Why did I end up in a fight?

I jumped down from Harl’s back. Before us were the sturdy walls of a town called Sheidy. Later I’d come to call it Shadytown. (And for the record, it’s not that it took me a lot of time to come up with that name: I just didn’t have the facts at the time.)

I had never been there before. What’s more, it was the first time I ever saw a town, so I was excited. A cart was pulled by a horse through the gate, and its driver laughed with the guard about something so cheerily that I decided that merely crossing the border would make one merrier.

The town! Here I could register with the guild and finally start my own adventure, and prove to the villagers once and for all that I could do great things.

But before I could take even a measly step forward, Harl stood before me.

“Master, allow me to accompany you.”

“What?” That was out of the question. That tower of a wolf would frighten the townspeople, and I hoped to make a nice first impression on them. Or at least try to. “No, you can’t. You’re too scary.”

“Scary?”

“Your size!”

“But what if someone attacks you? I want to guard you.”

“First of all, like that’s going to happen. I can fend for myself. Worst case, I’d bite some other ear.”

The mention of the bite saddened Harl, it seemed. His ears lowered. “Master, please don’t bite any more ears. This method only works on wolves.”

“Right, then, I’ll figure something else out. With you there, my quest would be much harder.”

“Am I a burden?” His ears went even lower.

“N-no.” How did it come to be that I needed to cheer up Harl now? “I’m sure there will be a lot of situations where you will be useful, just not right now.”

Then I had the idea of giving him a quest of his own for the day. “Here, why don’t you hunt for now? We will meet in the evening, and I would certainly appreciate some fresh meat. Please don’t hunt any people, though.”

His ears perked up. “Why, I certainly could do that! But, master, what if someone tricks you in town? You know, people are cunning.”

“Cunning, huh? Well, I will be vigilant,” I lied.

Then I heard a sound from behind Harl’s body. “Eek!”

I peeked out—a guard near the gate had fallen on his butt. His gaze was focused on us. He wasn’t laughing now.

Oh no, we’d talked too much—and not inside the forest as I had planned! My skin felt sticky. Something needed to be done fast. Then I realized that from that distance and angle the guard could see Harl for sure, but not me.

I looked at Harl. “The guard noticed you. Hide in the forest quickly; don’t argue with me. I’ll be there in the evening; I’m sure you’ll be able to sniff out where I am, right?”

He nodded. “Understood, my master.”

Then he jumped. He flew over me, and the gust of wind knocked me onto my back. Harl then made another jump into the depths of the forest and was nowhere to be seen.

I crouched and cautiously looked at the guard through the grass. His expression was unchanged, but I didn’t want to risk being noticed that easily, so I crept around, trying to make it seem as if I had come to the gate from another part of the forest altogether.

As I walked past the guard, he didn’t turn his head or even blink. Neither did he stand up. He was just sitting on the ground. His ear was defenseless, but I didn’t do a thing and just walked past him.

The gate opened onto a square, from which a large street went straight ahead to the castle. I knew from books how castles should look—that one was on the shabby side, but recognizably a castle.

Right then, I needed to find the guild! But… there were a lot of people. Too many people, too much noise, too much of everything.

People were going everywhere, loudly talking among themselves. There were more people in that square than in my entire village!

“And what did you say to her?” a man in a red vest said to another guy, who was animated, grimacing, his hands unable to stay still.

“We need to stock up on apples while the price is so nice.” An old woman walked with three younger women—daughters, perhaps—surrounding her.

“The tax is going up, again? I won’t stand for it!”

So many conversations at once were too much to bear. I couldn’t ignore them and was overwhelmed. My chest tightened. My hands were on my ears—I hadn’t noticed when I did that.

I needed to escape, or else I’d fall to the ground myself. I looked around hopelessly until I saw an opening—some alley branching off the main street.

Without much thought, I dashed there, trying to ignore the people and avoid bumping into them.

The alley was much quieter, and I sat on some barrel to calm down, hugging my backpack. How could I ever get to the guild if the streets were so crowded? I sighed.

“My, my, what do we have here? A lonely girl, oh so alone, so tragic!” Three men emerged from the far end of the alley. Their clothes, their scowls—everything I saw screamed “thugs.”

Ah, that’s why the alley was so quiet, I thought. But getting robbed was not in the cards: the little money I had was for the guild fee.

“Little girl, why don’t you come to us? We’ll show you a special secret place!”

“A secret place?” Although I was a little intrigued (curiosity often got the better of me), I knew not to go with them. I had to stall for time while my hand searched the backpack for my knife. “If you were to take a person you don’t know to your secret place, then it wouldn’t be much of a secret place anymore, eh?”

The thugs stopped. Maybe they were considering the logic. “Are you stupid?” Or maybe not.

“There is a saying: a secret known to two people is known to a pig as well; now, which of you three is a pig?” My hand tightened around the knife handle, but I wanted to avoid showing the knife prematurely.

“Heh, Mark, she called you a pig!” The left one snickered and shoved the right one a little.

“Shut up,” he replied as politely as he could, watching me closely, as if I were a truffle.

The one in the center reddened and took another step forward. “Cheeky, are you? How about we fix those cheeks?” He grabbed a knife from his belt.

Now I’ve done it. Maybe it was a bad idea to provoke them, but I needed to keep my money. I jumped onto the barrel to even out the height difference.

He lunged forward, knife first, and I saw an opening: I kicked him in the jaw. The turn shifted my body just enough that the knife missed. His knife, that is. Mine was still in the backpack I was hugging with my right hand.

I mostly intended to surprise him, but his body thwacked into the wall. I heard a dull sound as his head hit the bricks. He fell. The knife clattered to the ground.

His friends’ eyes widened, then turned red with anger. One of them picked up the knife from the ground. The other, Mark, if I recalled correctly, went forward with his bare hands.

No time to think. I threw the backpack, aiming it at Mark’s head. That freed my left hand, which held the knife, and I jumped at the other thug.

I cut his hand from the side with a wide swing. I heard a thud from behind, then drove my knee into the unnamed thug’s chest. He hit the ground. His eyes widened again before closing.

I turned and saw that Mark had fallen to the ground as well. My backpack wasn’t that heavy, was it?

Dual-wielding acquired. Condition: hit two targets at the same time.

That voice again! I looked around, but there was no one else there.

I took a breath, trying to calm myself. My knee was still on the chest of that poor guy. No, that wasn’t a good look. I stood up and picked up my backpack. A little drop of blood dripped from my knife onto the ground. Did I kill them? That wasn’t my intention, no! I hurriedly checked their pulses, one by one, and sighed again, this time in relief.

That’s when I heard the clanking of armor. I turned to see a knight in a breastplate walking down the alley toward me. He had a conflicted expression on his face. I realized how it must have looked to him: a murderous outsider walks into town, and the first thing she does is harm civilians. No, that wasn’t the true me. That wasn’t how it was supposed to go at all!

He took another careful step toward me. How could I explain to him that I wasn’t at fault?