9 - Leaving Town

The adventurers’ guild was still buzzing with whispers when Luna leaned back in her chair, waiting for the receptionist to finish her paperwork. Her grin had faded, replaced by a thoughtful frown.

She had been basking in the spotlight earlier—smug, proud, thrilled at the awe in everyone’s eyes when she froze the vase solid with a flick of her hand.

But now, as she sat with nothing but the sound of murmurs around her, doubt crept in.

“…Did I just mess up?” she whispered to herself.

The thought came like a pebble dropped into still water, rippling through her mind until it became impossible to ignore.

She replayed the scene in her head. Her smug declaration of being a high Level Eight. The stunned silence. The explosion of disbelief. And then, her demonstration—Freeze, crisp, perfect, undeniable.

It had been a spectacle.

But spectacle wasn’t what she needed.

She tapped her fingers against the arm of the chair, scowling. If she wanted to travel this world freely, slipping from place to place without chains or restrictions, then becoming famous was the exact opposite of her goal.

Every eye had turned toward her in that guild hall, and she could feel their stares still clinging like cobwebs.

The kind of fame she had just courted wasn’t the harmless sort that got you free desserts. It was the dangerous kind. The kind that painted targets.

Ugh, stupid, stupid, stupid.

She raked her fingers through her silver hair, groaning softly. How was she supposed to slip into cities quietly now?

Everywhere she went, there’d be whispers of the “Level Eight child prodigy.” Nobles might send invitations—or chains. Kings might send soldiers. Scholars might dissect her with questions.

Her stomach twisted.

“Okay, Luna, think,” she muttered. “There’s gotta be a way out of this mess.”

For the next several minutes, she racked her brain. She thought about bluffing further—maybe claiming she had lied. But that would make her look like a fraud, and worse, invite more scrutiny.

She thought about bribing the receptionist, but coins only bought so much silence, and a room full of adventurers had already seen her little ice show.

She even thought about starting a fight to distract everyone, but that would just dig her hole deeper.

No, what she needed wasn’t to fight the spotlight. She needed to slip out of it entirely.

Disappear.

Her eyes widened as the idea rooted itself in her mind. Yes. Disappear.

If she wasn’t here when the card was finished, if she simply vanished, then all they would have left were rumors. And rumors, unlike facts, could be dismissed.

Her frown melted into a mischievous grin. “Heh. Time for a magic trick.”

The receptionist was still scribbling diligently, her hand trembling faintly, the quill scratching across parchment.

Adventurers around the hall were throwing her glances, whispering behind their hands, watching Luna out of the corners of their eyes. The tension was thick.

Perfect. The more eyes on her now, the more impressive her disappearance would be.

She placed her hand on her lap, out of sight. Quietly, she whispered a word.

“Fog.”

The response was immediate. From her palm, threads of damp mist curled outward, spreading low across the polished marble floor.

At first it looked like a trick of the light, but within seconds, the fog thickened, billowing upward until boots, chairs, and the lower halves of tables disappeared into a sea of white.

Startled murmurs rose.

“What’s this—?”

“Is someone casting?”

“Fog inside the guild?”

Before panic could fully set in, Luna layered her spell. She exhaled softly, and with that breath, her form blurred.

“Mist.”

Her body dissolved into translucence, the edges of her figure wisping into the air until she was almost invisible.

Only the faint shimmer of distorted light betrayed her presence, and in the thick fog, not even that would last long.

Chaos bloomed.

Chairs scraped. Adventurers leapt to their feet, hands on weapons. Mages in robes began shouting incantations, their voices sharp, urgent. Guards near the door raised their halberds, forming a defensive stance as if preparing for an ambush.

“Stay alert!” one barked. “There’s an intruder!”

The receptionist’s eyes went wide. She looked around desperately, trying to pierce the fog. “Miss Luna?” she called, voice trembling.

But Luna was already on the move, slipping silently toward the far wall, her figure vanishing into the mist.

Spells crackled through the air as mages tried to counter her fog. Bright flares of fire. Bursts of wind. Waves of cleansing light.

Each struck the rolling mist, yet none dispelled it. Instead, their magic dissipated like sparks swallowed by the ocean, leaving the fog as dense and impenetrable as before.

“This—this isn’t normal fog!” one mage shouted, sweat already beading on his forehead. “It’s woven with layered mana!”

“Then dispel it!” a warrior growled, clutching his sword hilt.

“We’re trying!”

More incantations filled the hall. The fog thickened stubbornly, pressing against their senses like damp cotton. Visibility shrank to mere feet. Panic edged into voices.

Some adventurers stumbled toward the doors, others drew weapons and clustered in defensive groups.

The guild hall that had been so composed, so luxurious, only moments ago had descended into confusion and alarm.

And through it all, Luna walked calmly, her steps light and measured, her grin hidden in the veil of mist.

“Sorry about this,” she whispered under her breath, “but it’s for the best.”

By the time she slipped through the side door, the guild hall behind her was a cacophony of voices and spells.

The mages were still desperately trying to force the fog away, but none of them had the precision or raw mana control to peel apart her work.

It would disperse eventually, of course—she had designed it that way. But not yet. Not before she was gone.

She tugged her hood low, masking her silver hair, and melted into the side street. The cool night air hit her face, clearing away the dampness of her own spell.

Her pulse quickened, not from fear but from exhilaration. She had pulled it off.

But exhilaration soon faded to practicality. She couldn’t linger in the city. Not now. If she stayed, the guild would hunt her down with questions, maybe even suspicion.

And if word spread faster than her footsteps, she’d never have a moment’s peace.

“No,” she whispered. “Time to move on.”

Still, before leaving, she had things to do. Supplies. Food. And most importantly—sweets.

The mist clung stubbornly to the guild for nearly an hour after Luna’s departure, a slow-moving veil that refused to be burned away by torchlight or blasted aside by spells.

Inside, voices clashed in the damp air—some shouting for calm, others demanding answers, weapons scraping against scabbards as adventurers searched in vain for the cause.

But by the time the fog began to thin, Luna was already halfway across the city, her hood pulled low, her steps brisk and purposeful.

Her heart still thumped from the thrill of it all.

“Disappearing act, executed flawlessly,” she muttered smugly, patting herself on the chest. “You’d think I was born for theater.”

The sack of loot weighed heavy against her side as she wove through the narrow streets.

The city was calmer here, far from the guild’s polished facade—stone houses pressed together, wooden shutters creaking faintly in the wind.

She kept to the edges, avoiding the lantern-lit main road, until she found what she wanted, a jeweler’s shop, marked by a modest sign with a carved gemstone.

The bell above the door jingled as she stepped in.

The shopkeeper, a balding man with spectacles perched on his nose, looked up from his workbench. His eyes widened slightly when he saw the sack Luna dropped onto the counter.

Jewels, still wrapped in bits of cloth and string, spilled out in a glimmering heap.

“W–where did you…?” he began, then stopped himself. His eyes darted from Luna’s small figure to the polished sapphire rolling across the counter, then back to her hooded face.

He cleared his throat and adjusted his glasses. “No, never mind. I’ll appraise them.”

“Good,” Luna said, flashing a cheerful smile.

The man weighed each jewel with trembling hands, murmuring to himself as he examined the cuts and clarity. By the end, he looked faintly pale, as if he’d just counted enough wealth to pay for a manor house.

“Th-this is… quite a collection,” he said, voice cautious. “I can pay you in coin, of course. How much would you like exchanged?”

“All of it,” Luna said without hesitation. Then she added, “But I want small coins, not just the shiny ones. I need to spend them on candy.”

The shopkeeper blinked at her. “…Candy?”

“Yes. Candy,” Luna repeated firmly, as if it were the most serious matter in the world.

He didn’t question further. He simply nodded and hurried into the back room.

When he returned, he set a wooden chest on the counter, filled with neatly separated stacks of coins, one-percenters, ten-percenters, and a few of the rarer ones mixed in.

Luna scooped the lot into her pouch, humming contentedly.

“Pleasure doing business!” she chirped, and left before the man could think to ask any inconvenient questions.

Her next stop was obvious, sweets.

The market stalls were still open, lanterns glowing warmly against the twilight.

Vendors called out their wares—meats roasted on skewers, baskets of fresh bread, jars of honey. But Luna’s nose carried her straight to the sugar stalls.

Caramelized fruits, spun sugar twisted into sticks, trays of golden pastries oozing with syrup. She bought them all.

Coins clinked. Paper wrappings crinkled. By the time she left, her arms were full and her cheeks puffed as she chewed happily on a candied apple.

“Now this,” she mumbled around the crunch of sugar, “this is traveling fuel.”

But the joy of sweets didn’t last long. Every time she glanced over her shoulder, paranoia nipped at her thoughts.

Would the guild send someone searching? Would guards come marching through the streets, shouting her description?

Better not to risk it.

With a sigh, she ducked into an alley and raised her hand.

Mist spilled from her fingers, curling around her body until she faded from sight. Her figure blurred, blending into the fog that clung to the cobblestones.

Invisible and silent, she moved toward the far end of the city—the opposite gate from where she had entered.

The guards at this gate leaned lazily on their halberds, lantern light spilling over their armor. They didn’t see the mist that drifted past them, slipping between their boots like nothing more than an evening breeze.

Outside, the night air was crisp and cool. The city’s walls loomed tall behind her, its towers sharp against the starry sky.

Luna pulled down her hood and let out a long breath.

“Whew. That was close.” She popped another caramel candy into her mouth and grinned. “Onward, then. Next city, next sweets.”

Her steps carried her into the dark forest beyond, her form dissolving into the night like a phantom.

Back in the guild hall, the last tendrils of fog evaporated at last. Chairs stood overturned, tables damp with condensation, adventurers still gripping weapons with white knuckles.

At the center of the chaos, a group of mages stood pale and trembling, their robes damp with sweat.

“Finally,” one warrior muttered, sheathing his blade. “What in the gods’ names was that?”

All eyes turned to the mages.

But the mages looked grim. Their attempts to dispel the fog had failed entirely.

They hadn’t been the ones to break it. It had dispersed on its own, fading only when its caster allowed it.

That fact weighed heavily on them.

A Level Six mage—his voice hoarse from repeated chanting—spoke at last. “That was… not something we could dispel. Not at our level.”

Murmurs rippled.

“What do you mean? You’re saying it was…?”

“An attack?”

“No, it felt too controlled…”

“Then what?”

The mage’s jaw tightened. He glanced at the place where Luna had stood earlier, her smug grin so fresh in his memory.

A child, barely taller than the desk. A child who had frozen a vase instantly, without incantation. A child who had declared herself Level Eight.

And then vanished into mist.

“…She’s gone,” the mage said quietly. “Whoever she was.”

In the aftermath, questions and speculation filled the hall. Adventurers clustered in groups, voices low and tense.

“Could she really have been Level Eight?”

“Ridiculous. No child could reach that level.”

“But you saw her spell—”

“A trick, surely. Some enchanted item.”

“Then how do you explain the fog? Even our best mages couldn’t touch it.”

The receptionist, pale and shaken, whispered to a fellow clerk, “She called herself Luna. That’s all I know.”

“Luna…” the name passed quietly from mouth to mouth, growing weight with each repetition.

But the mages—those who understood the enormity of what they had witnessed—were silent. They remembered old lessons, stories told in hushed voices at the tower.

Of a Water Saint.

A childlike figure who wielded impossible magic, who once stood against King Lux, the so-called King of Light, and triumphed.

A myth, no more than a tale to inspire apprentices.

And yet… the memory of those glowing eyes in the fog lingered, burning bright in their minds.

By the time the hall settled, the story had already begun to twist.

Some said she was a prodigy, a noble’s hidden weapon.

Others whispered she was no human at all, but a spirit wearing a child’s form.

And a few, remembering the tales of old, wondered aloud if they had just seen the return of the Water Saint herself.

None of them could prove it. None of them even knew her full name.

But the image of a silver-haired girl, smug and smiling, vanishing into a fog no mage could dispel—that image lodged itself deep in their minds, impossible to forget.

Meanwhile, far beyond the walls, Luna skipped along the moonlit path, her arms full of sweets and her mind blissfully empty of the storm she’d left behind.

She popped another candy into her mouth and grinned.

“Mission accomplished. No more attention. Just me, my coins, and my sugar.”

Unaware that behind her, whispers were spreading like wildfire, weaving her into legend.