Alistair had tricks, a lot of them which he used to sneak out of the household to meet and search for the patrons to sponsor, he had travelled to various small towns. He used them to avoid getting caught by bandits and slavers who thoughly search for those in such dangers. Most important of them was using light magic to become perfectly invisible, a shield like barrier to protect from sneak attacks. I sneaked into the nearby town, which was almost two kilometres from the mansion, using those skills.
It was a small town named Aldeum located by the Aisne river(largest river of the Kingdom). Most of the population is agriculturalist with medium sized homes, few inns for guests, a lively Bazaar and a school for education which is compulsory throughout the kingdom. Neither too peaceful to be called a countryside wonder, nor too bustling to be called a city. People are capable of reading so book shops are an important delicacy for the common folk. Like the mordern world they have developed good printing technology here. Paper is mostly made by leftover stocks from agricultural crops and has many other alternatives here so we get books, tons and tons of them. At this stage anyone would have felt the need of newspapers, but all news travels word to mouth for now. The river navigation facilities are not explored much here, so no river ports here. The Piping and drainage systems surprisingly, are quite advanced for the age.
The first inn was full of drunkards and was a no go. The other was way too small and outdated to host a traveller, it was a flat out rejection there. The third one was booked and the fourth inn was too shady. When all hopes were lost, the fifth one, which was a medium sized one had proper room facilities available, came out for the rescue. It was known as the Elsie traveller's inn.
The manager looked a bit scary and fierce and was hard to approach at first, but he had a surprisingly warm attitude. I handed out the gold coin that I had and asked for a room to stay. He showed me a proper, large room with a nice bed. It had a few books stacked- mostly novels for reading. He mentioned that this was the best he could give with that money. He handed over the keys and left. I didn't feel like dinner at all, so I tucked myself in the sheets.
The Morning arrived, and I was awoken by the beaming sunlight shining at my face. The inn also had a restaurant system where it would serve some local Croyanian dishes to the customers. It was the time for the morning meal. I ordered onion soup and bread which was eerily similar looking to the french Soupe à l'oignon . But the taste was a bit more on the spicy end that went well with the onion flavour.

People here eat usually by hand, by dipping the bread slices in the soup. They thoroughly wash their hands with soap before and after eating.
It was all calm and peaceful, nothing could have possibly gone wrong right? That was until we hear the news of Alistair running away from home because he was ashamed by the embarrassment by the fact that he was discarded by the crown prince at the royal ceremony. Like what? Who discarded who? Alistair abandoned that trash himself.
People can change word to mouth gossips in many different ways, so facts don't get to the masses. This kingdom so clever to eliminate newspapers, people can be easily kept in the dark. News that travels through rumours always evolves in unbelievable ways.
Then came the Ducal house of azeleas, I swear it couldn't get any more bizzare than this. They said that Alistair cut ties from the house himself because of that huge embarrassment and ran away. The family now "protests at the royal palace" against the vile mistreatment of their son by the prince.
"The Duke is extremely saddened at the loss of his son, I heard that he locked himself in his room, and refuses to hold meetings" that Duke which didn't even let his 'son' meet his dying mother? Really? "The young heir and the duchess, miss and care about him a lot. They have declared that one who brings Alistair back alive to their house will get 2000 gold rubos for compensation"
Excuse me? That is not considered "care" it's totally declaring a bounty on my head. This third rate soap opera family will not let anyone live in peace. Forests, mountains or rivers, I NEED TO HIDE!
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I went back to my room and started looking for... The maps. I was currently in the Aldeum town. If I were to follow the river downstream, I would arrive at Cardena, the trading capital of the kingdom. It has it's own magic tower which is independent of the government. This city is at the border of the duchy, where the autonomy of the dukedom ends. River navigation system is not very complex, but they do have boats to travel back and forth from here to there.
Towards the 40 kms west of Cardena, again, downstream of the river we have the Pernea forest which has thick vegetation. Some years ago, elves that used to live there, deserted the land and moved to another nation, for unknown reasons. Dense vegetation prevents road construction, people here are also lazy for that, so they left the forest as it is.
Many small beasts like horned rabits have made it their home now. The forest borders the Kingdom of Bahan, which is a neutral Kingdom ruled by a beastman king, so I can escape anytime. Every two years, some knights and mages appointed to search the forests for resources. The last one occured weeks ago, and they left this one alone too. So we won't get humans atleast.
Alistair had learnt Bahanese along with five other foreign languages, as a part of queen education. Therefore, no problems with communication. If am able to buy teleportation scrolls, I can go back and forth between the trading city. I also need to pawn those dresses in different shops. Gold is too big for an amount, and I will need some coppers and silvers. As I was engrossed in the maps, I remembered about that golden book which I picked from the library.
The book looked really expensive. It's cover was thick and made of gold, with beautiful heena patterns and a large star pattern engraved on it as soon as I touched the star pattern, it made a sharp clicking noise and burst open. A blinding light engulfed the entire room and a beast that looked like a tiger with light gold fur, horns and wings. He was humongous and could cover most of the space in the large room that I was in.
*Basically this guy, but with golden shade scales and fur.
『A Human? Did a puny little human like you release me from eternal imprisonment?』
Did I do something like that? Probably not.. just what the heck his this creature doing here? Is this some protagonist meets some holy animal arc or something like that... Why do all such geenie holy-moly creatures like these speak in such arrogant tones. Yes I am a puny human... So what?
『I shall grant the honour of making a contract with thee』
The beast said in its arrogant pup like tone. Thank you so much Mr holy or whatever beast, I don't like arrogant tsunderes at all.
"No thank you, I am free and I gave you freedom as you said, I don't wish for anything more than that, moreover if you have a request, you should ask properly. Manners maketh man, as they say."
Seriously all that I have been doing since my arrival here is pissing people off, just look at that expression. I didn't know that these creatures can show a better pissed off expression.
『you puny human! I am a sacred beast that can give you all sorts of stuff that you want, wealth, money, power, or even a kingdom. Yet you dare speak to me in such arrogant tone?』
"I am just returning the favour, I don't need someone's favour. I can earn that stuff by myself if I want. Moreover I am pretty content with the money I have now"
『You are interesting indeed, little human, most would have already asked for something by now』
"Thanks for the compliment...if you are done with the matter, can you please leave? If you break something here... It will cost a lot"
『wait, little human! You are asking me to leave!』
"yeah, I am asking you to leave if you can"
The beast looked shocked for a moment, came a bit closer and started a staring contest, which really scared me for a while and then kissed my forehead. Suddenly a blinding, golden light engulfed the entire room and everything went black.