Chapter 5 ~ Epicure Delight

On my desk was a piece of parchment penned in an elegantly feminine handwriting. Reading through the note, I had learned during my slumber that Lily had managed to get most of the cleaning done, gathered up the laundry and had a list of items neatly written down that we needed. I could not help but feel a bit sadden by how much she was doing and for me to not share in the workload. She had to watch the shop during the daylight hours which was often the most active time along with everything else, as well as tending to the garden and gathering herbs.

I looked over the list of items that we needed as well as the notebook to see what our inventory was looking like along with the profit. Once I had finished, I removed my clothes and ensured I had them in a wooden box that I used for gathering up dirty clothes. After changing into a new set of clothes, I made my way up the stairwell. Entering into the main room, Lily was dealing with a customer. The man she was handing a bottled potion to was young in age. His short blond hair and piercing through his right earlobe made him stand out a bit due to the fact it was made of elven material. As Lily smiled and thanked him for his purchase, I noticed a small tattoo on his left wrist. It was a tattoo used to identify slave traders. There was always a possibility that the man had left the life of the slave trade but it was also possible that he was actively engaging with it.

The slave trade was a common trade craft to enter into. There were some that were even family owned and operated. Thieves, assassins, warriors, mages, even adventurers all needed assistants or to improve the work force of a guild. Of course it was all done in the shadows with most of the business coming from the more shady guilds. My sister and I had hired a slave girl once to use as a meal when we needed to feed on human blood. Surprisingly, the girl had no qualms in let the two of us partake. In fact, I believed that she enjoyed it in more ways then one. Had the girl not been weak and frail, she likely would have joined us, or rather my sister, before her untimely death.

Of course everything changed after my encounter with Lily. It was a course that changed history and shifted it onto the path I led now. A life of peace and quiet tranquillity in the countryside.

“Please stop by again,” Lily said to the man as he exited the shop.

Once the man had left, I looked over to Lily.

“Was that he final customer of the night?”

“Yeah. He didn’t talk much. Just asked for a potion. Anyway, I need to get changed before we go shopping.”

Lily made her way to the front door and flipped the sign on the door to read ‘closed’.

“Just wait for me here for a bit, okay?”

I nodded and leaned against the counter and closed my eyes as I heard Lily’s footsteps ascend the stairs. For a moment, the shop was silent until the sound of the front door forced one eye open.

“Sorry, we’ve just closed. You can come back tomorrow if you like.”

Making her way up to the counter was a young elven girl with long blond hair that was about the same shade as the previous man who was here. She wore her hair in a pair of pigtails tied off with black ribbons. Her forest green eyes stared into mine though I still could not be bothered to open my other eye. I had to admit that she was cute but sadly she was nothing more than an amateur who bored me the second she walked in. There was nothing for me to do but sigh.

The elf reached under her skirt where she had concealed a dagger. I barely with any effort dodged her weak excuse of an attack and pinned her right arm down onto the table. Within a flash, I had produced my own dagger in my hand and held the blade to her throat. The dagger was completely made of shadow magic and was as black as midnight. It was clear by the expression on the elven girl’s face that she was scared and a bit confused.

“How did you—”

“Are you familiar with shadow magic and how the weapons work?” I asked as I continued to maintain my bored expression.

“Let go of me!”

“Shadow weapons do not cause physical damage like a normal weapon. These types of weapons destroy the mind and drive the person hit with it to insanity. Weapons like these are invaluable to an assassin as they don’t leave a single mark.”

“Just let me go…”

The elf continued to struggle to free her hand but realised it was of no use as she tried not to show any fear. It was obvious that she was scared of what the blade could do. I had been on the receiving end of one too many of these weapons during training with my sister. It was possible to build up an immunity to the weapon’s effect but it was not an easy thing to do and most would die in the process. Basically, so long as you did not die, you would end up becoming stronger. Once an immunity was built up, the weapons became just cool looking shadows that could not harm a fly.

I could hear the sound of Lily making her way down the stairs.

“Nyizel, please try to be careful. You wouldn’t want to spoil your dinner.”

Lily smiled as she leaned against the counter. She was dressed and held her custom-made shotels on her hip.

“Glad to see you picked up on it too,” I said.

“What do you plan to do with her?”

“I’ll have a talk with her. Try not to kill the other one, okay Lily?”

Disarming the elf without any effort, I dragged her off into the basement, ensuring I kept a firm grip on her her wrist. Slamming her against the stone wall, I pulled out a normal steel dagger I always kept strapped to my thigh and hidden by my skirt.

“W-What are you going to do to me?”

“As I said, I’m just going to talk.”

I smiled and quickly cut her the surface of her finger. She seemed both confused and scared by what was going on. Squeezing the blood to the small paper cut wound, I gazed into the girl’s eyes.

“You should learn to hang around better people and live an honest life.”

Gently sucking the blood from the wound, I sheathed my dagger as the sound of a body upstairs hit the floor. The girl jumped at the sound, confused by what was going on.

“That is the sound of your partner being knocked unconscious right now. Use this as a way to start a new life.”

Sucking a small bit more of the girl’s blood, I released her and watched as she bolted up the stairs. Casually, I made my way up the stairs and found Lily still leaning against the counter with a bored expression on her face. She was unhappy. On the floor beside her was the man she had sold the potion to.

“I incapacitated him,” Lily said with a sigh.

“Sounds like he didn’t even put up a fight.”

“That’s because he didn’t! I was at least hoping to be able to have a proper fight.”

“I kind of figured he would not put up much of one. After all, you are an S-rank adventurer. Not many can keep up with you.”

“Guess we should take him to the guild and let them take care of him,” Lily said as I watched her grab the man by his shirt collar.

Lily the Crimson Demon was a name feared by many and a name I knew throughout my time in the world. Who could have guessed though that she and I would meet and end up living out our lives in the countryside.

“Yeah. Are you hungry? I could go for some red wine after that.”

Lily smiled as she turned her gaze to me.

“That sounds great! You should probably take care of him first…”

Looking over at the man, I thought about the best way to dispose of him. Grabbing him and carrying him down to the basement, I decided to drain him of all his blood so he could not betray the girl and serve as a good intake of blood – two vampires with one stake, so to speak. After sealing the door to my room, I headed back up the stairs and smiled as I looked to Lily.

“Now that all that is taken care of, where should we eat?” Lily asked as we closed up the shop and headed down the road.

“That is a good question.”

As I thought about where we could go to eat, I noticed a small stall by the roadside. These types of food stalls were abundant throughout the empire and while they were cheap, the food usually was fairly good according my sources. The red wine most of these stalls served was about average. I knew it was not the best but it was better than warm wine that tasted like expired condensed milk.

“Care to get some food there?” I asked.

“Sure! I love these stalls. The food they serve is always random so it’s always fun.”

Every stall was simple in its design. Throughout my long life, they were the one thing that did not change in how they did business. All the stalls were like merchants in a way. They travelled the world and carried a unique folding table. When the owner wished to set up shop, all he had to do was get out his table and set it up. For food, they would carry ingredients from around the world they collected and store it in a magical box. The idea was to would serve food from all over the world and it be random and different from owner to owner. While nearly everything was random, there were some items which did stay the same on their menus, such as red wine and noodles.

Approaching the stall, I noticed the owner had made use of various sized rocks near by to act as seating. Lily sat down on one of the rocks while I sat down beside her. The old man running the shop smiled and greeted the two of us. I ordered a simple glass of red wine while Lily decided to go with the noodles. One good thing about the stalls were the unique spices, herbs and sauces they had. Some owners got creative by serving various types of monster meat and blending it into their creations. According to a few people I once knew, the tears of dragons was truly a wonder to behold. While I was unable to partake in the unique dishes, I did learn a lot about the different ways one could prepare a Beholder’s eye for consumption. Apparently, it was rather euphoric in its flavour.

Once we had finished our meal, the two of us headed back to the shop. I thought about what to do with the dead corpse that would slowly be rotting away in my room. While the smell would not bother me, I knew it would likely get to Lily at some point.

“Hopefully your sister will come by soon. She disposes of dead bodies.”

“Yeah, don’t worry. When I see her, I’ll be sure to get her to take care of it. I was actually worried about the smell.”

“Thank you, Nyizel.”

Lily hugged onto my arm as we started to enter into the shop.

“I’m going to go get changed and get to sleep. What do you plan to do?”

“I might take a stroll and likely read a book after.”

“Why do I feel that’s code for something?”

“It’s actually not.”

Lily had always tried to crack the code my sister and I used when speaking to each other. The language was no different than speaking a normal conversation, the difference was in the context of the words and the particular phrasing of sentence structure. She had only ever managed to understand what one phrase meant.

“See, I can never understand. Only one I’ve caught onto is ‘having a chat’ which I still don’t understand how you guys don’t mix up the different phrases I’m sure you have.”

“It just takes practise.”

“If ‘chat’ means killing someone, what does ‘talk’ mean? Is that code for sex? Like ‘we can have a talk’ or something?”

I could not help but smile at Lily’s fascination with trying to figure out the code.

“There isn’t anything for ‘talk’. I actually did just talk to the girl, nothing more.”

“Do you have a phrase for everything?”

“Sure do.”

“What’s the one for when I want you to join me in the bedroom?”

Making my way to the basement door, I turned to Lily with a sly smile.

“Guess you’ll find out when I milk your cows later.”

Lily stood there in confusion for a moment. I was surprised she did not catch onto this one since it was plainly obvious.

“But I don’t own any cows.”

I watched Lily’s puzzled expression turn into realisation as she looked down at her breasts. It was impossible not to laugh out loud as I held my side. Holding onto the door frame, I had to make sure I did not laugh while falling down the stairs. That would have been a true catastrophe.

“Nyizel!” she shouted as covered her chest with her arm.

“You’re the one that asked. I gave you that one for free,” I said as I started to make my way down the stairs.