<~> Chapter 4It retty te iernoon that we finally arrived at Traehall. Traehall seemed like a pretty rge settlement with big walls made from huge tree trunks, it wasn’t quite a city yet but it was getting there. Our carriage joined a long lio get into the toarently there was some sort of check to get in.

  “Hey Swordsman, are they going to give me trouble getting iown without any kind of dotation? I’m a traveler and it works differently different pces.”

  “There shouldn’t be any trouble unless you pn to do specific business iown. Even then as long as you talk to the guard, pay a fee, a a permit from the adventurers guild, it should be all right.”

  “Why the Adventurer’s guild?”

  “This is an adventurer’s guild outpost town. A few years back a dungeon was discovered and the rate of stray monsters in the area has increased dramatically because of it. There’s even rumors of demon summoners in the area but I wouldn’t take those cims seriously.”

  Well at least that hints at how people feel about demons. “So when you say specific business iown, do you mearading?”

  He smiled. “Among other things.”

  “So if I did privately buy that cutie in the back of that carriage before we ehe town you wouldn’t have to pay a fee to get in, you wouldn’t have to gh the trouble of listing him at au or whatever hoops you have to gh, and we could all walk into town without any problems?”

  “That’s true,” he peered around the carriage in front of us. “Though if we’re going to do this there isn’t a whole lot of time left before we get in.”

  “Alright, lets make this quick then. You wawelve gold, I think the fees and trouble I’d be saving you makes him worth eight gold.”

  He smiled reizing the i immediately. “Eight is too low, but it does save me the time. Let’s call it eleven for the trouble.”

  “Surely you also save on things like listing fees, issions fees and such at whatever pce you actually sell the sves but perhaps eight is too low. How about nine?”

  “Ten gold fifty silver.”

  “I don’t want to deal in silver. Ten gold even and I put the ght into your hands right now. o jump through any other trouble, I pull out the gold, put it in your hands, and we walk into town together.”

  He gives me an appraising look and quietly thinks to himself for a minute. “I didn’t take you for a mert ma’am, fien gold if you give it to me before we reach the gate.”

  I return to the back of the carriage and dig through my bag. The cute guy gives me a curious look as I look for the pouch at the bottom. His eyes open in surprise when he sees me pull out ten s and I give him a wink before jumping back out of the cart.

  I walk back up to the swordsman and open my palms revealing ten gold s. He takes one and studies it closely, seemingly ied in the marks on the side of the . Before nodding, he then begins taking each one by one feeling its weight before moving on to the . When he’s satisfied he smiles and calls the sve out of the carriage.

  He snaps his fingers and points to the ground in front of him. “Kneel boy.”

  He nods ond kneels fag away from the swordsman and looks down, revealing the back of the colr. The swordsman turns to me. “I o know your name in order to trahe sve to you.”

  “Oh uh…” Shit, I pletely hadn’t thought about what to call myself until now. Knowing my pause was already suspicious I just blurted out the first hat came to mind. “Uh, Lilith.” Okay look, I know it’s pletely stereotypical for a probably succubus demon to be named Lilith but that’s why it came to mind so fast.

  After I told him my name I had that weird ringiion in the bay head again but didn’t have time to dwell on it as the swordsman was starting. “I Mark Williamson hereby willingly transfer ownership of this sve to Lilith.” The colr’s runes began to glow red again and after it was clear I didn’t know what to do he looked at me. “Alright now just touch the colr to plete the new tract.”

  “Oh uh right.” I put my hand against the back of the colr, it was warm to the toud as I held my hand there I watched as the runes slowly turned back from red to blue. O finished I heard that strange ringing again. Man, what is that? It’s so annoying.

  My new sve just kept kneeling in front of me with a blush on his fad I realized I probably o give him orders now. “Oh uh, stand up. Oh and you speak freely again if I o give you permission for that.”

  “Thank you mistress,” he said standing up.

  “Oh, by the way, I never caught your name.”

  ”Bruno mistress.”

  “Bruno?” That was su unfitting wasn’t even funny. I usually think of muscur gym hunks with that androgynous cuties like this. That must have been written all over my face because the swordsman stepped in.

  “If you don’t like his name just tell him to use something else, your ownership status over him means you ge his o whatever you want.”

  “Uh huh. Well it was ued but it’s fine.” I took his hand and pulled him o me. “Alright, lets get going then.”

  It wasn’t much longer before we finally made it to the town gates. Since our business was done we decided to split up for the gate, the swordsman reassured me there wouldn’t be any problems at the gate and wao go in separately. I just shrugged and rolled with it a him gh first.

  Bruno and I walked up to the guard and he looked over to us. “You seem to be well dressed for traveling outside of a caravan.”

  “Ah the group I was with died orip and I was the only o alive. I made it here on my own.”

  “Do you have an adventurer’s card?”

  “No I don’t have any identification sorry.”

  “Hmm, well as long as you don’t make any trouble iown you’ll be fine. If yoing to keep traveling around you should probably sign up with the guild though. Even if you aren’t used to fighting there’s plenty of side ine from gathering and you’d probably be fine if you came this far on your own. For now just give me your names and I’ll add you to the registry as a traveler, as long as you don’t cause any trouble that will be fi remember that some cities have entry fees or won’t allow you in at all without identification. You’re lucky this is an adventurer's town otherwise you may have had to camp outside the walls at night. Wele to the town of Traehall.” He waived us in without even hardly looking at Bruno. Maybe as a sve he doesn’t o be questiohe way I do.

  I walked into town still holding Bruno’s hand. “Have you ever been to Traehall Bruno?”

  “No mistress.”

  “Mmm, please just call me Lilith cutie. Mistress sounds kinky and kinda works me up a little too much,” I said winking to him.

  “Y-yes M- Lilith.” The flustered look on his face when he replied was too cute.

  As we walked through town together I looked around. It seemed we were in a medieval style town but had the clear impossibilities of magic around. I couldn’t help but look at all of the iing architecture. The buildings here looked fairly utilitarian but built with strong materials like aged wood and stone, often with three or more floors despite how difficult that would be in this time period. Examining the stone of one building closely, I realized it was in one solid shape as if the space for doors were cut from an immense block of stone, just that wall alone would weight several tons. At one point I stopped to stare at a magic mp that glowed without any kind of fuel I could see until I realized people were giving me a lot of strange looks.

  After getting my immediate fill of that I looked back at the cutie I was leading dowreet. “Well first thing’s first we should find an inn and some food or something. Are you hungry Bruno?”

  “Ah, yes Lilith. I haveen anything but travel rations for the st week. N-not that I would pin about whatever you give me!”

  “Jeez rex kid,” I said patting his back. “I’m pretty id back you don’t have to worry about stuff like that.”

  Truthfully I wasn’t hungry at all still, I was however horny as hell but I felt like I should at least treat the kid to dinner before I seduce him hehe.

  I squeezed Bruno’s hand a little before walking up to a street mert selliables I didn’t reize and picked up an… admittedly phallie. It looked simir to a cucumber with pale pink spots. “How much for this?”

  “Two copper ma’am.”

  I paid for the vegetable and stuck it in my bag before looking back up at him. “By the way, are there any inns around here with good food you would reend?

  He pointed me to an inn dowreet called ‘The Drunk Duck’ I could make a guess about the tele from the name. I thanked him and walked off in the dire he pointed.

  “What kind of food do you like Bruno?”

  “Oh uh, I dunno. I grew up on a farm so we mostly only ate tomoros and eggs.”

  “Hmm I see. Well lets hope we treat you to somethi the inn then.” I have no idea what a tomoro is.

  We ehe Drunk Dud as its name implies they had a full bar with lots of tables. Luckily it also smelled like a hearty beef stew giving the pce a pretty homey smell for a bar. We sat down at a table and I waived down a waitress when one walked by.

  “Hello dears,” Her gaze fixated on Bruno’s colr for a moment before she tinued, “What would you like ma’am?”

  “We’d like something to eat, as well as a room for the night if one’s open.”

  “Sure, today’s dinner is a choice of stew made with either wild minotaurus meat or wild vegetables. If that’s too expensive for your um servant then—"

  I cut her off there seeing where it was headed, “Two bowls of the minotaurus stew then.” I was really curious about the stew, would it be like beef stew or would it taste like something else entirely? I didn’t seem to need food but the idea was still appealing. “And about the room?”

  “Yes, I think we have a double left. Would that be all right?”

  I couldn’t help but smirk for a moment. “I’m sure that would be perfect.”

  "Would you like an ale?” I was about to go for it but then I thought better of it. I wao be a little clear headed for ter tonight.

  “Ah no thanks, maybe tomorrow night. I’ll take some water though.”

  “Alright, in all that’ll be fifty copper.”

  I dug through my bag for a moment and gave her a silver. “Is this ok?”

  She nodded. “I’ll bring you your ge.” before walking away. I turned my attention back to Bruno. He had stayed silent the eime but that robably expected based on the way the waitress reacted to him.

  “Lilith, was it okay to spend that mue? I’m just a sve.”

  I waved dismissively. “Don’t worry about it.” Truthfully I only had a limited amount of money and I spent a bunch to pick him up but I was a little enced by how cheap the food and room were pared to the total money I had. I would have to find a way to make money soon but it wasn’t a critical at the moment.

  “So, have you ever been traveling before?”

  “No, it’s too dangerous for most people to travel around with all of the monsters around. That’s why it was so surprising to see you walk up to us so early in the m. I’m sure Mr. Williamson thought you were a bandit when you walked up.”

  Monsters huh? I heard the swordsman talk about monsters and a dungeon when we were entering the town but it was kind of hard to believe there are maing animals running around all over the pce. Though those giant ass wolves really fit the bill for that. Maybe I’m luckier than I thought to e across someone before a monster decided to attack me. I know I’m lucky those wolves decided to leave me alone.

  “How strong do you usually have to be to travel around here?”

  “Around here? Most adventurers would say the monsters around here were weak but most oners and farmers like me wouldn’t dare travel by ourselves. Mr. Williamson was a good enough swordsman that barring something really unlucky happening he wouldn’t have any trouble with anything this close to town. I think that he makes a lot of money going from town to town looking for people who choose to sell their children to svery.”

  “I see…” That ended on a rather grim he versation just stalled out there but just in time to save us from the awkwardness our food arrived. The waitress also gave me a room key with a tag that I couldn’t read and fifty copper s. My hunch was right that it was 100 copper to a silver and most likely 100 silver to a gold based on the iation with the swordsman earlier. That made things a little simple even if it was odd the breakdown of currency was that exact despite the varying costs of the metals. Maybe that was taken into at when the s were minted.

  The stew smelled really good and had lots of weird ingredients I’ve never seen before. I took a bite of the meat and swooned, it tasted like an amazing cut of beef slow cooked iew.

  I looked over and saw that Bruno wasi but before I could say anythi in. “I’m surprised you eat meat. I thought that sheep beastkin were herbivores.” Crap I totally fot I was trying to be inito, I really don’t know how to talk my way out of it so I decided to just pletely roll over the question.

  “How e you areing?” I asked pointing to his food.

  “Oh, Mr. Williamson told me that sves are supposed to wait for their master to finish eating before they’re allowed to start.”

  “Ah, well that’s stupid. Just start eating already.”

  “Yes Lilith.” he said with a smile before digging in.

  I fihe entire bowl, I never really felt hungry in the first pce but the food made me feel satiated all the same.

  “That was really good. How did you like it Bruno?”

  “It was amazing! I never had minotaurus meat before. It tasted soooo good.” I retty surprised by his enthusiasm. He had mostly been rather reserved but the food really got him excited. Though I’d probably feel the same if all I ever ate was the same thing all the time.

  “Now that we’ve eaten, why don’t we go back to our room for the night?” I asked him with a lusty grin.

  I could tell the look showed my i because he blushed hard and nodded. I took his hand and lead him up the stairs.

  Saine

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