The Last Rest

“Eww.” Prix gasped, looking into her teacup. Aka, Garia, and Carrot all looked away to face the opposite direction,

“Not ever a thank you?” Luna asked angrily as she walked closer,

“I’m happy for you, Captain,” Idalec said, placing the last teacup in front of Luna as she elected to stand at the table,

“Thank you~” Luna said happily. “It seems that everyone else hates me around here,” Luna said slowly, giving death glares at all the party members except Idalec.

“Have you thought that people don’t like you because you're disorderly?” Idalec asked, standing up and incinerating the head along with all the blood that it spilled out onto the floor.

“I’m not disorderly!” Luna yelled at Prix, needing to yell but unable to yell at Idalec.

“You are chaotic.” Idalec said, sitting down, “And is that not the same as disorderly?” picking up his cup to drink.

“Whatever.” Luna scoffed as she drank her tea in silence. And making sure everyone felt just as miserable with her gaze. After the heroes finished drinking tea, they made use of the inn and fell asleep. Luna, Prix, and Idalec went to a room with Sato and harem, pulling a few beds together in one room.

“Prix!” Sato was pounding on Prix’s door so loudly that it woke up Idalec, who was on the opposite side of the hallway. “Idalec!” Sato exclaimed, jumping up and down while still pounding on Prix’s door, “I just remembered that today’s my two-week anniversary of being summoned!” Sato then turned back to Prix’s door,

“I woke up.” Prix’s muffled voice came from behind the door.

“Come on! Prix, you promised to buy me a slave, and it’s our anniversary today!” Sato said. The movement in Prix’s room seemed to slow down a little,

“SHUT UP!” Luna kicked down her door, causing Sato to instantly stop knocking on Prix’s door.

Prix walked out of her room looking gloomy, a hand dropping from her neck. “I’m ready.”

“Perfect!” Sato ran off like a kid ready to get gifts for his birthday.

“Idalec, can you come with us?” Prix whispered as she dragged her feet,

“As you wish,” Idalec replied, following after Prix, who sped up to follow Sato. Outside the inn, Aka stood near the door holding a halberd,

“Oh, Aka, you're here?” Sato said, surprised,

“Was…” Aka said, looking down at the floor, “I could go back to your room.”

“No, I’m just,” Sato motioned his hand around as he held his tongue, “That axe spear thingamajigger… you look like you can use it.” Sato finished,

“Thank you, Master Sato.” Aka looked up,

“Where did you put…” Sato started walking further away from the door until he, along with Prix and Idalec, was engulfed in a crowd of gawkers. In the middle were three demon corpses, one beheaded and two that were guarding the inn. “Come on, Prix! Idalec!” Sato said, pushing through the crowd of a hundred people to make a beeline for the slave market.

“Who did this?” “I heard movement in the morning…” “Wasn’t there a rumor that the Liran army is moving to Sigfire?” “Yeah, yeah.” “Could it have been Aleppolis killing his competitor?” The crowd was murmuring in hushed voices as they looked at the corpses.

“Why would people look at that?” Prix, her voice quivering and a frown on her unblemished face,

“Everyone loves a good beheading.” Sato scoffed as they walked into another crowd, this one a little smaller, consisting of fifty people, right outside the slave market. “NO!” Sato said, horrified, “You don’t think they’re trying to buy all the slave girls before me?” Sato said, pushing aside people who were looking at the two dead demons Sato and Luna killed here; their boots, armor, and weapons had been stripped.

Sato didn’t care.

Sato walked right over the corpses, causing the crowd to pull back in terror as Sato kept pushing past them. Prix kept her head down, hands on either side of her face as if making eye contact would make her drop dead, and Idalec, for his part, simply walked behind Prix at a graceful pace, following the path around the demons she took.

“Come on!” Sato braced himself as he tried the door to enter the slave market. It clicked open. “Fortune is good,” Sato remarked, walking in, holding the door for Prix and Idalec. “Now I’m thinking I want a cat girl.” Sato looked over to Idalec, who walked right up to the bulletin board. “You.” Sato pointed to the only other person in the lobby, a man in a red blazer who was just lying down on a couch looking up at the ceiling.

“Yeah?” he asked to the ceiling,

“Can you sell me a cat girl?”

“Mmm.” The man propped himself up and took a paper beside him, his eyes skimming line by line. “What for?”

“What do you mean, what for? I want to own her?” Sato said, Idalec looking back from the board,

“Are you looking for a cat folk to carry your things? To hunt with you?” the man clarified with a very unimpressed look,

Sato thought about it for a second. “Do you have a cat girl with a big chest?”

The man looked at him for a few seconds before looking at Prix and Idalec. “Could you show us around?” Idalec suggested, “Our friend will make it worth your time.”

“Any customer is worth my time.” The man said, winded and with eyes which seemed to have found something interesting on the floor, “My name is Emmanuel.” He added, leading them out of the room and to the back. “You wanted…” Emmanuel asked dryly,

“A. Big. Chested. Cat. Girl.” Sato clapped out his request to Emmanuel,

“Yeah…” Emmanuel said, walking around the small slave yard which had some thirty cages, all on one side of the yard and the rest of the space being empty.

“This is our selection of cat folk girls…” Emmanuel rubbed his face with his right hand as he motioned with his left hand, showing off four cats,

“Her!” Sato pointed to a cat girl with puffy black fur sitting in her cage introspectively,

“That’s…” Emmanuel’s eyes glide across the page,

“Twenty-three! Twenty-three! Twen-” Sato raves,

“I understand, sir.” Emmanuel looked up with a thin smile before he looked back at his list, “She can be yours for two and a half gold.”

“Why does she cost almost as much as Sunya?” Sato asked angrily of Idalec,

“She must have a good nature.” Idalec said as he kept watching twenty-three stay totally still, ‘She might be slow.’