I am going to fucking kill this child!
Yakti was mentally fuming at just how badly this situation was rolling out. Kentei constantly threw a wrench in all of his answers. Furthermore, none of the Grimoires gave him a satisfactory answer for the services he needed. He might, might have been fine if the guard wasn't suspicious of him, but the guard was obviously watching over him. He couldn't go out and find any other Grimoires until he, at the very least, reduced the Guard's suspicion and got her away from him.
"Say... Do you know the child's name?" The guard would ask.
"I've already said it, but his name is Kentei," Yakti responded as the guard turned back to Kentei, who looked at a tank full of bugs, all of which were common ingredients in medicine.
"Is that right, child?"
He snapped from watching the tank and turned to the guard, asking: "Huh?"
"Your name, is it Kentei?"
Kentei nodded to the annoyance of the guard, who was hoping she could've put Yakti in a 'gotcha!' moment.
"Well, Kentei, you told me that your momma was going through a Renewal Event, but now, when you talked to your uncle-"
"Auntie." Yakti cut her off, trying to play the part of an offended noblewoman.
"Ahem! Auntie, when you talked to your Auntie, you told her that someone else was going through the Renewal Event. Why did you lie to me?"
Kentei tilted his head. "I didn't! Momma just said she was going through a 'Renewal Event' so I said what she said!"
The guard face palms before realizing that it was likely that Kentei didn't know what was happening, but before she could say anything, Yakti began to speak up.
"I think the tenant of the bakery Kentei's family lives in sublet my apartment to someone new, and they went through a Renewal Event. In the panic of this stranger going through it, his mother told him to go outside and accidentally misspoke, telling him that it was her going through the Renewal Event rather than herself."
He would turn to the child. "Kentei, was your mother panicking when this stranger's eyeballs began to melt?"
He nodded before responding. "Yeah! Your friend Pinkie was scary and screamed so loudly it woke me up!"
Shit! He wasn't supposed to say that I brought over Mihe! Yakti thought.
The guard's suspicion shot up even more. This story was starting to fall apart at its seams. Why did Yakti say that she didn't know who this guest was, only for the child to say that she brought this mystery guest over? Why is this woman so damn suspicious!?
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She could be trafficking Shirah.
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It would make sense. It explains why she's so rich but needs to go to a dirt hut for medicine rather than the more popular shops geared towards nobility on Capitol West Road. It could be that she isn't actually a noblewoman. Thus, she would be denied service from those shops, so she needs to go to the poorer stores.
It's also clear this woman probably doesn't have a spouse nor is searching for one. If she did, she would've taken more care of her dress by lifting it from the ground rather than letting it drag around like it is now. Plus, she'd take more care of her skin by using a parasol, but there's none to be found.
This could also explain how this woman is rich. She never once stated where her money came from, plus her sense of fashion never aligned with any politician or noblewoman these days, so she may be very new to noble life.
She doesn't have any definitive evidence yet. She needs to watch this woman and call more guards to watch her day-to-day life.
During this train of thought, Yakti had responded to Kentei.
"Oh! I thought it was a new guest, not the one I had let into our house for a while. I thought they would've finished their Renewal Events, but I appear to be wrong!" He gave an awkward chuckle while covering his mouth.
There were two things this was meant to do. First, push the narrative that he's a noblewoman. While he doesn't have a fan, covering one's mouth while laughing or chuckling is something he's heard noblewomen do. But there's a more important reason: the hand sign that tells Kentei to stay quiet.
It's a simple hand sign. He used his left hand to cover his lips with his index and middle finger, then he placed his ring finger on his chin and curled his pinky finger tightly while pointing the center of the curl towards Kentei.
To make the pointing less obvious, he made sure to lift his arm by keeping it vertical while resting it on his right arm, which was lying horizontal and lifted slightly to make the pinky more visible.
While the pointing did become less obvious, the guard only further believed in her own story because the way that Yakti was covering his mouth did not fit the taught mannerisms of a noblewoman from what she knew.
Kentei, on the other hand, was unaware of what Yakti's hand sign meant. While he did know that there were hand signs that meant things, he didn't exactly remember what each hand sign meant and interpreted this as the "agree with everything" sign, which was the same as the "stop talking" sign, but with the ring and pinky finger curled.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
He would place his left index finger on the left corner of his mouth, indicating that he received his hand sign. Yakti put his hand down, and so did Kentei before Yakti spoke again to the guard.
"I'm sorry I had left out my dear friend, but yes, I have a friend who was also staying in that bakery. I thought he had long left, but it seems like he couldn’t yet... I should've expected this to happen, he was a little over 22 and hadn't gotten his turquoise eyes in." He shook his head.
The guard would pose a question to Yakti in an attempt to catch him in a lie. Hopefully, he fakes the description of his friend, and the child corrects it.
"Say, I am curious about who this friend is: see, there's been a recent criminal running around, and from what I heard, he too was on the verge of a Renewal Event. Could you tell me what he looked like?"
"Of course! He's a fairly thin man with a tall stature with short, curly, blond hair and what was light blue eyes but are most likely turquoise now."
"Dirty blond! His hair was dirty blond!" Kentei cried.
Yakti had initially thought that he should run away by this point, with how much Kentei was exclaiming things that didn't corroborate his story until he remembered: Mihe doesn't have dirty blond hair...
Who the hell was this kid describing!?
Before the conversation resumed, the owner had once again returned with a wooden box. Engraved on it was a phoenix with a cup in one of its talons and a snake in the other.
"I'm quite sorry about the delay. Counting the pills and measuring the weights of the various ointments and balms had taken longer than expected, but this should be enough medicine for a 7-day Renewal Event recovery." Quetztal looked up from the box’s contents to the group "I'll need 4 Standard Lira for payment."
Kentei pulled out the three coins his mother gave him and put them on the desk.
1 Lira short.
Quetztal's eyes would lazily turn to the guard, who was waiting as he mouthed to her 'You owe me one Lira next time you come here' before winking and turning back to the coins.
It was a 3 step process to confirm if a Lira was genuine: confirming the magical properties of the coins, the engravings on them, and then testing the material.
The magical properties of the coins were easy to check. The Lira, being the universal currency of the world, had a simple magic spell cast over it that caused it to change depending on whatever country the coin 'believed' it was in. This change mostly affected the engravings, which was why this property needed to be checked first.
He would crouch down and pull out a small box that contained three samples of dirt. One from the Yikkitad Collective, one from the Tinaybrat Palissary, and one from the Former Theocratic State of Uton (which had been cleansed of the plague).
All he had to do was place the three coins in each dirt sample, and they would change their engravings. After placing the coins in each sample, he would dust off the dirt and place them on his desk, where the coins would revert to normal.
The engravings were a much more difficult process. Checking the heads side would be annoying, as there were plenty of potential forms the coins could take for the historical figure depicted on that side. Luckily for Quetztal, it was easy to simply hover the coins over a dirt sample and remove them repeatedly until they all shared a depiction.
The depiction he chose was the easiest to memorize due to its uniqueness: The depiction of Keyen Rechaad, the historical founder and spiritual guardian of the two kingdoms.
It was a design that one could never forget. From the highly detailed hair that you could feel each strand of, the strange, scale-like texture on his oddly shaped ears, to the water droplets around his face that had roses blooming in them. All of it was unique to Keyen Rechaad.
As all of the coins had matched the depiction that he remembered of Rechaad, he now needed to check the tails side and see if the coins shared the same depiction of the seal of Raasti-Dreti, which, of course, they did.
Now, he needed to confirm if the seal was correct.
The seal was a very intricate pattern, and the process of checking for its correctness was an intensive one. It consisted of a twin-headed phoenix breathing fire with two distinct crowns on each head. It had two wings, one titled "HOUSE ALTAIN" and the other titled "HOUSE HASTEP," which denoted the royal families.
Under the two wings, representing the 'feathers' of the bird that were the Dual Crowns, were the various Ducal houses that fell under the purview of each royal family.
Luckily, the two seals did match.
All that was left was to test if the material was correct. Turning the box that contained the dirt samples, and pulling open a small drawer in the bottom would reveal a small tool for scratching the coins.
Luckily, this test was easy. The tool was effectively a double-sided pen where one side would test if the rose-gold coin was too soft, and the other would test if the coin was too hard. He would grab the softer testing side and begin scratching away, only for no scratches to form. Then, he flipped the pen and tested the harder testing side, and a deep cut formed across the "HOUSE ALTAIN" wing, indicating that the coin was made out of genuine rose gold.
Finally, he looked up at the two customers. "Sorry about the delay. Testing Lira coins takes a while, but these are genuine Lira. I'll give you a receipt, and you can head out on your way"
He would pull out a sheet of paper and begin writing down everything he had placed in the box.
Meanwhile, Kentei began sliding the box off the desk as he couldn't reach it.
Just before the box tipped over and everything inside broke, the guard would run towards Kentei and grab the box fully before lowering it slowly so that Kentei could comfortably grab the box without risking breaking all the materials.
Before she could berate the child, Yakti spoke up.
"Alright! Now that we have the medicine, we should go to the bakery! Isn't that right, young Kentei?" He spoke in a cheery tone.
Kentei smiled while nodding before starting to run out of the shop while the guard yelled, "Waaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit! Don't ruuuuuuuuuuun!" She followed suit.
Finally, Yakti turned back around to the Grimoire pharmacist.
"Is there nothing I can do to convince you to offer your Grimoire services again?"
He shook his head. "No, I've given far too many bad people magical spells for me to feel comfortable doing it again. If you ever need a spell, a bookkeeper on the west side, past the river, could accept your request.
"His name is Trentaucht. He's not exactly... erm, all there, but he's one of the more lenient Grimoires out there. I'm willing to bet good money he'd accept your request."
Yakti nodded before finally heading out himself.