A few moments later, in the queen's room…

Cycelia is on the bed, face pressed into her soft pillow while hugging it. Fully dressed, aside from the boots beside her bed, she lays on the blanket. The queen lifts her sullen emerald eyes off the pillow, and lets out a large muffled sigh.

The door abruptly opens.

「Hey, Lia-」

Straf calls out, sticking his head into the room without fully walking in.

「Straf!?」

She shouts, jumping up to her knees as she scrambles to turn around and face him.

「…Yeah, me. Who else?… Have you figured the Academy thing out yet?」

He asks, leaning on the door handle, peeking into the very clearly girly room. All the bedrooms in the palace are the same size and layout, the high-end ones, at least. This one looks nothing alike the others, owing mostly due to how personalized it is.

The window curtains different than the rest. The shelf full of various books. The comfy, carpeted floor. The cluttered desk. Simply put, the room is remarkably lived-in. A multitude of decorative swords hang on the walls, and various trinkets line the top surface on the chest of drawers.

A large knight figurine posing on a stand here, a snow globe there, a stuffed teddy bear. Though it fails to match the size, or the seniority of the one sitting in the corner.

As big as a fat child, it coldly glares at Straf with its button eye, like a disapproving father hiding the killing intent behind the fake, sewed-on smile. Though its fluff is well-patted flat by now, and the color of its fur has already faded like an old man's beard, it continues dutifully guarding Cycelia's room.

《Wow. So this is a girl's room, huh?》

Straf quickly thinks, and his eyes return to Cycelia as she's kneeling on the bed.

「Yes… I've ordered the books Tolwick told me I might want to have, the rest of what I need is in the library. They should be here tomorrow.」

She replies, nodding her head.

「Tomorrow? You know it's the blood moon tomorrow, right? Supposedly.」

Straf asks, furrowing his brows at her.

「Yes, yes! Don't worry about that, Straf. They'll be here before the sunset, and I've informed Sir Vinis about this a while back. He's already handling everything with town criers. Everything is fine.」

Cycelia explains, furiously shaking her hands in front of herself, adding a little shake to her head as well while she's kneeling on her bed.

「…Alright. If you say so. See you tomorrow, Lia-」

「Straf! Wait!…」

Straf begins pulling his head out of the room, but Cycelia's pleading shout stops him, and he raises his brows.

「…Yeah?」

He asks, warily looking at her.

「…Can we talk?」

Cycelia meekly, quietly asks, looking down at her lap while she's kneeling on her massive, comfy bed.

「…That sounds ominous.」

Straf replies, and steps in, shutting the door behind him.

「You look pretty down lately, what's up with that, Lia?」

He asks, leaning onto the door with his back, crossing his arms, and his feet at his ankles. She silently twiddles her thumbs, without raising her eyes.

「…It's that obvious?」

「You mean you were hiding it?」

Straf scoffs at Cycelia's quiet, unexpected question.

「…Don't tell me it's because someone else is doing the ruling now.」

He chuckles with a shrug of his shoulders, grinning at her.

「No! No, that's not it at all!…」

She vehemently denies, finally raising her eyes to lock hers with his.

「Well, I'm mostly fine with that. That's not what's bothering me the most…」

The eye contact lasts merely moments. Her emeralds return back to her lap, while her chestnut head hangs low.

「So, what's bothering you the most?」

Straf pries, spreading his arms before crossing them again.

「Straf…」

She utters out, and lifts her sullen eyes up to his face, looking at him with a serious, gloomy expression. Cycelia visibly appears to mull something over, her eyes momentarily jump from Straf's face to elsewhere, anywhere, while she hesitates to continue.

「…You lied to me about that woman.」

Cycelia says in a glum tone, with an almost apologetic face. Straf tries to maintain a poker face, though some minute facial tics are surely slipping by.

《Yikes. Athea, you bitch.》

Straf looks into her eyes, trying his best to petrify his face.

「Ah. I'm not mad, or anything! It's just…」

Realizing her confession sounds like an accusation, her eyes quickly widen, and she hastily waves her hands in front of herself, clarifying her words. Her gaze drops down again, and she interlocks her fingers in her lap while limply kneeling on her bed.

「…Well. I'd be lying if I said it's not bothering me.」

She adds, idly rubbing her hands. Cycelia then looks up into Straf's eyes, looking like a beaten puppy, almost as if she was sorry for sharing her feelings.

「…So that's the whole reason?」

《Fffffffffuuuuuck.》

Straf asks, looking at her with a tight-lipped expression, in lieu of a stone face.

「It's… I've spent most of the time since the ride back thinking about this. And every time I have, I thought of horrible things. I don't want to think about you like that, so the whole time, I just wanted to hear it from you. The truth.」

She replies, still looking at Straf with the eyes of a beaten puppy, her long eyelashes flutter in front of her emerald eyes as she blinks rapidly with a sad pout.

《Hold on, what the fuck did you even think about me? Do I want to know?》

Straf ponders, silently listening to Cycelia vent.

「…What were you doing with that woman back then? When I caught you in the bed with her?」

She asks, lowering her eyes as if afraid of the answer.

「Not much.」

Straf nonchalantly blurts out, shrugging. Her gaze shoots back up to his eyes, and she furrows her brows for a brief moment before once again hanging her head.

「Straf… I might be sheltered, but I'm not naive. I'm not a child. I know why a man and a woman would stay in an inn room together.」

Cycelia replies with a sighful, glum voice.

「…But we've stayed in an in room together before.」

Straf once again casually ripostes, looking at her with his brows inquisitively raised. He appears to have delivered a critical strike. Stunned and unable to say anything back, Cycelia is staring at him with a mortified expression on her face, and her mouth slightly open in shock.

「T- T- That was different! That was completely different! You know what I mean!」

She bashfully shouts out, turning her face to the side while her cheeks and the tips of her ears turn red.

「No Lia, I don't. You'll have to be specific, I can't read your mind.」

Straf spreads his arms, shrugging his shoulders, and places his hands in his pockets. Cycelia takes a large breath, and quickly exhales out of her nose.

「Straf. I saw you were touching her… Chest. Answer me honestly, no matter what the truth is…」

As she tries to pick a least obscene-sounding word, Cycelia hesitates for a second, gesturing towards her own bountiful chest with her hand forming a claw.

「How far did you two go?」

She asks, leaning forward, squeezing her breasts together between her elbows while intensely staring into Straf's eyes with a serious face.

「…I just groped her a little.」

Straf innocently admits, shrugging his shoulders.

「…That's it?」

「Yup.」

Cycelia asks, furrowing her brows. Straf nods back, grimacing with his mouth a little.

「…Why?」

She tilts her head, confused. Straf looks up into the corner of the room, humming and grimacing heavily.

「Straf! Please, just answer me! Don't look for an excuse!」

Cycelia calls out, desperately pleading Straf. He sighs, rolling his eyes.

「Lia, I'm not looking for an excuse. I'm just trying to find a motivation a little deeper than,「I just felt like it」okay?」

He explains, spreading his arms and looking at Cycelia with his mouth scrunched to the side. He looks sideways to the window, placing his hands back in his pockets.

「…And I don't really have any. I just kind of felt like it.」

Straf admits, shrugging his shoulders.

「…That's really it?」

Cycelia asks, sounding almost confused and disappointed by how mundane of a reason it is.

「That's really it.」

Straf echoes, nodding with a heavily scrunched mouth. She glances aside, furrowing her brows.

「…So she's not a prostitute?」

Cycelia asks, looking straight into Straf's eyes with a confused face. He sputters, and she tilts her head. Barely holding his laughter back, he sputters again, grinning.

「Lia…」

「What?」

Straf utters out, chuckling with his head lowered, grinning widely as she's growing more and more confused.

「…Look, I don't really know what she does on her own time, but wow. That's kind of rude, isn't it? I didn't expect that from you. Can't wait to tell her you said that.」

He replies, and starts quietly cackling to himself.

「Ah. Ah! No! Don't tell her! If it's just a big misunderstanding, then that's okay!…」

Cycelia exclaims, feverishly shaking her hands in front of herself with huge green eyes.

「…But… But if she's not, and you're just friends, then why did she let you do that?」

She asks, furrowing her brows while Straf tries to get his laughing fit under control. He lets out a large, amused, contended sigh, and grins lightly at her.

「That's 'cause she messed up big time, and she agreed to that if I let her off easy.」

Straf shrugs as he explains, readjusting his stance as he continues leaning on the door.

「…And you could have asked for… More?」

Cycelia asks, once again seeking least obscene words.

「Hmmm… Yeah, probably, honestly. She was pretty desperate.」

Straf humms for a second as he thinks, then shrugs again, nodding a little as he confirms.

「…And you… Didn't?」

「Lia… Do you think I'm some sort of a desperate virgin, or something?」

Straf asks with an amused, incredulous smirk. He sticks his finger out.

「I want you to listen to me… I did not have a sexual relationship with that woman, Lia.」

He adds, and exaggeratedly spreads his arms, looking aside with a greatly self-satisfied smirk.

「Ah, sorry! Sorry. Forget I asked.」

She shakes her hands again, lowering her head in shame.

「So, that's it? That's all you wanted to know?」

He asks as he bounces off the door with his back, and grabs the door handle.

「Wait… She said she works with the dead. Is that true?」

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Cycelia asks, looking into Straf's eyes with her brows gently raised.

《You fucking bimbooooo!》

「Yeah, sorta, kinda. If you boil it down.」

Straf dismissively shrugs, grinning awkwardly at Cycelia.

「What does she exactly do, then?」

She asks, tilting her head a little.

「She's kind of a… Uh… A spiritual leader, I guess.」

Straf rubs his neck with his free hand as he seeks an appropriate answer, then returns the most vague one he can find in his mind.

「…So she's a priestess?」

Cycelia's brows furrow massively, and her head's tilt increases.

「Yeah! Something like that, I guess! Look, Lia, I've got some things to take care of, I'll see you tomorrow, alright?」

Straf snaps his fingers, and opens the door in a graceful attempt to escape her tightening grip on his slippery explanation.

「Uh. Okay. I'll be waiting.」

Cycelia nods, taken aback a little by Straf's sudden departure. The door shuts behind him, and she stares at it in silence for a few moments. She turns around on her knees, and leaps with her face into her pillow.

《Uuugggghhhhhh! If I knew he was coming a few minutes earlier, I'd mentally prepare for this!》

She thinks, and lifts her face off the fluffy, cloudy pillow.

「…You- You can do that to me if you can't take it any-」

Cycelia says to her pillow, before slamming her face into it.

「Mmmghhhhhhhhh!!」

She lets out a muffled scream, with her red face buried deep.

《I'd drop dead if I said something like that to him! I'd die on the spot! Aaaa! What's wrong with me!?》

She continues grunting, screaming and cringing into her pillow, kicking her feet at the bed…

…

A few minutes later, at the town's market…

Straf stops by a hot dog stall. He approaches with his hands in his pockets.

「Hey. How much are these?」

He asks the balding, almost elderly mustached man.

「Five silvers per one, sir. Buy three, and I'll drop the price to three per one!」

The old man replies, sticking out five fingers on one hand, and three on the other.

「Fuck me…」

Straf groans when he hears the price, turning his gaze aside with a sigh.

「Alright, give me 300.」

Straf nonchalantly says, shrugging his shoulders while he looks at the man.

「Oooohohohohohohoho!」

The elderly man lets out a large, jolly belly laughter, clutching onto his stomach as he throws his shiny, bald head back.

「…What the fuck are you laughing about? Get to work. I don't have all day.」

「…Eh?」

Straf asks with a bored expression, and glances aside towards one of the streets leading to the bell tower. His eyes notice a familiar figure, and an easel. He snaps his fingers, and silently points at the burning coals beneath the stand's grill, and walks away to meet the figure.

「Wow. I see you're either an honest girl, or you're honestly stupid.」

Straf says, as he approaches Olivia from behind.

「Hm? Ah! Mister Straf!」

The young girl exclaims with a happy grin, when she realizes who just insulted her.

「Yeah, but drop the mister… So why didn't you take the money and run?」

Straf asks, looking at her warped, twisting, mostly-finished painting of the bell tower, but wrong.

「Because you gave me the money for paints!」

She replies as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

「And you actually bought paints? What's wrong with you? A normal person would buy a house.」

「Eheheh… What do you think about the painting, though?」

Olivia asks, laughing softly, before turning her eyes back to her near-finished bell tower.

「…I see it's been worked on. It looks a little more… Detailed, I guess? What changed?」

Straf remarks, nodding his head a little while she adds finishing touches with a smile.

「When it fell on the ground, I noticed some of the dirt on it kind of looked like nice shadows. It made a few of the edges really sharp and detailed, and I thought that looked nice, too.」

She says, and tilts her head as she thinks where to strike the warped world with her brush again.

「Your tower is kind of crooked, though. It'll attract cringy tourists…」

Straf points out, looking at the bell tower of dubious structural integrity.

「Ehehehe… Isn't it kind of more realistic, though?」

Olivia softly chuckles, and asks, turning her smiling face to Straf. He raises his brow, and looks at the two bell towers. One bent, and one not.

「…How so?」

He asks back, looking into her eyes with his brow still inquisitively raised.

「This whole city is kind of weird, isn't it? It's like it changes every day.」

She shrugs, and looks at the straight bell tower in the distance.

「Hm?」

Straf hums, a little puzzled by her answer.

「A year ago, if you'd have told me there will be vampires here, living with humans like it's normal, and nobody will mind, I'd laugh. Now I'm painting a bell tower with a vampire in it. Then the lights went out, and the city was almost entirely dark.」

Olivia continues, giving an edge some more definition with a few careful strokes.

「Then the lights came back, but a different color. So how can I hope to capture the bell tower in the evening realistically, if the next evening the light might be green, or pink?…」

She asks, turning her smile to Straf again.

「…It's all messed up! Hahaha!…」

Olivia declares, and laughs softly, grinning happily at Straf with her palette against her paint-stained shoulder.

「…So, I think this is the most realistic depiction. The world is a pretty messed up place, and this one is messed up, too. I think it realistically reflects the nature of this world.」

「Ah. So a bunch of from-the-heart artsy bullshit, I see. Well, as long as you're having fun doing it.」

Straf shrugs his shoulders, watching Olivia search for more minute details to add.

「…I have a place in the slums already, by the way.」

She adds with a tilted head and focusing on her painting, seemingly stating a non-sequitur.

「And you're telling me, beeecaaause?…」

Straf's eyes warily drift to the young girl beside him.

「Because you asked why I bought paints, instead of something else.」

「Uh-huh…」

Straf nods his head, dismissively acknowledging her reply.

「It's good enough for me. It keeps most of the wind out. Hehehe…」

「Uh-huh. Craft. Violin.」

Straf replies, and speaks over her while she softly chuckles through her grin. Her brows furrow when she finally manages to parse his words. A mere moment later, a horrible and ear-grating, high pitched noise emanates from behind her, albeit very quietly.

「Wow. Why is that violin so tiny?」

She asks, sounding somewhat impressed as Straf plays on quite possibly this world's smallest violin, holding both the bow and the violin itself between his thumb and finger. [Portable Storage] opens, and he abruptly throws both into it.

「Because you are a misery magnet. I know, I know. Suffering builds character, and so on…」

Straf rolls his eyes, shrugging his hands before placing them back in his pockets.

「Huh?…」

「So… The patronage is coming handy, huh?」

He ignores her confusion, and sighs loudly.

「Yes, very much so. I wouldn't be able to finish this painting without it. I hope I can repay you one day.」

Olivia turns her head back to the painting, and nods. Straf instantly scoffs.

「Yeah, good luck with that.」

He smirks, amused by how easily the young painter's hopes can be crushed.

「The city really warps day to day, by the way. When I went to the bank to get the gold from the money you gave me-」

「You did what?」

Straf asks, glaring at the girl. A chill runs down her spine.

「I- Uh. I went to the bank-」

She tries to explain, and Straf levels his scary face with hers.

「I went to the bank… And turned the paper you gave me… Into gold…」

Olivia meekly explains, anxiously looking into Straf's eyes with a tight-lipped expression. Straf grabs her shoulders.

「Eep!」

She squeaks, like a dog toy in the slobbering maw of one. Straf sucks air in through his teeth, glaring into her eyes.

「…You're scaring me. Almost as bad as that Nona person… Should I have not done that?…」

The terrified young painter says, shaking a little. Without saying anything, Straf lets out a prolonged sigh out of his nose, and lets go, straightening out.

「No. You shouldn't have. But it's too late now, isn't it? Ahhh…」

He replies, rubbing his face with his palm, greatly vexed. He lowers it, and places his hands back in his pockets, staring down at Olivia with an annoyed, tight-lipped grimace.

「…I need to pick up my hot dogs.」

Straf declares, and begins walking back to the hot dog stand.

「Huh?… Is that some kind of code?…」

Olivia quietly asks, tilting her head as Straf departs.

He walks up to the stand with a massive pile of hot dogs in buns on it.

「Ah!… Ah! I'm almost done, sir! 300 of them! You have the money, right!? Else I'm bankrupt!」

The old man exclaims, gasping for air as he puts a dog in a bun at a crazed pace, and stacking them in an impossibly large pile.

「I should have enough…」「Should have!?」

Straf shrugs, and starts digging through his [Portable Storage].

「If I don't, it's taxpayer hot dogs. Tsk. Of course I ran out of the big ones this time…」

His arm stops digging through the purple vortex, and dissatisfied, he clicks his tongue. He pulls out a stack of golden drakes, and hands them to the sweating, panting old man, then begins shoveling the hot dogs into his inventory.

「It should be enough there, just give me the change.」

Straf nods his head towards the old hot dog vendor, and dusts his perfectly clean hands when he finishes throwing the fast food into the rip in space. The old man hands him some money back.

「…Huh? What the fuck is this?」

Straf asks, furrowing his brows at the unfamiliar green-colored paper resembling a drake.

「Are you trying to fucking scam me, huh!? You think I'm colorblind or some shit!? I buy a tournament worth of hot dogs, and you're trying to fuck with me!?」

Straf grabs the man's shirt, and pulls him towards himself, almost roasting him on the still-hot grill.

「Ah! Sir! Sir! Please, let me explain!-」

The panicked old man holds his hands up, nervously watching the hot coals beneath his belly as he stands on tiptoes.

「You better explain yourself fuckin' quick, because I'm losing my patience!」

Straf growls and scowls at the hot dog salesman, and looks at the green paper again.

「This must be your first time seeing one! It's one of the foreign currencies, like drakes! One of these is good for exactly five queen's silvers in their banks! It's half a golden drake, essentially! Or five silver ones!」

The man explains, pointing his hand at the green foreign banknote.

「…It's foreign money?」

Straf asks, and pushes the old man away. He sighs out in relief when he clears the grill.

「It is! I assure you, most everyone accepts it by now! It's merchant money, they give you good deals if you trade with it! If you don't want it, I can give you drakes-」

The man adds, energetically nodding his head.

「Nah, I'm good…」

Straf replies with an amused grin, and walks a few steps away from the hot dog stand.

「Thank you for your business, sir! Please come again!」

The old man exclaims, though Straf ignores him, entirely focused on the green paper. He stretches his arm out to the side, and pulls out a steaming hot dog out of the [Portable Storage].

「Heheheheh… Thanks for playing, you fuckin' suckers.」

Straf chuckles, grinning ear to ear, and takes a bite of his hot dog…