A small crowd greeted them, gazing at the carriage with interest. It was largely undecorated, if not for a small symbol of Hecate on the sides. They were meant to dissuade bandits and ne'er-do-wells from troubling Mana, but they also drew great interest from these small towns. Heck, a town as small as this probably didn't even have one of Hecate's priestesses to regularly perform divinations.
In their rough-spun clothing – reminiscent of Matt's own – they looked like a mob. Based on the reactions from the people around him, Mana was greeting them. The villagers seemed positively surprised by the attention from one of the deities' chosen.
Matt, stuck outside on the driver's bench, simply guided the carriage towards the town's only inn. It was a small thing, but it was large enough to accommodate all the travelers that came around this way. Despite the Grand Empire's impressive system of roads, only the merchants truly traveled them in any great numbers. The number of bandits made travel a dangerous thing, and that was on top of the dangerous beasts that hid within the depths of the forests and at the height of the mountains.
Mayfeld and its surrounding towns, fortunately, were far away from any such hotspots of monster activity. Matt had only heard about a single gryphon near Mayfeld when he had been 10, but that was the only talk of monsters he'd ever had with his friends or their parents.
It was precisely because of the relative safety of the region that these towns could afford to exist. They were without walls, and only a handful of men were armored in the way city guards were meant to be. Enough to drive away a group of bandits but far from capable of driving away even a pack of wolves.
Stopping the carriage just outside the inn, Matt hopped off his seat and opened the carriage doors, allowing Mana to step out of the wooden frame. "It has been a long time since I have passed through here. It's a good change in perspective, is it not?"
"I guess it is," Matt said, agreeing with her statement, despite it not being all that much of a changed perspective for him. To him, this was a glance at a life that was easier lived than his own. The poorest of the peasants surrounding them had a better dwelling than his family, and it wasn't by a small margin, either.
Mana must have heard something in his tone of voice. "I'm sorry, young Matthew. I failed to consider your position. To you, visiting the temple is as great a change in lifestyle as this is to me," she said, putting a comforting hand on his shoulder. In that moment, Matt realized just how much he stunk. Being that close to someone as almost inhumanly perfect as the priestess did that to people, he guessed.
Then again, the priestess didn't smell like roses either. Both of their clothes probably needed to be burnt and destroyed, but that was a thought for after they had eaten. Matt's stomach threatened treason, as it was.
The interior of the inn was as expected; it was bare, with a few tables for patrons to sit at while consuming the daily dish. Today, it was some kind of hearty meat stew, something Matt had never had before. It tasted surprisingly good, despite the sick, brown color of the liquid. Mana's eyes squinted in pain as if she were eating something entirely inedible.
"What?" Matt asked between shoveling spoonfuls of the soup into his mouth.
"This is gods-awful," she said, shaking her head in resigned sadness. Matt laughed at her pickiness, drawing her ire. His chuckles died in his throat.
"Sorry, sorry," he said, lifting his hands in surrender. It seemed to appease the priestess, who went back to picking at the soup. It was a comical sight, but only for Matt. The innkeeper standing at the back of the room was practically shaking in terror. Were the priestesses of Hecate feared outside of Mayfeld? If they went around vanishing people like Mana did, he wouldn't be surprised. She and her order didn't strike him as that kind of people, though.
Mana gave up, standing up from their table. "Could you guide me to your bathrooms, please?" she asked of the innkeeper, who nodded her head as if she were trying to beat a drum with it. Hecate's priestess disappeared into the building with the innkeeper, leaving Matt to eat on his own.
He reveled in the quiet, as no one else sat in the inn's main room with him. It was too early in the day for anyone to be abstaining from helping with the harvest. They'd have to find a way to sell the weapons they'd acquired later in the day, meaning that for now, this was his only moment alone – truly alone. For the first time, it really felt like he was a hero on a journey, like Ulred's legendary trek through the Grand Empire and beyond.
He might not have any mythical armor, nor did he have a famed weapon, but he was one of the gods' chosen, and we has traveling alongside one of the most influential people he had ever met. For a kid from the shantytown, it was a dream come true. Smiling, Matt finished the rest of the bowl's worth of soup. He wasn't at Highhaven yet, but he'd get there. And when he did, he'd convince Mana to let him join the Academy of Paladins. That's when the real adventure would begin.