Chapter 4: Chapter 3: Bizarre Bazaar

Lia had her first surprise when she reached the doors to the room she was in. The doors all contained a smaller door within them, and a smaller door within that. Up on the wall next to the door, there was a little note that read “I thought you might have a hard time opening the bigger doors when you’re so small, so I’ve made the doors to this building have several sizes so you can get through easier. You’ll need to figure out your own way into other buildings, though. Good luck!”

That was probably good. The main doors here were several times her size, and this specific building was built to be a fortified shelter in case of monster attacks on the campus, so she doubted she would be able to break out.

She pushed the smallest door open and went through, keeping a wary eye out for monsters as she did. Campus was just as she remembered it, a group of buildings designed around the mountainous terrain they were located such that at times it was hard to tell the buildings hadn’t always been there.

The bazaar should be to her right, and that was her first priority. It was a large area with lots of places she could hide in, and hopefully she’d be able to find some sort of potion or equipment or something that she could use in case of emergency. Obviously, equipment for humanoids was out of the question, but if she was lucky there would be some gear for tamed monsters that she could use.

…Now that she was a monster, could she theoretically be tamed? The thought made her uncomfortable; it was her job to force people into servitude, not the other way around. Well, no matter, she’d just have to get strong enough that no one would be able to tame her.

A few minutes of walking later, she was able to make out the first stalls of the bazaar. The bazaar as a whole was under a large overhang, putting it in almost perpetual darkness, pierced only by the lights of the stalls. The result was a sort of permanent twilight, giving the bazaar an atmosphere quite unlike anything else Lia had ever seen.

However, hidden among the entrancing sight were flashes of motion, telltale signs that there were living things in that bazaar, and Lia doubted they were shoppers. So, it was with caution that she approached the outside of the bazaar, taking her time to make sure there were no monsters about before she dashed into a stall.

Unfortunately for her, there were no goodies to be found in the stall. Still, that didn’t mean she had been wasting time in coming here. She was in cover now, and getting to other stalls would be easier.

She skittered around to the edge of the stall and peered into the darkness, straining her eyes to try and see if there were any monsters about before she went to the next. When she was satisfied there weren’t, she went to the next stall, which also contained nothing.

She repeated the process a few more times, until she was interrupted by a couple of windows.

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