inside, but found nothing but more eggplants. That was until she noticed a small satchel attached to the side of Grass-eater. She opened it, and found seventeen silver pieces sitting inside.

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Jackpot.

“Here you are,” she grumbled, handing him ten of them. “We sorted?”

He nodded. “Now, wasn’t that easy?”

She glared at him, clenching her jaw.

You’re just lucky to be alive.

—

Hugging the city walls, Akemi followed the merchants in, hauling one of her eggplant containers through the gates to avoid looking conspicuous. As she ventured further into the village, she found that its interior matched its crude exterior—dirt pathways replaced the luxury of cement, adorned only by a few scattered weeds. The houses, hastily assembled with plywood and exposed nails, bore more resemblance to porta-potties than proper dwellings.

The village's central attraction was a fragmented fountain, its water stagnant and infested with pests, their tiny legs clinging to the moss-covered stone. The fountain looked to originally be a tribute to the Runic Duke, but Akemi couldn’t discern any of the man’s features from the crumbling stone. His eyes were infested with cobwebs, his arms and legs laying in broken pieces.

Akemi grinned. If only Volo was here to see his savior like this. He’d have a breakdown.

Nearby, a modest farmer's market (if Akemi could really call it that) had sprung up around the dismal fountain. It was a pathetic imitation of the real thing—the merchants didn’t even have stands, they just stood with their goods in hand, waiting for patrons to leave money by their feet in return for a wild-caught fish or a handful of blueberries.

“You think Mickey made it in?”

“I don’t see ‘im, do you?”

“Damn it. He probably got stuck staring at that watch again… Poor sodder.”

The two merchants from before had set up shop just in front of her. Akemi flushed, suddenly acutely aware of the goods she was holding. Crap. If they see these eggplants, it’s over.

She backpedaled, putting space between her and the farmer’s market and heading towards a larger building, a three-story wooden construction that boasted a wide, wooden sign on its exterior: The Roadhouse. Piles of empty beer bottles cluttered the inn’s porch.

Akemi remembered the cowboys talking about such a place. She could see from the exhausted heads lolling out of the inn’s windows that the merchants hadn’t been exaggerating—the place was stuffed to the brink with incredibly inebriated heroes.

As she approached the door to the inn, she heard a small commotion. She quickly flanked the side of the inn, putting herself out of view, and peered over the wall to get a better look of what was going on.

Shit. It was Volo.

“I’m telling you, you’re making a mistake!” Volo insisted, his face sweaty with exasperation. “The girl is real, and she’s coming. She’s not that strong yet, but she’s crafty. If you don’t keep your eyes peeled, she’ll infiltrate your walls and slit your throat by dawn.”

To either side of Volo was one of the chainmail-wearing guards, and an older woman was staring him down from the inn’s doorway. Going by her clothing and general exhausted disposition, Akemi intuited that she was Agatha, the Roadhouse innkeeper. Akemi’s System quickly corroborated this.

Agatha Kur — Level 18 Innkeeper

Level 18? Holy crap. Old lady’s got serious experience.

“No one’s coming, lad,” she said, shaking her head. “You’re just needlessly scaring the children is what you’re doing. The villain that escaped the hall is long gone. We had a messenger from the Duke come through and say as much. And with Rook at our back, we have nothing to fear.”

“I’m not talking about him,” Volo growled, taking a step forward. “I’m talking about another villain. A woman. She’ll be wearing huntsman’s clothes, and no shoes. You should warn the cobbler. She’ll be going straight to him—”

The guards drew their spears out in front of him, blockading him from taking any more steps towards Agatha. As they did, Akemi took in a slow breath of relief.

That was a close call. I’m lucky the idiot was too proud to actually read what my name was back in the forest. That would have been a much more direct way to warn the townspeople. Now all I have to do is get something on my feet and keep this cowboy hat close, and they won’t have a clue.

“A fearsome villain with no shoes. Now you’re just spinning tales,” Agatha laughed, reaching for her broom. “I’m sorry, dear, but I just don’t have time for this kind of thing. I have five dozen hungry heroes waiting for a midday meal, and only one pair of hands to feed them with.”

“You have to listen to me,” Volo begged, pushing his face through the cross of spears. “This woman. She’s dangerous. If you’re not ready for her…”

“Enough!” Agatha spat, an unexpected fury raging behind her eyes. The broom levitated out of her hand and did a spin through the air, pointing straight at Volo. “Guards, remove this man from the premises. Boy, if I see you back here scaring off customers, you’ll get the hard end of the broom next time.”

Akemi’s eyebrows rose, impressed.

The guards each took one of Volo’s arms and hoisted him up like a squabbling chicken. He fought them off at first, writhing and wriggling, but after they threatened to turn him over to Crook, he deflated, backing off. They escorted him down the dirt road and slammed the gates shut behind him, subjecting him once again to the open wilderness.

Akemi grinned.

See ya, Volo Bolo.

She rounded back, picked up her eggplants, and went about doing exactly as Volo foretold:

She headed straight for the cobbler.