The city streets were a labyrinth of noise, dust, and life. People shouted to be heard over the cries of the day's offers, merchants waved their colorful fabrics, and the air smelled of spices and iron. Amidst all the bustle, Ga-eun and the young man walked without a clear direction, blending in with the crowd that flowed back and forth like a flooded river.

The sun was beginning to set when he broke the silence.

“Your clothing... is it normal in your land?” he asked, observing the dirty, folded apron still tied around her waist.

Ga-eun glanced at him and shrugged. “No, only cooks wear this,” she said. She smiled with a touch of melancholy. “It's a uniform, I suppose.”

The young man nodded slowly, as if trying to imagine a place where people dressed the same way for cooking. Between the smell of spices and the dirt on the ground, Ga-eun realized she still didn't know the young man's name. “I think it’s rude to talk to someone without knowing their name,” she commented, giving a sidelong glance to the young man, who seemed somewhat tense. “I’d like to know it.”

The young man hesitated for a moment. “Ah...” he paused, and then smiled with a certain natural ease. “Call me Yul.” “Yul?” she repeated. “Yul, alright,” she said, not letting the doubt in her voice pass unnoticed.

“And you?” he asked.

“Ga-eun,” she pronounced slowly, emphasizing the syllables as if giving a small lesson.

He repeated it, but the result sounded twisted, with a mix of sounds far removed from the original. “Kaun?”

“More or less. But you can say it however you like, I don't care too much.”

“Kaun,” Yul repeated, murmuring as he tried to pronounce it correctly.

“Why were you barely eating when I offered you food?”

Yul seemed to instantly tense up, not having expected such a sudden question. He lowered his gaze, pressing his lips together as if hesitating whether to answer or not. “It's nothing important,” he finally said, in a low voice.

Ga-eun raised an eyebrow. “You don't have to tell me if you don't want to,” she said, patting him on the shoulder. “Sometimes I ask questions I shouldn't. Or say things out of place. People tell me I'm bad at reading others.”

He looked at her in surprise, but ended up showing a slight smile. “It’s fine,” he replied, almost sincerely. “Although... I must admit I don't entirely trust you either,” he paused for an instant, his eyes hardening. “I'm grateful, but if I learned anything, it’s that gratitude is not the same as trust.”

Ga-eun sighed in relief. “That seems fair to me,” she calmly retorted. “Because I don't trust you either. Maybe you fooled the guards with your acting or the beggars with your words, but I know when someone is faking.”

“Faking?” he repeated.

“Yes. When they pretend not to know anything, or that they like others,” she held his gaze. “You fake a lot of things, but that doesn't bother me. We all do sometimes.”

The young man watched her in silence, and for a few seconds seemed unsure whether to be offended or frightened. In the end, he let out a slight sigh and continued walking. “I suppose that makes us equals.”

“Perhaps,” she said, following him.

For a while, they walked aimlessly, passing through narrow alleys where the light barely reached between the wooden roofs. The noise of the square was left behind, replaced by the echo of their footsteps on the cobblestones. Ga-eun noticed that Yul discreetly looked behind him every few steps.

“Where are we going?” she finally asked, frowning.

He didn't answer immediately. “I don't know exactly. But I’ve noticed something.”

“Something?”

“We’re being followed,” his voice dropped to a tense whisper.

Ga-eun discreetly turned her head, and though she saw nothing, the young man's tone was enough to put her on alert. “Are you sure?”

“Too sure. Don't look,” he said in a low voice. “Keep walking.”

They sped up, although Ga-eun ended up keeping some distance, not entirely trusting Yul, but it was better to be safe than sorry; if he was right, they could be about to be assaulted. They took one corner, then another. The streets grew narrower, the shadows deeper. In the distance, voices, hurried footsteps, and the clinking of metal could be heard.

“I don't like this at all,” Ga-eun murmured.

“Me neither,” he replied, pulling her arm. “Come this way.”

They turned one last alley and stopped abruptly. In front of them, a stone wall blocked the exit. From behind, the sound of several men approaching grew clearer and clearer.

“Great,” Ga-eun scoffed. “Trapped.”

The young man gritted his teeth. “Step back.”

Shadows moved among the alleys until they were completely surrounded. There were five, maybe six men, armed with clubs and knives. Their skin was tanned by the sun and their clothes were torn. One of them, with a scar running across his cheek, smiled maliciously.

“Look what we have here,” he said. “Good catch.”

Another let out a harsh laugh. “They say women from the Eastern lands fetch a good price on the market. What do you say, boss? Should we take her alive?”

Ga-eun's stomach churned; they spoke like traffickers, human traffickers. She didn't back away, but she didn't know how to proceed either, but the young man had already taken a step forward. Without a word, he put something in his mouth, something he had been hiding in his hand all that time, but he didn't chew or swallow.

“What the hell are you doing?” she whispered.

He didn't answer. He just picked up a staff that was leaning against a nearby wall—she hadn't noticed when he’d picked it up—and held it firmly.

The men lunged, and Yul moved with surprising agility. The staff traced an arc in the air, hitting one of the attackers in the jaw. Another tried to approach from the flank and received a solid blow to the stomach. For a few seconds, Ga-eun was paralyzed... until one of the bandits grabbed her arm.

“Didn't anyone teach you not to touch women?!” she shouted, annoyed, and purely by reflex, applied a lock she had learned years ago in her Judo classes. The man fell backward with a grunt.

Another tried to grab her from behind, but Ga-eun spun around, using the momentum to hit him with her elbow. The attacker cursed under his breath.

“Damn savage!” one spat, pulling out a dagger.

Ga-eun took a step back. Her heart was pounding, but the adrenaline kept her lucid. Somehow, she had managed to hide a small kitchen knife in her apron—a habit she had adopted for safety so many years ago. She pulled it out with a swift motion.

The gleam of the steel made the men hesitate for a moment.

“Don't come closer,” she warned, turning the knife between her fingers with the same skill she used to chop vegetables.

The first one who lunged at her ended up with a superficial cut on his forearm and a cry of pain. Another tried to circle her, but received a direct kick to the leg. Meanwhile, Yul was fighting with surprising strength, but his breathing was starting to become labored. Hunger began to affect him again, and the little energy he had was slowly fading.

One of the men took advantage of a lapse. “Behind you!” Ga-eun shouted, but it was too late.

The young man stepped wrong, stumbled over a stone, and lost his balance. Before he could get up, a precise blow to the head knocked him unconscious. As he fell, something rolled out of his mouth, clinking as it hit the ground.

“Hey!” Ga-eun exclaimed, being blinded for a second by a brief blue flash.

That instant of distraction was enough. An arm like a log slammed into her side and threw her against the wall. She felt the impact on her shoulder and a wave of pain. The knife flew out of her hands, and her vision blurred. As she fell, she noticed something else being thrown from her apron: the Zafir ring, which rolled to rest next to the young man's body.

The slavers approached, panting from the effort. “I hope it was worth it.”

The boss, the one with the scar, crouched down. On the ground, the light of the sunset caught sparks from both the old Zafir ring, with a blue gem, and the object Yul had kept in his mouth, a newer ring with a green gem.

“Well, well...” he murmured greedily. “I think it was worth it in the end.”

He took both rings and tucked them into his belt before ordering his men to load the bodies.

As they dragged them through the alley, the dust on the ground slowly covered the place where they had fallen. The murmur of the market returned in the distance, as if nothing had happened.

----

If you are enjoying the story, I recommend reading the new novel I'm publishing, "I'm a Dragon, After All." I've been working on it for the last few weeks, and the first chapters are already published. Thank you very much!