18 - Beans and Toast

What.

The ringing happened again, and again I heard;

~Mi!~

I stared dumbfounded at Toast, who was happily wagging his tail and snorting and spinning and jumping in place the way he always did after giving me the business when I came home.

Before I had time to process, Kana burst in behind me.

"Did you hear that?! What is that?! Is that-"

Toast barked at Kana's sudden appearance and grew more excited, and we heard a ringing.

~Mi! Ga! Mi! Ga!~

Kana and I looked at each other and I felt my eyes go misty. I dropped to my knees and Toast hopped up on my lap, and I showered him in affection while Kana giddily jumped up and down and squealed with delight. Maja appeared in the doorway rubbing her eyes and yawning.

"What's happening?"

"Maja! Toast is talking! He's talking to us!"

"What? Is it more barking in your head?"

Toast jumped off my lap and leapt over to Maja, sniffing her dress and sitting politely. He gave a confused look and tilted his head and looked at Kana. She understood something I didn't and knelt down next to him, and gave him some encouragement.

"It's Maja! Can you say Maja? Maaaaa-Jaaaaaaa?"

Toast sneezed.

"Come on! Maja! Maja!"

Toast sniffed Maja again, and looked up at her and smiled. Maja smiled back.

~Mmmma~

We all heard it that time, and had a small celebration in the doorway of my room. Toast received endless love from us and we let him have an extra Goblin meat for being such a good boy. Such a good boy!

When the excitement died down, the girls left for their rooms to go back to sleep and I propped myself up in bed, ready to stay up half the night talking to Toast. I looked over at him eagerly, but he had already fallen asleep next to his half eaten chunk of meat.

~~~~~~~~~

The next morning we gathered in the shop to discuss our day's plan, and Toast, now that he had found his voice, was very helpful in the conversation and contributed greatly.

"I have to finish up a doll for one of Pinnea's customers, could you take it over to the eastern district in the afternoon for me, Mitsuta?"

~Mi!~

"Yeah I can do that, I have to turn in a hunting quest from yesterday at the guild, and I made another stack of flyers I can hand out while I'm there."

~Mi!~

"Ohh, the east district. We haven't done much advertising over there yet, that would be nice."

~Mi!~

Toast happily jumped around and looked at us expectantly.

The 'four of us' chatted away, until Toast went on alert and barked at the door. I turned to look and a shadowy figure slipped out of sight outside the window. I got up to check it out, opened the door and poked my head out, and saw a foot peeking out from behind a crate to the side of the shop. I approached with caution, and saw a person in a grey hood and some basic adventurer's gear.

They cleared their throat and stood up quickly, placing their fingers over an eyepatch they were wearing. It was a young man probably about my age and height, with a very slim build based on how tight his 3 belts were fastened around his waist. He piqued my gamer interest, as he reminded me of a character from Final Extasy VII, or Assassin's Oath. He posed dramatically and smirked.

"You've done well to detect me."

I can already feel the 8th grader syndrome.

"Are you a customer? Can I help you?"

"Fool! The greatest assassin of our time would not need help from a weakling like you!"

I am weak, but I'm offended anyways.

"What do you want then? Why were you looking through our window?"

"I see you've already discovered that much of my mission. Then I shall tell you everything!"

I am just now meeting you for the first time. I have no idea who you are, but please go ahead.

"The guild has hired me to investigate your shop! Yes, they were in desperate need of someone as skilled in stealth as myself, so they sought the best! It's a shame you seem to have some semblance of skill yourself though, to discover me after only 4 days!"

Four days?! This weirdo has been spying on us for four days?! Has he seen Toast use skills? Has he seen Kana changing?!

My mind went wild with made-up scenarios as I just stood there becoming more and more annoyed with this jerk boasting in front of me. I'd had enough and interrupted his monologue.

"You need to chill out. Tell me, why does the guild want to investigate us?"

"A true assassin does not ask questions of his employer! He completes his mission with swiftness and accuracy, and returns only for payment."

"Got it, you don't know anything. Alright, well it was... We've met. Now get out of here."

I turned away and walked back towards the door of the shop. He sounded like he was protesting behind me, and I thought I heard a tone of regret in his voice, but I ignored it.

Just then Kana poked out of the doorway.

"Ohh! A customer! I was wondering what you were doing out here!"

"No Kana, he's not-"

She rushed past me and grabbed the assassin's arm, smiling cheerfully.

"Come in, come in! I've just made some tea, please have some!"

She's an adorably charming saleswoman, but please don't bring this idiot into our shop!

I was no match for Kana's hospitality, and before I knew it we were all sitting at the counter inside, drinking tea. Kana smiled and asked how we could help.

"Fool! The greatest assassin of our time would not need help-"

I slammed my teacup on its plate with a loud clink, and glared daggers at him. Toast barked at the sudden noise. Our 'customer' let out a small 'eek!' and awkwardly started over.

Big tough assassin I see.

"I- I'm not here for any help, miss... I was hired by the guild to spy on you, but I don't know why."

I clicked my tongue. Toast snorted and huffed. Probably because he wasn't getting any attention, but I was pleased it was coming across like an intimidation tactic.

"Y-you all seem like lovely people! And I haven't told them anything yet!"

Kana glanced at me with a concerned look. I hadn't thought about it properly because I was so irritated by this guy, but it would be a really bad idea to let him tell the guild about Toast. It was the only logical thing they could be looking into.

I tried to make eye contact with Maja, hoping for her to jump in with some wisdom, but as she usually did when there were strangers in the shop, she had taken a vow of silence and meekly stared into her tea with her ears pinned back. The only exception to her shyness was when someone needed healing, then she became confident and capable. Maybe if I injure him myself she'll open up.

Then Kana did something that shocked me, and solidified my hatred of this guy. She touched his hand gently and smiled at him.

"Thank you so much for telling us Mr. Assassin, I'm sure that was hard for you. The Guild can be really scary, right?"

The assassin's visible eye started welling up, and tears fell from it, and from underneath his eyepatch.

"They are so scaryyyyyyy! I don't even want to be an assassin! I'd just heard there was a demand for the job class, but by the time I finished school there was a surplus of assassins and now I can't find any work! My dad keeps putting pressure on me to be a working man and 'strike out on my own', and my younger brother has a nice permanent position in a factory and already has his own house and I-"

He rambled on like this for a while, and Kana patiently listened and occasionally patted his hand in comfort. I cursed him in my head but felt my hatred soften as his story went on. He was kind of relatable. He suffered the same pressures as the Japanese working class, so my feelings turned to comradery and pity.

Kana nodded her head as though she understood the situation completely.

"I understand the situation completely."

The assassin sniffled.

"Y-you do?"

"Yes yes, it's all clear to me now. You can work here with us!"

His eye gleamed.

"What?"

What.

"It makes sense doesn't it? We need help with deliveries, we can’t afford to pay him but we have the extra room upstairs, he needs to move out of his dad's house and figure out what he wants to do. Silver Bounty is just the place for people like that, don’t you think?”

I grimaced to think I was in the same position as him. I looked at Kana who seemed very proud of herself for thinking up the idea and conceded defeat to my angel. He looked hopeful, then confused, and asked the burning question I expected from every customer who found their way here.

“What do you even do here? I’ve been watching you for 4 days and I’m not even sure.”

Kana excitedly took the lead, and explained our ‘all-rounder’ business model.

“Do you have any other skills besides assassin...in..ing? Surely if you don’t want to do that job you have something else in mind you’d like to do. Maybe you can start doing it here!"

He mumbled something and bashfully looked at the floor.

“Pardon?”

“I like…baking.”

“Oh baking! I love baking too! I can’t say I’m very good at it but I love how cute baked goods turn out!”

“Right?! The feeling you get when you decorate a cake with lovely flowers, or shape cookies into cute monsters!”

The two of them had found their common ground and blissfully chatted back and forth about the hardships and rewards of baking desserts. As much as I loved seeing Kana speak so passionately about something, I had to interject with the bad news.

“Baking is all well and good, but we don’t have a kitchen here.”

Kana froze and her mood shifted to dejected and sad, but just like the Kana I knew and loved, she rallied quickly.

“We can figure that out later! He can help with deliveries for now, right? Oh wait, I can’t believe we’ve been chatting this long and we never properly introduced ourselves!”

His attitude flipped back to the cringey pompous dork and he stood and bowed to us.

“It is your greatest pleasure to meet the one and only; Tamomimu Mame!”