It’s 12:37 pm.
Kiana just left the Academy. It’s quite early in the day but it’s also time for lunch. With this in mind and with her stomach asking for food, Kiana goes home so that she can have lunch. She gets home 15 minutes later, arriving at 12:52 pm, once there she quickly prepares something simple to eat, in this case a sandwich. It seems she was somewhat ready for this as all the ingredients were placed at sight and easy to access. Another 27 minutes later, she’s done eating, cleaning everything it needs to be clean, dishes, table and for last, herself.
It is 13:20 pm now.
Again, not late at all, though this fact is somehow causing a little bit of trouble for her as she simply does not know what to do. It’s more than normal after all, not only is she new in this city, she also just got here two days ago. In this situation what can she really do? First of all, she can explore, have a look around and that’s exactly what she decides to do. With a map in hand, the first area that she decides to explore is the commercial area. Not a bad place to start as it’s good to know the shops available and their prices, especially the food ones, after all, she is no cave woman that needs to go to the forest to hunt her food or gather the definitely good to eat and that are not poison even though the colourful ones are poison, berries. But who knows, maybe something else will catch her attention, there is a good chance that, there will be several types of shops, creating the desire to buy something-
“I-It seems I don’t have that much money… I have to be careful to not overspend or I might have to go hunting for food…”
Oh, it seems I’ve missed something… She did say to Myra that she’s from a small village located in the middle of nowhere so that can explain her lack of money. Though as she was saying this, she did look around in her amazing, not too catchy to the eye and definitely not weird purse, to see just how much money she currently has, in this case she has 500 coins. Yep, not much at all... Now that makes me wonder, how did she get enrolled at the Academy? From my understanding, the Golden Eden Academy seems to be extremely high end, pristine, a place well known for the entire continent even. What I mean is, a place where only the elites should be at, the rich of the rich. Almost everyone there seemed to be at very, very least for the rich side, with a few exceptions like Kiana herself and Anya. Anya seemed to be slightly above Kiana in that regard but I would still say that she’s for the lower class. Roxy, although she does not seem, she seems to be in the medium to upper class as her clothes while for the simple side, they still seemed quite expensive and high quality. Both Myra and Alice are on a whole different level while Myra is somehow above that thanks to her demeanour.
She straight out seemed like a noble woman from old times.
With all of this we can easily see how out of place Kiana seems in the Academy and yet, her entry and participation were not denied at all. The Golden Eden Academy, while extremely well capable, with a reputation and results to back it up, still allows for people from the lower class to be able to attend it. However, for them to be part of it, they have to do something, or in other words, they have to be extremely good at something, it does not matter what as long as it is something recognized by society itself. Kiana for example, she’s extremely good with magic, something that caught the attention of someone that works there, or in this case worked there. It seems this individual is no longer working there, quite the shame, I would love to “meet” him. But nonetheless, he invited Kiana to attend the Academy thanks to that fact. I also believe that Anya is in the same boat, not for the same reason of course, she seemed more for the smart side, much more than our cute Kiana.
Uh, wait a second, how the hell did I get all of this information from? How do I know that Kiana was invited thanks to her magic? I mean, it makes sense, but how do I know it was an invite from someone that worked here? And what do I mean by worked here? Am I getting the “narrator syndrome”? Where I’m getting information from god knows where even though I’ve never experienced it? What!?
An-Anyway! Let’s keep moving before I break all the damn walls with this. While I was having an existential crisis, Kiana just arrived at the commercial area. This sight is a complete surprise to her as she didn’t expect to see this at all.
“Oh my! This looks so nice! So organized, clean and green too! There are so many shops here too! ?>w!”
With her golden eyes shining with excitement, her soft platinum-hair sparkling with enthusiasm and with her mouth wide open thanks to the surprise, she says this. Both of her hands are raised slightly until around chest level, they are closed and slightly forward just like a kid would react if he was in a candy store. This might really be the first time she sees something like this, quite the sight for a village girl I would say. This place is massive, filled with several types of shops and as you can expect, also filled with people, walking around having a good time. Some are simply doing their shopping, others are enjoying a sip of coffee with their friends, while a few of them are entertaining themselves in an arcade.
“Sniff! Sniff! It smells so good to…”
But as she was looking around, something caught her attention, something that smells really good. Right next to her, to her left in this case, there is a food stall, one that is selling a type of food that she has never seen before. Curiosity and the good smell quickly grabbed her attention of course, making her walk up to that stall. It’s an older woman at around the age of 60, she seems gentle as she softly greets Kiana. The older woman asks our cute Kiana if she wants something, however instead of answering her like a normal human being would, instead, she points towards the food that caught her attention.
This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.
“I see you have a good eye! It’s an original food from my home country, we call it Pastel de Nata.”
Kiana- Pa-Pa-Pa-Pasty-Pastole-Pastel de Natal?
God dammit, even though she more than butchered that name, she still sounded and looked cute as hell. She tilts her head slightly as she tries to say this, not only that, she makes quite the face while trying to say the name. Either way, the older woman giggles as she sees Kiana doing this, it seems she is a little reminiscent of something as she goes from a gentle look on her face to a distant one for brief moments. Seeing Kiana act this way reminded her of something, something from the past and something that it’s long gone.
“Here, have this one in the house.”
Kiana- Eh? Are you sure about that? I-I can buy it, it’s just that I’ve never seen anything like this...
“Hehe, you sure look how my granddaughter used to... But, have a taste first, you will quickly see that one is not enough.”
Well, it seems Kiana was convinced rather quickly. Softly, she takes a small bite and oh boy, her reaction is priceless.
Kiana- Oh my! This is sho good!
Finish eating before speaking! Anyway, as you can see, it’s beyond what she was expecting. The explosion of flavour once she took the bite, the crispy “bread”, the sweet cream that follows it, the cinnamon at the top of the cream, mixing perfectly with it, a new flavour for Kiana, and one that is extremely good. Before she knows it, she’s done, the whole Pastel de Nata was gone in a matter of moments, faster than the speed of sound even.
“How many would you like darling?”
That old sly, but she’s right. Each one of them costs 10 coins, not much at all but, for someone with a budget of 500 and currently without any way of making money, this can end up costing her more than it should. With this in mind she buys three of them, costing a total of 30 coins, or it would have if the older woman didn’t make a small discount, making Kiana only pay 25 coins. With everything in a small bag, she puts them in her Pocket Dimension, bidding her goodbyes to the older woman right after that.
Kiana current budget – 475 coins.
Kiana- I want to look around... But I should first find a way to earn money, otherwise I might not even reach the end of the week if I keep this up.
With this unfortunate undeniable fact in mind, she starts to walk around, after all, there are several stores and several types of them, maybe she can find a job in one of them? Bartender for example, as she walks past a bar that seems to be only open at night. A normal waitress, as she walks up by quite the popular restaurant, at least it’s beyond full as there is even a line of people outside of the restaurant waiting to get in. Who knows, there are a lot of options here, not only that, she also has a guild… I wasn't expecting for the guild to be in the commercial area, but what do I know about city planning?
She stops right at the front door of the guild, mesmerized by how it looks from the outside. Massive doors made of a rather expensive looking wood, walls that are made of bricks covered with tiles, ones that like the doors, they seem rather expensive as they shine from how clean they are and from the sun hitting them. Kiana really is shocked to see something like this, it seems the guild from her home town is quite the opposite, much more simpler and “humble” looking.
Without much else to do, she decides to enter the guild. Her small hands softly touch the rather smooth wooden door, with a little bit of force she easily pushes the door open and of course, the moment she’s in, the sight once again surprises her. It’s a rather large and somewhat open space filled with adventurers and even with some normal people. Right in front of the entrance, a few meters from it, maybe around 15-20 metres to be precise, we have the reception area, where three people seem to be working there. To her right, a meter or so, there is a massive wall that stretches until the reception area, one that in the middle of it is filled with papers that have quests, jobs and so on, all of them are stuck in the wall by a pin. However, these papers only have a little information about the job itself, for example; it has the rank, the difficulty meter to be more accurate, the reward and a brief description of what it’s needed to do.
To her left there is an open area, somewhat, it’s easily the biggest area in this floor, one that is 40 meters long and 25 meters wide, or in other words, 1000 square meters and with stairs at the end, indicating that there is another floor if for some reason you didn’t noticed that from the outside. If my previous experiences can be applied here, that floor might be used for other scenarios than the floor below. Some of the guilds have rooms upstairs where the adventures can rent them for the night, in others, that floor is used for the administrators and the guild personal, sometimes it’s a simple room with a big table in the middle filled with chairs all around it, meant to be used for meetings, planning and so on. Anyway, right next to a couple of windows on the left wall from Kiana's current position, there are a few tables there, ones that, an adventurer and anyone really, can use for their needs. A place to have meals, to talk, relax and whatever they can think of, as long as they don’t disturb others, they are good to go. Though I believe it’s more used like a restaurant than anything else, or in better words, a tavern.
Further down at the furthest wall and to the left of the reception area, although that wall is further down than it, creating a somewhat L shape to the entire room thanks to it, down there, there is the tavern itself where you even have a waitress, ready to serve. Since it’s quite early in the afternoon and as I said before, not many people are here and the same can be said about the waitress as she’s the only one is currently available or working to be precise. As you can also expect, the food and drink prices are not high at all, Kiana could easily spend 50 coins and be well off with quite the meal. Over time it would make it quite expensive as she would spend 100 coins per day just for lunch and dinner, rounding up at 2800 coins. Since there are not many people here, it gives our precious Kiana an ideal opportunity to gather some information. Or in other words, to find a job.

