<~> Chapter 64The embarrassment was gone by the time we made it back to town. It was a bit after midday, around lunch time. Mimi was ba my sword sheath and Man casually walked to my right. It made me happy that she was walkio me rather than a few steps behind me like she had been up until that point.

  "Are you hungry Man? Anything in particur you want to eat for lunch?" I asked.

  She shrugged. "I'm not sure. I never had the moo spend on aaurants or anything in the area so I don't really know of any pces."

  I nodded. "Makes sense. Maybe we should ask somebody." I looked around but everyone seemed pretty busy. Si was lunchtime so there were a lot of people walking around. I would have pulled an adventurer aside but I couldn't spot any, everyone seemed to be craftsman and other borers. No kids though iingly enough. e to think of it I hadn't seen any kids at all since I've e here.

  "I haven't seen any kids around." I said tan.

  "This is a froown, almost everyone here is involved in the adventuring business in some way. Either supp them directly with armor and on shops, or providing general services that adventurers would take advantage of. Things like inns, bars, aaurants."

  "Huh. How old is this town anyway?" I looked around, there were paved roads and lots of stone buildings. The architecture was kind of all over the pce though and a lot of the streets only barely made any sense.

  "Mmm... three years old?"

  I was shocked. "Only three years old!?" I took another look around and was even more impressed by the town around me. "A lot of the buildings look like they're made from solid stone."

  Man nodded. "Oerra mages bee powerful enough they're able to quickly put up stoructures using magic. They're pretty sturdy but settlements like this are usually thrown up fast so a lot of the buildings are just empty shells until someone es in behind them and izes it. Even though there are a det number of three story buildings around here, a lot of them don't even have running water or anything like that. Not uhe people who moved in puts in the magic tools themselves."

  As we were walking we came across a small lookiaurant that had people sitting at an outdoor patio eating sandwiches. Normally something like that wouldn't intrigue me so much but this is basically the first time I've seen food here that wasn't some kind of stew or soup. The restaurant, or maybe deli is more accurate, acked and looked pretty upscale.

  I poi out tan. "How does that pce look? You wahere?" I asked.

  "Oooh! It looks good! Yeah! Let's eat here."

  The two of us went in and were quickly shown to a small table in the er. There were lots of people talking but it wasn't too loud despite that. The atmosphere of the restaura rexed and friendly. I looked at the menu, most things were a silver or two.

  I looked up at Man who looked shocked. "Lilith! This pce is way too expehis meal is 2 silver!" she whispered to me, pointing at her menu.

  Hmm, in a way I kind of uand her point. The inn I inally stayed at had cost half a silver for dinner and a room for 2 people a night. Most of these sandwiches cost at least a silver each. I might feel the pinch a bit more if we didn't have something around 50 gold bined in rht now. And that wasn't ting any of the money we would earn from the whole dungeon escapade.

  "Don't worry about it, I'll pay for it. Think of it as a reward for everything we dealt with in the dungeon. Most adventurers afford to splurge every now and then, I guess I'd just rather spend it on fancy sandwiches than alcohol," I said with a grin.

  "Oh... okay." Man looked back down at her menu anxiously before pig a sandwich that had three meats I didn't reize and a type of cheese I had never heard of.

  Looking at my own menu really didn't help me too much either. I didn't reize any of the names of anything here, even though [Sightspeak] was supposed to be transting for me. Though I guess if they don't have quite the same animals here than there wasn't much I could do.

  When the waitress came to our table I just ordered the same thing Man had ordered and hoped for the best. At one and half silver for each sandwich I retty excited for what it would taste like. The waitress g Man's exposed sve colr but decided not to ent on it since I didn't seem to be making a big deal out of it. I was happy for that, I'll give her a ip. Wait do I tip here? I better ask ter.

  I scratched the base of my horn. "So how are you holding up? I know that things have been stressful for you the st couple days."

  She smiled at me iurn. "It was stressful, but I feel a lot better now. Holy." She paused to gather her thoughts. "I'm really happy you bou- Er, that we were able to e with you. You've treated us with nothing but resped courtesy, much more than our status usually allows... I felt a little hopeless when we were pulled back to the sver's guild the night we got back. It felt like I finally got a taste of happiness only for it to be quickly taken away..." she looked down and looked into the gss of water in front of her. "That's why when I saw you at the sver's guild I knew I had to try to vince you to take us. You're a good person, I was afraid if I didn't speak up you might have been uo it to buying us despite your reservations..."

  I frowned, a bitter taste in my mouth. "I don't think I would have been able to actually walk away... But it did feel like a betrayal of my ethics to bee your owner. I don't think svery is right, it was disheartening to be forced into that situation."

  She nodded. "I thought you might have difficulty swallowing it. But for us, it's normal. I knew from a very young age that I would always be a sve. Whether it's fair or not doesn't make any differeo me, I just wanted a reliable, kind master." She smiled up at me. "I'm lucky it's you."

  I sighed. "Let's talk about something else. I'm gd things worked out but I'd rather not think about the details right now."

  "Of course. Well, other than that things have beey good. I got to go to the spa for the first time, the beds in the spa's rooms were really fortable. And you gave me the staff I had been dreaming about since we found it. Other than the initial fear of being sold off to someone else after making such a strong e with you, things have beey good!" She said with a ugh.

  Just then our food arrived. The sandwich they brought me was on a soft bread that tasted a bit like sh with a tangy sauce simir to mustard spread on the inside. Man was happy to point out which meat was whiy sandwie as well as what region the cheese came from. I kind of doubt I'm actually going to retain much of the information she gave me though. It's quite a challeo remember more or less trivial things when most of your points of reference for pces and things were just gone. How am I supposed to remember which try made this cheese when I don't even know where this try even is? Still, it was a damn good sandwich.

  Man looked in heaven while she was eating her sandwich, I thought it was good but it must have been somethira special for her. I smiled, it was cute to see her so excited by something so muo me.

  "San, what's your favorite color?" I asked.

  "Hmm." She sat ba her chair and licked her fingers. "Blue."

  "Any particur reason why?"

  She shrugged. "I dunno. I never really thought about it I guess. How about you?"

  "Purple. I like prefer the cooler shades like violet rather than fuchsia. It's calming and pleasant to look at, and it looks pretty when bined with a lot of different colors."

  Man ughed. "That's so like you."

  "What do you mean?"

  She looked down at her drink with a smile. "You've obviously thought a lot about it and ended up ing to the answer most nobles would give but for a pletely different reason."

  "Nobles?"

  "Yeah, nobles are obsessed with the color. They talk about how rare and luxurious it is, how much it proves their status and position. I've never once heard someone say they like the color purple because it's pretty," she said with a ugh.

  I shrugged. "Where I e from the association with royalty and nobles was much less pronounced. I know purple dye retty rare once upon a time, even where I'm from, but we kind of got past the color being any more expehan other colors."

  "Were you royalty where you came from Lilith?"

  I ughed in response. "Royalty? Hardly. I don't remember much about myself from that world but the best I guess is that I worked as some sort of artist. Bel has said that I talk like a noble sometimes but the social csses were much less... rigid where I'm from. I robably middle css, most people were. If I were to guess, the equivalent here would probably be merts and adventurers, in terms of wealth."

  She nodded. "That's iing. Merts and adventurers, while plenty numerous, wouldn't e close to the number of sves and poor vilgers in this kingdom. How would merts even pete if there were that many of them?"

  "They'd find a way. I hings, cater to different is. There are a lot of things merts do to differentiate themselves if they had to. Actually, where I'm from it's pretty well known that a lot of petition in a field increases innovation and newer better products are introduced. In a lot of ways petition is very lucrative in the long run, eve be quite detrimental in the short run." I stood up and stretched. We had been there for a while and the pce was still plenty busy, it would probably be best if we left. "Lets go hang out somewhere else."

  Man smiled. "Sounds good."

  I paid and we headed out ba the town. I found out tipping isn't on but very much appreciated, so I left our kind waitress a ip. It was te afternoon and a lot of the midday bustle had gone away. I had fun today, it was nice spending some one oime with Man to get to know her better. Maybe it would be a good idea to spend some one oime with Torien too.

  "Hey Man, how about we go shopping for some personal clothes? Mimi hold onto a lot of our stuff so it probably wouldn't it be too much trouble. Ah, Hold on a moment."

  -- "Mimi, you don't mind us asking you to carry our stuff right? I know I've been asking you to carry a lot of stuff tely." --

  -- "I don't mind! But maybe I should increase my ste soon if it's gonna be a regur thing. we look for some of those tasty stoorie me have the day before yesterday?" --

  -- "Sure, that sounds fine." --

  I turned baan who had raised an eyebrow at me. "Is there a reason you just stared off into space for a while there?" she asked.

  I looked around before moving close and whispering into her cute cat ear. "I share an ability with other Succubi that lets us talk to each other silently. I talk to Mimi and Bel like that."

  "Oh... that sounds handy."

  "Anyway, Mimi said it would be fio carry more stuff for her but also asked if we get her more of those monster cores."

  "Oh! I kly where we find those!" she beamed.

  "Great! Lets go pie up for her and then go pick out some new clothes."

  After we picked up some cheap monster cores for Mimi we spent the rest of the day cheg out clothes and pig up some things for ourselves from sedhand clothing stores. I decided it would be a good idea to spend the day tomorrow with Torien. It robably important to foster our retionships with each other and sometimes that was easier to do when we weren't always in the same pairs all the time. It also gave me the ce to didly talk tan about her feelings today and I think Torien might appreciate the same opportunity.

  We finished up a the new inn we would be staying at going forward. It was a bit farther from the adventurer's guild but since our entire party slept in the same room, whether we liked it or not, it put less pressure on us to meet up in the m. We found an inn that had private bathrooms, while not as luxurious or warm as the publies, it at least gave us a ce to wash up in private. We ate diogether in our room and chatted for a bit befoing to sleep for the night. It was a good day.

  Saine

  Hello! Man's first date with Lilith! Sorta, hard to say if a m practig magid lunch ts as a date. The couple chapters are about Lilith hanging out with Torien instead. Writing these chapters were pretty fun, I enjoy writing about my characters getting to know each other. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed reading and see you ime!

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