Salicia nodded and gave me a pout. “Didn’t you ask for my opinion?”
“I did, but there isn’t a river or lake near here. There are no docks.”
“Gah! Th-then… how about the bars?”
“Are you just trying to get drunk?”
“M-master… please… I know what I’m doing! You’ll have to trust me!”
That’s how I ended up heading to the downtown portion of Alerith with Salicia. I didn’t have my face changed, so I just kept my hood up and hidden. Salicia did the same. That kind of made us both more suspicious, but we were in a suspicious area of town where people weren’t likely to reveal their identity anyway. In short, we fit right in and wouldn’t draw attention.
There weren’t guards in this area. I felt a tug at my pocket only to see a kid run away. Thankfully, I didn’t have anything on me to steal. Even my storage ring was left in my Inventory. Unless a thief had some way to break into an interdimensional Hero skill, all of my items were completely safe.
“Hey!” Salicia’s hand jumped out and she caught the wrist of another kid who did the same to her.
She pulled a knife with her other hand and waved the blade in front of the kid threateningly.
“I need that money to drink! Don’t think I won’t cut a child!”
“Salicia, weren’t you just like them once?” I asked, grabbing her hand, and pulling free the child before flipping a silver coin his way.
“Maybe!” She cursed, with her knife clenched in her hand aimed threateningly at the kid. “That’s why I know they need frequent lessons!”
The boy snatched the coin from my hand while eying Salicia’s knife. Then, he stuck his tongue out at her and raced away excitedly. She tried to go after him, but I held her by my side.
I felt more tugs as other kids saw I had money. It seemed like giving one a coin had emboldened the others. There were child hands in places I didn’t want a kid’s hands. A certain kind of pervert could probably find a lot of enjoyment in the poor district just by handing coins and hiding the rest on him. With a sigh, I pulled a bag of coins out of inventory and then slit it myself.
“Ah! Someone cut my purse!” I yelled furiously as coins suddenly dropped to the floor.
The kids all raced out from every nook and cranny nearby to grab anything that touched the ground. Meanwhile, I pulled Salicia who had tried to jump at some of the coins and brought her out of the crowd of crawling children. As we left the kids to pick up the last coins on the ground, they seemed to leave us alone, assuming we only had the one purse and they had cleaned us out.
“Hmph… Master is far too lenient with thieving children!” She made an unhappy noise. “They’re just the first step toward banditry. You’re just given money to future bandits!”
I had a thought like she was one to talk, but I decided not to say anything. This seemed to be a personal thing. Perhaps, it had something to do with her time after her village was destroyed and Carmine was taken away. She would have lived on her own as a street urchin before becoming a Bandit.