"I've found the last fragments of ownership of this realm" Was the first thing that Delta said when she sat us down. I wasn't even able to take a bite out of the food that she had ordered for us before she dropped that bomb of information on us.
"How?" Aoif asked, curious.
"I scouted a bit last night" Delta began, "Found that the huge castle in the middle of the city contains the ruler." Delta said, her hand pointed to the side as she looks over to the window. It was pretty obvious that the castle had a ruler when you thought about it, but what I was curious of was how that lead to her finding the last fragments of ownership for this realm.
"How does that lead to you finding the last fragments then?" I asked, curious at how a ruler could have the location of them. "Were they the owner, or do they have information?" It was a necessary distinction. If the leader of this castle was the owner then we would have to assassinate the leader but if they just had information we could stay in this comfort for a few more days while gathering the information and interacting with the subjects. I hoped for the latter for the very reason that these people most likely had things that we would want, chief among them being the apparent spells that I had seen them use. All around the city I had seen various comfort spells, even the citizens used vague spells to keep their food fresh, to waft the scent of their fresh baked goods into the air.
It was all done with the only sign of it even happening, the vague wafting of aether into the air, though barely any of the residents seemed to see it as weird, just an everyday fact of life. It intrigued me, for them to be able to use their aether in such creative ways, how did they do it. Was it a specific process or was it something else, something inherent.
"Information, I infiltrated and found several documents detailing different wyverns and different caverns." Delta spoke, her answer breaking me from the spiral of thoughts that I was going through in my head.
"Any details on how to defeat them or if they had defeated any of them?"
"None that I could find on a cursory look" Delta answered as her head shook.
I nodded, my hand reaching down to grab another bite of the food in front of me. It was a sort of biscuit and some sausage and egg equivalent. Though regardless of the classification, the food was good. Even when just absentmindedly eating it while various thoughts swirled around my head was pleasant.
Eventually the room turned silent, the clanking of utensils against the plates the only noise in the room. Up and down my fork went pulling food into my mouth as I gazed over to the window. The grand castle in my view.
It was rough on the outside but that roughness gave it this grand feeling, as if it had withstood many years and come out stronger. If I focused harder though I could see the aether wafting off of it, the stone that made it up being constantly reinforced by some sort of pattern of aether. It was almost like the castle was alive, the patterns of aether flowing through it looked almost human in their construction,
clang
"hm" I hummed. My head turned from the castle that I was observing down to the plate only to find it empty, only the scraps of the meal remaining. Although I had eaten so much I still felt hungry, enough that I could go for another full course meal.
'Another thing to bring back' I thought my head turned to the food. Back in my realm we didn't have any spices or at least any that I knew of. So even though Tama could cook well enough it wasn't enough to make up for the lack of spices.
'Wait… couldn't I have just asked Delta to make them?' Another thought interrupted me, and I couldn't help but bang my head against my palm. All this time eating bland food when I could have just had Delta make spices.
"Hah" I sighed out loud. "Are there any good restaurants that you found, Delta?" I ask, my head turned to look over at Delta who stood at the counter her eye closed.
"Mm…" She hummed, "Downstairs has food but I imagine you want to actually sit down and eat."
I nodded as Delta continued, "In that case a good option would be around the street, I'll lead the way."
With that Delta walks away, her eye opened as she glances at both Aoif and I.
"Coming? Aoif." I asked as I walked over to her shaking her shoulder gently.
"Yeah" She responded, walking to grab her shoes as she followed both of us.
…
"Welcome! Give me a second to get you seated." A cheerful voice greeted as soon as Delta had opened the door. Delta just nodded, the waitress a bit put off by the indifference of her.
A minute went by soon and we were seated, the restaurant overlooking countless people as they went about their day. From the aristocrats that sat in their gilded carriages to the common man that walked around intent on arriving at wherever they needed to be. I watched all of it just as Aoif did, though I would fathom that she had more focus on snuggling into me than on joining me in people watching.
"Here" A voice pulled me from my people watching as it put menus in front of us. "I'll give you three a minute to decide but for now is there anything you would like to drink?"
"Water for all three of us," Delta answered, her eye glaring at us as she hurried the waiter along.
Something dropped from Delta's hand and landed on the table, a faint wave of aether spreading over us as the rest of the restaurant went silent.
"Order something random and don't act suspicious" Delta said, her eyes pointed towards a random table where a group of noble look-alikes were gathered.
This content is taken from (f)reewe(b)novel.𝗰𝗼𝐦