You decide not to waste time with Lyanna and hurry to get Rosetta to Eisheth as soon as possible.
“Do that,” you say to Epsilon, agreeing to have her go with Lyanna to the adventurer’s guild. “Make sure she doesn’t try to slip away through a window or something.”
As you say that you keep moving to not lose track of Rosetta. With Lyanna and Epsilon leaving, you take a deep breath and confidently pace around the stand with apples, pear, and some other fruits, straight toward Rosetta who’s apparently shopping for vegetables. The owner of the vegetable stand is a lizardman in standard merchant’s clothing, and he hands her a smooth, purple vegetable, about the size of a foot.
“Excuse me, is your name Rosetta?” you ask politely, speaking up from a moderate distance to not startle the young adventurer.
“Of course I am!” Rosetta turns to you, all smiles, with a smooth, almost glossy eggplant in her hands. “How can I help you?”
“A certain woman named Eisheth said you could help us find a kidnapped girl.”
Rosetta gasps and says, “Who would do such a horrible thing? Of course, I’ll help in any way I can!”
Well, that was easy, you think and say, “In that case, we should—
“Ooh~ a bunnykin!” Rosetta throws the eggplant to the store owner (who, despite being startled, manages to catch it) and jumps to Alpha and zip-zaps around her examining her body. “I haven’t slept with your kind before. Does your tail hurt when you sit in a chair? Do you eat only carrots? Are these real? If I rub your ears will you start feeling funny?”
“Rosetta, could you not harass my subordinates?” you ask the blue-haired girl.
“I could,” Rosetta says and continues to fondle Alpha’s body, who ignores her existance and just stands there like a statue.
“And will you?” you ask with a strong indication in your tone that Rosetta should stop.
“Should I?
“Yes! Now!”
“Alright,” Rosetta says with a pouty face and steps away from Alpha.
“Back to what we were talking about,” you try to get the conversation back on track. “Eisheth—
“If I paid you to have sex with Eisheth while I watched, would you do it?” Rosetta keeps interrupting you.
“W-what?” you stutter and glance at the lizardman merchant to keeps rearranging a pile of cucumbers while pretending not to listen.
“I know, I know—there’s a risk you might die from pleasure,” Rosetta waves the issue off and dismissively tilts her head as if she just said there’s a risk of you catching a cold. “But the experience would be out of this world!”
Then Rosetta comes closer and whispers in your ear, “And frankly, you don’t look like the type that could get a lot of action on his own.”
This… little…
“Rosetta. Can you please focus?” you ask with little hope or patience in your tone. “A girl. Kidnapped. Needs your help. Remember?”
“Oh, of course! I’m your girl!” Rosetta skips back and bows elegantly. Then she raises her head and asks, “By the way, what’s the pay?”
Your mouth opens slightly but no words come out. So, she’s that kind of an adventurer? I wonder if that’s the norm if she’s the most popular. Not that money would be an issue in the long run. And we should have some any minute now.
“We’ll discuss the details when we meet up with Eisheth,” you postpone the subject of compensation for the moment. “But we must hurry!”
“Say no more!” Rosetta says and goes back to picking vegetables.
You’re convinced that your eye twitched.
“When I say hurry, I meant we must go right now.”
“I always make a vegetable salad before going on a quest,” Rosetta says without looking at you, apparently in great though about which vegetables to pick.
Maybe I’ll have more luck with that Anthony kid—
“William!” you hear Epsilon screaming and turn around to see her run outside the adventurer guild’s building.
“Don’t scream,” you say strongly to Epsilon when she’s withing speaking range. “What happened? Where’s Lyanna?”
“She wanted to go to the bathroom first, so I waited outside. But she took forever, didn’t come out, didn’t respond. By the time I broke down the door she was already gone through the window inside. I tried to follow, but… I couldn’t fit through.”
Oh, for fuck's sake… It takes all you have in you not to groan. Just when you were making some progress, this happens. The loss of money for the claws is trivial—you can always make more. But the fact that someone dares to try and trick you… More importantly, you cast [Submission] on Lyanna during the dire wolf attack. Did it wear off already? Was it even supposed to wear off? The others do not appear to be any different in the slightest.