🙡 Chapter 8.2 🙣

Before contract

[ Denasi PoV ]

The local branch of the Institute was as infuriatingly noisy as ever. While Alchemy was the most superior of all arts, Denasi still had some respect towards people providing care to a menagerie of creatures, seeing the amount of work her sister had to do to learn how to treat a multitude of species helped her mature beyond earlier dismissal of other arts. I mean it takes a special type of passion to deal with poisonous chimeras, ferocious tigers, or worse of all—their owners. 

She recalled the lizardman showing off on the courtyard… That’s why she didn’t want to come to this branch! Too many ranchers, meaning too many lizardmen! Not that she had anything against them personally, but the rising tensions between their clans are making things unpleasant. Especially outside the city, where tensions between clans often lead to pride being hurt, which often ends with bodies being hurt. 

Not to mention, she rarely had a reason to come here at all. Prestigious organisations like this one tend to have their own suppliers. Fortunately, sometimes, speed of delivery is a grave matter. Though it’s rare someone is willing to pay the necessary premium for an average animal, or even a treasured family pet.

But this time she didn’t have much of a choice. Oath-making skill owners value their time, not to mention they prefer working for rich merchants and nobles, rather than farmers, cattle ranchers, and lonely spinsters. Fortunately, most people who become members of academies are not known for their sanity. Or a logical approach towards money.

And so she walked forward on the auspiciously clean— for a place that is being constantly used and servicing animals— corridor. She suspected the owner of the small pair of black eyes and droopy ears she could see peeking from between the closet on her right had something to do with that. She pretended not to notice them as she moved forward… unlike her pet-to-be, who looked with obvious curiosity.

By the time they reached the room she was directed to by the receptionist, she started becoming suspicious there was some kind of mistake, why would such an auspicious person be put in a remote basement room with no windows?

She opened the door, and suddenly it made sense. First, was the smell of rotten and dead fish. That already was enough to make her snakes recoil backwards, the momentum nearly making her lose her balance. Then, there was a wave of freezing cold air. Finally, she could see a big pink hand—or rather, flipper— beckoning them, from behind a shelf of aquariums and cages, to come closer.

“Please, Please! Come in!”

On the other side she could see a huge man, three times her size. A brown-pink skin covered the visible parts of the body, top of which was clad in a blue red waistcoat, while the lower had an elegant trouser, complimenting the walrus-kin sitting and looking at her.

“Oh welcome, welcome! I’m sorry for the mess, no time to clean up, we have been so busy recently! Haha! I was just feeding my little friends!

He said, putting one of the fish from a bucket he had in his hand… into a tank, which only had a big skeleton covering a sizeable part of its floor.

“Erm…” Denasi started, not sure if she should call someone better versed in brain biology for help, just before the skeleton came alive. Or rather, faux skeleton, as the bones were in reality very well camouflaged fish! 

“Ho ho ho! Magnificent, aren’t they? We don’t know what creature’s skeleton they are mimicking, some people believe there is no original, others are still searching. A colleague of mine gave a lecture where he suggested it’s a skeleton of a recently extinct relative of the Jumping Shark!” He plopped another fish in “If you don’t mind giving me another five minutes?”

“That’s fine.” She really didn’t mind giving him a moment, as she enjoyed watching the bizarre critters feed. She didn’t even mind keeping it a secret that she could smell the scent of the fish he is currently feeding from his mouth. As well as the “Feed for animals! Not for employee consumption!” written with red ink on a piece of paper attached to the barrel. 

The walrus laughed uncomfortably, noticing the direction of her gaze. 

*Humm*  it coughed, finally done,  making it’s walrus neck puff up twice its size, the bosses covering its beard looking as if they were about to pop [note* bosses are bumps-like things on male walruses. Imagine a beard of pimples]. “How can I help you? Honorable...”

“Denasi Tanes. Alchemist.”

“I see I see! Where are my manners!  Ceno Longtooth, senior member of Conservatory of the Great River, the greatest northern academy, and a certified contractor. I see you brought a little friend… or are you here looking for a buyer?” He asked, and the medusa could swear she could see hunger in the eyes of the scholar. Hopefully, it was hunger for knowledge.

The huge man tried bowing down to look at the tentacle-monster, but his thick blubber blocked him from getting low enough. So, undeterred, he just lifted the carrier and the cage up, putting it on his huge desk. With a practiced hand, he quickly located and pulled the lever, which blocked the flow of the moving platforms mana,  transforming it back into an unmoving table.

“Ohhh what an interesting specimen…What is it?” He asked expectantly

“... Learning that would be the first reason we came here”

It looked again at sir Yarnball (she still thought it funny how sincere her sister was about calling him this way), from multiple sides, rotating the cage as if it didn’t weigh nearly as much as she did. The animal in question playing with cages lock . Not that it could escape this time, even if it did manage to open it again.

“Hmmm I can see why you might have been sent here, but no, I don’t think it’s a sea creature. It looks similar but this skin… I’m not sure what it was adapted for! And is that gravity mana? Fascinating! Not to mention, you’ve put a quite powerful skill blocking collar on, and I doubt you did it just for fun… Just remember to take it off later, it can hurt the little one’s development! “

“Would you mind?” he asked, while pointing towards the lock on the cage.

“Please”, Denasi took the key out of her bag “Oh, and just so you know, it’s very... lively”

“Ohohoh! A feisty little bugger you say! No problem, I’ve dealt with these!” He boasted, putting a protective glove on his flipper “Come here!” 

But then, as he once again turned towards the crate he noticed… the unknown creature doing something to the lock… its little tentacles full of smashed insect bodies… 

He quickly moved towards it to confirm and.. Yes. It jammed the keyhole with insect corpses!

“... I think it might be a better idea if we got contracted first”

“... are you sure you want to swear a contract with him?