The sun had disappeared behind a veil of clouds when their turn finally came. The man behind the counter did not raise his voice. He didn't need to. A dark leather apron covered his chest. His forearms were bare, marked with fine parallel scars. On his apron was the emblem they already knew: a stylized fang, plated in gold.
He put down his pen, looked up, and really saw them. "Next."
His voice was polite. Professional.
Rin stepped forward first, the package in the net held against her side like a living treasure. Kai followed her, calmer than he really felt. Everything here was like a machine. A machine that took everything you had, weighed it, and then decided if you were worthy of passing.
The man tilted his head slightly. "Welcome to Elronde. Reason for entry?"
"Sale," Rin replied immediately. "And registration."
The skinner noted something with a sharp gesture. "Affiliated guild?"
Kai took a breath. "I was a member of a guild in Solene. Sapphire Blaze. Rank E."
The skinner raised an eyebrow, more out of reflex than surprise. "Do you have a badge, a plaque, something?"
Kai spread his hands slightly, palms open. "We're from a Renewal."
An understanding silence fell immediately. No judgment. Just a box being checked.
"So, no possessions..." the skinner said, continuing to take notes.
Kai nodded. Rin, on the other hand, already looked impatient. The skinner put down his pen.
"Then you are considered unregistered in Elronde. You will go to the Guild Hall to see the steward. Registration, identity, status, declaration of Skills if you wish to be recognized as adventurers. In the meantime, I will need your names."
Rin narrowed her eyes. "Declaration of Skills?"
"Optional," he replied calmly. "But recommended if you want to avoid problems at the gates and during checks."
Kai suppressed a grimace. He would do the bare minimum. "I'm Kai, and she's Rin."
The skinner wrote down the names. Then Rin placed the net on the counter with a sharp movement. "And this?"
The skinner looked. His face showed emotion for the first time, subtle but present.
"Alive?" he asked in surprise.
Rin smiled, proud as if she had just been awarded a medal. "Alive!"
The skinner leaned over and placed two fingers on the net. A brief blue glow flashed through his pupils with the reflection of the ray.
Kai felt the slightest pressure of mana, the sensation of a gaze that scans without touching.
The skinner nodded. "Mist Stingray in a very good condition. Stressed but intact."
Rin whispered very softly. "Tch, I wasn't far off."
Then she puffed out her chest a little. "We caught it cleanly."
The skinner didn't react to the pride. He simply opened a large book under the counter. A bound register, thick pages, annotated by hand, with columns for price, condition, season, and requests.
He leafed through it quickly. "Mist Stingray, condition... hm."
Kai muttered mockingly. "Flying ray, huh?"
Rin deliberately ignored him.
The guild member finally placed his finger on a line, then turned back to Rin. "Four centiars."
He took out four silver coins and placed them on the wood. They made a sharp sound. A sound that carried. Rin's eyes lit up so brightly that Kai was almost afraid she would accidentally shoot out a spark.
Then she tilted her head very slowly and looked over the counter. She tried to read the book. The skinner didn't close it. He watched her, impassive.
Rin frowned. "Wait."
She tapped the line with her fingertip, as if she had the right to accuse the paper. "Here, you have the price for a stingray's carcass."
The skinner replied without raising his voice. "Yes?"
Rin pointed to her net. "Except ours is alive AND caught by professionals. It must be worth more!"
The skinner didn't respond immediately. Rin continued, as if she were unrolling an argument she had prepared from the moment she saw the creature flee.
"That means you can study it. Its camouflage, its reaction, its movement. It can be used for training. You can rent it out to guilds, parties, or keep it for competitions. Anything."
Kai blinked. She's selling an animal as a business opportunity. Rin rested her hand on the counter, smiling like a shark.
"Four is too low."
The skinner stared at Rin. Then he stared at the ray. Then he stared at Kai. He exhaled slowly. Not annoyed. Calculating. He raised his hand and made a discreet gesture. A colleague approached from the back. He didn't look like a butcher, more like a merchant, or perhaps an administrator. They exchanged a few words in low voices. Two sentences. Three.
Then the colleague left. The skinner returned to Rin. "Five centiars."
He placed a fifth silver coin on the counter.
Rin smiled. But Kai immediately noticed the detail. She was going to ask for more. She took a breath, ready to attack. Kai gently placed his hand on her forearm.
"Rin."
She turned her head, offended.
Kai spoke softly, enough for her to hear without the whole line benefiting from the scene. "This is already very good. We're not registered. We're tired. And we need to get in."
Rin clenched her jaw. Her eyes flashed for a second with pure frustration. Then she exhaled, as if swallowing an impulse.
"Okay," she said, reluctantly.
The skinner didn't smile. But his gaze softened, like a silent validation of the rational decision. "Very well. Payment immediately."
Rin grabbed the five centiars. Kai nodded. "Thank you."
The skinner nodded in turn. "Your net and chain? They're materialized, right?"
Kai replied. "Yes."
The skinner made another gesture.
"Bring me something for the transfer. We don't want it to break free in the middle of the line."
The colleague returned with a cage. It was large enough to hold the ray. The two of them worked together to place it inside, taking care not to damage it. Once the cage was closed, they signaled to Kai, who loosened his materialization. The net disappeared along with the chain, and the ray began to struggle slightly inside the cage. Rin stared at the cage, almost sadly.
"She's saying goodbye," she whispered.
Kai looked at her. Then he looked at the five coins. "You just gave a flying carpet a personality."
"It's not a carpet," Rin replied. "It's a fallen champion."
The skinner cleared his throat slightly. "Anything else?"
Rin seemed to remember something important, and her hand slipped under her jacket. She pulled out an object she hadn't seemed to be carrying until then: the Matriarch's heart. Brown, veined with stabilized green light. A strange weight, as if it still carried a dead breath.
She placed it on the counter, much more gently. "This."
The skinner concentrated. He activated his Skill again. His eyes became brighter, more attentive. He observed the veins, the residual energy, the texture. He didn't touch it directly, but he got close enough to smell it.
Then he said, more quietly: "A mutation?"
Kai felt his stomach tighten.
The skinner grabbed a sheet of paper, a different, finer pen. He wrote quickly, without hesitation. Observation notes. Technical terms. A mention of the Verdant Cradle. A higher rank. A notion of water.
He blew on the ink, folded the paper, then took out a small envelope. He sealed it, applied a wax seal, and pressed the fang emblem onto it. He handed the letter to Rin, but his gaze shifted to Kai.
"Give this to the steward at the Hall. It's a certificate and a report. They'll want to know."
Rin took the envelope, suddenly much more serious. "Thank you."
"Go," concluded the skinner. "And welcome to Elronde."
They stepped away from the counter, letting the machine resume its rhythm. Behind them, the line was already moving forward. Another "Next" fell, indifferent.
When they finally crossed the inner passage, the feeling changed. It was no longer the road. It was no longer the camp. It was the city. The noise had a different density: wheels, voices, hammers, merchants' cries. The air smelled of stone, smoke, food.
Rin stopped short, took the silver coins out of her pocket, and looked at them as if she feared they had escaped. "Five centiars."
Kai looked too.
They weren't rich. But it was a hell of a lot for a first day.
"We'll be able to sleep peacefully," Kai said.
Rin smiled. "I can't wait to try the baths at Elronde."
Kai corrected her, without breaking the momentum.
"With your money, maybe, but these coins will be used for food and lodging for the next few days."
Rin narrowed her eyes. "You're incapable of being happy, aren't you?"
"Are you inviting me?" Kai replied.
Rin chuckled, then clutched the sealed envelope and coins in her fist. "If you'd let me scrape together another centiar..."
Kai shot her a look. "You could have made them take back their offer. We don't know the customs here."
Rin thought for a second. Then she shrugged, conceding.
Kai breathed a sigh of relief.
"Anyway," he added, "good idea about the hunt."
Rin stood up straight, proud. "I know."
Kai nodded toward the Hall. "Next step: the guilds."
No sooner had they passed the checkpoint than Elronde fell upon them like a tidal wave.
The great avenue was right there—too wide, too straight, too loud—cutting from gate to gate like the city had been split open for traffic. Kai's boots hit compacted earth and stone, and the ground itself told a story: wheel ruts carved deep, dark stains that weren't just mud, splinters crushed flat into the dust like the street had been chewing wood for years.
Kai slowed for half a heartbeat, not because he was impressed, but because even he needed a second to recalibrate.
"Okay," he muttered. "That's… a lot."
It was. The crowd didn't linger here. People flowed through, packed shoulder to shoulder, moving with purpose like the avenue was an artery and stopping meant clogging it. And on this side of the city, you could tell who belonged to the guild district without anyone saying a word. Heavy packs. Thick cloaks. Reinforced boots. Visible weapons worn the way civilians wore belts.
Along the edges, stalls formed a continuous strip, too dense to call it a market, more like teeth. Plates of armor hung from hooks and chimed softly when the wind slipped through. Blades lay in neat rows under awnings, some plain, some with a single engraving meant to catch the eye in one second flat.
But it didn't catch Rin's. She was looking for what was coming next, eagerly.
The smells came in waves, and Kai realized he could map the street by his nose. First, heated metal and charcoal. Then grease and dried meat, heavy enough to sit in the back of his throat. Then strong herbs, then alcohol, then something colder and clearer that made the inside of his skull feel crisp.
Mana crystals.
Kai spotted them a second later. Some merchants displayed them in fabric-lined boxes, like gems. Others scooped them like salt, ladlefuls clinking into pouches as long as the customer looked like they knew what they were doing. A woman with a scarred eyebrow sniffed one between her fingers like she was judging fruit.
Rin's eyes tracked a box full of pale blue shards.
"Those are mana crystals?" she asked, quietly for once.
Kai nodded. "Yeah."
"They sell it like that?" she whispered, as if the city had just insulted the concept of scarcity.
Kai didn't have an answer. He just kept walking, because the crowd pushed them forward whether they wanted to move or not.
Between two armor shops, Rin's steps faltered as she caught sight of a seller laying out ropes, stakes, waterproof canvas. Everything needed to live outside as if that was normal. Complete camping kits hung on wooden silhouettes like mannequins ready to march into a dungeon.
Kai remembered the weight of his father's pouch when he was coming back from work. And he hated how light it was compared to all of this.
A scribe sat at a folding table wedged between stalls, pen moving like a machine. "Contracts. Declarations. Inventories," the sign said. A line of people waited, all with the same tense expression.
And then, right in the middle of all that war logistics, Elronde offered comfort.
Taverns were open despite the hour, laughter too loud and conversations too fast, like everyone was trying to forget they had almost died yesterday. Massage parlors were open too.
Near the south door, a promise flashed at them: baths. Not the simple rinse kind, but mana ones. You could almost feel the relaxing power of the mana just by breathing in the air that was wafting out of it. There were people limping in and others coming out straighter. Some storefronts had a second entrance tucked behind a curtain. It was smaller, quieter, with prices posted in smaller writing that made Rin's eyebrows lift.
"Those ones are for strong healing," Kai guessed.
Rin let out a sigh of relief.
And the street offered comfort again, in a different flavor: small establishments with heavy curtains and lamps the color of honey, where human warmth was sold with the same casualness as dried rations.
Rin's eyes slid over the curtains.
She didn't slow down. Didn't look away too fast either. Just enough of a glance to clock it.
Then she said, loud enough for Kai to hear over the crowd: "Wow. Elronde really has everything."
Kai's gaze flicked to the curtains, then back to her. "Everything?"
Rin lifted her chin like she was judging merchandise. "Armor, blades, mana crystals… and apparently emotional support sold by the hour."
Kai choked on a laugh. "That's not what—"
"I know what it is," Rin cut in immediately, too fast, and kept walking like the topic bored her. "I'm just saying. Efficient city design."
She tossed him a sideways look, eyes bright. "Try not to stare, Bloodie. We're broke."
Kai felt his throat tighten anyway. Not desire. Just recognition. This city had built itself around one simple truth: we risk our lives outside, so inside, we don't hesitate to relax, then we leave, and we start all over again. He understood it.
Most of the crowd was human, like Kai expected. But Elronde wasn't his town. The differences were everywhere once his eyes adjusted.
A Taurian pushed through the flow. She was like a tall wall of muscle and horn, bull's head held high, horns polished like they'd already been used for work. People stepped aside her path without thinking, the way you made space for a cart. Not fear. Habit.
Rin watched her pass and said, softly, "If she steps on your foot, just say 'sorry'."
Kai didn't disagree.
Further ahead, something smaller moved through the crowd like it owned the gaps. A Faelin with a cat head, short hair all over the body. He was carrying a pack of rations under one arm like it weighed nothing. His ears flicked constantly, tracking sound, and he never once looked at someone directly, yet he avoided every collision like he could see the future.
"Show-off," Rin muttered, but there was admiration under it.
Above them, a shadow slid across stone. Kai looked up just in time to glimpse a Ventrelle gliding along a footbridge high overhead, bluish skin catching the light, a thin membrane between limbs folding and unfolding like a living cape. He landed without a sound and vanished down an alley.
Kai's head tilted back a fraction longer than it should have.
And sometimes the city offered something that didn't fit any of the boxes in Kai's head. A Nuuri passed by, small, singular, neither quite beast nor quite human. She was carrying a tool too big for her body with the same ease as anyone else carrying a bag. No one stared for long. Not because it wasn't strange. Because here, strange was normal as long as it worked.
Kai looked for Rin's reaction, but she seemed to avoid looking at her.
The closer they moved toward the heart of the district, the more emblems appeared. There were fanged pins, lanterns, feathers, claws, all on collars, tabards, banners, signs. Names didn't need to be spoken here. They were worn.
The Hall still wasn't visible, but he could feel it, the way you felt a storm before the wind hit. People were quickening their pace without running, the crowd thickening by degrees, voices turning more restrained.
Rin straightened, chin lifting as if she was preparing for a fight.