As they walked quietly along the cobblestone street, Skadi suddenly felt a strange, piercing gaze directed at her back. She turned around swiftly, scanning the crowded thoroughfare with sharp eyes, but found nothing unusual in the bustling throng.
"What is it?" Jeanne asked, stopping and turning back to look at her in confusion.
Jeanne cast her own glance around their surroundings, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. The crowded street appeared perfectly safe and mundane.
"I felt someone watching me," Skadi replied, her brow furrowing deeply as she searched the passing crowd, attempting to single out whoever had been prying.
Unfortunately, neither of them could locate the source. Whoever it was had evidently slipped away the moment they sensed her awareness.
Jeanne frowned as she evaluated the environment. She knew Skadi's heightened instincts were rarely wrong, which meant someone had indeed been tailing them from the shadows.
"Perhaps it's just because I'm an Aegir," Skadi said after a fruitless search, offering a mild shrug to explain away the incident. "Outsiders in these parts tend to draw unwanted eyes."
Though curious about the onlooker's identity, she knew this wasn't the place to obsess over it. Rather than chasing shadows, both preferred to let any prospective trouble come straight to them.
"Fair enough. Let's keep moving," Jeanne said, falling back into step with Skadi.
As the two resumed their path, a smaller figure ducked out from behind a wooden stall, quietly tailing their footsteps from a distance.
"Phew... these two walk way too fast!" the young intruder huffed under her breath after keeping up for several blocks, thoroughly impressed by their stamina.
She peered over the heads of the crowd ahead, only to freeze—the pair she had been following had completely vanished! According to their trajectory, they should have been walking straight down the main avenue!
"Wait, where did they go? Did I lose them... No, no, I have to keep looking..."
The young child initially felt like giving up upon losing sight of her targets, but something compelled her to change her mind. She needed to locate them!
Just as she prepared to rush forward, she failed to notice the narrow side alley right beside her. Standing in the shadow of the stone wall were the very two individuals she had been tracking, watching her with unreadable expressions.
"I didn't expect our shadow to be a child," Jeanne noted, leaning against the wall. A small child could easily duck behind crates or low walls to stay out of sight, which explained why they hadn't spotted her earlier.
Skadi's own guard dropped slightly. She had assumed their stalker was some covert agent from The Deep Sea Church or a mercenary with dark motives, not a young girl.
Skadi stepped forward like a silent phantom, coming up right behind the girl and speaking softly into her ear. "Why are you following us?"
"EEEEK!"
The Feline girl shrieked, her fur instantly standing on end! Jeanne watched the child's tail puff up straight as a ramrod, realizing just how thoroughly startled she was.
The young girl spun around. Upon seeing that the two people standing behind her were her intended targets, her expression showed a mixture of lingering nerves and relief, rather than sheer terror.
"Ah... hahaha! Good morning, ladies! I'm just a passing..."
"Why are you tailing us?" Skadi interrupted directly, her gaze locked on the child.
Looking at the young girl's flustered state, Skadi felt her initial suspicion fade. The child clearly wasn't affiliated with cultists or hostile factions, even if her motives remained unclear.
"Ah... pretty sisters, do you have a place to stay tonight? I can recommend one!" The girl quickly gathered her composure, ignoring Fafnir sitting on Jeanne's shoulder to pitch her offer directly to the two adults.
That blatant disregard did not sit well with Fafnir. The dragon gave the Feline girl a sharp glare.
The girl paid no mind to Fafnir's glare. What can a tiny thing like you do, punch me? If you try to fight, I'll just... run!
She had absolute confidence in her own running speed.
"No, thank you," Skadi replied, tilting her head slightly at the bizarre sales pitch, though her rejection was prompt.
"If you refuse my offer, you'll find it impossible to secure lodging!" the girl urged hastily, stepping closer.
"The local population has swelled to capacity! Even the Inquisition's holding cells are completely packed! If you don't take my offer, you'll be sleeping on the streets tonight!"
The young Feline spoke with total confidence. Her claim was well-founded: displaced refugees from destroyed villages had flooded into the city, creating an acute housing shortage.
Skadi paused. Neither she nor Jeanne were familiar with the current city conditions, as they had planned to simply find a commercial inn for the night.
"Looking for an inn is useless," the girl continued, lowering her voice slightly as she glanced at Skadi. "All the rooms have been rented out long-term by wealthy merchants. No one knows when this crisis will end or if new mobile cities will arrive. Besides... very few innkeepers here are willing to rent a room to an Aegir."
That was the core of her pitch. She kept her voice down when mentioning Skadi's background, clearly wary of provoking the tall hunter into drawing her massive broadsword.
Courage shone in the girl's eyes. She had taken a immense risk in approaching two formidable strangers, driven by a strong motive of her own.
"Go on," Skadi said, folding her arms as she waited for the child to elaborate.
Meanwhile, Jeanne was busy soothing Fafnir, who was still stewing over being ignored. The small dragon puffed her cheeks, her tail swishing with annoyance.
Being overlooked as a helpless child was a blow to Fafnir's dragon pride, even if she technically looked like a tiny toddler right now.
"My family happens to have two comfortable rooms available," the girl offered, her voice turning enthusiastic. "And the price is very reasonable! Only one hundred Iberian coins per room a day! That's less than one percent of what inns charge, and our rooms are far more comfortable..."
She praised her home's accommodations to the skies, describing the rooms as if they were luxury suites fit for royalty.
"Why pick us?" Skadi asked, cutting through the embellishments. Neither she nor Jeanne looked like naive targets dripping with gold. The girl clearly had an underlying reason for singling them out.
Furthermore, if money were her primary goal, she could have easily charged ten or a hundred times more to desperate refugees or targeted wealthy merchants instead.
"Because you two look like decent people!" the girl offered a flattering smile. "I'm only twelve years old. Inviting rich, unscrupulous merchants into my house would just be inviting trouble."
"You have another motive," Skadi pressed. As a former bounty hunter, she could see right through the girl's excuse. She wanted the full truth before making a decision with Jeanne.
While lodging was scarce, Skadi knew that with enough coin, they could eventually find a place to stay. Money was hardly an obstacle for them.
The young Feline hesitated, her face contorting with inner conflict, worried that revealing her true intention would drive them away.
"If you won't be honest, we're leaving," Skadi said, making a deliberate move to turn around.
"Wait! Don't go, please don't go!" the girl blurted out anxiously.