Testing My Luck in the New World

After stopping by the inn's front desk to pay for another night's stay in our room just in case, we stepped out into the early afternoon fair. As I've come to expect from the Great City of Amoranth's daylight hours, the place was already abuzz with life and commerce. Only, today it didn't seem so claustrophobic.

The constant noise was calmer, less intrusive. Almost relaxing in a way my old life never could have been, trapped behind that desk as I was. For the first time since coming here, the white noise and everything that I once tried to shut out became clear, became merchants singing the praises of their own wares with joyous smiles as they shoved their goods in the faces of everyone that passed them by, young house wives openly gossiping in the street from behind the hands they hid their pleasant expressions with before they said their goodbyes and left to tend to their families, children laughing an arguing about the rules for the games they were playing, carpenters and brick layers sawing and hammering away as they toiled away in the construction area of a soon-to-be new building nearby that I never even noticed, there was even the rhythmic clop-clopping of the near endless stream of horse hooves as they pulled their carriages into and out of the city.

I noticed all of these before, naturally. This level of noise couldn't be avoided regardless of whether or not I had ears as sensitive as Yua's, but somehow it all felt more real, more animated. Almost like I had only been imagining it all until now to pick up the slack for the earbuds that once kept my attention off of all this.

Yua, used to seeing, hearing, the world this way, nudged my elbow. I'd probably been staring a little too much.

"Should we head straight to the auction?"

After quickly consulting my HUD for the time, I shook my head.

"We still have about an hour. So, we have a little time to spare."

While the auction clerk Bradley said the whole thing would start one hour after midday, I'm positive that he meant 1:00PM. It was only 12:06. It was fairly late, at least where late starts were concerned, but the city wasn't so large that it would take us fifty minutes to get to the auction house. Especially not if we ran. And because of how uptight Bradley came off as when we spoke, I doubted they would start at any other time than what he dictated.

Come to think of it, most everyone I've met here took their jobs very seriously. If anything, they were too serious. That was something I just couldn't bring myself to do when I was stuck with that boring desk job. At least, not to the same degree as that fanatic of a potion maker.

"Then what'll we do in the meantime?"

"How about we have us a quick breakfast?"

I still felt guilty over accidentally skipping yesterday's breakfast and lunch, only to top it off with some kind of mystery meat and a bunch of sweets. Not exactly healthy living. If you'd asked me, someone that was used to having three meals a day, I'd say that was an egregious sin that needed to be corrected, but Yua's eyes sparkled for another reason entirely.

"M-Mas... You're going to let me eat breakfast as well?!"

Her eyes lit up the same way they did when I brought out the sweets last night. As despicable as it sounded, and if their choice in foods was anything to go by, I guessed most masters didn't feed their slaves more than once a day. The ability to pay for their slaves' necessities may be a requirement, but they probably didn't need more than that, as the bare minimum.

That was probably why Yua didn't mention my slip up in forgetting to eat when I had brought up the idea myself.

Seeing her so giddy with expectation, I laughed despite myself, for this girl was no longer a slave in my book. Because of this, and because I felt I owed her just a little bit of teasing to pay back hers from earlier, I smirked.