Chapter 53: Horny wolves

Edward looked up and noticed the time should be around noon. Fixing his eyes on the wolf under him next, he decided to spends the rest of the day with Minx. He felt that she deserved some more attention after everything she went through, even if she said she didn’t remember anything.

Instructing Minx to head for their usual hiding place, near the southern gate of the city, he was relieved to notice that nature has started recovering and the damage brought forth by the flying magic beast and Minx’s outburst has already started healing by itself.

Taking a seat down on a freshly grown patch of grass, Edward patted the spot to his side, indicating for Minx to sit near him.

He spent the remaining of the day just speaking to Minx while petting her soft fur. He talked a little bit about his old life, feeling uncomfortable to get too deep in the subject, a bit about Fenrir, about his curse and so on. He knew that, with Minx being able to speak and fully understand his words, he had to let tell her a few things. He even spoke about his goal of going against a literal God, even if Minx didn’t really understand the concept of one.

He spent the night as usual, letting the wolf out to hunt. In the morning of the next day, he said goodbye to Minx and started heading for Violet’s inn. Violet was the one he wanted to see the most.

As he walked through the inn’s doors, he spotted Violet busy serving breakfast, as was her morning routine, so he took a place at one of the tables and just followed her with his eyes. She was wearing the same outfit she always did, the white sleeves of her blue simple dress rolled high, exposing her pale arms that were wrapped around a simple metal tray.

Violet didn’t notice him at first, looking quite busy, but as she was bringing some ale to one of her regular customers, he whispered something to her.

“-kya.”

The customer, who has known Violet for quite a long time as a shy and modest girl, was caught off-guard by her sudden yelp, as did the other demi-humans inside the inn.

Violet shyly covered her red face as she tried to turn around, embarrassed by the noise her own mouth has made earlier, but her move didn’t help as her eyes now met Edward’s. She wanted to walk up to him and welcome him back, but she felt inexplicably ashamed of herself. Edward noticed this and smiled as he made a sign towards her to come to him.

Violet did her best to suppress the emotions she was feeling as she unsteadily walked towards Edward.

“Morning, Violet.”

“Good morning, Edward.” Replied Violet before taking a deep breath, her face just as red as before, “Do you want something to eat? Or maybe a drink?”. In her nervousness, her mind reverted back to asking the same questions she would ask any other customer.

“No, thank you. I just came by to see you. Do you mind sitting down for a bit?”

Violet blushed even fiercer as she quickly took a seat across from him and started fidgeting with her fingers under the table, her head lowered in embarrassment.

‘Why are you like this, Violet? Haven’t you already kissed him? Haven’t you already decided you wanted to get closer to him? Why are you like this?’ she kept berating herself in her mind, frustrated by how she ended up behaving, but her eyes never left the empty plate in front of her.

Edward found her behavior adorable and he was also in quite a good mood. Raising his body slightly over the table, he grabbed one of her hands and said: “It’s good to see you. How have you been?”

Violet nodded shyly and said: “Good. You? How are you back so early?”. Her head remained lowered throughout the entire sentence, too embarrassed to make eye contact with Edward.

“The quest proved quite difficult but luckily we pulled through. I’ve returned quite early because I had Minx to carry me on the way back.” Replied Edward, a small shadow of gloom passing by his eyes.

“Minx? Is that the wolf you were ridding on when I came in the forest?” asked Violet, blushing once more as her thoughts went to the kiss the two of them shared in the forest.

“Yes, she’s my companion and friend. Next time I want to properly introduce you two to…” replied Edward, only for his words to be interrupted by Violet suddenly bringing her hands up, breaking away from his hand, and loudly slapping her own cheeks.

“Violet?”

“Sorry, Edward. I’m fine now.” Replied Violet, her cheeks now a little bit swollen after the loud slap, but finally able to make eye contact.

“I’d like that, but I can’t really leave the inn for too long.”

“I’ll soon try to obtain a permit for her to enter the city as my beast companion. If I can do that, I’ll bring her by and properly introduce you two.” Replied Edward, smiling slightly as he found her antics to be quite adorable.

The two of them continued speaking for a bit more time about what each of them did in the time Edward was away from the city, with Edward doing most of the talking since Violet was in the inn almost all the time. He didn’t mention the death incident since it would not be easy to explain, but he told her about the village there, the shadow he fought, the rift and so on.

As Edward started feeling they were running out of things to talk about, he figured it would be best to take his leave and said: “I’m going to report the completion of my quest at the guild and have a talk with a few members of my party. I’ll come by later to see how you are doing.”

Violet nodded and followed after Edward towards the main door. Walking outside, Violet grabbed her dress and said with her head lowered: “C-Can we kiss?”. It looked like it took all her strength to let out those four words, causing Edward to smile as he came closer and moved one hand around her waist. He didn’t say it, but he missed the taste of her lips as well.

Using one hand to lift her head by her chin, he brought his face closer and locked lips with her. Violet brought her small hands around Edward’s neck and followed Edward’s movement.

After a while, Edward broke the kiss and took a step back: “I’m going now. Take care, Violet.”

“You too, Edward.” Replied Violet, a bit absentmindedly, one of her fingers grazing gently over her bottom lip like she was indulging in the aftertaste.

Edward smiled slightly and turned around, heading for the adventurer guild. After entering the familiar building, he headed straight for the second floor and walked up to Lara’s counter.

Seeing Edward approach, Lara smiled and said: “You back already? How was the quest?”

“It’s done…”. Edward proceeded in carefully explaining everything that he encountered on his quest, leaving out only Minx’s death and resurrection.

Lara pondered his words for a moment before saying: “You would usually have to go to the quest completion desk and deliver your report, but since this might concern the formation of a new dungeon, I think it’s better for you to report this directly to the leader. Wait a moment.”

Lara stood up and walked towards the guild leader’s office. A couple of minutes later, she returned and said: “The guild leader asked that you go inside and report everything to him.”

Edward nodded and thanked Lara before walking inside Faelyn’s office.

Seeing Edward walk in, Faelyn stood up with a hearty laughter and pointed towards the chair in front of his desk: “Edward, my boy, take a seat.”

“Guild leader.” Replied Edward with a bow before sitting down as instructed and he started recounting his tale right away.

“Are you saying that after you killed that shadow monster, the rift stopped appearing?” asked Faelyn once the report was over.

“Yes. I stayed one more night to check, but the rift never opened again and no other shadow returned. I don’t know if by killing the shadow I’ve stopped a new dungeon from opening or not.”

“Hmmm, what about the core? Do you have it?”

Edward made an awkward face and scratched the back of his head as he replied: “About that… My beast companion ended up eating it. I’m sorry, guild leader.”

“Hmm. I would have liked to see the core myself, but what’s done is done… we’ll just wait for news of any change from the village.” Said Faelyn before writing something on a piece of paper and handing it to Edward: “Give this to Lara on your way back. You are free to go and don’t forget to come by out house when you have time. I’m sure my daughter has really missed you.”

Edward did his best to keep a straight face and left after thanking the guild leader.

Passing by Lara’s office, he handed her the small note he received.

Lara took a small badge from under the counter before handed it to Edward along with a heavy pouch. The badge was mostly the same as his old adventurer badge, only this time the F letter was replaced with E. Opening the pouch, he noticed what looked like tens of gold coins inside and looked curiously at Lara, waiting for an explanation.

“The guild leader decided you should be rewarded 20 gold coins for protecting the village, even if it wasn’t in the initial request. He also awarded you an additional 30 gold coins for delivering information about a new dungeon.”

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“But that is just a possibility. There is no guarantee a new dungeon would form.” Even if he didn’t report it since he would have to explain Minx’s resurrection, he knew that with the rift getting destroyed by the world tribulation, the chances of a dungeon opening there were minimal.

“Those are the guild leader’s instructions. I find it weird myself, but you shouldn’t worry to much about it. The leader must have his reasons.”

Edward had an idea about those reasons, but he kept silent and thanked Lara for her help before walking towards the exit.

‘Is this part of that old fart’s attempt to pimp his daughter to me? Kara will probably skewer the old man if she found out.’

“I should go to the market and buy some more clothes, but I have to let Ingvar know I’m back in the city…” mumbled Edward as he changed direction and started heading towards Ingvar’s house.

Arriving in front of Ingvar’s house, he opened the door before Edward could even step on the stairs and said: “It’s good that you are back. How was the quest?”

“It was alright. I came to let you know I’m back and that I’m ready to go dungeon exploring again.” After the last few incidents, Edward’s desire to grow stronger only increased. He couldn’t bear losing someone important to him just because he was too weak.

Ingvar made an awkward look and said: “That will have to wait for a while more. Echo took a mission from the guild and I don’t know when she’ll return.”

Edward nodded and after a few more cursory words with Ingvar, headed for the marketplace. There, he first visited the clothing shop he was not allowed into before because of his smell. Walking inside, he started browsing the obviously high quality clothes until the same girl as last time came up to him.

“Customer, if you need any help with trying out some of our clothes or complete any purchase, let me know and I’ll happily assist you.”

‘It seems she doesn’t remember me.’ Thought Edward as he nodded towards the girl with a smile before going back to browsing through the clothes.

Since he was not thrown out like last time and he had quite a lot of money on his hands, he ended up buying quite a few pairs of leggings and shirts. He chose only black clothes, mostly because he felt a lot more comfortable wearing dark colors.

Being done with his shopping, he paid a total of five gold coins for all the clothes, leaving a few silvers as tip for the nice lady, and headed out. The problem was the fact that he didn’t manage to buy any underwear so, after some pondering, he started looking for that guy he brought from last time. Not being able to find his stall even after searching for quite a while, Edward gave up and decided to leave the marketplace and return another day.

With Echo out of the city, he didn’t really have that much to do and didn’t feel like visiting his master today. As he was leaving the marketplace, Edward happened to spot a small stall manned by a little girl that was selling flowers and his thoughts went straight to Violet.

After buying some unknown violet flowers that he thought looked and smelled quite nice, Edward started heading towards the inn.

As he walked inside, he approached Violet who was counting some coins behind the counter and, lifting the flowers in front of him, he presented them to Violet.

Violet, not expecting the gesture, blushed and asked timidly: “F-For me?”

Edward nodded, feeling quite embarrassed himself, not really remembering the last time he bought a girl flowers. Violet smiled and happily took the flowers from his hand before smelling them while closing her eyes.

“Thank you.” Said Violet as she skipped towards the back room, looking for something to put them on. She came back with a wooden mug filled with water and placed the flowers on the counter of the inn before thanking him again.

Edward nodded back and asked: “Can I have the key to my room? I need to leave all these clothes there.”

“Sure.” Replied Violet as she clumsily picked one of the keys under the counter and handed it to Edward.

Edward thanked her and walked upstairs, key in hand. As he was walking up the stairs, he heard a small chuckle coming out of his arm but ignored it, not willing to hear Fenrir make fun of him.

After placing his clothes on the bed of his room, he changed, locked the door and walked back downstairs. Handing the key to Violet, she surprised him by asking: “Are you busy right now?”.

Seeing Edward shake his head, she continued: “Do you mind coming somewhere with me? I planned on going alone, but would really like it if you came too.”

Edward had no idea where she wanted to go, but nodded nonetheless. He planned on spending some time with her anyway.

After speaking with a demi-human there and letting him take care of the inn for some time, Violet changed into a new set of clothes and they both walked out of the inn.

“Where are we heading?” asked Edward as they were walking around the demi-human district.

A bittersweet smile appeared on Violet’s face as she said: “I want to visit my father and introduce you to him…”

Edward already knew he passed away so he just remained silent. Minx’s recent brush with death also brought back some bad memories. After walking by a few streets, they reached the city cemetery. After opening the gate, Violet led him past a few graves and stopped in front of a simple one. On the tombstone in front of it, there was only a name written <Arthur Glass>.

Violet’s eyes reddened slightly as she knelt down in front of the tombstone and whispered: “Father, I’m back.”

Edward felt quite awkward standing there, but seeing the pain in Violet’s eyes, he sighed and knelt besides her as well, grabbing one of her hands into his. Violet turned her head around and gave him a sad smile as she said: “Father, this is Edward. He is the one I told you stood up for me when the Swarm came for their protection tax…”

Violet continued speaking for almost a quarter of an hour, telling her father all the things that have happened during the last week as well as some stuff about Edward, which made him quite embarrassed. Nevertheless he continued holding onto her arm while caressing it gently. Once she was done, they both payed their respects, with Edward imitating Violet since he wasn’t that familiar with the customs, and they started walking towards the exit of the cemetery.

On the way back, Violet said softly: “Thank you for coming and I’m sorry for asking this all of a sudden..”

“It’s alright.” Replied Edward, a bit lost in thought. He hasn’t met his real father in his past life, his mother telling him he has died shortly before he was born. The man his mother brought home later down the line could not be called a father in Edward’ mind. Seeing Violet so attached to her father made him wonder how things would have turned out if his didn’t die. ‘Would he have been a good father?’

Seeing the forlorn expression on Edward’s face, Violet grabbed his hand and asked: “Are you all right? I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable...”

Brought back from his memories, Edward shook his head with a force smile and said: “I was just thinking about my family….”

Violet nodded silently and rested her head on his arm, choosing not to ask anything more and just show him she was there if he needed to talk.

As they passed by a small stall selling some street food, Edward dragged Violet towards it and ordered some sweets. He wanted to push those memories back and just enjoy his time with Violet. Once Echo returned from her quest, he knew he would be gone again for who knows how long and didn’t want to waste their time by thinking about his old life.

The atmosphere lightened up as they enjoyed their snacks on the way back. As the inn’s front door appeared in their sights, Edward said: “I think I’ll head back now. It’s already getting late.”

Violet stopped in her tracks and looked up from her place on his arm as she asked, blushing slightly: “Do you really have to go?”

Edward looked down and saw a trace of willfulness in her eyes, prompting him to ask: “Do you want me to stay?”

Violet didn’t voice it out, feeling to shy to do it, but just nodded as she lowered her head.

Edward smiled and gave her a small kiss on the top of her head, right between her ears as he said: “Alright. I’ll stay with you, but I must go let Minx know first. I don’t want her to worry.”

Violet’s ears perked up as she blushed with her head lowered, her heart beating wildly in her chest.

“Alright. Come to my room when you are done.” Said Violet before giving Edward a peck on the lips and bolting inside.

Edward made his way towards the place where he left Minx at, feeling quite excited himself. His first dream ever since he arrived in this world was about to come true, but his daydreaming was broken by a grumpy voice coming from the mark on his arm.

[Horny wolves…]

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