Chapter XV: The Brewing Storm (Part 4)

"Ooh, look at this one, Rulf!"

"What is it- WOAH DON'T POINT THAT AT ME!" Rulf yelled, alarmed by Monika suddenly aiming the crossbow at him. He snatched it away from her, much to her confusion.

"But it isn't loaded." Monika inquired. Rulf gave a look of minor outrage.

"Just because it isn't loaded doesn't mean you should be pointing it at people. If you don't learn weapon safety, you're likely to stab yer friend as much as yer enemy."

Monika nodded solemnly. "I apologize for pointing it at you, my love. It won't happen again."

Rulf shushed Monika quickly, looking around the weapons shop cautiously.

"I'd, uh, prefer if you didn't say that in public." He whispered. Monika smiled.

"Why?"

"Well, first off, uh, we haven't worked out this whole...you know...love thing, okay? It's...you're putting me in a…position here."

"Rulf." Monika said squarely. Rulf looked her in the eyes, noticing the determined look she had. "I love you. I will love you for the rest of my life."

Rulf blushed once again. Monika goofed off often, and despite having heard this entire sentiment before, he was still embarrassed from hearing it. It sounded so foreign to him that someone would declare their love so openly to another person. Furthermore, his strong affection for her confused him even further. He had not yet said that he had loved her back, as he still wasn't sure whether this whole 'love' thing was natural or if it was born from infatuation.

"Look, um, you have to give me some time on this, okay? I know this sounds odd comin' from a man, but this whole thing is moving a bit fast, don't ya think?"

Monika seemed downtrodden by his response, so much so that Rulf was wondering if he had said something horrible to her.

"Okay…"

"Wha- I….I mean...Togdamnit, woman!" Rulf huffed in frustration, rubbing his temple. "Look, we're here to buy you some gear and weaponry, alright? We'll worry about that...other stuff later."

Rulf showcased the crossbow to Monika, pointing at it with his free hand for emphasis.

"This looks like something you could use. You told me you've never held any sort of weaponry, right?"

"Yes."

"Well, this is a perfect opportunity to test your range of weaponry, uh, usage skills...and stuff."

Monika nodded slowly as he handed her the weapon, allowing her to look over it and get familiar.

"I think," Rulf began. " That you would fare well with a ranged weapon, so ya don't risk gettin' hit in melee. I mean, ya got a knife if melee is needed, but, you know, I'd prefer it if you were at a safe distance for fighting."

Monika looked up at Rulf, her eyes shining.

"You're worrying about my safety?" She asked, her voice fading off a bit.

"W-Well of course, fuckin' Hekk!" He stammered, confused by her emotional surprise. "You're...important to me, and…you know, I wanna make sure you're doin' alright."

He avoided looking into her eyes and gestured weakly at the weapon.

"So..just look through it, you know, test the sights and the grip and stuff."

He aimed his head up slightly, and was relieved to see her testing out the weapon, though he noticed her eyes were slightly glazed over with tears, and she began sniffling somewhat as she tested it out.

"It's...really good. It, uh, feels nice." She sniffled, trying to mask her crying. Rulf inwardly sighed. He wasn't sure why he kept saying this corny shit around her, but he seriously couldn't help it. They'd spent a little over a month together now, and he had been fantasizing about desires and wishes he never thought he'd want in his life. He had previously wanted gold and land, and there wasn't a particularly strong desire to chase that, but...now... he wanted something different.

"Well, there's also, uh, something else I wanted to get for you." He said aloud, walking over to the blunt weapons section of the shop. He picked up a short flanged mace, around the length of his whole arm, and walked back to Monika, handing it to her.

"We don't have many blunt weapons in the squad, from what I saw, so it'll be good for you to make use of something like this." He commented.

Monika nodded silently, noticing how the business end of the mace had several pointed curves, almost like the petals of a flower. Rulf noticed what she was staring at.

"Yeah, I'm sure this looks odd to you." He remarked. "These are pretty near. If you're tryin' to hit one of the armored bastards with it, it won't glance off the armor, it'll smash right into them…"

His sentence faded off as he noticed Monika's despondent expression. She noticed that he'd stopped speaking and looked up, trying to erase the look on her face.

"Oh, sorry, Rulf, please continue."

Rulf stared a bit longer at Monika, who finally released a long exhale.

"I'm sorry, I just-...I was thinking about the lodge."

"Oh?"

"I miss it."

Rulf nodded silently. He wouldn't admit it aloud, but he had grown fond of the humble little cabin they had spent a month in at Dawnusk. He was hoping to finish this ridiculous mission and get it over with so he and her could head back there to live a quiet, relatively peaceful life. Oddly enough, he had always had a secret thirst for violence and risk, but shortly after meeting Monika, those feelings quickly dissipated, and for the first time in his life, he was legitimately afraid to die.

To lose her.

"You remember when we first got there, on that really stormy day?" Monika asked him, jerking him back to reality.

"Wha- huh? Oh, yeah...what about it?"

Monika brought her eyes back to the mace she held in her hands.

"You told me you met Wesley and...that girl...there."

"Yeah. I've no fuckin' clue how we came to meet back up in such stupid circumstances."

"Well...when you and him left to go get wood...I woke up to...Sayori…"

Rulf waited for her to continue as she was contemplating.

"She was...crying. And the look in her eyes...I'd never seen anything like it. Anger. Fear. Disgust. I…"

She placed one hand gently on her face.

"...I never saw anything like that in...the other place…"

Rulf quietly listened as she continued.

"They were just lines of code. I saw it myself, I went through the files, I saw everything that was supposed to be 'them'. Now they're real, and...I don't know if that makes me evil or...or…"

Rulf was surprised to see her grip tightening on the mace, her knuckles turning white. He brought one hand over to grab the mace lightly, and her grip loosened.

"Monika," He said with a sigh. "I know this journey is gonna suck for you, especially since it seems you have some fucked up history with those women. Honestly, I'm a bit scared about the danger we're gonna be facing on the way."

Monika gasped slightly as she felt one of Rulf's hands clasp hers, looking up to see a hint of fear in his eyes.

"Let's survive this mission alive and well...okay?'

Monika gave a small smile and nodded. Reassured, Rulf released her hands and cleared his throat.

"Um, anyways, we still have to find a good lodging for the group, so let's finish up here."

"Holy shit, the prices here are ridiculous!"

Wesley groaned as he swept his gaze across the market stalls of perishables and other supplies, with Sayori doing the same.

"I mean, that's to be expected in the capital of any country." Sayori remarked. "Either because it's a tourist trap or because cities are naturally more expensive to be in."

"Okay, thanks for the lesson in economics, person who is literally tutoring under me." Wesley muttered.

Sayori giggled, something that Wesley hadn't heard from her before, as she leaned towards one stall to get a closer look at something. Wesley happened to be watching her do so. A light wind came by and blew her hair slightly, and without warning, Wesley was suddenly struck with a strong affection as he watched each strand of hair dance in the air.

"...to the King?"

"Huh?" Wesley muttered, having lost focus of the conversation. "Wh-what did you say again?"

Sayori tilted her head in curiosity at him.

"I've never seen you look so off-balance, Wesley. You doing okay?"

"Yeah, just- what was the question?"

"Um, well, why were you and those other guys so...belligerent with the King?"

Wesley sighed.

"That whole thing was just absolute horse shit. It's unbelievable that we got pulled from-"

"Er- no, I mean, uh...why were you allowed to act that way towards him? Isn't it...really bad to act that way to royalty?"

"Oh. Well, we did just get dragged from our normal lives and forced to pair up with people we barely know to carry out an egregiously difficult mission in a hostile foreign country. It felt like there was a general consensus in the room at the time that the King had fucked us over in the most terrible way, so we had little respect to give him. In most of Uropa, and especially Brimmen, there is a culture of giving and returning respect based on your actions and words. When you rip a bunch of people away from their lives to throw them on some suicide mission, you can't expect much, and this especially applies to nobility and royalty, since they used to be common folk just like us."

Sayori tilted her head in curiosity.

"Wait, your royalty isn't based on heredity?"

"Well it is when a ruler is elected to the position by the populace, but that's usually at the start of a nation, or when a current ruler is doing so awful at their job that they're overthrown and replaced. Most times, the overthrowing isn't violent. I've seen it for myself, a bunch of pissed off citizens storm the castle with weaponry, and are usually backed by the mages and/or military if the ruler is especially shit at their job. Honestly, this continent is a lot different from most others in the world. It's a lot more progressive, for sure."

"Progressive?"

Wesley waved his hand in the air, as if searching for a good explanation.

"The laws are a lot more tolerable towards Demi-Humans- Wait, have you ever seen one before? Do you know what a Demi-Human is?"

"What?"

"A Demi-Human."

Sayori seemed to be scratching her mind for a moment.

"...No, I don't think so."

"Alright, well, that's a discussion for another day."

Wesley rubbed his chin thoughtfully as he continued perusing the stalls.

"Alright, so apparently we need to get food, water, portable storage, medical supplies- shit, do we have anyone with medical knowledge in the group?" He inquired with a worried tone.

"I believe Natsuki told me she's been reading up on some procedures and manuals about them recently." Sayori responded. "Maybe we should buy a few medical books if we can find any here."

Wesley nodded.

"Alright, then you go search for medical books, then come back and list off the prices to me. I was given a hefty amount of coin from that woman, Darya, for the trip, so we have some room to spend."

Sayori nodded, and began scurrying around to each market stall to find medical books on hand. Wesley watched her run around, noticing the natural bounce in her step. She had improved drastically from when he had first found her, as she had been horribly depressed for a week or two, before improving a lot. He had also been told of her background, which was so absurd to hear that he outright denied the story when he first heard it. Of course, to him, there was a lot of room to leave to skepticality. This world was already bizarre enough that many things he had considered outlandish at a younger age changed when he started growing up and traveling around.

He turned back to the merchant at the stall he stood in front of. The man was short and stocky, with graying hair and a handlebar mustache. He placed his hands on his hips and met Wesley in eye contact.

"What can I interest you in?" He asked bluntly. "My stall specializes in long-lasting food, but not much else."

Wesley nodded. In the system of Monelism, it was ideal that merchants work together to each pick something they specialized in selling and had an in-depth understanding of, then work in clusters in the same area. Oftentimes, if there was a surge of demand for one specialized product, the merchant working in that area would give a small portion of their gains to the other market vendors to keep them from getting too low of an amount in that period.

Personally, Wesley was deeply satisfied with the level of cooperation to be had under this system, and it's one of the main reasons he decided to invest so much time and energy into economics.

"I'll need quite a large sum of long-lasting food." Wesley commented. "My...group and I are going on a long journey. By the way, do you know if Neriac has any differentiation in their system of Monelism?"

The merchant's face contorted in disdain.

"Eugh, the fuckin' Neriacese. If I'm being honest, their products are well-made, but if you don't have someone in the group that has a good understanding of prices and money-"

"That would be me." Wesley interjected, trying not to sound pompous.

"Ah, well then be mindful that they're a bunch of Togdamn con artists to Brimmenians, so I would definitely not say anything about your Brimmenic origin...you are a Brimmenian, right?"

Wesley nodded, restraining the urge to chuckle. The relationship between the two countries went both ways.

"Alright, then, here's what I got for ya."

"I'd like two of those caramel apples with nuts on a stick, please."

"Malyn, what are you doing?!"

Natsuki slapped Malyn in the side, eliciting an 'ow' from him as he looked down at her.

"Why'd you do that, comrade?"

"We're not here to be tourists, we need to get armor and stuff!"

Malyn took the two caramel apples on sticks from the vendor, and gave Natsuki a look of

"Come now, Natsuki, what's the point of life if not to explore and enjoy the fruits of each location?"

Natsuki couldn't come up with a good retort to that surprisingly philosophical statement, and grumbled as she crossed her arms.

"Here, have a caramel apple." Malyn offered, handing Natsuki one of the sticks.

Natsuki hesitated, then sighed, taking the stick and taking a small bite out of it. She was pleasantly surprised at how good it tasted.

"Mm!" She voiced, and was immediately embarrassed by the unsolicited reaction.

"Now, about that checklist." Malyn started. "I completely forgot what we were supposed to be doing."

"Of course you did." Natsuki muttered. "We were supposed to be looking for armor and weaponry that everyone asked for."

She reached into a satchel she was carrying and pulled out a small parchment, unrolling it and reading off the list.

"Let's see here… everyone's in need of chainmail and a shield (except for you, Malyn); Wesley asked for a mace and a rapier, and told me that Sayori should get a recurve bow and a shortsword; Rulf is getting him and...Monika their weapons, and Wolfe asked for two bastard swords and said Yuri could get a shortsword."

Natsuki looked up at Malyn.

"You said you were getting a claymore sword, right?"

"Indeed."

"Alright. I'm going to get a spear and a shortsword. I felt like those were the most comfortable to work with."

She was suddenly disrupted by Malyn's excited chuckle.

"Wow, look at you, getting down to business with this! Wasn't it only a month ago that you were afraid to touch a sword?"

"Shut up!"

"I'm proud of you, Natsuki."

Natsuki turned red as she heard those words, lowering her head behind the parchment.

"Sh-Shut up…"

Malyn stretched and yawned.

"Anyways, I think it's time to get to shopping, then. We got a long day ahead of-"

Bong. Bong. Bong.

The crowds in the market went silent as bells tolled in the distance.

"RUN! IT'S DARK WALKERS!"