14 | P a g e “Oh, sorry. That’s what you meant.” She saw that I was on the verge of tears and hurried to explain. “That’s the waiting area for the stagecoach. It’s what people normally use to travel between cities. The other option is paying a peddler for a ride.” As the coach went on, Ghislaine continued pointing out each place and explained it to me. That’s the weapon smithy, that’s the pub, that’s one branch of the Adventurer’s Guild, and that place is better left unvisited. Ghislaine had a stern face, but she was kind. The atmosphere changed as we passed one street corner. There were lines of stores aimed at adventurers, a weapon smithy and an armor smithy, and farther within, lines of shops for the townspeople. Residential homes were nestled deep in the alleyways. If you thought about it, intruders would have to attack the city from the outside in. It was obvious then that the city was constructed such that the deeper you went inward, the bigger the houses became and the more luxurious the goods shops offered. The closer you lived to the center, the richer you were. A gigantic building was nestled right in the middle of the city. “That is the liege lord’s manor,” Ghislaine said. “It looks more like a castle than a manor.” “Well, this is a fortified city after all.” Roa was an ancient city with a noble past. Four hundred years ago it was the last bastion of defense in the war against the demon race. That was why there was a castle in the city’s center. That said, despite its mighty origin story, the nobles of the imperial capital currently saw Roa as nothing more than a crude backwater full of adventurers. “The fact that we came here must mean that the Young Mistress I’m to teach is of high social status.” Ghislaine shook her head. “Not quite.”