"Oh!" Langis swiftly pressed his cloth mask down as a breeze forcefully lifted it.
Ryder and Green managed to catch a glimpse of his face before it was covered up again. It was one of the most beautiful faces both of them had ever seen, like a perfect sculpture carved by a divine being.
"Did you... see my face, Dragon Rider?" The elf spoke in a somber tone.
"Yes. You look-"
"Beautiful?" There was bitterness in his tone.
"Uh, yeah."
An awkward silence ensued as they continued their journey on foot to the nearest town under the morning sun.
Green gave his rider a glance, to which the human gave Brown a glance, to which Brown shot a lazy glance back. Perhaps it was fortunate that Purple was still roaming the fields by himself, or else he would've said something that made the situation worse.
"A long time ago, my ancestors made a wish." Langis spoke again with a tinge of melancholy. "They had won the favor of a god, and the god promised to grant them one wish. They wished for eternal beauty for their people and offsprings."
He took a deep breath before continuing, "Despite my ancestors' best intentions, the wish gave everyone, no matter their gender or age, an identical, perfectly beautiful face. All the men of our tribe eventually grew to have a petite, scrawny body while the women had busty, voluptuous bodies. It didn't take long for our ancestors to realize they had brought a curse upon themselves."
Ryder and Green glanced at each other. They didn't expect the story to take such a dark turn.
"Other tribes started capturing us due to our beauty, while our tribe nearly collapsed due to everyone's inability to discern who's who. Our ancestors had to move deep into the forest to ensure our tribe's survival. They were safe, but they were still distraught by the loss of their individually unique bodies and faces. One of our ancestors, Illoid, proposed everyone to wear a mask so we could tell each other apart. Since then, we were never allowed to show our bare face to anyone."
"I... I'm sorry to hear that. I shouldn't have looked at your face."
"It's fine! You shouldn't feel bad, Dragon Rider. People rarely leave our tribe, and those who do rarely return. It's only natural that other tribes aren't aware of our history and taboo. Mhm-mhm." Langis nodded.
"You aren't afraid that you'll get kidnapped?"
"I have my ways. If my fame isn't enough to gain protection, I heed no mind to using my cursed body to gain safe passage." He placed his hand on his chest and smiled.
"Ah...huh. Wait, you're famous?" Ryder pulled out his papers as they arrived in front of the gates before looking at the artist.
"You'll see, ehehehe." Langis pulled out his papers too.
The guards checked their papers and stamped it with blue, vanishing ink before allowing them to pass. The dragon rider warned the guards that, if a purple dragon who looked like the incarnation of destruction itself arrived, they should call for him. The guards exchanged a look with their yellow eyes before nodding with a hint of anxiety. He gave the guards a reassuring smile before heading into the town.
"Would you like to explore the town first? Or perhaps you'll be interested to see how I utilize the knowledge I gained from the relic to make a living for myself?" The elf grinned with anticipation.
"I would love to!" Even though Ryder couldn't read the relic, he would have a better idea of what it is if he could see the art that was inspired directly from the book.
"Your dragons may not be able to follow us to the place where I'll be selling my merchandise. Sorry, sorry." Langis lowered his head and did the triangle gesture again.
"I'll head to the guild once we're done." The dragon rider announced to his dragons before they split off into two groups.
Their first destination was, strangely enough, a shop that sold wood. The elf asked for multiple long blocks of wood with different width and length. Ryder was puzzled, but the shop owner didn't give a damn and handed the blocks of wood to him as it was too heavy for the petite man to carry it. He constructed a barebone container made of vines with plant magic and carried the wood blocks on his back. Since the artist didn't want to elaborate on the usage of the wooden blocks until they arrived at their destination, Ryder made a wild guess that it had something to do with the wooden boards he saw yesterday.
Then they made their way to the furthest point they possibly could from the entrance. The more they walked into the shady side of town, the more Ryder's suspicions rose about the true nature of the "relic". Eventually, they arrived at the part of town where there were only adults, and the realization dawned on Ryder as he saw the first brothel.
Finally, they arrived at a single-storey building that bore the insignia of the Oriza Trade Association. Technically, it was just four wooden stalls connected to each other. The last one was a personalized stall for the Association's employee, who takes care of all matters related to renting a stall. Langis approached the employee in charge, showed her a badge, and entered the only empty stall left in the building.
While the dragon rider placed wooden blocks down on the ground, the artist picked out a dozen of his wooden boards, all of which were in different sizes, and placed them on the counter. After that, he pulled out a collection of book-sized wooden boards, carefully stacked them on top of each other, and pressed it down to combine all of them into a single, thick board.
He peeled off a layer from all the wooden boards, placed them carefully on the counter, and put a rock on it as paperweight. As for that last combined wooden board, he peeled off an extremely thin-sized book from the surface and placed it on the counter too. Lastly, he placed all of the wooden boards on the bottom of the blocks that fit its sizes. Seconds later, the drawings on the boards appeared on the surface of the blocks.
Ryder was naturally impressed by this unique magic, though he couldn't help but gulp and blush a little when he saw the lewd drawings on the boards. There was no doubt in his mind that the relic Langis found was-
"Master Artist Langis' Arousing Drawings - Hentai! Come and buy now before it's sold out!!" A recording of Langis' voice started blasting at the street once he placed his badge into a socket on the left end of the counter. There was even a hologram of the elf's cloth mask design slowly rotating in a circle on top of the stall.
70% of the people passing the street immediately turned their attention to the stall when they heard Langis or saw him standing there.
"It's Master Langis'! He's back!"
"Shit! Why didn't anyone tell me Master Langis is visiting today? I just spent all my spare money earlier!"
"Oh my! It's sir Langis~ I wonder what his new drawings look like~"
Ryder thought all of the customers would be men, but there was a surprising amount of women too. Although, some of the customers seemed to be more interested in Langis himself than his artwork.
The human couldn't bear to watch the elf trying to run the stall on his own, so he decided to help out by peeling layers off of the wooden blocks. He didn't know how to do it at first, but when he directed a tiny amount of mana to his finger tips, he could peel the layers off as fast as he could.
There were some... inappropriate words directed at Langis and his work. While the elf dealt with the lewd comments calmly and politely, Ryder could tell from his body language that he wasn't wholly comfortable with it. However, he would instantly become chirpy whenever someone showed genuine appreciation of his art and was willing to exchange a few words with him about his craft.
More and more customers visited the stall as news spread until it caused a legitimate disturbance at the street. Authorities had to step in to force all the customers to stand in line. Ryder thought the stall owners next door would be jealous or angry at the business Langis was getting, but that wasn't the case at all. In fact, they were pretty happy since it unintentionally attracted more attention to what they were selling.
When the wooden blocks had been reduced to ⅖ of its original height, the dragon rider received a call on his draconic arm. Green reminded him that he still needs to buy supplies and deal with some paperwork regarding the bandit attack yesterday at the guild.
"I'm sorry, Langis, but I have to head back to my dragons now."
"It's okay, Dragon Rider! There aren't that many customers anymore, so I can handle the rest by myself! Mhm-mhm!" The elf spoke as he munched on his late lunch.
"Alright." Ryder placed his finger on his chin. "I think by the time I'm done with my matters, it'll be time for dinner. How about we meet up at the big restaurant we saw in front of the gate?"
"Sounds very goody!"
They bade goodbye and the human returned to his dragons to deal with paperwork. Oh, joy.
