“Where are we going?” The day still wasn’t over. In fact, the sun was still shining brightly onto my face as I dragged Hannah behind me.

“The cathedral.” I said, walking around a corner and avoiding a boy, playing with a flag.

“For real?” Hannah questioned, looking after the boy who was running away and waving the flag, showing a golden crown on a black background, wildly.

“Only if you want to see a dead priest.” I commented drily, noticing in amazement how three other boys ran after him. All of them had their own flags as well. They were mostly striped. One had a gold, red and black pattern, another one was red, white and blue, and the last one was striped in a red and white pattern, with a bunch of white stars in the lower right corner.

“I´d rather not.” She said. “Jokes aside, where are we going now for real?”

“A restaurant …” I said, letting my gaze wander away from the boys to the shops on the street. I was pretty sure the restaurant I picked out was around there.

“I´m not really hungry yet.” She said with a nervous expression.

“We are going to a high class one. And who said you get something to eat?” I asked sternly. She was supposed to serve me and if she wanted to act like a maid in the future for real, she should learn that she won´t eat with me.

“I see. I´m sorry.” She said, ending the conversation instantly. I wasn´t really in the mood to switch the topic or talk with her at all. I was still thinking about the whore, her benefits and her drawbacks. Especially her relation to Tom was kind of worrying. I already made my mind up that I would end her life the day she wasn´t useful anymore, even though I couldn’t gauge yet how good she actually was.

In any case, I soon found a restaurant that fitted my requirements. Well, it wasn’t the restaurant I picked out a few days prior, because I couldn’t find it again, but whatever. We were at the border of  the red light district, which meant it was barely acceptable for me to be here. Even though it wasn’t the prime time for this kind of business, there were still a few wealthy merchants and nobles with their … sparsely clothed accompaniment in tow. Otherwise, it could very well be a normal restaurant, with quite extravagant furniture.

A rather small waiter, dressed in an elegant white suit, soon approached us and eyed our plain clothes silently. We didn´t fit into the context of this building. At all.

“This isn´t a place for young girls like you two.” He said, carefully keeping his voice down in an attempt to please the already annoyed customers who were staring at us.

For three heartbeats, countable because of his building carotid artery, I waited and then smiled happily as I showed him a gold coin, I carried with me. Luckily these dresses for commoners had pouches.

“We would like the most exquisite and rare food you can provide. And some water as soon as the food is done.” I said with a nice smile on my face. The waiter eyed the coin a bit, but judged it as genuine after I flipped it over to him. He still took his sweet time to decide if he should allow us in or not after giving it back to me.

“… certainly.” He answered after what felt like an eternity. Brazenly, I walked past him, dragging Hannah behind me and steered towards the largest, unused table in the room, right in the middle of it. A chandelier hung over it, illuminating the area in a gentle yellowish light. Hannah chose to stand behind me while I sat down, which only earned her an annoyed gaze from me.

“Take a seat.” I said. I could feel her breath on my neck as I turned my head once more. It was quite annoying to be honest.

“Where?” She asked.

“On a chair.” I replied, bugged out that she was overthinking quite a lot of things. After a small pause, she circled around the table and sat down opposite of me, albeit very slowly. She probably waited for my confirmation that never came or so.

Bored, we waited for a full minute until the waiter approached us once again and placed a menu in front of us. Arms crossed, I raised my eyebrow and stared at him.

“We already told you what we wanted though …” I commented. “Just tell your chef to go all out. It doesn’t matter what it is, well, except for its rarity of course.”

“… as you wish.” He said, bowed and collected the untouched menus. Hannah couldn’t read that good in the first place and I just wanted to know if this establishment was worth to buy. Even though he tried to hide his dissatisfaction with us, I could very well see how he actually felt about us.

“I thought you wanted to eat alone?” Hannah questioned as soon as he was further away.

“There is a difference between asking or being invited.” I said, pointing out that an elfish maid should never ever ask for something in public.

“I see.” She didn´t. Well, she would understand eventually. “But I am still not very hungry.”

“Have you ever been to this kind of restaurant … probably not … whatever. As far as I understand it, the more you pay for your food, the less food you actually get.” I said, looking around the room.

“That doesn’t make much sense.” She said. And yet, it seemed to be true.

“Hmm, I completely agree. But judging by the portion sizes of the other customers, it seems to be the case.” Horrified, I even saw one small rat on one of the plates, and finally realized that the cuisine of this planet was slightly different from what I learned in purgatory. Wide eyed, I looked at the table in front of me and tried to ignore anything else.

The wood was kind of nice.

Really dark, without a scratch on it.

It was certainly cared after rather well as it reflected the light a bit.

And the grain … wow.

Time went by as I went over the wood with my finger and replied to Hannah´s every attempt to strike a conversation rather grumpily. We had to wait for quite some time until the waiter finally carried water over to us and then two plates, filled with different dishes. My eye was already twitching again as he excused himself once again.

Seeing my plate, I couldn’t help but to grip the tableware a bit tighter. The meat, laying in the centre of the place was nicely decorated with a plant I never saw before. The problem was the way this tiny piece of meat was roasted.

It was still bloody. I hated it. Blood was fine and all, but not on my plate. The only type of blood I could tolerate in my food was human blood, everything else instantly ruined the taste. Looking over towards Hannah´s plate, I couldn’t help but to smile bitterly.

It was the flapping fish again. It was clearly dead, but it still spasmed on the plate. At least the cook did an acceptable job there …

Saying nothing, I simply switched out or plates, which went surprisingly well, thanks to the clamp that fixated the fish onto the plate. Unsurprisingly, the fish was rather small as well, thus, staying in line with the general size of the dishes.

“Bon appetite” And thus, I stabbed the fish right through his eyes. This time, I was actually able to taste the fish. The moment I did so, I frowned and looked downwards. The taste was entirely different from what I saw on my plate.

“Why …” I muttered.

“What´s wrong?” Hannah said, munching on her meat happily. At least one of us was having a nice meal. Well, I could serve her burnt meat from yesterday and she would probably still eat it …

“Why does it taste like chicken?” I said, slightly disgusted by the difference in taste and look.

“What is a `chicken` ?” Hannah asked, her mouth still full of meat.

Mouth agape, I could only stare at her and raise my hand. I didn´t reply to her question at all, but rather relayed it the moment the waiter stood by my side.

… there were no chickens on Solaris.

It was certainly shocking to know that a few animals I knew of didn´t exist on this planet. I never heard of this flapping fish, but I still assumed that a chicken was kind of common. Well, it was nothing to fret over as I only had to eat this weird fish in this case.

“We want to pay.” I said quickly afterwards. The waiter, a bit surprised by my haughty attitude, still nodded and went back to retrieve a piece of blackboard to show me how much it costs. For how much we actually ate, this was far too much, but still exactly what I wanted to pay.

“How much?” I still asked, twirling my index finger through the air in a circular fashion, pointing at everything and nothing in the process.

“Excuse me?” He replied, unsure what I wanted.

“How much does this establishment cost?” I stated. This restaurant was nearly perfect. High prices, a moderate number of customers, and probably high expenditure for raw ingredients. The perfect place to wash all my dirty money.

“Uhm …” He muttered. In all honesty, I couldn’t blame him as I didn´t look like I could make these arrangements at all.

“Please tell the owner that the White family is willing to purchase his business for a generous amount. Keep the change.” I flipped a gold coin towards him, stood up and left together with Hannah, leaving a confused waiter behind while a lot of curious gazes followed us.