– Day 7 –

Lunch Date

We head out of Adventurers Guild and back towards the centre of town. I’m following Katharine as she wants to take me to her favourite lunchtime food hut that she visits between patrols.

I have to admit, hearing the term ‘hut’ made me a little sceptical but when we arrived, I immediately got the feeling that the food here would be good even though I can't describe why.

The term ‘hut’ was true to its name though. It's a small wooden building with a kitchen in the centre and a dark-wood bar with seats all around it. There are only six tables in the hut, and there is no else here.

“Ah, Katharine!”

“Hi Marie, for two please”

“Righto, sit anywhere, and I’ll bring yous something to drink.”

Marie is a middle-aged woman with black greying shoulder-length hair. From the back and forth, I can tell Katharine comes here a lot more than just between patrols.

“Here, two hardy ales--"

She puts the mugs down with a clunk.

"So Katharine, who’s the toy?”

Toy? Oh as in boy-toy right? Wait…how old do I look? Katharine’s around 23-28, I thought I was around that as well based on my reflection…?

Katharine’s eye twitches, and she goes a shade pink.

“T-toy? T-this is Aburi..H-he’s a f-friend!”

Well, if I wasn’t sure before, I am now. Katharine’s clearly got a small cute crush on me.. Katharine is cute but well, elf… I guess I’ll have to play dumb.

“Ah, you alright Katharine? You look feverish.”

Oi oi Marie, what’s with the ‘So you know’ and ‘pouncing sheep, hidden cat’ looks

“I-I’m fine Aburi. Marie is another person who likes to tease me.”

“Ah, we have that in common then.”

I give Marie the thumbs up, and she returns it to me.

“Geez, you’re both so mean!”

“Sorry, forgive me Kath~a~rine~.”

Marie pleads in a pray stance while Katharine has her arms folded and cheeks pushed out. I can’t help but giggle at the scene. Which grabs both of their attention.

“You two enjoy your ale, I’ll be back with food in a min.”

Marie heads back to the centre of the room and turns on the stove. I can’t help but look over at it. It seems to work just like a modern electric stove from my world. I can only guess that magic is involved there somehow.

“Sorry about Marie. She can be a handful, but she’s a good person.”

“Don’t be sorry; you two seem close.”

“We are…Her husband was my teacher…”

Was huh, meaning he died.

“Ah…”

Katharine looks to me and then looks to Marie.

“I guess I should tell you about it. Meeting Cable at the Adventures first then seeing Marie.. Aburi, do you believe in fate?”

I instinctively shrug before answering.

“I do, and I don’t. I believe that as a person grows older, their choices become based on previous actions, so they're more likely to proceed down a certain path. I would call that ‘fate’ as it becomes easy to feel your life’s on a linear track..”

She blinks at me, slightly surprised before laughing.

“I never looked at it like that before.. I guess.. that’s very true. Alchemist and Scholar huh?”

“I dabble.”

She giggles a little longer before resuming.

“I met Cable about the same time as Harry, Marie’s husband, died. Which I guess would be about six years ago now.. Orders were issued from the King that an outpost needed to be rebuilt at Aslogia. Naturally, this wasn’t the first attempt to build one, so moods were low as every previous force had been wiped out. This time was to be very different from the last though as the King had never sent so many Knights before. Personally, I was looking forward to it. A chance to increase my rank and see some action! ...How childlike and naive I was looking back at it”

She gives me a half smile.

“A ridiculously monumental task, requiring the subjugation of the 1st and 2nd floors of the dungeon, building an outpost and sending regular daily extermination squads to cull those floors."

"I assume the task was too grand for just the knights?"

She nods.

"Far too much. The King seemed to see this too and decided to send requests to the Adventurers Guild for support. Obviously, Adventurers signed up left and right as the King had made it sound like ‘easy’ coin.”

She pauses for a drink while shaking her head.

“Aburi, I had never seen so many people marching towards a single goal before, I was in awe by it, and I think it made me more than a little overconfident. I mean, so many knights and adventurers, side by side; who could stand against such a massive force?”

“Is this when you met Cable?”

“Yeah.. I actually met Cable when we arrived at Aslogia. His group and mine were assigned to be a combat unit under the command of Harry. At first, it went well, so our unit pressed on ahead. We killed the odd monster here and there but it was just so easy... I remember wondering 'how could the other expeditions have failed?', but of course, fate stepped in, and things turned”

She pauses for a moment, looking at me while fiddling with the two-pronged fork.

“The 2nd floor; about midway through. I still don't know how it happened. They just came from everywhere. The walls, the ceiling, even our own flickering shadows! We were ambushed from all sides and we ended up getting separated from the main unit. We had to fight back to back while trying to rejoin the others. I.. I have never seen anything like it; wave after wave of monsters just kept piling in over the top of each other. Clawing at each other as much as us. The screams. So much noise and the thick choking smell of iron and copper! We killed and fell back, killed and fell back; fighting for hours and hours, countless bodies of other knights... I. It was a slaughter! The dungeon had let us in just far enough that there was little chance to escape–”

Katharine’s voice becomes hysterical. This is clearly not a topic that’s easy for her.

“but we did…somehow! Cable and I anyway, Harry.. died, just before the exit… protecting me! We had nearly all made it, together, but I…I fell for a such a stupid trap! Harry spotted it and tried to warn me.. He ended up taking a hit to the head that was meant for me! I killed him!”

She looks up at me with watery eyes. Crap…I’m really not good at situations like this. How do I comfort her?

“I! ...Sorry.. I got em–”

As if seeing my concern, she attempts to apologise, so I cut her off quickly. Her apology is unneeded!

“Don’t be–”

I hand her the napkin my fork was on.

“He meant a lot to both of us.”

Marie has bought the food over to us. She must have been listening in while cooking. She has a stern face on her right now.

“Katharine, I’ve told you a hundred times, what happened was not because of you, it was just bad luck! I remember how he used to talk about you and the mischief you would get into. He loved you like a daughter.. He wouldn't want you blaming yourself! Now come, no more gloomy talk, eat!”

I don’t know what to say; I’m emotionally inept at situations like these, so I pick up the fork and tuck into the food like a fool hoping to cheer Katharine up.

“Haha, that’s it! Katharine, follow the kid's example.”

“Oh my, this is really good!”

The meal looks like chow mien noodles in dark soy sauce but tastes like fried pork with onions and herbs. There’s some spice in here as well but I have no idea what it is. It’s by far the most flavorful thing I’ve eaten since reviving.

Katharine wipes her eyes and joins me in eating.

“…”

After we finish the meal, Katharine still looks slightly preoccupied. She locks eyes with me as she notices my glance.

“Are…–”

“So where to next?”

Looks like she sensed what I was going to say and changed the subject.

“Well, I need to arrange repairs for that building and some furniture.”

She gives a faint smile.

“I don’t think you’ll need to worry about that. I believe someone will already be doing that at the moment as Duke Rayford said the deed would be delivered by this evening. I would take that to mean people have already been dispatched to see to the repairs.”

Even so, without machinery, they can hardly fix that building that quickly..

“So you think the building will be repaired before this evening?”

“Most likely, it wasn’t in that bad of shape. Shall we drop by and take a look?”

I nod and pay the bill, which is oddly cheap again. From what I can tell, a cheap meal for one with ale is around two copper, and I believe there are 25 Copper Kings to Silver. I wonder how hard it is to earn currency in this world?

Inventory: 40 / 99

– Copper King Coin x47 –

We head out into the centre of the city on foot. With just the two of us, it’s like a good first date. You know, the one where your walking, talking and laughing at silly stuff. Where the conversation just flows, and you can’t help but feel intoxicated by the other person. I know I said I had to be careful but a harmless bit of flirting is fine right?

We arrive at the city centre, and sure enough, Katharine was right. Duke Rayford has clearly ordered the building be repaired and outfitted in record time. There are around 20 men lifting floorboards, fixing walls and six men on the roof placing new slates. Carts are arriving with furniture and leaving with rubbish. Various slaves are ferrying into and out of the building.

It looks like I won’t need to buy anything for this building at all and yes, it will definitely be finished before this evening. The whole scene has me in awe. If you’ve ever seen builders on a building site, you might understand why.

“You looked shocked Aburi.”

I guess it showed. I have never seen people work like this before; they look possessed.

“I guess I am. I wasn’t expecting this at all. You don’t look surprised though?”

She chuckles at me.

“Well, knowing the Duke, I guess this is his way of apologising to you but–”

She raises her index finger to her lip.

“I guess I am a little surprised that you got on the Duke's good side so easily.”

Hmm. This is most likely his way of gaining a political chess piece. I’m not so easily bought, but one hand does wash the other.

“Oh? Here I thought you said I was too forward in that meeting.”

“…I admit that I’m not as skilled as you in politics. I’ve had time to reflect..”

She said while in a bashful pose.

“I can’t say I’m that well versed either… With all this, I don’t think there’s anything else I need to do today. Is there anything you would like to do for the rest of the day?”

“Well I need to check in at the garrison in a bit, but no civilians are allowed past the entrance hall. I can’t really ask you to accompany me as you’ll likely be waiting there for a couple of hours–”

“I don’t mind; I can examine that mosaic in more detail.”

She smiles and nods–

“..Wait, don’t we need to head back to the manor? Risk and Bella should be waiting for you there.”

Whoops, I had forgotten entirely about them. I had been enjoying our little date too much. I should probably check in with Emily too and make sure she’s had a proper meal.

“Ah, I forgot about them. You’re right, then let’s head back to the manor.”