“Hayune, how should I reward a good dog who goes above and beyond?” asked Arivarea teasingly.
Hayune scratched her nose. “I’m not sure?” She felt quite comfortable around Arivarea thanks to spending the whole day with her but had shared no more than a few words with Puppy so was still a little nervous.
“Above and beyond?” asked Puppy, very confused.
“What did you kill for those?” asked Arivarea.
“Some sort of blue tusked things.” he shrugged.
“Yep, that sounds like Manyans to me. How do you not know what a Manyan is, Puppy?”
Puppy just looked away in shame. He was not the academic type and they were a grasslands mammal that never showed up in the mountainous forest area that he grew up in.
“Don’t bully him!” pouted Hayune. “He got the tusks didn’t he?”
Arivarea looked at her with wide eyes. She’d spent the entire day with Hayune and she still chose Puppy over her. His charm was not to be trifled with.
“Alright, then we can hand in the quest now, can’t we?” said Arivarea looking at Hayune.
“Of course, we have completed it after all.” she nodded, smiling.
They pocketed the reward money, splitting it fairly between the three of them. Puppy and Arivarea just kept the money together as they were travelling together anyway.
Puppy and Arivarea walked to Roh Ten’s house with food and drink, looking to spend time with them and hopefully find out more about their situation.
They dropped their equipment at the inn on the way and had a quick bath in the inn’s facilities beforehand, not forgetting a quick make out session.
They knocked on the door and unsurprisingly Roh Ten opened the door with a sword at her side. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw them.
They could both tell she was on edge ever since the Egra farm incident.
“Hello,” smiled Puppy with a wave.
Roh Ten waved them in wordlessly after smiling at them. “Dad, Puppy and Ari are here.”
“Bring them in!”
“I have!” she said already at the kitchen door. Arivarea held up the bag of food with a smile.
“We brought some food to thank you for the help you gave us.”
“We could not accept such a thing.” waved Roh Gak
“Then we’ll eat it with you.” said Arivarea squeezing past Roh Ten. “What are you making?” she asked.
“Rice, and vegetable,” he replied.
“Would you mind if we cooked you some of this?” She held up a bag of raw meat that Puppy had carved from the manyans.
“I can only accept, no?”
“Of course,” she laughed.
“Please use kitchen how you want.”
“Thank you.”
Puppy sat next to Roh Ten at their table, the small kitchen and similarly small table meant they were very close together. Even the two in the kitchen had to shuffle past each other.
“What do they want, Dad?”
“To cook us something, as thanks.”
“Oh…” She was a little taken aback and looked at Arivarea preparing the meat with a grateful gaze.
“If you don’t mind me asking, how come Roh Ten can’t speak Fillish while you can?” Asked Arivarea.
He pondered for a minute before answering. “Many here speak Rinean. Also she has not many friend.”
“Oh, how come?”
“She very bad mood,” he said, shaking his head.
Arivarea laughed and looked back at Roh Ten who was sitting with her chin propped on her hand whilst swinging her legs. Puppy giggled a little as well.
“What did she ask?” asked Roh Ten who heard her name followed by laughing.
“Don’t worry about it, how about you set the table,” he said with a chuckle.
“Fine…” she grumbled but was unwilling to show any sort of rudeness in front of guests.
“She very sad child. We lose a lot already. Now will lose more.”
“I can’t imagine…” said Arivarea after shaking her head. She hadn’t lost anything worth talking about. Neither had Puppy so he stayed appropriately quiet.
“I was thinking about your problem.” said Arivarea, recalling the conversation she had with Hayune.
“Old hag problem?”
“That’s the one,” she grinned mischievously.
Two days after Puppy and Arivarea had dinner with the Roh family, Arivarea had begun her master plan. Puppy, who had not a single clue about what she was doing; was swiftly put to work.
He was walking alongside Roh Ten, who was similarly clueless, and Hayune who they had requested to help them out with their quests. Their only task: Make as much money as possible.
“This smarmy bastard has really left us nothing to sit on?” snarled Roh Ten. She was currently perched on the hardwood surface of a large ship docked at the city harbour.
Hayune had resigned herself to the floor as well. “I’m going to file a complaint with the Guild,” she said in perfect Rinean. Roh Ten laughed at her banter.
The quest was simply to guard the merchandise aboard the merchant’s ship. After completing quests all day they decided that they would not waste the night and complete a quest whilst taking shifts for sleeping.
Puppy was first, he was sleeping with his backpack under his head and his hands locked together over his chest. Roh Ten Hayune was meant to be sleeping but found it very difficult.
“I hope my father knows what he’s doing, I’ve never seen him like this before.” said Roh Ten.
“Like what?” inquired Hayune. She propped her head up so that she could look at Roh Ten.
“Motivated.” she crossed her arms.
“He’ll be alright, you can trust Arivarea.” she smiled.
“How do you know that? You’ve known her for less time than me.”
Hayune huffed and sat up. “I spent a whole day with her and I consider myself to be very good at judging people accurately.”
“Well, she seems fine so far…” said Roh Ten with a little reluctance recalling the dinner Arivarea had prepared for them.
“See! She makes you feel like everything’s going to be alright.” Said Hayune with reverence.
“Anyway, shouldn’t you be asleep?” asked Roh Ten.
“As if I can sleep on a wooden floor, that’s leaving out the fact that the boat is rocking too.”
“He doesn’t seem to have a problem.” said Roh Ten who jutted out her chin in reference to the sleeping dog.
“Men can sleep anywhere, I swear.”
“I think you could nick his pillow and he’d be none the wiser,” said Roh Ten with a mischievous smirk.
“I’d feel bad,” said Hayune, shaking her head.
“I’ll get it for you,” Roh Ten volunteered far too quickly.
“No… It’s fine,” said Hayune trying to interfere but Roh Ten had already crawled up beside him.
She lifted Puppy’s head slightly and started to drag the backpack from underneath his head. Once it was far enough out, she slowly laid Puppy’s head back down. After she was finally successful in laying it gently to the floor did she notice his eyes wide open and staring at her.
“You only had to ask,” he said. Hayune laughed, she had seen Puppy wake up whilst Roh Ten was in the middle of her sneaky procedure.
Roh Ten went red and, having not understood what he said, turned slowly towards Hayune.
“He said you only had to ask…” she managed to say between laughter. Roh Ten huffed at Puppy and marched back to her spot.
“Sorry, Hayune.” said Puppy. “I should have offered it to you. Do you want to use it?” he asked, pushing the backpack her way.
“Like I said to Roh Ten, I couldn’t. Thank you for offering though.”
“What about if we share it?” he asked, his face dead serious.
“Now, that is an offer I can’t refuse.” said Hayune immediately getting up and lying down next to Puppy. She placed her head on his backpack and quickly closed her eyes, afraid that if she opened her eyes she might get too embarrassed with how close he was.
Puppy chuckled and laid back down, he sent a wink over to Roh Ten who was just watching the scene unfold.
The night passed without an issue, whoever was sleeping shared Puppy’s backpack and the shifts finally ended when Puppy woke up the sleeping girls. They still had a lot of work to do if they wanted to keep up with Arivarea’s money goal.
Hayune was beginning to see changes in the city she had known her whole life. She had grown used to the people looking unhappy, to the growing divide between rich and poor and most of all to complacency.
Shopping lots that she was used to seeing unoccupied had begun to fill up within a matter of days since Arivarea began to unleash her master plan on the city of Mardoch. Merchants that once sneered at their customers were now shouting for attention, desperately dropping their prices. Hayune even sneaked a peak towards the Ygar tyrant’s offices only to see her roving around screaming at anyone present.
A smile had not left the woman’s face in days, especially thanks to the two misfits that she had the pleasure of spending them with. Puppy was left out sometimes due to Roh Ten’s inability to speak Fillish but did not seem to mind in the slightest. He stated himself that he was perfectly content with just being able to help Arivarea in some way.
Like this a week passed, Arivarea and Puppy only had the energy to have sex on one of the days as Puppy was out on missions whilst Arivarea had a full table of paperwork and the heavy task of managing half a city’s worth of farmers and merchants.
Finally, Arivarea managed to catch Puppy coming home late one night. “Puppy, I need you tomorrow.” the tone of her voice sounded like her master plan was about to reach its climax.
“Of course, what for?” he said, too tired for more than a few words.
“We’re finally confronting that old Ygar woman. She wants to talk with the city’s new powerhouse.” Arivarea stated smugly.
Thanks for the chapter!
Thanks for the chapter