Time passed quickly, and the silhouette of Greystone Town emerged in the twilight.
It wasn’t as delicate as the Adventurer Town near the Dark Elf territory; it had rough, solid lines, and the buildings were coarser.
The stacks of stone and wood carried an air of frontier pragmatism.
As Celia knew, the sight of a Dark Elf was extremely rare here.
When their group of three led their horses through the town gates, the scattered glances cast their way were mostly filled with curiosity and cautious observation, but there was no obvious hostility.
Frontier folk had long since become accustomed to travelers of various races, as long as they didn’t cause trouble.
After asking a passerby for directions, Celia headed straight for the town’s largest inn, the Heart of the Stone Hearth.
A wooden sign swayed gently in the evening breeze, indicating that hot springs were available.
She handed the reins to the taciturn groom at the entrance and turned to the other two.
“Wait for me here a moment.”
She stepped into the slightly dim lobby of the inn, where the air was filled with the aroma of stewed meat and ale.
Behind the counter was a grey-haired Beastkin elder with shrewd eyes.
It wasn’t strange to see a Beastman running an inn on the border of the Elf Kingdom.
It wasn’t just because of the friendly relationship between the Dark Elves and the various Beastkin tribes, but primarily because Elves and Beastmen had been solid allies since ancient times.
As for a common enemy?
Celia’s gaze swept over several human merchants talking in low voices in the corner of the hall.
The answer was all too obvious.
For thousands of years, the human kingdoms had been an object of shared vigilance for Elves and Beastmen.
Ambition, expansion, and the rejection of non-human races had once kept the continent shrouded in the smoke of war.
This continued until the Demon Race spread the fires of war across the entire continent, forcing these nations to set aside old grudges and join forces against the enemy.
Now, peace had been maintained for several generations.
For the Elves of today, aside from the unyielding Demon Race, the only thing they needed to keep an eye out for were those Slaver Parties prowling in the shadows.
“I’d like to stay the night. Three single rooms, preferably quiet ones,” Celia said succinctly, placing a high-quality gold coin on the counter as a deposit.
“Three?”
An amused voice came from behind her.
Onyxia had followed her in at some point.
Celia turned her head and saw Onyxia’s smiling face close at hand.
That smile always gave her a bad premonition.
“One room is enough, Celia.”
Onyxia’s voice wasn’t loud, but it reached the elder’s ears behind the counter clearly.
The old man lifted his eyelids to glance at them and then looked down again, acting as if he hadn’t heard anything, though he stopped his recording movements.
“One?”
Confusion was written all over Celia’s face.
She glanced at Ilyas, who had also drifted into the lobby and was currently staring at her own toes with bright red ears, then looked back at Onyxia.
“There are three of us. And… after traveling for so long, we need space to rest properly. Aren’t three rooms better?”
“I’m considering safety and personal space exactly for that reason.”
Onyxia’s reasoning sounded smooth and natural as she leaned in slightly, her breath nearly brushing Celia’s ear.
“Frontier towns are full of all sorts of people. If the three of us stay together, we can look out for each other; it’s the safest way. Ilyas also said she’d be afraid to stay alone, right?”
Suddenly being put on the spot, Ilyas trembled.
She snapped her head up, her cheeks flushed as her panicked gaze flitted between Celia and Onyxia.
Under Onyxia’s seemingly gentle gaze, she eventually gave an extremely slight nod and let out a hum as soft as a mosquito before quickly burying her head again.
Celia’s gaze swept back and forth between the two.
Her face was full of doubt, and she felt very uneasy, but she had no reason to forcefully refute Onyxia.
In the brief moment of her silent deliberation, Onyxia stopped waiting.
She spoke directly to the Beastkin elder behind the counter.
“One room. The bed needs to be spacious enough. And preferably… equipped with an indoor hot spring. After days of traveling, we all desperately need to relax, don’t we?”
The elder’s cloudy eyes slowly circled the three of them, lingering for a moment on Celia’s Dark Elf features that seemed out of place in these surroundings.
His gaze then swept over Onyxia’s composed smile and Ilyas’s shy appearance as she tried to hide behind Celia.
The wrinkles on his face moved slightly, as if he understood something—or perhaps he thought nothing of it at all—and he simply nodded as if it were a common occurrence.
“The house behind the inn,” he said in a muffled voice, fishing out a brass key from under the counter and pushing it toward Onyxia.
“There’s a small hot spring source channeled to the outside of the room. As for the bed… it’s quite large, but the price isn’t cheap.”
The key was pushed across the wooden surface of the counter, stopping in front of Onyxia.
Onyxia reached out and picked up the key almost immediately, hooking the key ring with her fingertip and letting it dangle gently.
She turned to look at Celia with a lighthearted smile.
“That’s the one. Price is no issue. Celia, shall we go?”
Celia’s gaze moved from the key to Onyxia’s face, then fell to the top of Ilyas’s head, where the girl looked like she wanted nothing more than to hide herself.
In the end, she simply nodded in silence.
“Cheer up a bit,” Onyxia laughed, taking the lead toward the side door leading to the backyard, her voice filled with undisguised pleasure.
“A rare hot spring is waiting.”
Celia stepped forward to follow, with Ilyas clinging closely behind her.
Passing through the somewhat noisy lobby and pushing open the heavy wooden door, a small courtyard paved with flagstones appeared before them.
Onyxia used the key to open the door.
Inside the yard, a low but sturdy independent stone house was built against a natural mountain wall.
Warm yellow light shone from the stone house’s windows, and the faint sound of gurgling water and rising white mist came from behind the building—that was the channeled hot spring.
The interior was more spacious than expected, with simple but clean furnishings.
Most eye-catching was the indeed very large bed in the center of the room, covered with thick, simple-colored woven rugs.
On one side were simple chairs and a table, while on the other was a half-open frosted glass door.
Steam billowed from behind the door, which was where the sound of the hot spring water originated.
“Seems decent enough.”
Onyxia stepped into the room, looking around as if inspecting her territory, then tossed her pack onto the table.
She turned to Celia and Ilyas, who were still standing at the door, her eyes looking exceptionally bright under the warm light of the room.
“Set your things down. After a day of traveling, who wants to soak first to drive away the cold?”
Her gaze finally landed on Celia, her posture of invitation open and natural.
Left with no other choice under that gaze, Celia could only nod in agreement.