>>5948760“Then should I?” You don’t finish the question. You’ve never taken a life before.
“That’s up to you to decide, I won’t fault you either way.”
“I’m not sure if that is reassuring or not.”
“I’m not either.”
You ponder for a second if somehow Albrecht fell under the sway of the Stranger, but you have to disregard that notion. The Honor Duel was more than a month ago, right before summer break, and the Stranger has only been known for about a week. It’s not like the Honor Duel was the first time he disregarded you either, throughout the three years you were at the Academy you were always neglected by him, no matter how hard you tried to win his favor. It hurt, and it still does but… You’re not sure you can hope that he was under the control of a Stranger just to make the breaking of your betrothal more digestible. It would be too cruel.
He was so sweet when you were both children, when you were both friends, even if you could only meet twice a year. What could have made him fall for that gold-digging harlot, Lyndale?
“Inquisitor, remind me again how long the Inquisition has known about the stranger?”
“Alright, so what I know is that another inquisitor was in a hamlet near the capitol where some dude was found lost in the forest. Some serious freaky cultist stuff was happening in the hamlet, that’s why she was called in the first place. Then she deduced the two events were related and acted against the Stranger’s little harem cult. The stranger then goes and flees to the capital and all that was about a week ago. According to my colleague, he couldn’t have been in the village for more than a week with how the cult was only just starting so one week we’ve known about him and two he’s been in this world is our best guess.”
So Albrecht’s betrayal and the Stranger couldn’t possibly be connected... You can’t place the emotions you’re feeling.
“Alright, princess we’re here, the markets,” The inquisitor says as the two of you walk out of a cramped alley and into the nearly deserted square near the center of the city. You can even see your house, the royal palace, in the distance.
The markets are an interesting location, one you can’t say you frequent but you are familiar with. It functions much like a bazaar one might find in more eastern countries with hundreds of stalls manned by independent, or not-so-independent, merchants. Your history tutors have taught you that it, and many markets like it, were created around the adventuring and monster-hunting profession due to the need to acquire many unique and often rare materials in their line of work. It then expanded to accommodate more normal trades until the point some entire towns were given different fief obligations due to their “market town” status. Or well, that’s what your tutors told it. It’s not like you specifically inquired about the subject of adventures to see where you could expand your weapon collection or anything!
