Luna left the throne room and noticed that the blonde noble and silver haired boy already left. The two of them started to leave the castle, when suddenly Jessica didn't enter back into her carriage.
"What's wrong?" Luna asked.
"I just want to go for a short walk." Jessica replied.
"Alright, but I'm coming with you."
"Certainly."
Jessica sent the carriage driver away back to the inn and went into town with Luna following behind her. The capital had quite the appearance.
Walking in the streets near the king's castle was no different than walking around the richest neighborhoods back home. A noble estate here, a giant mansion there, it made Luna think about having a large house one day.
It didn't sound too bad living in luxury, apparently a lot of the people involved in the top rankings were making a killing. She considered the thought, but she was nowhere near as powerful as those people.
That reminded her. "Hey Jessica, do you mind if we stop by somewhere?"
"Yes, that is fine, I have somewhere I need to go as well. Where are we off to?"
"The auction house."
It was a common place for nobles and players to attend. Their overflowing pockets were used to bid on the rarest and strongest items people could find.
Luna didn't have much money, but wanted to earn some. Her parent's mentioned wanting to try out the game with her, so of course she should buy them one each.
The NeuroCast was extremely expensive and was around $2,500 USD. She had to be 18 to exchange the in-game coins for real life money, but her birthday was only a couple of months away.
There was no reason why she shouldn't start saving now.
And with that thought process, they ended up here. A wide brilliantly lit hall with hundreds of attendees wandering around and multiple stalls for people to either enter the auction or place an object up for bidding.
"Please put the items up that you would like to auction please." The young woman working at the counter kindly asked.
Luna took another look through her inventory. There wasn't anything other than the items dropped by Draec. Everything she earned previously was just sold at a general store.
But if she sold directly to a player then she could earn a lot more gold. There was always those whales that liked to play video games by spending as much money as possible to get better.
She put up two things for auction. Draec's undead cloak and The Cursed Scepter of the night. They would hopefully earn her quite a bit. They were completely useless to Luna as she wasn't a necromancer and didn't want her karma to rise.
There were high hopes for The Cursed Scepter of the night. It's legendary rating should at least earn enough for Luna to buy a single NeuroCast.
From what she discovered on the wiki, legendary weapons were kind of considered national treasures by some. It was rare for them to appear as drops from named NPC's and even rarer as drops from monsters.
When she saw it in her inventory, she was thrilled, but later discovered it's overwhelming power wouldn't be too useful. If she kept it until later when she could equip it, then maybe it had it's uses, but Luna wasn't thinking about those things.
In the current moment, playing with her parents sounded much more promising than a staff she couldn't even use.
She put each one of them up and decided to leave, hopefully they would both sell by tomorrow before she left as Jessica's bodyguard.
"Um excuse me!" The woman at the counter shouted. "Would you like your name to be marked as the seller?"
"Oh, well no, I don't really care."
"Understood, I will leave it as anonymous."
Luna and Jessica made their way out of the auction house and into the street. They were entering into a more secluded part of the capital. A place that was home to the abandoned slums.
"Why's it called that?" Luna asked.
"It got its name from the people that lived there. Years ago, King Eldon was open to the idea of helping the slums. It gave the people living there hope. But after trial and error for many years, he gave up on the possibility of helping them." Jessica started to give a history lesson to Luna. Who in return, started to feel sleepy over her boring monologue.
"The resource cost was too much for the kingdom to handle just to help a group of people in the capital. It made the kingdom's situation seem even worse when over 70% of the kingdom's population was in the lower class or referred to as by the nobles, the peasant class."
After walking for a good 30 minutes, they were now standing at the entrance of a large church. Luna originally thought Jessica wanted to go shopping, but apparently she was religious?
"If you don't mind me asking, why are we here?" Luna asked.
"It's for you." Jessica replied.
"Huh? Sorry, I'm not religious."
"That's not what I meant, Luna. An old friend of my grandfather lives here. I'm going to have him heal you."
"Why are you going to the trouble of doing something like that? Didn't you say I needed a lot of treatment if I wanted to heal properly."
"You're a chosen Silver warrior. You should have healed completely after resting, but your body is still in a state of recovery. It isn't common for you people to need more healing than just a simple potion or spell."
"Hey aren't we friends? What's with the distant attitude?"
"Luna, I have made a small mistake. And now that mistake involves you."
"What do you mean? What happened?"
"Where to start?"
-
After Jessica, Trevor, and the silver haired boy were removed from the throne room, the boy suddenly spoke.
"That girl... who... is she?"
"You can speak?" Trevor was surprised, the boy had barely spoken a word before.
But he didn't care for Trevor's question as the boy's sharp eyes were locked onto Jessica.
"Her name is Luna?"
"I wasn't asking for a name."
Jessica realized what he meant. "Sorry... what do you want to know about her then?"
"I saw... traces of... spirit magic on that girl, but... couldn't find a spirit."
Both Trevor and Jessica were in disbelief. "How?!" "She can use spirit magic?!"
Spirit magic was a part of a trio of special magic obtainable by mages. But each one of them was extremely difficult to find.
The first was demonic magic, which used high amounts of mana for extremely difficult and powerful spells. Most of its spells were offensively related.
The second was angelic magic, which used high mana but focused on supportive spells and had a limited amount of offensive spells.
The third, lastly was spirit magic, which had a combination of both supportive and offensive spells, but they were less powerful and required less mana.
"I want... to fight the girl." The boy looked serious.
Jessica was confused. "I'm not sure I understand. Why do you want to fight her?"
"To test her magic..."
"Because of me, she's in a much more weakened state. I'm sorry, but I won't be sending her into a battle." Jessica refused.
"Why not give the kid what he wants?" Trevor asked.
"Huh? Why are you suddenly okay with your bodyguard fighting against Luna?!"
"I'm curious, when I watched that girl, I didn't sense a single ounce of magic, but somehow this kid detected spirit magic? I want to find out what she's hiding.Spirit magic is hard to come by after all."
"You're trying to initiate a duel for your own curiosity. That's sick, Luna is her own person, I don't make decisions for her." Jessica felt disgruntled at the two of them.
That's when the young boy suggested something. "I came here to duel... I will enter the arena as his challenger." The boy pointed to Trevor. "Tell the girl... that if she wins against me, she can have... one of my swords."
Trevor offered up something as well. "I just want her to enter the competition. If your challenger can at least survive until this kid fights him, I'll pay 50 gold up front. If she wins, which isn't likely, I'll pay out another 50."
"I will temporarily agree, but the final decision is Luna's to make."
-
"YOU DID WHAT?!" Luna screamed.
"I'm sorry, okay! I didn't mean to put you in a tough situation." Jessica's upper body formed a 90 degree angle as she apologized.
"*Sigh* Now I see why we're here. I'm not so sure about this Jess. I mean he's probably way stronger than me."
"Well actually... the boy said he would join the lower level tournament."
"He what?!"
'Noll, didn't you say he was hiding his power?!'
'But I want to compete! If I win against him then I get a katana!'
'I've found them to be really cool since I was little. I just didn't want to be one of those weirdos that buys a real sword as decoration.'
'But everyone said that I was extremely weak! And there are going to be players joining the tournament! How am I supposed to compete with the odds stacked against me like that?!'
'What do you mean...?'
'And?'
'When did you learn to do that?!'
'Okay... so how much was revealed?'
'Is that why they were suspicious of me?'
"Luna?" Jessica waved her hand in-front of Luna's face.
"Oh sorry! I zoned out for a second there."
"As I was saying, I know a priest here. He's not as strong a healer as the apostle we met earlier, but he can most likely repair the shattered bones in your arm."
"If anything, I would rather have him heal my left eye. I'm ambidextrous so it's not too hard for me to use my left hand. The real problem I'm having right now would probably be my lack of vision." Luna regretfully touched her eye.
She could still see the flickering lights in the darkness that was in her left eye. It would be much harder for her in the future if her arm and eye were never healed. Using a sword in your left hand while your vision on that same side was gone wasn't the easiest thing.
Even when she used inception earlier, she had to have Noll direct her on where to aim to attack. Using storm would be an even harder challenge.
Thankfully the sleepless swordsmanship had the advantage of being used with one handed weapons. Mostly because of the disadvantage her predecessor had, but it was useful nonetheless.
"That may be a problem..."
"W-why so?"
"The regeneration of limbs requires high level healing spells that aren't possible without the limb already there." Jessica looked away. "I should mention that your arm can be fixed, but your eye will require extensive healing to restore your lost vision."
"Can it still be done?"
"Yes, but there is a high risk of your vision never returning." It only took a second for Luna to imagine how unsettling that would be.
"....I think I'll just stay blind for a little while longer."
"I agree... that would be the best course of action until we can find a better solution."