Try again?

As the sun started to illuminate our room through the small window, Fiona began the usual process of waking me up. 

Even though we got to bed pretty early, I didn't like waking up early no matter what. It was a bad habit from my previous life... 

” Lizza, wake up. ” 

” No. I will not! ” I half-declared with a yawn. ” Bed good, wake up bad. ”

On top of that, my reasoning was infallible. 

” But Lizza... Sara asked if we will take our breakfast with them a little earlier. ” Fiona tried to appease to pesky logic and defective reasoning.

” Sleep good, breakfast bad. ”

But the great me was above such things. Nothing was going to wake me up.

” But you said that I should wake you up earlier this morning. ”

” That was then... and now it is now. A thing of the past. We shall forgive about it. ” I said and rolled to the other side. ”Do you... understand, Fio? We should sleep a little bit more. ”

” No. That didn't make any sense, Lizza. If you don't wake up right now, I'll bite your ears again. ” she said, while whispered the last part close to my endangered part of the body.

” Eeeehhh... N-Not the ears. You said you wouldn't do that again... L-Lier. ” 

” Mm... But it worked. You finally woke up. ” she responded with no trace of remorse on her face. What a monster.

” You... You... traitor... To use such a method... No morning hug for you. ” I declared her punishment.

” But... ” she tried to complain against my unreasonable verdict. Her smug and victorious expression vanished in an instant as she heard that. 

” Lizza, that's not fair... ” she said almost with tears in her eyes. If something wasn't fair, then that pair of teary eyes was unfair.

” Ugh... Fine... fine... Come here. ” I sand and succumbed to that overwhelming ball of teary fluffiness. At least, I had the opportunity to slack a little bit more and embrace her at the same time. That was a win-win development. 

After some time I decided that we should get down since we couldn't make a bad reputation right from the start... I needed to at least look like a decent person. 

.

.

.

The breakfast was already prepared when we arrived. I started to get a little worried since they might have waited for us. 

” Sara, I'm sorry if we were late. ”

” Oh, do not worry. It took a little longer than usual since I had new ingredients this time. We just finished. ”

What a kind person. I was convinced that it wasn't the case...

” That's a relief to hear. ” I decided to play along though. 

This time, the soup had a sizable amount of meat as well. It was nice to eat it prepared in other ways after so much meat roasted at the campfire. 

’Finally, good fucking food!’ As a certain blonde chef awarded with a shitload of michelin stars would have said.

But before my mind wandered who knows where I suddenly remembered that this was a clothing store. It was a good opportunity to look at them since our clothes were a little lacking. 

I asked Sara to show us around after we finished to eat. She seemed happy that we decided to look at her goods. 

” These boots are quite good, but I think they were a little too big for my feet.. ” I said while probing a pair of new boots. Mine was showing signs that they wouldn't last long. It was a good idea to replace them before that happened. 

” I can modify them a little for you if you like them. Since you are my guest, I'll do the modifications for free. ” said Sara with a bring smile while looking around after something else. 

” No. I'll pay for it since it's your work. I don't want to burden you even more, Sara. ” 

” Do not worry about it... By how many things you took from my shop, that is the least I could do to repay you. ” she said and picked some kind of scarf I asked for. 

It was perfect to hide Fiona’s collar and the material was quite soft as well. It was a little pricey since these pieces of clothing was considered a luxury rather that a necessity. But that wasn't a problem since I didn't want to force my fluff to wear a rough piece of cloth around her neck. 

In the end, we took a full set of new clothes for me and Fiona, that scarf and two pairs of new boots. As for the more intimate pieces, we couldn't find anything for our upper part there. It was fortunate that neither I nor Fiona had a large bust. 

On the other hand, we took a few pieces of underwear of the highest quality we could find in Sara’s shop. I didn't want to be stingy when it came to that particular territory.  

Sara said that we couldn't find anything resembling a bra unless we searched for a higher-class store. Strangely, I wasn't embarrassed in the slightest searching and talking about this kind of stuff. Necessity was indeed, both a good teacher and a good motivation. 

It was a bit scary as to how easy my mind adapted to my new body. If I hadn’t known that such complex memories as mine couldn't be just a dream, I might have believed that I was just a female elf with amnesia or something.

If all these memories wouldn't be there, I might even doubted the fact that i was a man in my previous life. That was quite the scary though.

But that was that, and this was this. No reason to dwell on what I had no power over. I shook my head a little and continued to browse through Sara’s goods for anything that we could have missed. 

In the end, we had to pay a total of 2 gold coins and 2 silver ones for all we took, but since the manufacture and the materials were clearly superior to what we had. I had no reason to complain about that at all. If I were to think about it, that was the equivalent of 26 days of rent. It wasn't that much. 

.

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After changing in our new clothes, we headed outside for a little stroll. Sara explained to us about the city layout and other important locations. 

The plan was to pay a visit to Albert but since he must have been busy right now, we decided to take this stroll around and visit him in the afternoon. It wasn't entirely because I wanted to see the city.

Surprisingly, it wasn't much more crowded compared with what I saw when we arrived. It seemed that my assumption was correct. The city was equally active during the night as well.

Since Sara’s shop was placed near the commercial district, we didn't have to wander too much to arrive there. What greeted us was a large variety of stands and shops so I freed my curiosity to wander around the place. 

Another thing that attracted my curiosity was the fact that despite the appearances, this world wasn't that primitive as I first assumed. Medieval city with big walls, soldiers with swords and armor may indicate toward it. But it wasn't really the case.

The walls were necessary in a world with fantasy monsters roaming around. The degree of proficiency with the swords and other classical weapons was further strengthened by skills. 

Probably the biggest factor was the existence of magic. Since in my world, we slowly replaced these weapons with firearms, this place didn't seem to follow the same route because of that particular reason. 

There wasn't a point to go through the arduous process of creating a gun when you could train the bow skill and enhance the bow and the arrows for a similar effect. Or simply cast a freaking fireball.

While the situation in the remote villages like the one I saw for the first time wasn't that great, this place was at a completely different level. 

The place was relatively clean, the streets were mostly paved with stone and they had shops with various goods for the large population. As I saw last night, the place was illuminated at night too, and I pretty much guessed that the place had more facilities I simply wasn't aware of yet.

Maybe the harsh environment slowed the process of industrialization? Maybe they had some kind of magic industrialization instead. I had no idea.

But the biggest discrepancy between the outward appearances and reality was still the people themselves. I didn't pay much attention to the fact that Fiona understood the monetary value and she also knew basic calculations with her status as a former slave. It was weird of me to not notice that, I knew.

But arrived in the city, I also discovered that Albert, Sara, and Erin knew how to do these things as well and not just that. The majority of the populace seemed to use the monetary system which in fact, wasn't that normal for a medieval community. 

In the medieval period, a good chunk of the populace was using the common exchange of goods for other goods rather than money. For using money, it was necessary to know their value and basic math. But looking around me, nobody was doing that. Everyone was using money.

By logical deduction, I could assume that the general populace had a basic degree of education. At this point, I wouldn't be too surprised if at least a part of them were capable of reading and writing as well. 

” Lizza, it's almost noon. ” Fiona’s voice snapped me from my train of thoughts. I was a little stunned since I didn't realize how fast the time passed. 

” That was quite fast... We should go and look after Albert. ” 

” Mm. ”

Since my purpose was just to look around, we didn't purchase anything except for some kind of strange dish that resembled whit a kebab. I was quite curious about it and Fiona seemed to want one as well. We tried one each. 

The taste was surprisingly good so I took another two or three for later since I could keep them nice and warm in my ring. It was barely 5 copper coins each after all.

It was pretty convenient that the commercial district, Sara’s shop, and Albert’s place had a short distance between them. It didn't take long for us to arrive at the location where we parted with Albert last night. 

The single difference was that the place wasn't that free as last night. We cautiously entered the shop and looked around after Albert. Or at least the person who was currently in charge of the place. Albert said last night that the place was shared with someone else if I remember correctly. 

” Welcome! With what can I be of use to you? ” a man in his forties said and approached us while we were looking around. 

” I assume that you are in charge of this place. ” I replied.

” Yes, I am. That might be rude from my part, but it's possible for you two to be the guest that Albert is waiting for? ”

” Oh... So he was waiting for us. Do you know where he is right now? ”

” Yes. He asked me to receive you if he happened to not be here. He had some business to do in the morning. ” 

” I see. Thank you. ”

” No need for that. As to present myself, I'm Carol. Albert already told me your names but since I don't know who is who... ”

” Oh... Yeah. Sorry about that. I'm Elizabeth. ” I said shortly and looked at Fiona. I decided that it was for her own good to speak for herself from time to time.

” Mm. Fiona. ”

”...”

It... was a start.

*cough* 

” Then, I may ask you to wait here for a little longer. ”

” When is he going to come back? ” I asked.

” Ah, no... He's upstairs right now, Miss Elizabeth. But I could not let the shop alone since there's a lot of customers around at the moment. But don't worry, he should be down in no time. ”

” It's fine like that. Thanks for the help. ”

” It was my pleasure, Miss Elizabeth. ” he said and left to attend to another customer. As things were looking, the store seemed to be quite popular. 

’I should look around a little as we are waiting for Albert. Maybe I'll see something interesting around here.’