After some time, Lucian arrives home. He arrives at about 4:30 p.m. He feels strangely tired, probably because he has used his spirituality for the first time.
He looks in his pocket where he has kept the brooch of the Night Breeze, the object that signals his affiliation to this organization, and without realizing it, he smiles. The Night Breeze is a great opportunity for him to get to know more of the world, and in the future, perhaps have the chance to find a way back to the normal world... even though he's in a world with powers and other things you only see in fiction books, it's still sad to be away from his family.
He then arrives in front of the door of his house with its yellowed and worn walls, he raises his closed fist and knocks on the door, and right after knocking on the door he says - I'm coming in - He opens the door and enters his house.
As he enters, he sees the living room, just a slightly torn sofa, some bookshelves with a few books, a small kitchen, and a corridor leading to the bedroom of each of the three.
Lucian enters and decides to prepare something to eat, but soon remembers something “The food here is little... they only have bread, cheese and goat's milk, which is already coming to an end...” He then pulls out of his trouser pocket the advance salary he had received, 4 gold and 5 silver coins. With that, he could buy quality food and prepare a decent dinner for his sisters and himself!
Without realizing it, he was already salivating at the thought of being able to eat quality food and replace the dry bread and cheese.
He takes advantage of the fact that his sisters haven't yet returned from their duties - Evelyn at school and Mary at work in the bar - to go to the market and the bakery to buy food and prepare dinner.
Unfortunately, Lucian's memories didn't magically appear and point out the location of the nearest markets, so he had to keep asking people on the street about a nearby market.
Fortunately, he found one. It wasn't a market, but a fair that was taking place that day. He was lucky, there were lots of products for him to buy in the area, there were several stalls with vendors and their products, there was bread, rice, beans, meat, alcoholic drinks, juices and so on.
He then walked around all the wooden stands, observing the products and their prices, looking for ingredients that he could pay for with his current money of 4 gold and 5 silver coins. He realized that it wouldn't be too much of a problem, the things in this little market were quite cheap, the most expensive things were the alcoholic drinks, especially the wines.
He then leaned back against the wall and organized his thoughts, looking for a good, easy recipe to make for him and his sisters tonight.
He decided: Chicken with noodle soup and vegetables, with the addition of orange juice!
He then went to the meat counter and bought 2 kilos of chicken, which cost 5 silver coins. Pasta, which cost 1 Silver coin. Vegetables, including carrots and potatoes with the addition of spring onions, cost 5 bronze coins. Some spices and ingredients to make the soup liquid, which cost 1 Silver coin. And lastly, the orange juice, which cost 6 Bronze coins.
He paid for everything and had 4 gold, 3 silver and 49 bronze coins left over. The economy in this world is simple, it starts with Bronze, which when it reaches 60 Bronze coins becomes 1 Silver, and if it has 60 Silver coins it becomes 1 Gold, and Gold is unlimited.
He then returns home with the bags in hand, and when he enters his simple house, he is already stretching, as he has a long job ahead of him. Time to cook!
He then starts by getting the water and the spices and additional ingredients to create the delicious-tasting liquid for the soups. He puts the water in a pot and leaves it on a fire made by charcoal, and the water is in a half-crumbled iron pot, the charcoal was little, but it was enough to make the soup.
After mixing everything together, he leaves it there to boil, and then moves on to the next step: The chicken.
He looks for a stove to heat the chicken, he finds one! It's very simple, but it works, also with charcoal. He clothes some of the charcoal he used in the pot and puts it on the stove, then to amplify the fire a little more, he takes a wooden stick and burns it, then throws it on the charcoal, briefly increasing the fire.
After that, he looks to see if the water has heated up enough, and when he realizes that it's already bubbling, he takes the noodles and throws them into the soup. Then he looks for a wooden board to cut the vegetables on, places it on the kitchen table and takes a knife. He cuts the carrots and potatoes into cubes and then throws them into the pot of soup. The delicious aroma of the soup was already rising to his nostrils, and then he looked at the chicken.
The chicken was already well done, so he took it out and put it on a large plate.
Chicken done! Then he notices that the noodle and vegetable soup is done too, so he takes the pot off the heat, puts it on the table, takes a ladle and... dinner done!
He then wipes the sweat from his face and puts out the fire on the stove and what he used in the pot. He then decides to just wait for his sisters to arrive so he can enjoy his hard-earned dinner.
He then takes one of the few books from the bookshelf in the living room, sits down on the torn sofa and starts reading while he waits for the two of them to arrive.
Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
The book told a children's story, about two kings, one who commanded the bright, dazzling skies of the day, and another who commanded the dark, starry skies of the night. The two came into conflict because they didn't want to share the same sky with someone else, so they decided to get into a fight. One day, the sky split into day and night, on one side the moon, and on the other side the sun, and the two kings appeared in the sky, where they fought a battle on extraordinary levels, it was a dazzling scene but frightening to the sight of poor humans, it was like the conflict of two worlds, it got to the point where the moon and the sun crossed in the middle of the battle, and caused the appearance of a reddish eclipse in the sky, and also, the mark of Hell on earth, being caused by the conflict between kings. In the end, both kings lost, and the heavens were left without dominion, and soon everything returned to normal, and that day was marked as the Cataclysm.
“Is this a children's story? It's a bit heavy for a child to read...” His thoughts were interrupted by the front door of the house opening.
Mary and Evelyn enter the house at the same time, and soon smell the exuberant aroma coming from their table, a wonderful, delicious aroma. The two soon notice Lucian, who has gotten up and sat down in the chair at the table, and says - Come and eat, I've prepared dinner for us - he says with a smile as he fills the bowls with noodle and vegetable soup and a piece of chicken.
The two are confused, but they don't refuse this offer, and soon sit down to enjoy the dinner Lucian has prepared.
The chicken was in perfect condition and delicious, the soup was delicious and the flavor mixed various spices and added the flavor of carrots and potatoes, it was simply delicious.
-“Did you really make this, Lucian?” Mary asked intrigued.
-"Yes, I did, I'm working in a new business which gave me an advance salary, and I received 4 gold and 5 silver coins.
-4 Gold coins and 5 Silver coins?! - The two exclaimed at the same time with a strong surprise coming from their tone of voice and expressions.
Lucian ended up laughing a little at their reaction, but then he pulled himself together and said: “So I decided to make us a decent dinner, I didn't want to just eat some dry bread and cheese.
Evelyn smiles excitedly and says: “This is incredible, Lucian! Now we can have much better economic stability, we'll be able to eat decent food every day, how wonderful!
Mary nods - Evelyn's right, I'm happy for you brother, but don't spend it all on us either, also use it for your own purposes, after all, you're the one who's going to work hard for this hard-earned money.
Lucian smiles at Mary's thoughtfulness, and says - All right Mary, I'll spend this money well, but I really want to spend it on things for both of you and not just for me.
Mary smiles - All right then, thanks for dinner Lucian.
Evelyn repeats the soup and says - Thanks for dinner.
Lucian finishes eating his soup and feels proud of himself, he's managed to make his sisters happy, that's good, he's improved his relationship with them more, it's comfortable to be in their presence.
Dinner passes and it's time for bed, Evelyn and Mary take their baths and lie down to sleep, and Lucian goes to the bathroom to take his shower. Lucian takes off his dress shirt and then he notices something... an eye mark near his back, more inclined to his right shoulder “That's strange...” He thought.
He saw the man and woman he had seen in Durf Watson's house, the man was Durf, and the woman Annie. The two of them looked strange, they staggered a lot as they took short, slow steps across the room. Their eyes were completely white, and Lucian began to hear the two of them repeating phrases - Josh, Corrupt, Monster, Fear - they repeated the 4 words over and over again. they kept repeating the 4 words while each of them picked up a kitchen knife, Annie repeated the 4 words for the last time before stabbing herself in the stomach, and dying in a pool of her own blood. Durf repeated the words one last time before slitting his own throat and falling to the ground dead, both of them had killed themselves, but they didn't seem to resent it, they seemed... controlled by something...
The vision disappeared and Lucian was leaning against the bathroom sink, looking at himself in the reflection of the mirror. He was very sweaty.
“Josh, Corrupted, Monster, Fear...” Lucian remembered the conversation with Ruby, about the Corrupted, and he connected some dots and created a theory about the words. “Maybe Josh didn't get sick, but went crazy... Ruby said that people can become Corrupted.” He soon saw the possibility that Josh had either died a painful and horrific death by going mad in some way, or had become a monster.
Lucian then takes a shower and puts on a white linen shirt and black pants, and lies down on his bed. He lies down on his bed and watches the blue moonlight coming through the window and into his room.
He then falls fast asleep, and wakes up with the morning glow, at about 6:30 in the morning.
He gets up and gets ready for the day's training that Ruby has prepared for him. He gets himself organized, wearing a white dress shirt, a brown vest, black pants and a black elongated suit that goes down to his knee. He dressed appropriately because the place he was going to visit was in Puerto Rico, a place made for the richest people in town! He wore clothes with stitching marks as a way of repairing torn parts of his clothes, he felt mediocre going to such a high-ranking place dressed like this, but it was his best outfit.
He then heated up yesterday's leftovers and ate only the soup without the chicken for breakfast, taking the opportunity to drink a glass of orange juice.
He then starts reading a book on the shelf, but shortly afterwards his attention turns outside the house, where a newspaper delivery boy is passing by.
He had left a newspaper in a post office at the Berfort brothers' house, where Lucian hadn't even remembered the post office existed, so he left the house to pick it up.
He picks up the paper and decides to spend the rest of his time reading it until around 8:30 so that he can go to Puerto Rico and meet Ruby at the address of 15 Nurston Street.
The news was simple, nothing much, one of them said that a timber company was being closed down because of the high cost of their timber, then another about the war between Murren and Lukron, which continued with the same chaos and destruction, but... there was one interesting and somewhat bizarre news item in Lucian's view.
“Assassins lurking in the city! Be careful walking at night, otherwise you could become one of his victims!” Lucian read the whole article, it was about a case of 4 murders that took place in Porto Velho and Porto Ferro, where 3 took place in Porto Velho and 1 in Porto Ferro. The killer was the same in all four cases, as the form of murder was similar, with a cut in the neck along with a part of the forearm cut off, with the skin exposed and parts of the bone, and without the eyeballs.
It was a bizarre scene to imagine, and Lucian then made a waving motion in his chest and said - May the winds bless you - and closed his eyes, and after a few seconds he folded the newspaper and left it on the sofa, and looked at his pocket watch. It was 8:26.
He then leaves the house and heads for his next destination: Puerto Rico, 15 Nurston Street! Time to start my training!
To be continued...