Chap 36: The first customers
1968 Words
*** Liana’s POV ***
“Aye… what are we going to do now?”
Sum it up, we just got scammed earlier.
Losing two coins of gold meant we had to stay starving for whole one day with stupid reason. As a weredragon, it didn’t matter to me since I have a good physical endurance and strength, what I would be worried the most was Galen. He had to eat more than Roman and me in order to supply energy for both the seed and himself.
“Liana, I’m not like a pregnant you know?” Galen threw me a cringed glance “Saeza has trained me hard enough to endure the aura consumption of the seed.”
“How long can you endure?”
“Three days starving, I think.”
“WHAT?! THREE DAYS?!”
I looked at him with shocked eyes. If he could endure in three days without eating anything, while his aura being consumed by the seed, how high his maximum aura energy could be?
“Saeza had trained me to limit by base layer of aura energy – which required from eating and drinking. Now I can charge my aura energy from sunbathing, and it’s actually enough.”
Isn’t Galen becoming a tree man? I thought. An image of Galen turning into the tree man and living by photosynthesis suddenly appeared in my mind.
…Pfft! Aye hahahaha!!! I couldn’t help… When I said that, both Roman and I burst our laugh!
“When I return to Frelanna Island, I’ll kill that old dragon.”
“Haha… I’m sorry, Galen we are just kidding…” I had to calm him down since I could see the seed was glowing and synthetizing with his angry emotion as well.
Well, it was enough for us to joking around. We needed to find the way to survive in this city first. According to Roman’s information, the capital troops would take more than three days to come to this city so everyone could temporarily take a rest here, while thinking the new plan to fight against Queen Meriss. If the capital troops came, they could flee right away.
We had united our current plan. Roman was going to ask the surrounding civilians passing by us the map and find the costume shop. Meanwhile, Galen would be seeking to the adventurer guild in order to find a quest to get some money. About me, my job was finding the inn since I was the most confident at negotiation.
About the egg… well, we all agreed that it would be too wasting two coins of gold to fry and eat it. We decided to keep and incubate it.
We were going to send the egg to the inn. So, I was carrying the egg cage as well.
Sometimes, I lifted the cage with curiosity. That egg had white color with blue dots around. If I looked from afar, it would be looking like a balloon toy for kids. It had a size bigger than my human’s body, so I guessed it was the egg of a giant creature?
I got shivered to the spine when thinking about this idea. If that, the inn owner would flip our butt away for keeping this such dangerous creature inside their house.
Aye, I need to find a big room, a cheap room… for not only three persons to prepare the worst case happening.
But to find that such ideal inn, I bet even Almighty Galadriel on the sky wouldn’t be able to help us.
Suddenly, I heard someone screaming from the alley.
“HEY! GIVE IT BACK!!”
It was a short plump woman, having dark skin and the elven ears. I looked at the direction of her eyes and understood what happened. A thief stole her sac away.
Aye, well~ I still have plenty time until the sunset, so let’s help her~!
I gently put the egg cage at the corner of a building and hid it, while concentrating my aura energy, transformed myself into dragon form to chase that thief.
“Kyaa!! Flamerus’s kick!!”
That bad thief’s foot wasn’t even as fast as my flying speed. So, in just a few seconds later, I had caught him up, stomped on him from above and squeezed him down by my body mass.
Phew, easy task! I smiled, then took back the sac from that thief’s hand.
“Next time, stay far away from me if you see me again.”
But how rude, the thief even didn’t look at me once and he had already run away…
Of course, as how a good guy should do, I flew back and gave the sac to that poor elven eared woman.
“Really thank you so much, young lady!” I went confused as she bowed down in front of me “Without you, I would lose my precious treasure…”
“It was nothing, madame.” I smiled toward her and transformed back into human for easier communication “I’m glad that I can help you.”
“Young lady, if you need something, you tell me anything. But wait…”
The dark-elf woman then looked at me from my face to my legs. Damn! Am I suspected as wanted criminal from Mothien Capital so fast?!
“…you don’t look like from this city. And this uniform… are you from Mothien Academy?”
“I…” Being asked by that sudden question, I really had no idea how to answer her! If I did any small mistake, we all would be doomed!
Ding dong! I think I know how to answer her!
“Yes, yes! I’m from Mothien Academy and we are currently having a field trip at this city, as a cultural study!!” Man! I appreciated myself how good my imagination was to build that fake story so fast!
“Oh I see, I see!” And I’m glad she believed my story.
“We… Because this is a field trip, so Mothien Academy ordered us to immigrate with the life of people here. Now we are looking for an inn so… do you have any recommendation for us to have a good renting for four persons?”
I could even feel the cold sweat slowly rolling down on my forehead…
“Sure, of course! Lucky for you, our inn just opened today so we don’t have any customer yet. How about an offer: 3 coins of gold for a room of four persons until the end of your field trip?”
It’s damn convenient!! Without thinking twice, I immediately accepted her!!
“Yes, please! REALLY THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!!”
After saying goodbye to the dark-elf woman, I picked up the cage egg and went back to the city’s Fontaine to wait for Galen and Roman. When the sun slowly descend behind the city’s buildings, we gathered back and reported our progress.
Roman found the way to go to the costume shop, sadly, the price was too high so he wasn’t capable to buy the local outfits for all of us.
On Galen’s side, he told us he found the adventure guild in this city too. But all the easy quests had been taken by the civilians, only the hard ones left so he needed time to reconsider and discuss with us first, before deciding picking one.
It was actually the good result enough. Then, I reported them my situation as well.
“You’re so cool, Liana. That’s the hardest task and you easily nailed it!”
Galen and Roman didn’t stop give me compliment that embarrassed me. Aye… actually I did nothing. It was just lucky to encounter a kindhearted dark-elf who were willing to help us.
“Let’s head back to the inn guys.” I suggested, since it was almost the nighttime. Also, I haven’t tried to enter into that place before!
“Sure! I can’t wait too!”
***
I led the team and follow the guidance that the woman gave to me. It was a small white paper. But when I said “Illuminate”, the paper piece would be glowing up, floated up above us and led us the way as the address mentioned about. Not only that, that paper shined a comfortable weak light, so even in the nighttime, we could see the way as well.
The little paper led us inside the alley. The more we walked, the darker our surrounding scenery was. Around us, the fog was even thicker and blurred our vision. The only light resource was from the paper only.
Deep in my heart I felt a little worried, would she scam us again like how that wolf business man did to us that morning?
“You said she is a dark-elf right?” Roman asked “I don’t mean all dark-elves are bad people but…”
“Yeah, but don’t worry. If she would do something, I will mercilessly turn into a dragon and crush her down.”
Aye, now we realized how important Frank is in our adventure. Without him, we couldn’t distinguish who is the good guy, who is the bad guy to trust on anymore.
Suddenly, Roman told us to stop.
“Wait, guys.” His cat ears waggled and his body went immobilized “I think I heard something.”
“Prepare to fight, everyone.”
Galen was right, maybe there were enemies! We formed into circle. Our backs contacted each other and was ready for the battle.
We had to be cautious and keep our formation like that, while following the guidance paper. We even didn’t dare to cause any sound to catch the attention of the enemies. We couldn’t know how many are they all… Also, this thick fog would limit our vision in the combat a lot. We had to be careful as much as possible.
Then, above a giant building, I then heard the voice.
“Ho ho ho~ First customers!!”
“First customers!”
“FIRST CUSTOMERS!!”
The longer I stayed here the more I felt the thing becoming so weird. I couldn’t see anything through the fog, but could hear someone screaming with a child’s voice. There wasn’t only one of them, many many standing from the buildings roofs and looked at us. Their eyes sparkled the creepy red dots and surrounding us.
“What are they?” I asked.
“Just my theory… They are goblins.” Roman answered with a drop of sweat rolled down on his forehead “This is bad, I never think to encounter them in such situation.”
“Wait guys, listen to them and keep following the paper.”
The three teenagers kept going deeper in the dark alley. More and more goblins from the building’s roofs look at them. Not only that, they even sang:
“Welcome, welcome!
To the darkest side of Eastpine city!
Light? Impossible to reach here!
But our service?
Number ONE guaranteed!
Welcome, welcome!!”
I… I guessed they were welcoming us? I thought. But their song sang by their creepy voice was so weird that gave me a goosebumps.
***
The goblins kept singing while jumping around the alley. But none of them approached us by jumping to the ground. As far as I had ever known, goblins were normally aggressive species. If they had this such behavior, they might be trained by a monster master.
I was losing in my thought, until realizing that the paper stopped in front of the giant iron double gates.
I had already a bizarre feeling when stepping into this realm.
As the double gates opened, they showed us a scenery of unexpected whole new world.
“GYAHH!! WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!!” Galen, Roman and I hugged together and screamed in fear.
- Writer
