Using the church compound as a center point, Caspian quickly made his way west. If the glaciomancer had been looking for him, he probably would've been found by now. Perhaps the knight had gotten orders to wait for backup or something of the sort, either way, Caspian was happy to be safe.
He tried to move quickly as he made his way through the forest. There were a few times he came close to a confrontation with a wild mana-beast, however for some unknown reason, they seemed frightened whenever the got a whiff of him. Hence his journey was mostly unhindered apart from the rocky hill or two.
"Enchant," he whispered to himself as Erandel came into view. With that, his necrofied arm and eye returned to normal.
~I don't know what I would've done if I couldn't turn back to normal,~ he thought in relief before walking towards the town's main gates.
There was a queue of merchant wagons lined up to have their goods checked for entry, however, due to the fact that it wasn't a major city the line wasn't too long.
"Papers," a guard said, holding up his hand in a halting gesture as Caspian tried to walk through the gates.
"I don't have papers, I'm underage," Caspian lied.
"You don't look underage to me," the guard replied, eying the sword in Caspian's left hand.
"Oh, this? My father's a knight, he told me to take this to the smith for appraisal," he replied.
"A knight's child with clothes like those?" the guard retorted, a bored expression on his face. He was clearly only doing this out of custom, otherwise, he wouldn't have given a fly's arse.
"My mother's doing laundry, so I was forced to wear these," Caspian replied. All the while the merchants behind him shouted strings of insults toward him and the guard.
"Gods I hate this job," the guard sighed under his breath. "Whatever, go through... I don't get paid enough anyway," the guard said, before gesturing for the next person in line to move up.
~Okay, first thing first, money,~ Caspian thought with a smile. In this world the only thing better than a good artifact was money. Money was the only reason for doing work, money was the ultimate happiness, the ultimate goal... at least according to Caspian.
So he scoured the busy town square, looking for an equipment shop to trade his sword in. After a bit of searching, he finally found it.
"How can I help you?" a voice came from the backroom of the store. Caspian was no adventurer, but from the look of the poorly made blades on display, and the empty front desk, he could tell that this place didn't see a lot of business.
"I'm here to trade in my sword," he said, as a blonde-haired man walked out of the backroom toward the front desk.
"We don't do-" as the man said this, Caspian placed the sword on the counter. It was made of a soothing-blue steel, and even to the untrained eye it looked well crafted.
"How much do you want for it?" the clerk asked after inspecting it carefully.
"1000 Enarcs," Caspian replied happily. ~I'm so happy I could cry,~ he thought to himself as he began dreaming of all the things he would buy with that amount.
"You're kidding right," the clerk said calmly. "Look, I'll give you two Enarcs and we'll call it even," he continued.
"Even?" Caspian replied, outrage apparent in his voice.
"I get an interesting addition, and you don't get reported for theft. After all, I'm sure you know this is a Paganic Blade, from the looks of it, it was once owned by an officer," the clerk said with a smile.
~Of course,~ Caspian thought to himself.
"5 Enarcs and that dagger," he counter-offered, pointing towards the most expensive-looking dagger in the room.
"1 Enarc and I won't just take it from," the clerk said, taking the blade off the counter.
"You know, your story was almost completely correct," Caspian began, his voice now a whisper. "Though you were bold in assuming that I just stole the blade from the knight," he continued, looking the clerk in the eye.
"You're bluffing. Officers are at least silver-level artisans, no way-"
"Enchant," Caspian whispered, and his eye and arm began exuding a purple mist.
"Still think I'm bluffing?"
Of course, the clerk still didn't believe that Caspian had killed the knight, but right now that didn't matter. From the looks of it, Haden seemed like a transformation-type artisan, and the clerk himself was probably a base-type from the job he had, so he couldn't be too careless in negotiations.
"L-Look. 5 Enarcs and t-that dagger," the clerk said. Even though he was scared, he knew nobody would be crazy enough to start a ruckus in the center of town... at least he hoped so.
"6 Enarcs, the dagger, a cloak, and that mask," Caspian counter-offered.
"Y-You're insane," the clerk said.
Caspian then tugged at the clerk's soul, and even though it was still tightly bound to his body, the clerk could feel that something was off.
"Special-transformation?" the clerk whispered under his breath. Now the story of Caspian killing a silver-level artisan was becoming a bit more believable.
In short, Caspian left the place with 6 Enarcs -which completely dried up the funds the store had on hand- a dagger, light armor, a cloak, and a red demon mask.
~Off to a great start, now I just have to buy a horse and flee this god-awful place. That clerk is probably on his way to snitch on me right now,~ he thought to himself. However it was already night out, and the guards would probably struggle to find him in the dark with his cloak on so he was safe.
"Want some sugar traveler?" a lustful voice whispered in his ear, as he was walking through the dark town streets.
~Prostitutes,~ he thought with a gulp. He had somehow ended up in the red light district while he was walking. The place was packed, in fact, it seemed like there were more people here than in the town square.
"Come on honey, I won't bite... unless you want me to," another whispered in his ear, this time gently pulling his arm.
~No, these vixens are only after my hard-earned Enarcs,~ he thought to himself, pulling his hand away from the woman's grasp before speeding down the district.
"I'll do anything you want big boy," another said, this time so bold as to caress his man parts. There was a thin line that held a man's sanity when it came to women this beautiful, and Caspian's was thinner than most.
"Ahem, how much?" he asked, telling himself it was merely for educational purposes.
"2 Enarcs baby," the woman replied, looking straight through the eye-holes of Caspian's mask.
~2 Enarcs? That's 4 loaves of bread, is this woman crazy?~ he thought to himself before pushing past her. Women were great and all, but money... money was so much greater.