The cold seemed to wake Mary up as they made distance from the house, and deciding that talking would perhaps wake her up a little more, she became a chatterbox of unknown measure.

  "So, Mr. Meriel, what's the next place we are going to visit? The graveyard? It's quite a bit dark outside though." She rambled on, not even letting Meriel answer one of her questions. "We could visit the grave of one of my friends too. He was an orphan just like me, and I think he..."

  "When did that happen?" Meriel asked, doing his best in getting her to talk more. He scanned around him, unsure of the potential dangers in the dark, but so far he saw no threats. They wouldn’t go to the graveyard so late at night. Mura city wasn't the safest place in the Lavarza Kingdom, and going outside alone wasn't considered safe back in his past. The streets were fuller than he was used to, but there was still the air of something being amiss.

  "When was my friend buried?" she completed the sentence, still deep in thought. "I think he died last winter."

  "I'm sorry for your loss," Meriel said, unsure of what else he could offer.

  "It's okay," she said with more vigor in her voice than her face showed. "It's not that uncommon for orphans to just freeze to death."

  "No child should witness such a thing, Mary." Meriel disagreed and tried to ignore the stares of people he walked past. He once again sent out a mana wave, invisible to non-mages, aimed for one being in existence only. He called Ziggy, of course.

  Leaving the city would probably be the safest option, but he definitely didn't feel like going through the guards again and trying his luck pretending to be a logger.

  "Anyway, mister, why is your name the same as the legendary mage?" she finally asked, looking at his face. "Were your parents fans of his, perhaps? Or, well, you said it was your family's home before, right? Maybe you are a distant cousin or something. I don't understand how these family heirlooms work."

  Meriel chuckled. "The name isn't a family heirloom, Mary. My name is just a coincidence.” He ignored how she raised her eyebrow. “Anyway, I wanted to ask something. Do you know what happened to the other four people from the Legend?" He said, inspecting Mary's face. He considered using a lie-detecting spell but decided against it. He never liked going into others' bodies with his own mana. It made him feel dirty.

  "Until today I haven't heard of the Legend at all. Well, I knew it existed, but I didn’t know the contents," she said, a bit confused about his question.

  He should have considered as much, considering that she seemed to be listening as eagerly as he was. Deciding that this was a dead end, he went to change the topic, looking around him, scanning the buildings, and he realized that he wasn't even looking before where he was walking. Were they in the new city block perhaps? To be honest, they all looked too similar, unlike the picture of this place from his memories.

  "Do you have a place to stay?" He looked at Mary, hoping that she knew the city as much as she claimed she did.

  Her face paled, however, and she refused to meet his own eyes.

  "Mary, do you know a place to stay? A safe one, preferably without any people?" He continued repeating the question much more slowly, but her reaction didn't change. Finally, he stopped, his patience running thin.

  Mary's shoulders seemed tense, but she still refused to answer, refusing to stop even. And so he caught her by the shoulder, turning her to face him. "Hello, I'm talking to you," he said, calm but irrefutable.

  She met his eyes, and he saw tears welling up in their depths.

  "Yes," she answered, looking back down on the ground. "Kind of, but there are bullies there. Are you going to send me away now?"... She also gave him the biggest puppy eyes he'd ever seen in his life.

  The realization of how she interpreted his question came upon him, and he had to hold himself back from facepalming. He didn't mean to ask for her to leave; he just wanted a safe place so he could call Ziggy back to him. Maybe hide him, so he wouldn't have to camp out solo on the plains outside the city. Though he wasn't even sure about what he wanted to do with Mary herself.

  She was an orphan, that much was already clear, without a guardian. The orphanage should have been her guardian then, true, but he knew how those places usually worked—just served as some sources of cheap labor and slaves for the nobles of other cities or the city they served. A business pretending to be a charity. He felt sick to his stomach at the thought of sending any child there. No wonder Mary chose to steal instead.

  But he also felt too unstable to take care of a child, no matter how old or lively she was. Hell, he probably just escaped a damn spell after 90 years and was probably the most unsocialized person on the planet. He talked to a damn dragon for years after all.

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  Was he really the only suitable person? Perhaps he could help look for a guardian for her?

  "Mr. Meriel, I want to stay with you for a little longer. Can I? Please?"

  He felt his retort form back in his throat. It was hard to say no to a child, or at least he found it hard to say no to anyone, and as troublesome as Mary was, he found himself liking her presence. He found his decision coming into being before the words even left his mouth.

  "I'll allow it, but we'll find a proper guardian for you later. Is that the deal?"

  "Yes!" Mary beamed, bringing Meriel into a hug. "Yes, Mr. Meriel. I'll—" she stuttered, visibly relieved.

  "Okay, then. I still haven't asked you all the questions I wanted.” Meriel gently pushed her away from the hug. “I didn't ask about the place to stay because I wanted to send you away, at least not yet. I wanted to ask because I need to. I don't have a place to stay for this night," he admitted, scratching the back of his head. "I also have a friend that I need to find a place for, and he usually causes some trouble whenever people see him." He added and didn't bother explaining more.

  It was kind of the truth. Ziggy would definitely cause some trouble if people saw him. Meriel was sure that even though he himself had slain the biggest dragon in the Lavarza kingdom, the legends about their might definitely didn't recede. It was hard to get rid of the legend of a being of such strength after all.

  "Oh," she looked him up and down and started walking forward again. "I think I know a place. It's close to the walls, but it's the house of one of my former friends. He's in the orphanage now, and his parents are Delvers, so the place should be unused."

  "That works." He agreed and hurried to follow. She was deceptively fast for how little she was.

  His stomach grumbled in that very moment. "Also, do you happen to have any food?"

  "No, but I could steal some!" She quipped, looking around for any stalls, though they were of course all closed at this late hour.

  Meriel shook his head. That wouldn't do. He didn't want to raise any alarm his first day back in civilization. He stopped for a moment, looking for a pebble. When Mary looked at him inquisitively, he shooed her away. "Turn around now."

  "What? Why?"

  "No questions! I'll buy us some food, but no peeking, or you'll go hungry."

  "Fine," she pouted, turning on her heels.

  He finally found a pebble large enough and quickly started channeling mana through his heart. He wasn't an expert in transmutation spells, but he knew the basics. A little change here, a little change there—earth magic was one of his favorites after all. He hadn't used a spell like this for a long time, but it came easily to him. He whispered the words, letting the transmutation happen slowly and carefully, like a medic is careful with his scalpel.

  [Earth to Gold - Level 15 - Activated]

  And the rock started changing. It was slow at first, small dots appearing around the edges. But in just a moment, it turned to something else completely, and the rock in his hand weighed several times its former weight. A nugget of gold. He stood up, proud of his skill, and pocketed the rock in one of his satchels. Mary held to her word, thankfully, and still remained looking away.

  "You can look now," he said. "Let's go. Do you know any good places that sell meat?"

  "I know a lot of places, though I've never eaten at the more expensive ones, and I think we'll get some weird looks if we walk in there dressed like this."

  He rolled his eyes and continued following after her, thinking about what to do with her for a while longer. They must have been getting close, for the walls were getting larger as they neared.

  But suddenly something strange happened: three people came from a side street in front of them holding wooden clubs. The strange thing, however, was that Meriel could sense mana flowing through one of them. Not a large amount, quite pitiable control actually. He'd get laughed at by the apprentices of the academy, but the fact that someone controlling mana was a thief in the first place was surprising enough.

  Mary quickly stepped behind Meriel. That was quite a lot of trust into someone she knew for just a day.

  "Leave the girl and any money you have, and we'll let you go!" the man said. He was shorter than Meriel, but he was wider by a large margin. The wooden club in his hand was chipped, showing the fact that it was very much in use.

  Meriel himself couldn't help but roll his eyes. First day back in civilization and it was the second time he was getting robbed. Perhaps he should have stayed in the cave after all?

  He considered how he should fight them, however. Cast any large enough overt spell and he would alert every mana user in the city of his presence. If his plan was still to remain incognito, he would...

  "Good evening to you as well. I have a counter proposition: I leave this nugget of gold here, right on the ground, and you'll just pretend you never saw us." He didn't add how he would track them down later, leaving a small mana mark on their bodies. He always despised people like them. Yes, many of them had very bad origins, but they didn't excuse their actions, they didn't excuse the pain they brought on other people.

  In front of Meriel were walking and talking corpses.

  "And why the hell would we do that?" The man in front added slowly, stepping towards Meriel. "We can just beat you to death and take m'—"

  He didn't get to finish the sentence, for a large creature landed right on top of him, bursting his head open on the pavement below. Ziggy stood from the corpse, meeting Meriel's eyes, and then he looked back at the other two and dashed forward, surprisingly fast. Even Meriel wouldn't think that the dragon was so fast. Was he using some mana to boost his muscles? Meriel never taught him that!

  He heard a soft thud behind him as the dragon leaped on the other two men, tearing them to shreds in seconds. Mary fell to the ground, unconscious.

  So much for not telling her as much as he'd need. He'd probably have to think of a new plan on what to do with her now.