Finally, we crossed the border into the city. Thank the gods that none of the slum people or the boss found us. My heart would've dropped if anyone had shown up and ruined our plan.
Now that we were out of the slums, the girls finally looked relieved.
"Wow… that was scary. I thought we were going to get taken again," Aurelia said.
"Yeah… honestly, I thought I was going to die" Zerelia added.
"Don't worry," I said with a smile. "We lost them. Let's just focus on getting money now. Like we heard, they didn't think we'd ever leave the slums anyway, so the city should be safe. Plus… it's huge."
I had to talk a bit more like a child. If I act too mature or too smart, they might think I'm some spy—or worse, just a weirdo—and leave me. So I need to keep this up.
"Yeah… thanks, Celestia," Aurelia replied.
"Yeah, thanks," Zerelia said quietly.
Ooh… look at them thanking me. My friendship points are definitely going up. Soon we'll be inseparable.
As soon as we entered the city, eyes immediately turned toward us.
Whispers started almost instantly.
"What are a bunch of slaves doing here?" someone whispered loudly.
"I don't know… maybe they escaped or got lost," another voice replied.
"They don't even have clothes. Look at those rags… ew, let's leave quickly."
"Yeah, god knows what they're carrying. Might be disease."
"Oh—but they're pretty cute," a man said.
"Oi, shut up. They're slaves. Even if they're cute, they're basically dogs. Besides, if we get caught not helping them and instead badmouthing them, we're dead."
Hm…
Dead?
What does he mean by that? Is there some rule here about needing to help slaves?
Still, I don't care what they say. It doesn't really affect me.
But Aurelia and Zerelia… they both lowered their heads.
So I squeezed their hands gently.
"Hey, don't worry," I said softly. "Once we sell this dagger, we'll get clothes. Then maybe we'll find a job."
They looked up slightly and gave small, weak smiles, but didn't say anything.
I guess it really gets to them… As we walked, I kept thinking.
Maybe we can do simple work—lifting boxes, delivering items… maybe even letter delivery if this world has that kind of thing. 'Guilds' exist too. I already got knowledge about them.
But honestly, I don't want to spend years grinding in some guild. Life is too fast for that. I want money, power, and freedom.
I don't want to be stuck doing boring quests forever i just wanna rule the world. HAHAHA.
Still… first step is survival.
We reached the market area.
I spotted a weapon stall and quickly walked up.
"Hey, mister… can we sell this dagger?" I asked, trying to sound polite and harmless.
I added a little charm to my voice too. Gotta secure the deal.
"Hm? What are slaves doing here?" the merchant asked, ignoring my question completely.
Tch… bastard.
"Oh, we're just trying to sell this and get some money for clothes," I replied sweetly.
He narrowed his eyes and stared at us.
Then—
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[UNUSUAL ACTIVITY DETECTED]
An external entity is attempting to view the user's Status.
[DIVINE RESPONSE ACTIVATED]
[Moonlight Bracelet (SSS)] has engaged Concealment Protocol.
[STATUS ACCESS]
Access Level: PARTIALLY BLOCKED
Information: MINIMAL / SCRAMBLED
[NOTICE]
The viewer cannot fully analyze the user's abilities or status.
Any deeper attempt will be forcibly rejected.
[STATUS EFFECT]
Divine Concealment: ACTIVE → ENHANCED MODE
User presence masked under lunar interference.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The merchant squinted harder.
"Hm… your status… and that bracelet… I can barely read anything. It's all scrambled. Where did you get it?"
Shit.
Why did the system go this hard…?
If it just lowered concealment a bit, this wouldn't be a problem. But lunar interference? Space-level masking?
This is going to get me killed.
"Oh… I've had it on my wrist for as long as I can remember," I lied quickly.
Aurelia and Zerelia stayed silent. Thank god.
"…Alright," the merchant said finally. "I'll buy the dagger its A Rank that's pretty rare little girl. Two gold coins—for showing me that even I can't inspect some accessories properly. I'll need to train harder."
He placed the coins down.
Well then…
Guess what, old man?
You're never inspecting this out unless I let you.
HAHA.
Thanks, system. I take back everything I said. And thank god he didn't ask me about the dagger this time as well.
Lunar interference is actually the best thing ever. But maybe next just let them view only like 1 element and make me super weak and do whatever with the bracelet.
[Noted Users Preference]
Oh it actually noted it.