Old Mrs Rheynes examined the warg head from every angle under a grave silence, on her face an acidic mixture of loathing and disbelief. With effort, she wrestled the hefty muzzle around on the wide desktop, reading the narrative told by the wounds fresh and old, unwilling to believe any chapter of it, but given no choice. After digesting the absurdist production for a decent while, she at long last parted her dry lips and announced, surly,

“It is a direwolf’s head.”

What did she think it was? That I lopped off the head of a horse and elaborately disguised it as a monster? I managed to maintain a dignified silence befitting an imperial maid through concentrated effort. The old woman glanced at me over her small, rounded spectacles, and for a fleeting instance, I worried she could read minds.

“Where did you find this?” she enquired.

“Attached to the body,” I answered.

“And that body is where now?”

“On the Hikers, where Mr Kynes’s sheep are taken to graze. I left it there, regrettably unable to carry the whole thing back by myself.”

Mrs Rheynes’s skepticism was little helped by my answer.

“You mean to say that you carried this thing all the way here from the highlands…By yourself? With those arms?”

“And the hide, yes. Humans can be astonishingly resourceful when they must.”

She groped the dead head again, lifting the stiffened lips to look closer at the long lines of fangs, fangs that could pierce a babe clean through, quietly murmuring, maybe thinking to herself,

“We’re going to have to send people to bring back the rest…”

“Does the corpse actually have value?” I asked as she pushed the head to the side and rolled open the hide in its place.

“The meat, not so much. It tends to be too laden with parasites to eat and tastes godawful. But the pelt is desired. It’s resilient and good for boots or bags. Or just to hang up on your wall. This one’s got scars and bald spots all over it, but most buyers don’t mind that sort of thing. It’s the story they want. This beast was a fighter, a survivor. That makes it worth money. The bones sell for handsome sums too. They’re harder than wood and have good weight. Great material for handles of fancier swords and daggers, pipes, and such like tourist souvenirs. Some believe tools made of direwolf bones or fangs have an extra bite to them, give the wearer strength and courage, and a wild boost in the bedroom, but that’s outside my field of expertise. I’m not a sorceress, nor an alchemist.”

She folded the vast hide with seasoned motions and placed it beside the head.

“At any rate, we will pay you seven for the skull, and eight for the pelt, if you’re willing to let us have them.”

“Coppers, ma’am?”

Mrs Rheynes glanced sharply up at me. Seeing my question had been a plain one, she irritably corrected, “Silver. And if the rest of the corpse is where you said it is, intact, and no one shows up to dispute the kill, we’ll pay you eight marks more for that.”

I carried out brief calculations in my head. It was twenty-three marks of silver I was promised, unless I was sorely mistaken. Two thousand and three hundred coppers. That paid over three months in the Tribunal, plus meals. I had kept my expectations low, seeing as the quest fee itself was a pittance and I hadn’t accepted the task for money to begin with. Yet, compared to my previous, impoverished standing, I had suddenly turned quite opulent by local metrics.

Money was a strange thing.

When I lived in the mountains, I didn’t even know it existed, and after joining the Imperial House I never had any need for it.

The time I had spent handling coinage in life was altogether astoundingly short and I briefly recalled the basics of the art.

A hundred copper marks could be converted to one silver mark. This exchange rate remained fixed heedless of the actual value of the metals themselves, by courtesy of international treaties between merchant guilds and bankers. That much was still plain enough to grasp. However, things got more complicated when it came to gold.

In the past, a hundred silver marks was very logically equivalent to a single gold mark. But the fall of Vallacia, the fatherland of the modern monetary system, sent the value of the gold mark down its own strange path. No law could keep one gold equivalent to a hundred silver when the metal was deemed so much more precious. With a major gold producer like Baloria lost centuries later, the prices only kept soaring with no limit in sight.

Furthermore, the coins themselves gained value.

Vallacia, the printer of the gold marks, was suddenly gone. Their methods of minting currency had been a carefully guarded secret, now a secret lost, impossible to replicate by other hands on comparable level of quality. The amount of legitimate gold marks in circulation had become strictly finite, and could only ever grow sparser from there.

The rarer a thing was, the more people wanted it.

At the current exchange rate, one Vallacian gold mark (VGM) was worth approximately 289.9 silver marks. A fee of six hundred silver could therefore be casually paid with but two gold marks, allowing the customer to walk away with a twenty-silver discount and leaving both parties happy. But the appeal of the material made consumers reluctant to spend it; most would prefer to pay in silver, anyway.

The essential point of high-value coins was to spare the consumers the hassle of hauling heavy sacks of metal around, but the effort was deemed secondary next to the gilden luster. Only banks and bigger merchant companies thought otherwise. When transactions were made with sums in the millions, the mass of the currency became a genuine problem. They desperately wanted another solution. If there weren’t enough gold marks in circulation, then more had to be made, even if of inferior quality. So, after a lot of arm-wrestling at important tables, there came to be Westron gold mark (WGM). Mixing brass into the gold, the coins’ value could be lowered close to the originally intended—but never quite there. Gold was still gold, after all.

One WGM converted to 126.2 silver marks, the last I checked.

Which was to say, if you wanted to, you could trade one VGM for approximately 2.29635499 WGM… but let us stop there. It was getting out of hand already.

Incidentally, above gold marks were also platinum marks, another Vallacian marvel, but you hardly ever saw those in circulation.

My personal wealth still fell far short of that level.

“That is quite a lot,” I remarked aloud, of twenty-three pieces of silver.

Mrs Rheynes didn’t immediately respond but continued to stare at me. I didn’t like that stare. It seemed to always doubt if I was an elaborate fraudster, or just plain out of my mind, or perhaps both in variable measures. When I was clearly neither. Not one bit.

“You must understand this,” the old woman spoke in a low voice, “felling an old direwolf is not something maids are typically capable of. This is at least a C-level feat. There would normally be a party of grown bowmen to share on the money—and half of it would go to a healer to fix their torn limbs. Yet, here you are, nary a scratch on you…But since you’ve done fine work this past month and our Vera has vouched for you, I shall take your word for it. Congratulations...D-rank adventurer.”

I sold the wolf and Mrs Rheynes counted my money for me. My purse significantly heavier now, but my footsteps light, I went next to the front desk to report in the quest itself. Finally, I had met the requirements for promotion. It took quite a bit longer than I had hoped. Over a month. Not that the rank matter was set in stone just yet. I still needed to apply formally and hope there wouldn’t be any complications…

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“...?”

I was barely halfway to the counter when Ms Vera got off her chair and strode to meet me on the way. Her face tight, she grabbed my wrist without a word and dragged me away from the hall, through a side door into a more quiet corridor.

Where was she taking me? I thought she was always a somewhat unconventional person, so to speak, but her behavior here was especially mystifying.

Thinking about it, half my success in this case belonged to Norn. Some might argue even more than a half, considering her shot would likely have killed the beast in time, even if I did nothing. I needed war funds to tackle the dungeon, to be sure, but it was only fair I paid my landlady’s family a larger share than usual. Perhaps Ms Vera was thinking along similar lines and wished to discuss the details in private?

I was about to propose what felt like a reasonable share, when the young furian abruptly stopped, let go of my hand, and turned around. Then she—threw her arms around me and caught me in a close, firm squeeze, tight enough that I had a little trouble breathing. To my astonishment, I found her openly sobbing.

“When I think what that monster would’ve done to Norn…” she muttered under her breath, her face hidden from me. “Thank you! Thank you for saving my sister...!”

We splurged a bit at the markets on the way home. From Tom the butcher we procured no leftover scraps that night but a fresh cut of fatty pork neck. From the general goods store we purchased clean sea salt, a vial of black pepper, a can of cream, and a bottle of Normundian red wine. For once, Ms Vera didn’t turn down my offer to help with the dinner. In fact, when we strolled along the street side homeward, she interrupted my explanation on the menu to say,

“Enough with the Miss-thing already! I’m not that much older than you are!”

“Oh? Speaking of which, how old are you, exactly?”

I didn’t think the subject had been brought up before. It was one of the kind that gained corrosive effects after a female had come of age. But she had brought up the matter of her own volition, so I naturally seized it like a crow would a thrown bone.

“I’m twenty-one, geez,” Vera confessed, awkwardly scratching the back of her head.

“Hm?” I made a surprised sound at that. “Hardly two years older than myself then?”

It was quite unexpected news, really. She seemed to think the same.

Vera turned to look at me with the face of a deer caught by a sudden warg from the bushes.

“Nineteen? I thought you were younger than that!”

“I thought you were a lot older,” I mumbled at the same time.

Her green gaze sharpened dangerously. “What was that?”

I let my attention wander across the street and pretended not to notice. “No, nothing. I got tongue-tied.”

“...When you first showed up at the Guild, I thought you were one prissy damsel, but you sure got a rotten personality under the uniform.”

“That isn’t a compliment, is it?”

“What do you think?”

“I do possess an ordinary human heart and all that comes with it,” I argued. “I’ve simply been taught that wearing it in your sleeve is not always wise.”

“Ain’t that the truth?” Vera made a strange smile as she marched on. “Maybe it was a compliment.”

Potato slices softened in cream with garlic and thyme, roasted golden brown in the oven. Salty, soft-cooked pork, with herbs, sautéed tomatoes, and a red wine gravy. Warm seed bread on the side. Such was our dinner that night.

A simple, rustic meal, yet when we had it under lamplight at the same family table, everyone silently immersed in the experiences of their senses, there was a certain loftiness to the occasion. Regality brought not by code or hierarchy, but by the arrangement and circumstances themselves; a profound feeling that things were right and proper, and in their correctness sacred. A sensation stemming from somewhere in the twilight of life, relayed to you through your inherent disposition as a human. A shared understanding, a collective experience of sameness and belonging. Like this, even someone without a true family like myself could still feel what it was like, what it was supposed to be like, with total clarity. It was an experience more precious than gold, but also bittersweet in its acknowledged transience.

“It’s sho good…” Norn commented on the verge of tears, referring to the potato gratin.

“I would’ve used less salt,” Vera gave mild criticism, already finished with her plate, her attention now entirely on the glass of wine. The drink had given a healthy color to her face and took the usual blunt edge off her words. Looking at her brought vividly to my mind the tears earlier in the day, and I had to avert my eyes.

“Your palate is merely not accustomed to it,” I said. “This is the ideal level of salt for this dish.”

The wine, on the other hand, left a lot to be desired, but it was among the best products available. I could bring myself to accept it for personal use. You could never go entirely wrong with Normundians. The Empress would have dismissed it as swill, of course, but thankfully she was not with us.

“You know the measure of just about anything, don’t you?” the landlady responded teasingly.

“I’d be a disaster as a maid if I didn’t know a thing or two about housekeeping and meals.”

“Right? So where does the monster extermination come into the picture? Chopping off the head of a warg…I know I was the one who asked you to do it, but—now I’ve seen it all! Are all maids like that where you’re from?”

It was the first time Vera made a subtle probe towards my identity. Discussing private affairs had been a taboo between us so far. It put me in a bit of a spot.

I had learned the most painful secrets of my host family and wanted to respond in kind, in the name of fairness, but the dangers were too great. Knowing the truth could place them in a difficult position with the Jarl and the King. In that case, I would have only done the two of them a disservice by being excessively honest.

“My apologies,” I said and bowed my head. “In your own words, the less you know about me, the better. And once I am gone, you would do well to tell anyone who might come asking that you never knew such a person.”

As expected, Vera’s face clouded at my words, and for a time she spun the wine in her glass under a dejected air.

Then it was Norn, who broke the awkward silence.

“What are you talking about?” she exclaimed. “Sure, I thought you were bad news at first, but that was then! You saved my bacon from that doggie! I’ll be proud to tell anyone who asks that I know you, and never deny it! They can throw me into gaol, for all I care!”

“Empty your mouth before you talk,” Vera groaned. Then, with a sigh, she looked at me. “Just tell me one thing: you’re not wanted by the authorities, are you? Your former boss isn’t lying face down in a ditch somewhere, is he?”

I shook my head. “No. Rest assured, I am not a criminal. And I am not currently sought by anyone, as far as I know.”

She paid close attention to my choice of words and narrowed her eyes.

“So there’s a chance that you could still be?”

“Let us say that my being in Argento is very inconvenient to many parties at this particular time. Which is why I’d like to get through the mountains as soon as it can be done. I have told you no lies in this regard.”

Vera shuddered. “Alright. That’s fair enough. I think I’ve got the gist of it already.”

Norn looked at the two of us, frowning. “What? What did I miss?”

“Nothing,” Vera and I said at precisely the same time.

“Woah, creepy. Are you gonna get hitched?”

“Who’s getting hitched, you runt!” Vera yelled, unnecessarily loudly.

“Eeh, sis, your face is all red!”

“It’s the wine! I’ve got healthy blood flow, see!”

Certainly, like peas in a pod.

Norn got sleepy after the meal and retired for the night. She had to walk that hellish distance to the highlands every day, after all. Vera and I washed the dishes, and stayed up with the wine and talked. We didn’t talk about the future, or the past, or law, or kings, or jarls or monsters, or old debts, or adventurers, or wolves. We talked about potatoes and the gratin. We talked about recipes, about herbs, about spices, about wines, about glasses, makings of furniture, and such like things of no special importance to anyone, but which gave life a little more flavor, which made you feel alive and like it was a good thing that you were, and then we called it a night.

Going up the steps to the second floor and my room, the room of a dead adventurer, a touch tipsy, the thought sneaked into my head again that maybe it could have been fine if I never went back to Ferdina to be a maid. And I thought about the furian’s strong hands, the firm hold of her arms around my figure, the warmth and hardiness of her body, and her smile, and the way she shyly dodged your eyes when she laughed and brought her ears down when feeling bashful. I entertained many unbecoming thoughts, such that it could have been fine to live in this house with a family that could maybe, maybe one day, after many things had happened, after many hurdles had been crossed, after many tears had been shed, after many laughs had been had, maybe call my own. But that was a fantasy and I knew it. There would be no future for me in this withering land, nor for anyone. Not while the dungeon was there.

I went to bed and fell fast asleep, as I often did these days, but my rest was to be a short one.