Legends: The Emerald World

The slaves walked out of the cage and sat on the ground, it's been several days since they were forced out of their village. The woman in fancy clothes approached Ase, "Thank you for saving us. I'm Mary, daughter of the Leonora family." She said with a gentle smile, extending her hand to Ase.

"She's some kind of princess?" Shin asked and looked at Mary with a confused face, "Leonora? Am I supposed to know that name?" Ase added, hesitantly reaching with her hand to shake Mary's hand.

"Guh…" Mary gasped, "We aren't that famous of a family, but I thought we'd be at least a bit famous around these parts of the kingdom…" She looked devastated, wobbling and almost falling to the ground.

"Are you okay?" Ase approached her and Mary lifted her hand, "Yeah, I'm fine." She stood straight and patted the dust off her clothes, "We, the Leonora are a family of merchants. In the past years, we've spent a lot of money trying to set up shops and trade routes across all the small and nearly abandoned villages close to the border." She looked away, "With over fifty shops spread across fifty villages I thought we'd be a bit known around these parts."

"Is that safe?" Ase titled her head. The borders with the empire were know for being extremely dangerous, abandoned parts filled with monsters, imperial skirmishes and no shortage of bandits.

"No, you can see how I ended up. Caught by those bandits or whatever they were." She looked at the dead men around the carriage. "Most merchants avoid those border villages because of such risk, but we want to help people, and make some coins with what rare herbs or monsters that they can hunt in the forest." Of course, no merchant can operate without profit in mind.

Shin looked at her, "You mean we're already inside Bluemoon kingdom?"

"What do you mean?" She looked at Shin, worried and confused.

Ase was the one to reply, "We're citizens of the kingdom, well, the lands that the empire colonized a few years ago. I come from Kajim village, and he…" She looked at Shin, "About that place as well, close by." He replied since he didn't have anything else to say.

"We were locked up in a fort, but managed to escape when a dragon attacked." Ase looked at Mary, noticing her face paling. "The death asylum of blackwood, that's the fort that burned down." Shin added up.

"A dragon? The one that I saw fly over the mountain? It wasn't a bird…" She started sweating, "The beast flew into the kingdom's deeper lands, the midlands are going to have a disaster."

The dragon flew into the heart of the Bluemoon kingdom if it went on a rampage there, millions of people would die. Mary knew the disaster was about to happen and she couldn't pretend she saw anything.

Dragons are known to retreat and sleep for a few months after each outing they do, which mean the dragon that attacked the fort where Ase and Shin had gone back to sleep. They have some time to warn the kingdom.

"You two are coming with me to see the king, he must hear of this!" Mary gasped.

"The king?" Shin looked a bit worried, "All I want now is to get her back to her people, and find a safe place to live the rest of my life, away from all the troubles. I'm not going with you to any king." With how weak he's now, getting tangled in this mess could only lead to him being controlled and used. He'd rather not get mixed into this kingdom's war against the dragon or the empire.

"I don't have a home to return to." Ase looked at him, "But I'll happily find a quiet place to spend some time with you. Let's find you a home first." She then turned toward Mary, "Sorry, but you'll go to the king alone."

"With the dragon loose, you'll never find peace. Ignore it now, and it'll come breathing fire down your peaceful home a few years in the future. All I need you to do is come with me to the king as a witness and testify." She looked at Shin's eyes and a smile crossed her face.

"You want peace and quite? Right?" She giggled, "The king give people who survived the empire's grasp and returned a fair amount of money to support themselves. And add to that what he might pay for the information about the dragon…" She laughed, "You'll never need to work again in your life."

Shin sighed, "Fine…it'll be just a trip. I'll fight no dragon for you." She was right, he could get paid enough to be able to spend the rest of his life lazing around.

"Don't worry, no one asked you to fight it." She giggled, her eyes fixed on him. What Mary sees no one else sees.

[Blessing Of Mira: Golden Eyes] Mary could feel her legs getting weak and her teeth tingling, the man standing before her was like no one she had ever seen. She'll never let him slip out of her hands no matter what, finding him is worth far more than any troubles she faced through this trip.

Her blessing allows her to see the true worth of things, everything from objects to people. What she sees is a rough estimate, but it's something with meaning. The reason her family went to trade with the border villages is because of her eyes, and they managed to profit massively by trading rare items.

While most people are worth a couple of gold coins, nobles usually are worth in the thousands, the king was worth almost a billion gold coin. But this homeless man before her, she can't see a limit to his wealth.

Even Ase when she stands beside him, his wealth is infecting her. Mary knows that Ase's original worth is just around a few hundred gold coins, but with Shin's influence, she's already worth several millions. There is even a small thing above Shin's head that is normally worth almost nothing, but now worth over five millions…

Mary approached Shin, "Excuse me, something moved." She looked at his hair, "There is something in your hair." She combed it with her fingers, and pulled Char out.

Mary froze for a second, and threw Char away with a terrified scream. She hates spiders with passion. Shin caught the poor Char, "Careful, she doesn't bite…"

^I bite…^ Char waved her arm.

Ase intervened, "The spider is his tamed monster…no, bug. Without her I might be still rotting inside that burned fort."

'No wonder that spider is worth so much…what is this homeless-looking guy even doing to have such a worth?' Mary recoiled back and put on a smile. "Shall we travel together?" She looked back at the other slaves, which she quickly revealed to be the residents of one of the villages she was trading with.

"We'll head to the closest city and gather supplies. They'll probably stop there so they could be returned to their village when it's taken back. But we three… no, four shall go to the royal capital to meet the king." She smiled, "I can cook, what can you two do? Did you work anything for a living?"

"I'm a hunter." Ase replied and looked toward Shin. Mary clapped her hands, "Than we can count on you for meat, I'll clean anything you hunt and cook it for us."

Shin thought about it for a few seconds, he's basically jobless in this world, but he must at least say something. "I'm a tamer and a martial art trainer. I teach basic self-defense and survival tactics."

"Yeah!" Ase gasped, "We wouldn't have escaped the dragon without you."

Mary was grinning inside, she had found a gold mine. 'Survival tactics and marital arts that managed to survive a dragon's attack…he'll be worth millions to the army, no, he'll probably be worth more when considering he's a tamer…I can see it, the money raining from the heavens.'