Chapter 106: Of All People

The Holy City of Trido was packed.

Unlike the Royal Capital, whose gray walls had clearly been designed with sieges in mind, Trido's fortifications were covered in colorful sacred murals.

Sunlight poured across them, and from a distance, the entire city looked wrapped in a ribbon of stained glass.

The gates stood wide open.

Travelers, merchants, carts, and pilgrims flowed freely in and out. Two soldiers of the Pontiff's Guard stood on either side in polished silver-white armor, occasionally nodding to familiar locals as they passed.

Uriel looked around and nodded to himself.

Yeah. I picked the right place.

He was standing beside a stall selling chilled fruit juice.

The vendor apparently knew some kind of minor spell, because every freshly poured cup became ice-cold the moment he wrapped his hand around it.

Now this was what another world was supposed to feel like.

A strange city.

Strange streets.

Strange smells drifting through the air.

Freedom.

Pure, uncut, unadulterated freedom.

Uriel found an ordinary inn and asked the owner behind the counter if there were any single rooms available.

The man flipped through his ledger.

"Tourist season. Only our standard rooms are left."

He named the price.

"Four gold per night."

Uriel's eyebrow twitched.

Four gold.

For this?

That amount could get him a very respectable room in the Royal Capital.

Tourist season pricing truly was legalized robbery.

Then again...

He was already here.

And after everything he'd endured in the Royal Capital, skimping now felt downright insulting.

Uriel paid for three nights.

He went upstairs, opened the door to his room, tossed his luggage onto the bed, kicked off his shoes, and collapsed face-first onto the mattress.

Five minutes later, he shot upright.

What am I doing?

It was barely evening.

Spending the first night of his escape hiding in an inn would be criminal.

---

The Grand Cathedral of Trido stood at the center of the city.

When Uriel first saw its silhouette in the distance, his pace slowed without him realizing it.The cathedral dwarfed every palace he'd seen in the Royal Capital.Several domes rose above the skyline at different heights, while enormous stained-glass windows stretched dozens of meters into the air.

The plaza in front of the cathedral was paved in pale gray stone.

Thousands of names had been carved into the surface.

Every few steps, someone would crouch down and gently trace one of those names with a fingertip.

Rows of guards from the Pontiff's Guard patrolled both sides of the square.

Tourists and worshippers passed directly in front of them, but the soldiers marched with such perfect discipline that they barely seemed to blink.

Uriel wandered around the plaza and caught fragments of nearby conversations.

A woman holding a child was speaking to her companion.

"When he gets older, I'm going to have him enter the Hero's Ascent too."

She bounced the child lightly in her arms.

"If he takes first place, he could even be granted an audience with the Pontiff himself."

A merchant-looking man nearby overheard her and joined in.

"Last year's winner was an adventurer from the north, wasn't he?"

He stroked his beard.

"I heard the Pontiff personally said he might have what it takes to become the next Hero."

Uriel listened for a moment.

Then a completely unrelated question surfaced in his mind.

Actually... who's higher in the hierarchy? The king or the Pontiff?

He should probably look that up when he got back.

---

By the time he returned to the inn, the day's travel and the long evening walk had caught up with him.

His eyelids were already fighting to stay open.

Uriel took off his coat, draped it over the back of a chair, washed up, and dropped straight into bed.

As he drifted toward sleep, his half-asleep brain started putting together tomorrow's plan.

Eat watermelon.

Eat ribs.

Eat chestnuts.

Do not say "Holy Sword Witch" three times.

---

The next morning, Uriel's eyes snapped open.

He immediately scanned the room.

No one stood at the foot of his bed with neatly folded blankets. No silver-haired woman sat by the desk reading.

The door was shut. No light leaked in from the hallway, and no smell of breakfast drifted beneath it.

Uriel reached out with his senses.

No residual spatial distortion.

No traces of a portal.

No lingering Radiance-tier aether signature.

His mother really hadn't followed him.

He was alone.

Completely alone.

Uriel kicked off the blanket and started humming happily to himself.

Hot springs.

Alone.

No chance of Mom suddenly poking her head over from the next pool and asking, "Is the water too hot? I can scrub your back."

Paradise.

---

He followed the route marked in the local guidebook.

Unfortunately, every famous hot spring establishment had the same wooden sign hanging outside.

FULL. NO WALK-INS.

Different handwriting, same message: No room. Go away.

Uriel stood beneath the sign of one particularly popular bathhouse and glanced inside.

The lobby was packed shoulder to shoulder.

A long line stretched in front of the reception desk, while several customers who had apparently made reservations were loudly demanding to know why they still had to wait.

Uriel backed out immediately.

Fine.

If the famous places were full, he'd find somewhere small.

The best food was sometimes hidden in tiny hole-in-the-wall restaurants no tourist guide bothered mentioning.

Maybe hot springs worked the same way.

He turned into a side street.

Then another.

After several twists and turns, he finally found a tiny bathhouse tucked deep inside a quiet alley.

Its sign was a hand-painted wooden board hanging over the entrance.

A crescent moon sat in a hot spring, with two small fluffy animals perched at either end.

Uriel couldn't tell whether they were dogs, foxes, or some local creature the artist had taken creative liberties with.

The drawing wasn't exactly a masterpiece.

It was, however, extremely cute.

The storefront itself looked clean.

Two potted plants sat beside the entrance.

Uriel nodded.

Looks fine.

He pushed the door open.

A small bell chimed overhead.

Behind the front desk sat a girl with her hair tied in a ponytail.

She looked sixteen or seventeen and wore a dark blue work apron.

An open textbook sat in front of her beside several sheets of paper covered in notes.

Everything about her said she was a student working part-time over break.

At the sound of the bell, she looked up automatically.

"Welco—"

Her voice stopped.

She stared at Uriel's face for just a second too long.

Then she swallowed whatever confusion had crossed her expression and smoothly replaced it with a professional smile.

Uriel glanced down at himself.

Ordinary coat.

Ordinary shirt.

Ordinary black hair.

Ordinary brown eyes.

A perfectly ordinary background-character face.

What was that about?

A thought occurred to him.

Wait.

Did she recognize me? Or was I just that handsome?

He decided not to investigate that line of reasoning too deeply.

Uriel walked up to the counter.

"Do you offer private bookings?"

The girl blinked.

"Private?"

"The entire spring."

Uriel gestured vaguely.

"Just for me."

The logic was simple.

Given his current finances, booking a small bathhouse like this for private use should be perfectly manageable.

More importantly, he wouldn't have to soak shoulder to shoulder with a bunch of sweaty guys.

The girl opened the reservation ledger and checked.

"For a full private booking, it's twelve gold."

Uriel pursed his lips.

Twelve.

That was more than three nights at his inn.

He wasn't exactly poor anymore, but he'd only brought one bank card with him on this trip.

There was less than a thousand gold on it.

Actual personal money.

"What does that include?"

The girl answered immediately.

"The private package includes a dedicated relaxation room and one full meal. Lunch or dinner, whichever you prefer."

She turned the ledger slightly.

"You may use the facilities until eight in the evening. No other guests will be admitted during that period."

She pointed toward the rear of the building.

"The spring itself is completely separate, so privacy won't be an issue."

Uriel considered that.

So this was closer to a private hot spring inn package.

Not just paying twelve gold to sit in warm water for an hour.

With the relaxation room and meal included, it was... painful, but acceptable.

"Fine."

The transaction was quick.

The girl processed his card, wrote out a receipt, and handed him a key along with a clean towel.

Then she reached beneath the counter and placed a light men's bathing robe on top.

"Would you like to order drinks in advance?"

She counted them off.

"We have chilled milk, cold water, and local fruit wine."

"All of them."

Uriel took the key and towel.

Then he paused.

"Actually, two milks."

---

After changing into loose shorts, Uriel opened the sliding door on the far side of the changing room.

Steam drifted through the air.

The spring wasn't large.

Its shape, however, was unusual.

A crescent moon.

Uriel hung his towel on a rack and tested the water with one foot.

Perfect temperature.

The instant his leg sank in, heat crawled upward through his muscles.

Uriel let out a long breath and slowly lowered himself into the pool until only his upper chest remained above the surface.

This.

This is living.

A little while later, the girl from the front desk quietly slid the door open.

She stepped inside carrying a tray, placed several drinks beside the pool within easy reach, then left without saying a word.

The door slid shut again.

Uriel reached for one of the milk cups.

He took a sip.

Cold sweetness spread across his tongue while the hot water soaked into his skin.

A sound of pure satisfaction escaped him.

This is so good I could get boiled alive in here and die happy.

He closed his eyes again and sank into the silence and warmth.

For once, there was nothing to deal with.

Then he heard footsteps.

Bare feet padded softly across the wet stone.

Then came the sound of water shifting.

Someone had entered the spring.

Uriel opened his eyes.

His brows pulled together.

He put down the milk.

"What the hell?"

His voice dropped into a mutter.

"Didn't I pay for the whole place?"

The steam was neither thick nor thin.

Just dense enough to veil the far side of the spring.

Uriel could make out the shape of someone through it, but not much more.

Apparently, whoever had entered hadn't noticed him either.

That made sense.

Uriel was sunk so low in the water that only half his head was visible.

From across the spring, he probably looked like a dark rock sticking out of the surface.

Uriel started to stand.

He'd go find the front desk and ask exactly what his twelve gold had purchased.

Water slid from his shoulders.

He rose slowly, glanced across the pool through the steam...

And froze.

It was a woman.Brown hair.Light brown.

Uriel stared.

That was Seraphina's hair color.

Actually... That hairstyle looked familiar too.

No.

Shit.