"You! Sylvester's girl!"

"What! So you are his errand boy?" Said the girl.

The girl bites into Rowan's hand, rebel, and finally escape from our restraints. She runs away so fast that it's hard for us to catch her back. We're running behind her.

"Do we need to catch her?" Ask Rowan.

"We need to split up, keep following her, I will take another route." Said Rowan regardless of his inquiry, solely because of my curiosity.

"Ok."

The girl turns to the left, running away into a bunch of people. I can see that she is trying to go hiding in the crowd, so I take a shortcut to the place where she is going. In no time, I am already ahead of her and she looks surprised to see me. I try to catch her hand, yet she avoids it.

"Wait! We aren't Sylvester's man."

"You can't fool me!"

"Believe me! We might be able to help you to run from here too." Persuade me.

We make a bit of commotion and it attracts some guards of Houzz. It sounds big problem for both of us, so somehow we're doing a truce and escaping together from there. When the guards arrive in the commotion, they can't find the culprit. Rowan is following us a few steps behind.

"We are the same as you, a runaway! We're trying to leave this place." I'm giving her an explanation while we're both running away.

"How do you know about me then?"

"Well, we heard from people in the tavern that he is looking for you."

"So, you're after the bounty money, huh?"

"No, just like what I've said, we're a runaway just like you! Do you see that dead man? He was one of our pursuers. We aren't trying to catch you, even more, we could help you!"

She is slowing down her footsteps and completely stops in the corner of a closed store where no one is around. She pushed me to the wall and threaten me with her pocket knife that she hides in her clothes. The tip of the knife cut a little on the skin of my neck. Rowan saw that and try to stop her but it's a bit late. She indeed gives us a whole of trouble with her petite and slim figure.

"I will kill you if you lie to me. And you, Stay further away from us!" Rowan moves back a few steps.

"No, I am not lying to you." Assure me. The girl pauses a bit and continues to talk.

"Then, how to leave this place?"

" We can use the smuggler route, there is no guard or official patrol there. We're planning to leave by tomorrow since it's already late." Inform me.

"Calm down... let me introduce myself and my friend. We aren't the bad guy that you think we are."

I can see that the tension on the girl's face is slowly fading.

" My name is Ilios, and he is Rowan. What is your name?"

"..... so you kill people who are after you?"

"It's by accident... we aren't planning to kill him, but it can't be helped... We're being trapped by an evil merchant. Here, look at my ID card." Said me while holding her my ID card.

"It's him or us." Interrupt Rowan.

The girl is turning her front side to Rowan and looking back at my eyes again.

"Well, I am not a saint either...... Eris... call me Eris." Said the girl. She loosens her grip and moves her knife a bit away from my neck.

"So, how could you end up in Houzz, Eris?" Ask me.

"It's a long story. One day when I was traveling with my friend, I accidentally met a bunch of slave merchants. Fortunately, my friend can escape, but I got caught." Said Eris.

"How could slave merchant sell slaves outside one district? And from what I've heard, slave merchants only make some heavyweight criminals a slave. They don't go around catch people and turn them into a slave." Ask Rowan.

"...l .... How can you doubt the words of a victim!? I am the victim here! That man named Sylvester is crazy obsessed with me. When he saw me at the slave auction, he paid me for 100.000 gilds. Thus, I end up in here." Said Eris.

"You are lying!" These words seem to shake Eris a bit.

" ... 100.000!? Absurd! Noone in Dallas district is willing to pay that much or even 10.000 gild for a weak unappealing female." continue Rowan.