Chapter 286: Chapter 272 – Cooks and Crooks IV

Chapter 272 - Cooks and Crooks IV

Sylvia lay face-down atop the massive, shared desk. Her eyes were closed and all four of her legs were sprawled across the polished marble surface. She wasn’t quite asleep just yet, but she was at least halfway there, basking in the sunlight as it streamed through the open window.

Everything was ready. The shelves were stocked with reasonably priced goods, the doors were open, and the sign was set up outside. And yet, there was not a single customer anywhere in sight. Even Arciel was gone. There was only so much work she could leave to her subordinates, and she had already wasted over a week. Something or other was sure to go south if she didn’t soon return to her duties.

The idle fairy had retained a high level of energy even following the squid’s departure, but alas, it vanished by the time the second hour had passed. Her lethargy was shared by her chair. Claire was also lying on the desk with her face plastered against the wood and her motivation at an all-time low. Her top half, like Sylvia, was spread across the frigid marble, while her lyrkrian lower body was planted in a cushioned seat resembling a jellyfish’s bell—an extra large pillow custom ordered for her less humanoid form.

Lia was the only one of the three with any energy at all. She was happily humming the afternoon away, tapping the song’s beat out with one hand while toying with the feathered quill in the other. She wasn’t the slightest bit concerned, even with the complete and utter lack of interest shown by the passersby.

“I’m bored,” grumbled the groggy half-elf. “We aren’t getting any customers.”

“Don’t worry. I’m not really expecting anyone until people get off work.”

“Wait!” Sylvia’s ears perked up as she twisted her neck towards the bipedal cat and cast a suspicious glare. “You knew this was gonna happen!?”

“More or less,” said Natalya, with a calm smile.

“Then why the heck did we open this early!?” cried the hat. “And why are we just sitting around!? We could’ve played something at least!”

“Well, I did bring a few games along just in case, but you two looked like you were enjoying your naps, so I thought it’d be better not to bother you.”

“I wasn’t napping,” said Claire. She slowly peeled herself off the counter and regrew her chest spike. “What do we have?”

“How does quash sound?” said Lia, with a finger pressed against her chin.

“That doesn’t work with three,” said the moose.

“I’ve actually got a pretty good idea that’ll get us around that,” said the cat, as she pulled a trio of maps out from under the desk. “Each of us just needs to play two games at once.”

“Oh! That actually sounds kinda fun!” said Sylvia, with her eyes sparkling. “Wanna play with special pieces again today too?”

“I was thinking we should play a few normal games first, before we start with anything too crazy,” said Lia.

“Mmmmnnn… okay. One or two normal games doesn’t sound too bad, I guess.”

Because she had quickly grown bored of all the standard rules and limitations, Sylvia had come up with an idea that threw everything into disarray. She would sing the game pieces to life, animating the first of each class that the player created and bestowing upon them a set of unique properties, some beneficial, and others not so much. It was a variant that soon picked up steam, with many of its witnesses emulating her behaviour, albeit without any of the magic. Not everyone liked the variant, but its supporters touted it as far more realistic.

“Okay then let’s get started right away.”

Smiling happily, Natalya spread the maps on top of the table and placed her pieces in their starting positions.

And so began a trio of wars.

They continued to play throughout the afternoon, throwing their forces against one another until the sun finally sank beneath the horizon. During the day, they received a grand total of three visitors, all housewives that had stopped by on their routine grocery runs. While they had certainly been curious about the shop’s functions and features, none of them had decided to part with any of their coins.

It wasn’t until the sun started to set that the shop finally drew more attention. Pedestrians poked their heads inside, some to inspect the wares, others with their focus on the employees. And though the building no longer bore its previous appearance, there was even the occasional illiterate that asked what plays were showing. But overall, it was still fairly slow.

There wasn’t anyone that seemed particularly excited about the shop or its services until an expensive carriage, marked with a diamond-studded crest, pulled up right in front of it. A local celebrity, a woman with a particularly dog-like face and a dress as expensive as the building, stepped out from the coach with her lips a twisted smile.

“You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for this place to open,” she said, as she entered through the land-locked door.

“Auntie!” The cat made her way out from behind the counter and greeted her godmother with a hug. “It’s so nice to see you!”

“It’s nice to see you too.” The huskar lightly returned the embrace before taking a step back and retrieving a ribboned box from her fancy, crocodile leather purse. “I believe some congratulations are in order.”

“Awww, thank you! You didn’t have to!”

Lia immediately moved to unwrap the box, but the dog lady stopped her with a wave of the finger. “Why don’t you save that for a little bit later and show me around the shop for now?” she winked at the cat before glancing at the muttering crowd gathered outside. “What was it that you were going to sell again?”

Natalya twisted her lips into a merchant’s smile without missing a beat. “Oh, it’s really simple, Auntie,” she said, as she adjusted her glasses. “We’ve got everything an adventurer might need.”

“Everything?” asked the old lady, with an exaggerated gasp.

“Everything,” confirmed Lia. “But our most valuable service isn’t anything you’ll see on the shelves. We offer classes and consulting services, and we can even help people find the tasks best suited for them.”

“That does sound fairly valuable. It’s a shame I'm getting on in the years, else I’d try out some of your services for myself.”

“Don’t worry, Auntie. You still can. I’m sure we can find you something.”

The merchant broke into a laugh. “No, no. Those days are behind me now. I’d much rather be on the other end of it all.”

“In that case, we have a board of our own where you can put up requests. Unlike the job board, we’ll only accept things that either involve or run the risk of violence, however. So that’ll be requests related to dungeons, bandits, monsters, and the like.”

“In that case, I happen to have a few things in mind. You see, it happens that we’re running into a little bit of a material shortage, and we were looking for some skyweaver silk to make up the difference.”

“I can have that request processed and listed immediately.” Lia walked over to the counter and grabbed a piece of paper. “How much material were you looking for, and what sort of remuneration were you hoping to offer? Given how dangerous skyweaver nests can be, I would recommend a silver coin for every pound, with the precise value determined by the quality and length of the…”

A wave of exhaustion washed over the lyrkress as the discussion passed through her ears. Claire knew that she was supposed to pay attention, so that she could mimic the cat’s mannerisms going forward, but she couldn’t be bothered to focus. There were too many unimportant details, most of which were only relevant to the specific case in mind. Even with her mind slowly blanking, however, she managed to get the gist of it; Natalya used some common sense, her godmother played along, and the crowd walked away impressed. The end result was an influx of customers and questions, all of which the cat handled without breaking a sweat. She even managed to net a few sales, namely an adventurer looking for a new watch and a butcher that hadn’t been able to find any skinning knives, courtesy of the city’s stock mysteriously vanishing overnight.

Claire, for the most part, stayed in her half-dormant state until she noticed an urchin make his way into the shop. The suspicious little boy hid his animalistic features beneath an oversized hood, but the mere cloth could do little to hide the excess of fur peeking out from within.

His eyes nervously flitted around. They stopped briefly on the counter, but he turned them away again when he found the clerk already occupied. There seemed to be a few other seats, as well as some in-progress board games set up on top of it, but the closest thing to a player he could find was an orange stuffed doll. It at least allowed him to determine that he was in the right place, but he couldn’t find its owner no matter how much he looked around.

Though he had only intended on looking for the girl in question at first, he soon found himself curiously browsing the shelves. He reached for one of the watches, but he stopped himself short of touching it. He didn’t know how pricey it was, but it was no doubt completely outside his range.

He walked up and down the aisles, carefully inspecting each section with stars in his eyes. He even found himself outside the restroom eventually, and pressed a fluffy, round ear to the door to check if anyone was inside. Perhaps, he thought, the girl had eaten something unsanitary.

“What are you doing?”

An ice-cold voice nearly shocked him out of his skin in the middle of his questionable deed. He immediately straightened his back and spun around, taking care to pull his hat further over his head.

“N-n-nothing!” he half-shouted the words, drawing the eyes of the other guests. “J-just looking around.”

He immediately assumed the white-haired lady was staff. She was wearing the same outfit as the catgirl at the counter and giving him an unwelcoming look. To that, he was no stranger. There weren’t too many that took kindly to orphans.

“I-I came here because I heard about this place from your little sister!” he said, after taking a few moments to stare at her awfully familiar face.

“I’m an only child.”

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“O-ohh… then uhh… your daughter?”

“I don’t have a daughter.”

The boy was briefly baffled, but he soon recovered with a shake of the head. “W-well your niece or something then, whatever! A few days ago, I saw a girl that looked just like you but way smaller! She was messing around in our territory and beat up a few guys.”

“So you’re here for revenge?” The clerk tilted her head as she produced a dagger with a lizard-like motif.

“I-I swear I’m not!” he said, with a nervous gulp. “I heard that this place is supposed to teach you to fight!” He reached into his pocket and scrounged up a small handful coins. “And I want to sign up.”

“Oh.” The clerk tossed her weapon away. The boy was confused for a moment; it looked like the blade would bury itself in the floor and ruin it, but it turned into a strange four-legged creature as it hit the ground and lazily walked away.

Her expression still unchanged, the white-haired lady gestured for him to follow and walked over to the counter. “Talk to her when she’s done.” She pointed at the cat-eared lady before sitting down in the empty seat, crossing her arms, and turning her eyes on the games in progress.

“Huh? Weren’t you going to help me?” he asked, eyes wide.

“Nope,” said the long-eared girl, with a shrug. “I don’t know how signing up works.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be a receptionist?” he asked.

“And a bouncer,” she said, with a shrug. “Mostly a bouncer.”

“But then that means you’ve gotta know how to fight, right?”

“Of course I know how to fight,” she leaned onto the desk and lazily propped up her face with her hands. “But that doesn’t mean I know how to teach.”

“Well, I mean, it can’t be that hard, can it?” he scrunched up his face. “I doubt the jerks at the northern wharf really know all that much about teaching either, and it seems like they’re doing fine. Can’t you just teach me the way you learned?”

The receptionist rolled her eyes. “I learned by jumping headfirst into hordes of monsters. I can arrange for that, if that’s what you want.”

The boy vehemently shook his head.

“Exactly. Now shut up and wait.”

The boy nodded as he shifted over and positioned himself a few meters behind the man engaging the other receptionist. He thought of stepping a little closer, so that any other prospective guests would recognize that he was waiting his turn, but he quickly shook his head and purged the thought. The last thing he wanted was for the man to accuse him of trying to steal his wallet. He had been run out of far too many stores for that already.

While the catgirl continued to entertain the other customer, he allowed his eyes to slowly wander around the shop. And the more he looked beyond its shelves, the more out of place he felt. He couldn’t tell exactly what the building was made out of, but it was nothing like the shoddy shack that he and the others lived in. The structure was perfectly windproof, and the only dirt present stemmed from the customers that entered from the outside.

It wasn’t just the construction that differed, but the accompanying decorations as well. The candle-covered spiky thing that hung from the ceiling, for example, was worth an incredible amount. One of the other boys, who had broken something just like it, had simply vanished from the district overnight. According to the pirates, they had sold him and both his sisters to make up the difference.

The pictures on the wall were much harder to judge. He knew that the most expensive paintings were worth many times their weight in gold, but he could never quite tell the difference between a masterwork and a piece of junk. The only thing he knew for sure was that, regardless of whether or not they were valuable, they were at least expensive to make. They looked a lot thicker than the paintings he saw in the pirates’ collections, and it almost seemed like the various objects illustrated were caked with extra oil and colour so that they would jut out like they were real.

The man in front of him finally wrapped up his business after another few minutes of discussion, but the cat-eared receptionist didn’t notice him. She turned around and walked away, not looking back until a large bluish-white limb rose from under the table and forcibly gave her a spin. When the catgirl realised that there was another customer, albeit one that was barely visible beneath the counter, she twisted her lips into an apologetic smile and returned to her seat with her hands clasped together.

“Hello. What can I do for you today?”

He was a little surprised that she didn’t talk down to him, like the other girl at the desk, or most other adults for that matter, but he returned the grin nonetheless.

“I want to learn how to fight.” Again, he presented the coinage he had available. Not all of it, of course. The spring was a busy season where the more magically endowed orphans could earn a decent amount of money, but he doubted that it would last. The nice old ladies at the soup kitchen had warned him that it was possible they would shut down on the new queen’s orders. That was why he was investing his income in the first place. If he could just learn to kill monsters, he would surely be able to bring home enough meat to feed everybody until they were full.

The boy gulped when the receptionist started to tap her quill against her glasses. “A-a little girl told me about this place. She kind of looks like the other receptionist, except she looked like she was my age.” He started rattling off at top speed. He couldn’t let her find an excuse to reject him. “She was really strong, and she beat up a bunch of pirates! I want to learn to be like her!”

“She did what?” The receptionist turned towards her coworker with a suspicious glare. “Claire! You were supposed to be advertising, no—”

“Their fault, not mine,” said the white-haired lady, as she turned her eyes away.

“Somehow, I doubt that.” The cat-eared receptionist heaved a sigh as she grabbed a form off the desk and quickly filled it out. “Can you read and write?” she asked, her eyes back on the boy.

“K-kind of.” The pirates never taught them anything, but the church that they visited on occasion had a kind nun that insisted on teaching them the basics at least.

“Okay. Then put your name here.” She pointed at a blank space on top of the page. “And circle everything you want to learn over here.”

He squinted at the top of the page, and after taking a few moments to confirm that she wasn’t binding him into slavery, quickly scribbled in his name and moved his eyes further down the form. There were a surprising number of options, basic classes on almost a dozen different weapon types, monster hunting tactics, and even a few elementary-level courses in magic theory. It took him a while to consider them all, but he eventually settled on just two.

Daggers were likely the only weapons he could afford, and the monster class seemed like it was the most useful, given his future plans.

The cat-eared clerk smiled when he turned the form back to her. “Ruben, is it?”

He nodded.

“Follow me.”

She began to move around the counter, but a tail grabbed her by the wrist before she could escape.

“Wait,” said the other clerk. “If you leave. Who’s going to manage the desk?”

“You, of course.”

The white-haired lady made an annoyed face and settled back into her seat. “Fine. But don’t blame me if everything goes wrong.”

“You’ll be fine.” The cat-eared lady smiled as she peeled the long scaly thing off her wrist and proceeded through a pair of double doors.

Following her, the tiny bear cub found himself in a large auditorium. He was thrown a wooden knife almost right away, with the lady taking up a stance in the middle of the massive room.

“Wait, you’re gonna teach me?” he said, wide-eyed. “Aren’t you just a desk lady?”

“Not exactly.” The air around her suddenly changed, warping from friendly to hostile, outright murderous. His fur stiffened and stood on end and his paws shivered in his boots, completely overwhelmed by the raw terror.

But his lips soon regained their smile.

He couldn’t help but marvel at the wild discrepancy.

She was the real deal.

Under her wing, he would learn to fight. And earn the freedom his mother had lost.

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