"Time to wake up Milady '' Viosus's gentle voice once again rang next to Yilas's bed, his hand shook her shoulder lightly.
Yilas sat up and jumped off her bed immediately. She refused to stay on this bed any longer! There was a brand new world out there for her to explore.
"We need to put the ointment on your eyes first Milady." Viosus softly brought Yilas back to reality.
She pouted her lips like a child making a fuss and sat down on her bed again.
After all the necessary care was done, Yilas could finally go outside and have some fun. She was more excited than a kid on Christmas morning.
When Yilas got out of the house, Berthort had already set on his task to find food, while Viosus stayed back to accompany her.
"Hey Vio, can you show me around somewhere fun?" Yilas was in an exceptional mood this morning.
"If your body is in better shape, let's go to the next city, there will definitely be new fun things, Milady." As they both stood at the edge of the fox's territory, Viosus suggested.
"Call me Yilly please! This is the second time I have to remind you!" Yilas lightly scolded Viosus as she walked ahead of him.
"Right, Yilly… let's take this way." Viosus gently pulled Yilas's shoulders to lead her on the trail he wanted her to take.
As they walked side by side further away from the main house, Yilas noticed her feet didn't bother her. She secretly felt grateful for the medicine Porsogon gave her last night.
Turning her head back to look at the main house from afar, all Yilas could see were bamboo trees. The house was quite hidden deep in the forest.
*Kaaaahhhhh…" a loud bird call made Yilas lift her face.
It was a brown bird, and it looked very familiar in some way.
And then the bird flew down right in front of them and transformed into Neo.
"Oh! Hey Neo!" Yilas was excited, seeing Neo's grand entrance.
"Tsk.." Viosus didn't look at Neo very pleasantly. He stepped in front of Yilas, blocking her from Neo.
"Why are you following us!" Viosus frowned his fuzzy eyebrows.
"Who said I'm following you. I was just going in this direction when I saw Yilas." Neo smirked as he stood up straight, staring directly at Viosus.
But his gaze didn't fixate on Vio for too long as Yilas's little head was poking from the side, trying to talk to him.
"Really?" Yilas said excitedly "We were just about to go to the city, how fun!" She couldn't hide the smile from her face, her eyes curled up like two pretty half-moons.
"Oh yeah? I was just on my way there too." Neo lied, he was just on his way scouting for food.
"Why don't I fly you there, it will be faster." Neo continued his offer without seeing Viosus's face darkened.
"No! I will take my lady there myself, we don't need your help." Viosus interrupted before Yilas could even consider the offer.
"I am talking to her, why are you keep barging in?" Neo pointed his finger at Viosus' chest, expressing his annoyance.
"Me and master's word are one so of course I will speak on her behalf. You on the other hand are just an irritating beast that keeps pestering us."
"You!" Neo was so angry that his face wrinkled up funny.
"Hey hey, stop you too" as Yilas felt their conversations were getting heated, she must put down the fire in them quickly.
"Viosus, don't be so rude to our guest." Yilas frowned at Viosus, gently scolding him.
She turned her head to look at Neo with a smile.
"If Neo said he's going the same way. Why don't we just walk together, I wouldn't feel right if I left neither of you behind."
Upon hearing Yilas's suggestion, Neo nodded immediately. He also didn't forget to chin up and smirk at Viosus. In his mind, Yilas was obviously taking his side.
Viosus rolled his eyes at Neo's childish action, he didn't want to walk side by side with him but Vio must do whatever his master wished.
At first, Viosus tried to pull his master to his left side, making him sandwiched between her and the Bird. But every time he did, Neo was quickly moving to Yilas's left side, making her the peanut butter to their sandwich. And it would happen again once Viosus switched Yilas to the right side.
After being yanked side to side a couple times, Yilas couldn't take it anymore. She let out a loud grunt and then walked in front of both of them. Luckily to Yilas, the road to the city was just a straight line.
After about 45 minutes of walking, Yilas felt like her legs were about to give out. Viosus noticed she had been walking slower and panting quite clearly so he offered to take a break.
Yilas was more than happy to hear that, she stopped and sat on one of the big boulders of rock, fanning herself with her tiny hand.
It was definitely late summertime, this morning the air was cool and refreshing but once noon hit, the temperature rose and it was really hot.
Neo untied the little pouch he had around his waist and gave it to Yilas. The pouch had a bag of water inside.
Yilas thanked him, took a little gulp, and returned the pouch. Neo took back the water bag, drank some, and put it away without offering it to Viosus. Not like Viosus was going to accept his water anyway.
After a while of resting, they got back on the road, this time Yilas was sandwiched between the two men.
They started to talk about the city and the things they could do in the city. Viosus said the city they were heading to belonged to the goats, which was where Yilas's doctor lived.
He also added that in the city of goats, they traded all kinds of goods like rice, vegetables, fruits, and even some sparkling stones.
According to Viosus's description of the sparkling stones, it sounded like all sorts of modern-day gems like emerald, sapphire and gold.
Yilas also asked Viosus how one would trade since the modern-day had conversion like money, and such a thing didn't exist in this world.
Viosus said they trade using whatever they deemed equals value. Like some beasts would find sparkling stone in nature and they would use that to exchange for food. Others who knew how to grow rice or veggies would use that to trade for other food or for sparkling stones. As they deemed sparkling stone quite valuable for their looks.
From Viosus's explanation Yilas realized that their society was quite advanced. They knew agriculture and trading and using gemstones as money. Everything sounded fascinating to Yilas's curious little head.
Neo would often join in to say a few things he knew about trading, but he had never set foot in the city of Goats so he left all the explanations to Viosus.
Before Yilas could complain about her tiredness, they had already reached the city. They first saw a big rock with a drawing of goat's horns on it marking their territory.
Once they got closer, Yilas could hear the buzzing sound of a market. Their gate was too big, but it was made out of 3 big chunks of sturdy wood, piling to make a reverse U-shape.
The first thing Yilas saw was the market like Viosus described. With vendors on both sides on the ground and half-human half-animal creatures walked down the street. The market wasn't packed from elbows to elbows but it was still crowded and lively.
As Yilas made her way down the street, eyes were laid on her, the people were all looking at the three strangers, especially at Yilas because of her striking appearance.
Yilas wasn't too surprised with how strange-looking people here were anymore, she was sucked in with all the stuff they had selling. She had been craving some rice and vegetables since her diet nowadays only consisted of soup and meat.
But since she didn't have anything to trade with, she had to sadly walk past them.
However, a gemstone display caught Yilas's attention so she stopped there. Her eyes were glued to all the sparkling gems.
Seeing how interested Yilas was with the stones, Viosus didn't stop her. He simply just stood behind her waiting. He was on high alert since there were so many eyes on them, but he knew they wouldn't dare to make a move.
The seller was a middle-aged man with gray fur almost all over. Yilas could tell he was a member of the weasel family based on his upper half body untransformed.
Noticing Yilas was getting interested in these stones, he talked to her immediately.
"Beautiful lady, this stone would look really nice on your hair." He said while pointing at the blue, white sapphire.
It was indeed beautiful but Yilas was more interested in the green emerald so her eyes naturally moved to the emerald instead of staying on his hand. The old seller was quick to catch on to her behavior, he grabbed the emerald and said.
"However, this rare green emerald is definitely going to compliment your eyes even more."
Yilas was happy to hear what the man had to say, her right eye sparkled like a ruby. She was in a good mood.
"How much for the emerald old man?" Yilas asked even though she knew she didn't have any money.
"Only a week's worth of rice, or a pinch size of gold." The old weasel smiled slyly showing his fangs.
Only a pinch of gold? Yilas didn't know much about the conversion of this world but gold in her modern world was worth much more than this unpolished piece of green gem.
With the price of pure gold in the modern world one could buy a few of these gems easily.
"Tsk… that's too much for one stone." Yilas showed annoyance in her face, as she was about to stand up the man negotiated.
"Wait… wait, lady! These stones are indeed precious and rare, take another look!" The old weasel reached out his hand, showing the emerald directly in the sunlight making it sparkled even more.
"You got two young and strong spouses right there, with their strength, they can work out the amount in a few days. Come on, what do you say."
Being struck by the old weasel assumption, all three of them were dumbfounded. All eyes opened wider than the letter O, especially Neo whose face turned bright red.
"Ehem…" Yilas covered her mouth faking a cough "They are not my spouse."
Viosus in the back, whose arms were crossed on his chest, nodded.
Neo was even more surprised than he was before, his jaws dropped on the ground.
This whole time he thought that the fox was Yilas's spouse.
Unlike Porsogon who already could tell by Yilas's scent being hers only, Neo could only guess by their interactions. And even though he thought not being her first spouse was a little shameful, he didn't mind it.
However, now that fact had been exposed, Neo still had the chance to become Yilas's first spouse. In just a span of a few seconds, flowers suddenly bloomed in Neo's heart, his mood significantly improved.
"Boys, listen up!" The old weasel left no time for them to react, he guessed if they weren't a spouse, they must be her pursuers. "Females love beautiful things like this, undoubtedly if you buy this for your lady, she will definitely favor you." The old weasel had a lot of sale tricks off his sleeve, he didn't trade these high ticket items with no skills.
Being inexperienced and naive as Viosus and Neo were, both of their eyebrows lifted hearing the weasel's word of knowledge. Viosus was quick to watch Yilas's reaction too, he of course wanted to be her favorite.
However, Yilas frowned at the seller words, Viosus thought it must show that she did not like those things like the weasel said. So he didn't react.
Neo on the other hand was like a fish finding a worm in the lake, unknowingly that it was just a bait from the weasel.
"I will buy it!" Neo said boldly.
If he gave this Yilas, she would of course fall for him.
"What a great beast, your lady here will love you so much." the cunning weasel finally made his first sale of the day, he was very happy indeed.
Neo laughed uncontrollably at the compliment the seller gave him, he was about to grab the emerald from the weasel's hand when he suddenly yanked his hand back.
"What would you like to trade it with, young beast-man?" The weasel smiled at Neo slyly.
Neo opened the pouch he had around his waist one more time and pulled out 3 small pea-sized yellow rocks.
The old weasel could tell right away what it was, he was very pleased with this customer.
It was undoubtedly gold. Small, and unrefined but it was pure gold. Yilas and Viosus looked at Neo shocked, they didn't know he was rich! Especially Yilas who valued gold highly compared to Viosus.
But she also knew she couldn't take anything from this man from the Boar clan. Not only would she feel guilty, but she would also feel indebted by him. Even in her previous life, her mom would never let her live unrighteously like that.
As Neo was about to trade one of the gold rocks for the emerald, Yilas held his hand to stop him.
"I accept your generosity and kindness but I will not let you buy this stone, it will be extremely wasteful to use your gold for something so useless." Yilas kindly looked deep into Neo's eyes.
These rocks meant nothing to Neo, he had just picked these up on the creek near Yilas's house so it would still be plentiful where it came from.
The Boar clan never had any trading like this so he only knew of this kind of trading through his missions recently. Even if he took these gold rocks back with him, it would have no value to him.
In this situation, if it would get Yilas to like him, he thought it was a bargained trade on his end.
"No, no, these rocks mean nothing to me. I saw how you looked at it earlier, you like it very much so I will give it to you."
Neo wondered why Yilas was so reluctant to receive any offerings they gave her. Any female in his clan would accept a gift even if she wouldn't accept the beast that brought them. It was a privilege of the females.
"Neo, these stones are precious so you must keep it carefully, it can even buy you a lot of food so don't spend it without thinking."
Yilas needed to talk some senses into him, even though she wouldn't accept the gift, she definitely couldn't refrain him from buying the gem.
Neo frowned, looked down at the rocks in his hand thinking why would Yilas not want to accept a gift from him? She must really hate him.
Looking at Neo's puzzled face, Yilas took the initiative and pulled Neo's arm, dragging him away from the greedy merchant. As they walked away, they could still hear the old weasel wailing.