It was early in the morning when Nora made it to the city. Her flight speed was a lot lower due to her thinking and all the time she had spent in her mind. Even though she refused to let herself open up again, part of her still hoped that one day she would meet that fox again.
'I guess it's not really that important,' she thought. 'Maybe it's better that I just stay away, you know? I mean, I hardly know anything. I know there are people, but I haven't even seen anybody except for those adventurers. I've been living in a forest.'
I have no idea how big this world is or what kind of organizations run it. I don't even know if there's—well, I know that there's a god, and I barely know that one. I don't even know if she was a god of this place or not.
It's all so strange and overwhelming. I need to figure out what to do. I think my best strategy is just to complete these quests and get as strong as I can, as fast as I can. That way I can survive in case I meet something more powerful. With this plan in mind, Nora flew into the city.
She noticed that there were a couple of stray small birds around the city, but there weren't as many as there would be in a modern city like New York or such. Nora found this a little bit strange. She pouted a little bit as it ruined her plans.
She figured she would be able to blend in a little bit more in this city, but now it would be harder to blend in since there weren't a bunch of birds around. The smaller birds that were around seemed to ignore her for the most part, and that was perfectly fine with Nora.
Ignoring that her initial plans were ruined, Nora decided to spend some time scouting out the city before she made any more plans.
The city was medieval in Nora's opinion, but much better. The streets were full of color and so many textures. It seemed that the people in this city had intricate designs on their clothing and their outfits were all put together regardless of status. Sure, there were nobles who were dressed up much more, but even the peasants had a style to them. Nora realized that clothing seemed to be in quite an abundance, and other materials weren't super expensive either.
After a little bit of flying, she managed to find the Main Street. The Main Street was significantly wider than the other streets. It had vendors lining the sides and small-ish carriages with horses—some looking normal, some looking magical—navigating through hoards of people. The entire place was buzzing with energy.
Nora noticed that the streets were full of a ton of color and so many textures. It seemed that the people of this city had intricate designs on their clothing, and despite the different statuses, all of their outfits seemed to be put together.
Even the peasants had a sort of style to them; it seemed that clothing was never really an issue. Nobody was in any tattered clothing, and each outfit seemed like it was tailored specifically to that person. Most of them had just normal clothing on, but Nora did seem to notice that, even though everybody was dressed nicely, you could tell who the nobles were because they dressed in more interesting attire, and all of their clothing seemed to give off a faint sign of mana.
'This is good. It looks like the economy is healthy here. I would feel bad stealing from someone struggling,' Nora thought, scanning the crowd.
Even though Nora treated this world like a video game, it didn't mean she was going to just steal from anyone. She was going to make all of it worth it for her.
Moving on, Nora decided to pick out one specific vendor, and she found that the farther up the street she went, the more security and the richer each of the stalls seemed to become.
Each vendor was selling more and more expensive and magical items than the last, and eventually, Nora noticed that there was this one vendor that seemed particularly wealthy. He had a couple of guards around. The guards didn't seem that powerful, and neither did the vendor, but the wares that he was selling seemed to be really just full of mana.
'Perfect. I'm gonna go for that one. He looks like a pretty easy target, and honestly, the wares are good enough. I should get a good reward from the system for stealing from him.' Nora decided that she was going to do this very carefully.
She spent the next few hours monitoring the vendor's movement, occasionally changing spots every once in a while to make herself look less conspicuous.
She made mental notes. She noticed when he took his break, fashioning a makeshift sundial to track the time he was gone. The sundial was made out of a slightly triangular rock and a circular piece of ceramic that she had swiped from a back alley she had found. It wasn't very accurate, however it let Nora plan when the vendor's guard would be at its lowest.
Next, she flew around the city planning the best escape route. She made a special note of the east entrance, since there were very few people passing through it. The guards seemed to be on the verge of sleep. Nora figured that they wouldn't notice a crow flying past them at any point.
Finally, Nora looked at the guards around the vendor. She actually inspected the guards to figure out their level:
Level: 30
Level: 32
Level: 30
Level: 29
Level: 28
'Hmmm, okay that's not ideal. They're definitely way more powerful than I am, but I think if I were to play this right, I could probably get away with it without much issue,' Nora thought, changing her plan a little bit.
After getting everything in place, Nora began her plan.
First, Nora looked around for a different vendor—one that was selling bread. Farther down the road, she found a place that was selling relatively cheap bread. Nora couldn't understand the language, but from what she could gather, they were cheap.
Sidling up to the stand, she inspected underneath the tables, and to her surprise she found a small piece of bread laying there. Nora's mouth watered slightly at the sight of it, but she quickly shook her head. Pushing her hunger away, she grabbed the bread with her beak and quickly hopped away.
While carrying the bread down the street, she attracted the attention of the other small birds conspicuously toward the direction of the rich vendor.
While pretending to just be another bird in the pack, she began to spread crumbs of it around. By now, a rather large crowd of bread-loving birds had gathered, so she was confident that the vendor wouldn't notice her.
With all the birds around the stand, and the guards distracted shooing them away, she sidled up to the vendor's stall, quickly hopping up onto the table where he kept his wares.
Nora's eyes sparkled as she saw all the items he had for sale. This vendor really was rich.
Off to one side, he had an area dedicated to herbs, each emitting mana and a faint rainbow of colors. Then in the center, he had rows upon rows of jewelry, some stacked on pedestals, each unique in its own way.
On the side nearest to her was an assortment of trinkets, ranging from small statues to large doohickeys.
Nora quickly focused, deciding on the best item for her to steal. She only had a small window of time before her escape. Her eyes narrowed in on a small pocket watch. It was sitting in the middle of the table on the highest pedestal.
Nora could practically feel the mana radiating off of this pocket watch.
'That's the one!' she thought, narrowing her eyes. Quietly, she went for it, hopping from pedestal to pedestal until the pocket watch was right in front of her.
Unfortunately, as she was grabbing it, the vendor noticed her and shooed her away. Nora, a bit startled, dropped the item onto the ground. It clattered from side to side, startling some of the birds that still lingered near the table.
Luckily, after a few bounces, it rolled underneath the table. The vendor, who was still frantically trying to get her away, hadn't noticed this.
Nora took the opportunity and hopped off of the table, quickly climbing underneath the table. She grabbed the pocket watch and hastily put it into her inventory.
She had gotten the pocket watch just in time as one of the guards had noticed her and began to push her away from the table. This was one of the level 30 guards, and he was being rather forceful in getting her away.
Nora squawked indignantly before taking off, smiling internally at the genius heist that she had just pulled off.
In the distance, she could clearly hear the vendor behind her getting quite agitated at the fact that he seemed to be missing one of his most important wares.