197: Spicy
Entering the house, I couldn’t help but notice that Raymond was looking around nervously, though this could have been because he was being glared at by Lily and Liane.
“Follow me. We’ll head to the office. There are plenty of chairs there.”
I noticed Raymond was shaking and visibly pale while looking around, clearly terrified, his eyes lingering on the statue of Sylverith as we walked by. Soon we made it into the office, catching Milo’s attention as we walked past the entrance to the library, but he made no move to interfere. Though it didn’t escape my attention that Liane vanished from behind Raymond, appearing next to Milo, likely filling him in on some information.
Inside the office, I took the seat behind the desk, which felt very odd, while Crisplet and Lily continued to stay next to me. Across the desk sat Raymond, whose head was bowed, and I really got to get a good look at the man. Back in the guild, he was large and bulky, a head taller than I was, with a smirk on his face, and appeared to be incredibly confident.
Now, though? Now he looked like a shell of that. A beard half grown in, with long hair, visible bags under his eyes, and noticeably pale… he looked broken.
“So, why did you come to me?” I asked curiously.
He looked around, his eyes landing on Sylverith before taking a deep breath.
“I came to apologise. No, I needed to apologise. I’ve lost everything. I can’t sleep; nightmares constantly plague me, the thought of the shadows attacking me. My party left, and if I didn’t do something, I would have hit the bottle or descended into madness,” Raymond said, his head down constantly.
I didn’t say anything, mostly because what do you say to that? Raymond, however, continued.
“I understand if you can’t forgive me…” he started to say.
At this, I needed to stop him, though. “I’ll be honest, Raymond. I didn’t think much of you until I heard your party was attacked, and I’m sorry for that. Lily thought she was doing what was best for me, and although overzealous, I can’t fault her. A lot had happened, but I don’t hate you, and I accept your apology.”
Raymond looked up, looking me in the eye for the first time, but I continued.
“That said, though, I think the whole practice of attacking new adventurers is terrible, especially us orphans. We spend our years learning nothing and then get thrown into the world to die or learn the hard way, but that’s not your fault, I suppose,” I sighed.
“Symptom of the system,” Liane mumbled from behind, clearly having returned at some point.
“You’re right. I thought nothing of it at the time,” Raymond said, bowing his head.
“Well, what now, then? You’ve apologised. You know Lily isn’t hunting you in the night,” I said.
Raymond, looking up, just shrugged. “I don’t really know. I didn’t think that far ahead.”
Sylverith gave a small cough, sitting on her chair at the back. “If I could make a suggestion, dear.”
I nodded. I wouldn’t have ever told her no, but still.
“Young Micca is in need of guards still. I wouldn’t recommend housing him here, but perhaps she can put him to use once he’s had some rest. You humans still pay penance through hard work, right?” she asked.
“Are you sure about that?” Liane asked, clearly unsure about keeping him around.
“I’m sure. What he’s said has all been honest. He has nowhere to go other than back to the Adventurer’s Guild,” Sylverith answered.
Raymond didn’t say anything, just nodding.
Sylverith pulled a coin out of her pocket, holding it out to Raymond, as he just stared at both the coin and Sylverith.
“Most people hesitate to take a coin from a dragon, though in this case I assure you it’s perfectly fine,” Sylverith smiled.
Raymond reached out but paused, staring at Sylverith before recoiling his hand. “D…Dragon?”
“We can be impatient creatures at times, so please take the coin,” she said.
Raymond this time didn’t hesitate, taking the coin from her hand, visibly shaking.
“Excellent. You’re of course free to leave, but I know you were broke. That should be enough to get you a week or two at the inns in the city. If you wish to work, clean up and meet me at the Ember Cafe in four days, or leave town. It’s up to you,” Sylverith said.
Liane had a scowl on her face and clearly disapproved of all of this.
“Why?” Raymond asked.
Sylverith didn’t answer, just pointed at the door, making it very clear he should leave.
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Raymond took one last look back at me; I just shrugged. “We’re all good. Lily is not hunting you, right, Lily?”
There was no answer. As expected, she just stared at Raymond before Crisplet let off a single ember.
“Excellent! That’s a no. Thank you for visiting,” I said happily.
After a moment looking around, Raymond got up from his chair, bowing to everyone as he left the room, closing the door behind him. Liane took his seat in a second, sitting on it sideways to see both Sylverith and myself.
“Why keep him around? He’s worthless,” Liane said, clearly annoyed.
Sylverith let out a very light laugh. “Call it a curiosity, but he won’t pose an issue for you. That much I can tell for certain. Right now he’s sprinting out the front door and not looking back.”
I just shook my head. “I still don’t understand why he came at all.”
“That wasn’t for you. He was doing it for himself, dear,” Sylverith said.
“More of a reason not to trust him,” Liane mumbled.
I was just standing up when Liane held her hand out. “Stay there. Milo asked to grab him and Hari when this was done. They want to talk about what happened with you being dragged off to the palace.”
I was left sitting in the room with Sylverith, who just had a smile on her face as she watched Liane leave. I noticed Lily had vanished as well.
“She’s upset with me, that one,” Sylverith said the moment the door shut.
“She doesn’t trust Raymond, so I understand it,” I offered.
Sylverith nodded. “But see it this way. The gods do not involve themselves in mortal affairs. Well, they shouldn’t. Yet randomly you decide you want to walk, on the same day this man reaches the capital and just happens to be here. If you were in the carriage, the guards would have just shoved him out of the way, but instead this encounter occurred. It could have purely been by chance, but I think not. That’s why I wish to keep him close.”
Hari was first to enter, followed by Milo and Liane. I wasn’t sure where Jen was, but I gave a full rundown of everything that had happened.
“Lady Belwyn is dead?” Milo asked, looking shocked.
“Apparently she was killed while we were talking to Marcus,” I nodded.
Milo gave a hard look to Hari but didn’t say anything more. I then explained the situation with Raymond.
“I agree with Liane. Why are we keeping him around? Send him back to Greyrock,” Milo said.
This got a firm nod from Liane. Hari, however, just seemed to keep his thoughts to himself, looking at Sylverith.
“If he causes trouble, I will take responsibility for it and deal with it,” Sylverith said to all of us.
No one could or would argue with Sylverith, so the topic moved on.
“We had another delivery of lemon tea grass, and despite Micca selling it now instead of giving it away for free, she has nearly run out of supply,” Milo let out a chuckle.
“She mentioned she was already nearly out of jerky as well, so I might go to the kitchen now and start. I’ll practise my runes while I do that. Also, I’m going to go to the market before the royal dinner,” I said.
I made a point of saying I was doing it rather than asking. My last trip was interrupted, and there were so many other places I wanted to see, items I wanted to buy, and I wasn’t going to leave the capital without really exploring it and finding some new and unique food to cook.
After the conversation ended, I spent the rest of the afternoon smoking lemon tea grass. Milo assisted me in the smoke room itself, making channels of stone to better distribute the smoke around the room rather than having hot pockets like in the last attempt.
Crisplet also insisted on watching, and rather than taking control of the heat, was just giving me information through pushing his mana, which I was getting slightly better at. I was now absolutely sure I could feel Crisplet telling me it was too cold or too hot.
While that was drying, I was in the butcher room next door slicing up different types of meat to use as jerky later. One that I knew was probably risking it was a bit of dragon tail. It would only give me twenty or so small pieces of jerky, but I was sure if we couldn’t figure out how to make it safe, Lily would enjoy snacks.
Other than sticking with the regular ones of boar and Buvul, which just felt boring now, I also went with drake, but I also used a lot of the Chironid for it as well, since most people seemed wary of eating it normally. I also tried some odd things to see if they would work or not: Thunar, and the rat-like creatures Qarka that I got from the same cave as the eel. I made a mental note to ensure that was safe to eat and not a mana overload before giving it to anyone.
The rest of the day passed before I knew it. I was joined by Liane, but Lily was still nowhere to be seen. I didn’t get to start any of the jerky meat yet, but I had it all sliced and in my storage. Also, I may have used a candy to get some mana back when it started running dangerously low. I’d not tell Milo that one.
Crisplet wanted to make dinner for everyone as well, so I gave him all the ingredients for a basic Buvul stew, letting Crisplet work on it from start to finish, and was incredibly surprised when not only could I infuse it, but it looked like Crisplet making the dish entirely had a different effect on what should have been +1 strength and fire immunity.
[Common] Fire Infused Buvul Stew
- +1 Strength
- Fire Immunity
- Minor Fire Magic Potency
- Fire Conjuration
“This is amazing, Crisplet!” I said happily.
Trying to use my mana to send that feeling across as well.
Getting back joy and pride.
The real surprise in all of this, Lily still had not shown up. Considering when she left, it worried me, but I had to assume she was keeping an eye on Raymond.
I took the stew out to the dining room table, and after collecting everyone:
“Crisplet made dinner tonight by himself! It’s a real special one,” I announced, placing it down.
I laughed when I saw Darren and George turn bright red with hiccups, clearly finding it far too spicy.
“You know, if you show Kathrine this, she’s going to kidnap Crisplet, right?” Milo joked.
“Nobody takes Crisplet!” Jen practically yelled.
While Crisplet himself just turned a volatile red and black.
“It was a joke. Do you think Lily would let my number one defender go that easily?” I whispered to him.