The Saint Visits a Bakery

Early morning mist tangled it’s way through the city streets of the harbor town. Merlin and company walked up the myriad steps that led away from the sea and toward the market district.

Being so early in the morning there were relatively few people about, just birds and crickets.

“I’m so tired! my feet ache! Everything feels heavy!”

“May we have a rest, Mister Merlin?”

The girls pleaded with Merlin as the trudged up the seemingly endless stairs.

“Alright, if you really think you need to.” With the buffs from the Ambrosia potion they shouldn’t have been feeling much strain, however a vague memory surfaced in Merlin’s mind of when he was a baby and new to this body. Merlin remembered constantly falling over and crying and getting tired after just a few steps. Perhaps it was just a side effect of the accelerated growth, their bodies were most likely still adjusting to the changes.

They stopped at a landing next to a signpost with the name of the street they were on, “Leadfoot Way” funny. It seemed the folks around here had a good sense of humor. Ruth had mentioned that things got less pretty and less civilized the farther away from the Harbor you got, then again she also said the same thing about the harbor town. She probably just wanted us to keep on our toes no matter how peaceful things seemed.

Lila took a swig of water then handed it to Cate. Just yesterday they’d been little girls no older than 8, now they looked to be in their late teens to early twenties. Lila was thin and toned, she had her straight dark hair done up in pigtails with purple hair clips pushing her bangs to either side. She glared at Merlin with her gold-speckled hazel eyes, “What are you staring at?” She grimaced. Lila was extremely defensive around others and very protective of her sister. If she had something on her mind she’d say it out loud.

Cate awkwardly put her backpack back on, she kept adjusting the straps to get them in a comfortable position. Her transformation had been even more extreme than Lila’s. She actually looked somewhat similar to her mother, except with blond hair instead of red, she was a little shorter but still taller than Lila, and her chest was also a bit smaller but also about four sizes bigger than Lila. Her glowing eyes had dimmed since yesterday and Mei had given her contacts to hide her pupils which had been slanted. Vertical or horizontal pupils were demonic traits which also one of the reasons Djinn were misclassified as Demons, so it was best to keep them hidden.

“Umm, Mister Merlin, it makes me uncomfortably w-when you stare like that.”

“Don’t make me poke you’re eyes out!”

Both of them were all over the place this morning. “Haha!” Merlin couldn’t help but laugh. He was enjoying himself more than he had in his entire life.

Lila and Cate looked concerned, “It’s alright, I just love both of you so much.”

“Yeah, sure. Welp, I think we’re ready to keep going.” Lila pushed past Merlin, continuing their hike up the staircase.

Cate’s face was looking a bit red, “Are you dehydrated?” Merlin asked.

“Uhh, no, no. I’m uhh… no.”

“Okay, just let me know if you need to stop again.”

She responded with an affirmative, “Mmm”

They marched on. Eventually they reached the top of the stairs and the architecture changed to stucco buildings and empty wooden stalls. This was the part of their journey that would most likely take the longest.

“Are either of you hungry?”

“Cate?” Lila checked in with her sister who nodded in turn.

There were a few stalls open and selling food. It was apparently Ruth’s off day not that there was any way she could have beat them up the hill, so the likelihood of them running into her was

“Took you kiddos long enough!” She set an open crate of apples on her table.

“She’s here!” Merlin yelled.

“Hehe. Surprised you, huh.” She teased.

“How did you get up here so fast?”

“Trade secret.” Mrs. Ruth grinned wryly while offering no explanation.

Both the girls hugged her even though they’d already done so less than an hour ago.

“I thought you might need a snack and proper directions.” Mrs. Ruth handed each of them an apple and Merlin bought a few extra for the road. She also recommended a sweets shop near the Adventurer’s Guild and gave us detailed instruction for navigating there.

Normally in cities this size you’d want to take the main streets and avoid alleys and side roads, but with it being so early in the morning, and with the fact that Merlin was accompanying them, Mrs. Ruth told them it would be faster to take the alleys. She also let us in on a local secret: there were markers etched into the backs of the buildings which represented street names. It was apparently the original language of this region but being a port town other languages kind of blended into it and eventually it just became easier to use the common tongue of the kingdom.

“See ya.” The girls once again waved their goodbyes to the old lady. Despite the farewell, Mrs.Ruth seemed to keep popping up so it was probably a matter of time before we crossed paths again.

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Back at the Church, when Merlin was still just a few years old, he would have tutors come and visit him. One of the tutors was a beautiful woman named #### (the name wouldn’t come to him), she had lustrous golden hair similar to his own. One day she brought him a book, it was a thin volume compared to his usual readings.

“What’s this?”

“An old story.”

Merlin stared at it curiously.

“Is it a fiction?”

She smiled, “Indeed. It is not a real story. The characters within and events are fictitious.”

“I’m not sure the clergy would approve and #### is quite stern, you know he’ll be mad if he found out about this.”

He remembered another one of his teachers but found the name had been lost as well. The only feature he remembered about the man was his long grey beard.

“He’ll only find out if you tell him. And the clergy don’t care one way or another about your education.”

Merlin was getting mildly irritated, it was also nearly nap time, “Well then why would they hire a bunch of tutors!”

“Enough, Merlin. Would you like to read it or not?” She held out the book to him. He contemplated for a moment then grabbed it from her hands and flipped open the cover.

Inside was a story that stuck with him all the way to the present. He found it exciting, the only excitement he would have for the next 80 years.

It was a tale of an adventurer named Leopold who traveled the world. He wasn’t particularly strong but his companions were, he gathered powerful people from all races and led them in a battle against ####. Many people died including Leopold but his companions turned the tied and managed to defeat the threat. It then picked up years later with his companions all still adventuring together. After finishing a quest the group went to a pub to celebrate as usual; however, while the group was once again regaling the patrons with their feat, a rookie interrupted, “Why don’t you just retire!” He shouted. The entire pub went quiet, “You defeated ####, so what reason do you have to keep doing these stupid elimination quests, or escort quests, or any of the others that could be done by people who aren’t as powerful or renowned as you.” The rookie was drunk and upset.

The party leader, Kaiser, stood up and walked calmly over to the man, “Because it’s what Leopold wanted.” Kaiser’s party bowed their heads, “Leopold, the man all of you labeled a hero, was not powerful and didn’t like fighting, he didn’t defeat #### because it was what was expected and certainly not because he wanted to. He did it because if he didn’t we wouldn’t be able to continue adventuring. He didn’t care about ranks, or jobs, he simply liked going out into the world with his friends and seeing what was out there. At it’s core that’s what an adventurer is, or at least that was his philosophy.”

Kaiser bought the next round for everyone and he and his party made their exit. The Hero’s Party continued going on adventures and taking quests until the each of them ultimately passed away. And that was the end of the book.

Merlin closed the book. He began to cry.

His teacher took the book from him and left.

The book, Leopold, and his philosophy took ahold of Merlin’s heart and refused to let go. He would go to sleep every night dreaming about one day going out into the world and becoming an adventurer.

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 Merlin, Cate, and Lila finally passed through the last building and came out into a bustling square. There were large business and shops lining the entire road. Merlin leapt back as a carriage bustled by.

“Whoa.” Cate said it out loud but all three of them were thinking it. This was it, they were in an actual city far removed from the rustic street vendors they’d left behind.

Cate and Lila nervously latched onto Merlin’s arms. As exciting as this was, they’d lived far removed up in the mountains to the west of Cyril. Their mother or the head mistress of the orphanage were the only ones who ever traveled out here.

“Do you want to go to the sweet shop Mrs. Ruth recommended before heading over to the Guild?”

“Yes, please!” Cate was very into the idea.

“I guess I don’t mind.” Lila as usual was content to go along with whatever Cate wanted to do.

“Alright then.” Merlin had wanted to get there as early as possible to avoid any disturbances. In one of the early chapters of The Story of Leopold the Hero, a man claiming to be a veteran adventurer decided to test Leopold and called him out to a fight. Leopold was beaten handily and quickly became a laughingstock, but he went out and became stronger and went on to become the hero. Still, Merlin would like to avoid any confrontations like that at all on his own journey.

Two blocks over they found the shop Ruth recommended. It was a detached building much bigger than the other shops in the area. It had to have been expensive. Merlin had expected it to be a street vendor like Mrs. Ruth, but evidently this was not the case.

Just as they were about to enter Merlin and the girls picked up on a heated exchange coming from within the shop. They moved away from the door and a man in dark frock with a tophat, monocle, and beard came tumbling out and landed on his coattails.

“I tried asking nicely, Mrs. Porter, I really did.” The man dusted himself off.

“Oh, yeah, real nicely.” Spat a woman from the shop’s doorway.

“I wish you would see reason. Well, I suppose that’s that. Good day to you, Mrs. Porter. My employer will be in touch directly and soon.” The man tugged his suit back into place and walked off.

Mrs. Porter watched him leave then turned toward Merlin and the group.

“Hello, we’re customers, Mrs. Ruth sent us.” Merlin told her.

She simply gestured for us to come in.

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“I’m sorry about that whole thing.” Mrs. Porter had aquamarine hair and was rather stout. She took some cakes out of the oven while Merlin and the girl sat at a table waiting.

“Are you in trouble miss?” Asked Cate.

“Nothing that I can’t handle.” She added some frosting, “This is the second time he’s come here. He wants my property. As you can see, most of the building around here are stuck together, on top of that there’s the nature reserve behind us and the adventurer guild and bank not two blocks in either direction. It’s good real estate.”

“How were you able to afford it, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Mrs. Porter set down a plate of small cakes in front of us, “You know Ruth?”

We all nodded, “She’s been a great help to us.” Hearing that made Mrs. Porter smile.

Mrs. Porter than dropped a surprise on us, “I’m her sister, Renee.”

Lila’s slice of cake fell off her fork and landed on the floor, “But she’s so old!” Lila exclaimed.

“I’m sorry!” Merlin panicked, “What she means to say is…is” unfortunately he couldn’t figure out how to recover.

“Heh Heh. I understand. It’s not a complicated story, at least not on the surface. Did she tell you about her work?”

“S-she made places safer, right? So people couldn’t take thing that didn’t belong to them.” Cate answered.

Renee looked at her strangely but nodded. Cate was technically still a child so sometime her speech came across as child like, “Yeah, magical security. She never disclosed to me the specifics of what she did or where she worked. One day she came home and she was older. She signed a contract that stops her from talking about why, in exchange for her silence they gave her 10,000,000 Malba. So, now she’s retired or she should be, but she spent half of that money on this shop.”

That explained why she still worked as a fruit vendor, kinda. 5,000,000 was still enough money that she could retire if she lived frugally, but Mrs. Ruth definitely didn’t. Merlin thought back to the sight of her guzzling alcohol like a fish in water.

Technically Ruth should have been 39, but whatever happened aged her nearly 30 years, before aging Renee had only been about 3 years younger. The aging wasn’t superficial either, she actually was 69 now. If it had been a case of her just looking old but biologically still being younger then they could have just cast illusion magic or Merlin could have done something about it.

“I think I understand the situation now.” Merlin nodded.

“I don’t.” Lila shouted.

“That’s alright, sweetie.” She warmly put her hand on Lila’s shoulder, “It’s not really anyone’s business besides my own. You just enjoy your cake, okay.”

“Are you in trouble?” Cate seemed to be concerned for Renee.

“No, I promise, I’ll be fine.”

“Mmm! So good!” Lila finished off an entire slice in a single bite.

“Really?” Lila shoved a piece of cake into Cate’s mouth.

Merlin smiled, “Are you going to feed your big brother some cake?”

Cate started to slice off a piece with her fork while Lila just glared at him as though he were a piece of garbage.

“Your eye might get a second-hand kiss from my fork if you play your cards right.”

So mean! Merlin cried inside his head.

“Do you want some of mine?”

“I appreciate the offer but I was only joking.”

“Oh.” Cate seemed a little but put down by Merlin’s answer.

Renee smiled at her guest’s playful banter.

They finished off the cake Renee had made and thanked her. As they were eating one of her employees came in and got to work. The employee had seen the man in the fancy coat going into the shop and went on a walk to avoid getting wrapped up in the commotion. She apologized to Renee who didn’t fault her.

Since Renee now had someone to mind the shop she offered to give Merlin and the girls a tour of the bakery.

They all stepped behind the counter and into the kitchen.

“Whoa, how are they going that!?!” Lila ran around giggling excitedly.

“Interesting.” Merlin had heard of this magic before. The bakery was run by Renee and two other employees who rotated shifts every other day, and Renee was in charge of opening the place each morning. The question then became how did she get all the cakes made before unlocking the doors. Did she get up at 3am and begin cooking? She would answer, “Nope. I wake up around 6 to open at 8.”

So, what was her secret? When they stepped into the kitchen they saw a giant oven, mounds of dough and colorful fruits, and tiny rock people running about with rolling pin and molds.

“These are my assistants. My specialty is Golem Creation.”

“Sherwin!” Renee called. A small boy with bright green eyes and white hair ran around the corner.

“Yes, Mistress!”

“He’s so cute.”

“Do you want to be friends?”

Both Lila and Cate were immediately attached to the wide-eyed boy.

“What is this madness!?” The boy, Sherwin, exclaimed.

“I’m not sure I would have noticed if I wasn’t looking for seams.” Nodded thoughtfully.

“Exactly, isn’t he wonderful. He’s the head patissier.” Renee was almost as enthused by him as the girls.

Merlin could see some mana leakage from several small points and if he listened closely there was a heartbeat but it had an unusual metallic ping to it. Normally, humans who had mana would excrete it from the extremities, but it was leaking out of Sherwin from random points like the ears, eyes, mid-arms, shoulder blades, etc.

“Sherwin is the one who controls the other Golems when I’m away. He also has two brothers, Erwin and Eta, they’re out running some errands for me at the moment.”

Sherwin threw the girls off of him.

“Show some decorum, I am not some show horse. These girls are most immature for their age.” Sherwin was extremely uncomfortable with the attention.

“You don’t want to be friends? Cate asked.

“Friends? I have no need for such things. My brothers spend far too much time on tomfoolery like that, but not I. All I need is a whisk and my chef hat and I’m happy.”

“You don’t look old enough to be working?”

“Have you been listening, I’m a Golem, my physical age is meaningless.”

“Age is meaningless?” Cate’s eyes went wide. It seemed she picked up the wrong thing from his statement.

“He has a True Golem Heart, as does his brothers.”

“That sounds familiar.” Merlin wasn’t an expert in much of anything despite how it may seem. His tutors were the knowledgeable ones. He’d learned a lot about a lot of things, but it had also been almost 80 years since they’d left him. Knowledge fades if left unutilized.

“The ones made of clay don’t have hearts so they can only follow the orders they’ve been given and they move stiffly. There are Artificial Golem Hearts by the neighboring country Barielle, which offer more autonomy and more natural movements as well as greater roaming range. The difference between them and a True Golem Heart is the power to learn. Sherwin and his brothers are indistinguishable from humans, they each have their own personalities and skill sets, and they age, bleed, feel pain, and can die.”

She clarified that none of this was to the same degree as humans. They aged at about 1/10 the speed of humans and they would probably never look old since they’re bodies were inorganic.

“Wowie! You’re amazing, Sherwin.” Lila had stars in her eyes.

“It seems you have an eye for quality goods, little miss.” Sherwin said proudly.

“W-why doesn’t everyone use them?” Cate wondered.

A factoid surfaced in Merlin’s mind, “Because they don’t exist anymore.”

“Exactly. My parents were magical archeologists, pretty famous ones. They unearthed many rare magic items and lost spells and gave a few of them to me and Ruth. One of the grimoires was all about Golem Creation and had been buried with three True Golem Hearts.”

“So he’s the only one of his kind. Limited Edition!” Lila had never been more excited in her life, meanwhile Sherwin went from smirking to scared.

“Bad” Cate scolded her sister.

“That’s so cool!” Even Merlin couldn’t contain his excitement.

“May I be dismissed, Mistress? I have loads of work to get done.”

Renee nodded. Lila practically needed to be peeled off of him but she did eventually relent after Mrs. Renee offered her a crepe.

They continued on with the tour. Renee had renovated the entire second half of the building into a barn. She had a chicken coup and had a garden and cows grazing out back. Her bakery was almost completely self-sufficient and fresh.

“I also had some help from a nature spirit and wood mage duo who pass by fairly regularly.”

It was no wonder that someone wanted this property. This place was probably actually worth double what Mrs. Ruth paid for it, still something nagged at the corner of Merlin’s mind. He decided to come back at a later time and have a more in depth talk with Mrs. Renee.

Their tour ended. They tearfully said goodbye to Sherwin and asked Mrs. Renee if they could come back and play with him again. Sherwin turned his nose up indignantly at them, but Mrs. Renee agreed, on the condition that it was only when he was off, which happened to be tomorrow. The girls cheered.

“Where do you plan on going next?” Renee asked as they exited the shop.

“We’re heading the Adventurer’s Guild!”

“Oh. Did Ruth give you Mr. Thompson’s name?”

“She said to talk to him for special training.” Merlin clarified. Renee seemed to be a bit bothered.

“Of course she would.” Renee said quietly.

“Is there anything we should know?”

“No. He’ll certainly help you. Both me and Ruth have complicated histories with Isaiah. No, there’s no problem. Just make sure not to let him push you too hard. He can get carried away sometimes.”

“Okay. We’ll come by again soon.”

“I’m going to come play with Sherwin tomorrow!” Lila shouted.

“Sounds good, Sweetie.”

With our visit to Mrs. Renee’s shop complete, we finally headed to the Adventurer’s guild.

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“She refuses to budge. I don’t believe she’ll give the place up.”

The coattailed man stood with his arm behind his back in a brightly lit office. A muscular man in a tight button-down shirt laid his his hands out in front of him on the desk.

“What a shame. I really had hope that we could settle this amicably. It’s a shame, such a shame.” His thin mustache twitched, “Despite her age, she still looked remarkably fine, such a shame. Perhaps she might accept a proposal? Lester?”

“I don’t believe such a tactic will be effective even with your enviable visage.”

“That is a shame, then there’s nothing to be done.” The man’s large muscular arms writhed under his short sleeves as he pushed himself up. He pulled up his suspenders. He now stood almost two feet taller than Lester.

There was a knock at the door.

“Yes?” Replied the man. A man wearing nothing but mesh and chainmail walked in and saluted the man behind the desk.

“Lord Payne. His highness, Prince Fellhurst is here to see you.”

“Splendid, but also a shame. It appears we’ll have wait till tomorrow to settle things. What a shame. Very well, I’ll meet him in the reception room.”

Anders Payne turned toward the large window and gazed out into the distance. He sighed.

“Love is fickle thing. Poor Renee. What a shame.” He pushed in his chair and exited the room.