Looking at the merchant's smug expression, and the shop owner fawning over him, I did what anyone with actual sense in a business would do.
"Benneth. Let's go to the next store."
I scooped up Torra and walked out. Benneth followed without question.
They thought I was backing down. I left the escorts paralyzed where they stood and made sure they'd stay that way for a week. Enough to disrupt the merchant's business. The shop owner's too, for good measure.
The next store was directly across the street. We went straight in.
An old couple ran it. Husband and wife, both of them looking up at us with cautious eyes when I walked through the door.
"Give me every seed, sapling, and farming tool you have."
They hesitated. Weighing whether I was serious or bluffing.
"Leigh." Benneth stepped beside me, already calculating the cost in his head. "We don't need that much. Winter seeds are all we came for."
"Brother Leigh. Buy those."
Torra pointed at a display of farming hats hung along the wall.
"How much for everything?" I said, colder this time.
"Good sir, it would be around three thousand gold coins in total. The tools alone would - "
I cut him off and tossed three large pouches onto the counter. One thousand gold each. The old man staggered slightly at the weight of them landing in front of him.
Benneth's eyes went wide.
"I'll be taking everything."
One snap. Every seed, sapling, tool, hat, and crate in the store disappeared into my item box. The shelves emptied. The racks cleared. The shop stood bare around the four of us.
Torra giggled at the empty room.
"Let's go."
I walked out without waiting for the old couple to recover from the shock. Benneth followed, scratching the back of his head with an expression caught somewhere between disbelief and resignation.
The merchant and the other shop owner had come back outside by the time we stepped out. The merchant spotted me immediately and couldn't help himself.
"Look at him. Came out empty-handed." He flashed a gold-capped tooth. "Why don't you unfreeze my escorts and I won't bother punishing you for the trouble."
I didn't respond. Engaging with that kind of fool was a waste of breath.
Then the old couple followed us out, thanking me with the particular sincerity of people who hadn't expected the day to go the way it had. The merchant's eyes narrowed. He walked over and peered through the door of their shop.
Empty. Completely empty.
"Such a generous customer. He bought everything we had." The old woman's voice was thick, eyes wet at the corners.
The other shop owner drifted over and looked in too. Whatever confidence he had drained out of his face. He sank slowly toward the ground where he stood.
"Why... why did I treat a customer like that..."
"Don't judge a book by its cover." The old woman said it plainly, without cruelty, then ushered her husband back inside and locked the door. Closed for the day. Done.
Torra, Benneth, and I slipped into a dark alley and teleported back to the settlement.
We arrived to find everyone already gathered, waiting. Before I could say a word, Torra was squirming out of my arms, feet hitting the ground, spinning to face me with the most expectant expression he had ever worn.
"Take it out." He commanded, jumping on the spot.
I pulled everything from my item box. Seeds, saplings, tools, farming clothes, hats. Crates and pouches stacked up in an instant. The residents surged forward, passing items between each other, holding up hats and trying on gloves, voices overlapping.
Torra's pout arrived immediately.
He tugged my shirt with both hands, his cheeks puffed.
"Not that. The sweet apple."
"The apples." I reached back into the item box and handed them out. Benneth helped pass them around to the others.
"What's this? It's so sparkly." Maya poked at the hardened sugar coating and it cracked under her finger. She stared at it.
"Bite through it with the apple. It's delicious." Benneth handed the last one to Gringo.
They all held them carefully, turning them over, curious. Then one by one they bit in. Comments came immediately, overlapping.
Sweet.
The tang of the apple underneath.
The crack of the sugar.
"Leigh. This is so delicious." Elder Elka's eyes were wet again. "Thank you."
I nodded and walked to the Sequoia tree at the edge of the settlement. The oldest thing here, older than the village itself they had told me. I sat beneath it and watched the sun begin its descent.
"It's getting dark. Everyone to the new houses." Favio said, finishing his candied apple and brushing his hands off.
The others started gathering the crates and pouches.
"Leave them. I'll store everything in my item box tonight. Tomorrow I'll build a proper warehouse."
I snapped my fingers and it was done. I leaned back against the trunk and watched the light go.
"Brother Leigh, aren't we going in?"
Torra sat beside me and leaned his head against my arm.
"No. I'm watching whether the Crawlers can get past the walls or scratch the new houses."
"Then I'll stay too. I want to watch."
"Stay close. Don't wander."
He nodded and settled in.
The sun finished setting and darkness took the settlement completely. The moment it did, the sounds started from the forest.
Screeching.
Low snarling.
The Crawlers moving toward the walls the way they did every night, following the same pattern they had always followed.
I stood and carried Torra to the gate.
From the inside I watched them slam against the iron. Not a scratch. The walls held without so much as a tremble.
"The barrier on the walls is working." I turned away from the gate.
"Brother Leigh. Does this mean we can play outside at night now?"
I looked down at him.
I thought about it. Children running under a night sky without fear. The adults gathered around a fire instead of pressed behind crumbling walls listening to things try to get in.
"Do you see any monsters?"
Torra looked around carefully.
"...no?"
"Then go play. And call everyone out. Tell them it's safe."
He was already running toward the residential side before I finished the sentence.
I built a campfire near the Sequoia tree while he went. Large enough to push light out across a wide circle of ground. The warmth of it settled into the clearing.
"I should add torches along the paths. And if I can replicate a solar panel, the sun's energy during the day shouldn't go to waste at night."
I was muttering to myself. Old memories surfacing again, the way they had been doing more and more since arriving here. The calmer things became, the more that other life came back. Quietly, without forcing itself.
Before, I had treated those memories as interference. They gave me headaches when I had no use for them. I pushed them away every time.
I wasn't doing that anymore.
The children came first, small voices and running feet, laughter breaking across the dark like it had been waiting to get out.
Then the adults, slower, still carrying the habit of fear in the way they moved. Hesitating at the doorways. Looking toward the walls.
But they came.
And when they saw the children already out there, running freely through the dark without anything chasing them, they looked up.
At the sky.
At the stars that had always been there and never once been safe to look at for long.
"So this is what the stars look like." Elder Elka's voice was quiet. "I never thought I would get to see the night sky like this."
"It'll stay this way. There's nothing left to fear out here at night."
I didn't know why I said it. I wasn't obligated to give them that assurance. But it was the truth, and saying it felt right.
I gathered the children and had them sit.
"Watch."
They sat immediately. No hesitation. Waiting.
I let butterflies appear in the air around them. Glowing softly in the dark, drifting between the children, wings catching the firelight.
The children went still with the particular stillness of someone trying not to startle something beautiful away.
"Can we touch them?"
They were waiting for permission. Probably because of Gringo and the hot water. A lesson that had stuck.
"Yes. Go ahead."
Torra moved first. He stood carefully and followed one, reaching out slowly, and poked it.
It burst into glittering dust. Tiny sparks drifting and fading in the dark like personal fireworks.
"Wow."
Then all of them were up. Chasing, poking, laughing as each butterfly came apart in a small explosion of light. The adults drifted in without quite deciding to. Reaching out. Trying it. Smiling when it worked.
For the first time in this settlement, the night was not something to survive.
It was just the night.
We stayed out for a long while. All of us together under the stars, the fire burning steady beside the oldest tree in the village.