A Lovey-Dovey Market Date with Erina
Honestly, if safety were the only consideration, Erina ought to stay out of town entirely. But I couldn't keep her locked inside this cramped little general store forever. A life spent cooped up behind the counter—how exactly would that be any different from real slavery?
The market was safe. Crowds gathered there, and at least two guards were always stationed within its bounds.
The problem was the back alleys behind the residential quarter. Even in a peaceful village like Greenhill, that was where most of the crime happened.
And getting to Master Humson's workshop meant passing straight through those back alleys—there was no other way.
That was why I'd been wanting to relocate Humson's workshop, keeping an ear out for a vacant storefront anywhere near our shop. But most of the merchants in this town had been running their businesses for twenty or thirty years, so a commercial building rarely opened up unless its owner grew too old and passed away.
Either way, the back alleys were dangerous, sure—but in the broad light of day they were less eventful than you'd think. We'd just pop over and come right back.
On payday, Humson and I always held a little two-man drinking session at his workshop, but with Erina along today, a proper feast would run late, so I hadn't prepared the usual liquor and meat. Instead, I added a box of a new vitamin drink called Vitamin500 to the box of Bacchus I kept him stocked with at all times. (He'd probably appreciate having a caffeine-free option, too.)
Whatever Humson grumbled, we'd be home before the day ran out.
Part of the reason I went to all this trouble was for Erina's sake, but I also wanted to formally introduce our new employee to Humson. That way, if he ever stopped by the store when I wasn't around, he'd recognize Erina and pass along a message or a request without any fuss.
For the record, Gote could never, ever fill that role. It would be a small miracle if Humson didn't come charging at him with an axe raised. And yes, I knew perfectly well he was an intelligent variant goblin. I said what I said.
It was only a quick loop around the village, but between the coin purse full of silver and copper, the energy drinks, and everything else, I had quite a bit to haul, so I headed for the stable. With this much cargo, I'd better take my horse, Tempest. Normally I went empty-handed and used the door in the little back room of Humson's workshop to summon my old studio apartment and move things that way—but Erina was with me today.
Next, the safety gear. As always, I slipped the walkie-talkie—my lifeline to Gote at any moment—into my shirt pocket, then tucked the revolver, loaded with six rounds, into my inner pocket. The collapsible baton went on my belt opposite the coin purse. Ever since the bandit ambush and that run-in with Greenhill's local toughs, this much had become my standard loadout wherever I went.
"Here, put this on."
"Oh. Okay."
Erina still seemed full of worries, so I pulled my going-out hood up over her head. With her hair and ears covered, she passed for human without a shred of suspicion. What she couldn't hide was that chest of hers, in a league of its own. The hood seemed kind of pointless, honestly. Then again, I could probably pick Erina out from a hundred meters away even with her head covered.
"Gote, Erina and I are heading out to Master Humson's. Keep the walkie-talkie on."
"You're going out with Miss Erina again this time? The back alleys are dangerous, so please don't stay out too late."
Unlike earlier, there was a faint tension in Gote's voice. No night customers were booked today, so he was worried I'd lose track of time drinking with Humson.
Creak.
"It looks like it might rain this evening," Erina said the moment we opened the door and stepped out of the general store, her eyes on the sky.
Sure enough, black clouds were creeping in slowly from beyond the forest, just barely visible in the distance.
"It'll be here before long."
"Okay."
"Let's go."
We loaded Humson's goods onto Tempest and set off right away. Reins in hand, the two of us walked slowly into the market district.
Sex when it was just the two of us was wonderful, but this kind of easy, unhurried date out among the crowd had its own charm. Would've been even better with an iced americano in each of our hands.
The closer we got to the heart of the market, the thicker the crowds grew. Street stalls with their wares spread out on boards began catching my eye one by one. Once we were properly inside the market, I walked her through the stalls and shops one at a time. I even pointed out the spot where I'd run my own stall back in my snack-vendor days—these days it was occupied by a dice-game hustler running a toy lottery, fleecing the kids out of their pocket change.
Better memorize all this well. From now on, you'll be the one buying our ingredients in my place, you know?
"That's the fruit shop, that's the dishware shop, that one's the bakery, next is the vegetable stand... and over there is..."
"Who's that person?"
Erina pointed at a peddler who, like an old-fashioned candy seller, had a broad flat tray strapped to his front and was hawking some kind of round food.
"So he sells snacks too?"
"Those are cookies. You've had the chocolate chip cookies at our shop, haven't you?"
"But... there's nothing stuck inside those cookies?"
"Nobody around here can make chocolate, so they just bake lumps of flour with a little sugar mixed in. Sugar's expensive, so he probably didn't use much."
"Huh... so you can make cookies without putting anything in them at all."
For Erina, who'd tasted her very first snack food at our shop, I supposed the plain version was the exotic one. For the record, that man was probably the last snack vendor left in all of Greenhill. I'd put every snack seller who used to own this town out of business, starting two years ago.
The reason I strictly enforced per-person purchase limits on seasonings and spices like salt, pepper, and sugar—no matter how much money they brought in—was precisely because of people like him. I had zero intention of letting my competitors buy up cheap ingredients from my own shelves in bulk, cook up a rival product, and trip me at the ankle. Thanks to that constant vigilance, every child in Greenhill came knocking at my shop now.
Looking closer, the man was selling a full three of those enormous cookies—each the size of a grown man's palm—for a single copper coin. A small-margin, high-volume play, scraping together whatever grubby coins the hard-up kids could cough up. At some point the vendor seemed to recognize me, because he started coughing pointedly and edging away from his spot. There was really no need for that.
"Try it and you'll probably find it's nothing special. Low on sugar, so at least it's healthy."
"Still... out here it looks delicious. I want to try some..."
By the way, how did Erina eat like that and never gain a single ounce? She seemed aware of the whole gaining-weight thing herself... but having inspected every inch of her body personally, I couldn't detect the slightest change from the day I'd brought her home from the auction house. Though her chest did seem... a little bigger? Did all the fat just go straight to her breasts or something? An elf trait? Come to think of it, I'd never once heard of a chubby, plump elf.
"Hey there, cookie man."
When I called out to the back of the vendor's fleeing head, he flinched hard and turned to face me, slowly. Did he think I was about to throw my weight around like some big-chain tycoon of the trade? I quietly fished a single copper coin out of my purse and held it out.
"One, please."
"Ah... yes, of course."
The vendor handed me three of the big cookies all at once.
"Just one is fine."
"It's three for one copper?"
"That's all right. Just the one, please."
I took the cookie and held it out to Erina. She hadn't seen it coming, and her already-huge eyes somehow grew even wider at the sight of it.
"You bought this for me to eat?!"
"You have to taste the other guy's snacks to know how good ours are."
"...Then share it with me, Master!"
"I'm good."
I declined. I knew exactly what it tasted like.
Crunch.
Erina took a huge bite of the cookie. It had sat out in the open air, unwrapped, for who knew how long—even just listening to her chew, it sounded dry as chalk.
"......"
"Well? How is it?"
"It's so dry...."
"Right?"
"And... it's so bland. There's a little sweetness, but... it's like chewing undercooked dough..."
Exactly the reaction I'd predicted. Erina, apparently unable to bring herself to throw away food she'd already bitten into, forced the rest of the massive thing down, chew by chew.
"Our shop's cookies really are the best, huh?"
A nod. Erina's throat caught, and the words wouldn't come. I tore open the box of Vitamin500 strapped to Tempest, cracked one open, and handed it to her. Humson wouldn't grumble over a single bottle.
"Whoa! What is this drink? It's so sweet and tangy! It's like eating a big juicy fruit!"
"It's a vitamin drink."
"Vita... what?"
"Don't say a word about this to Humson later. I'll tell him a bottle broke and I had to throw it out."
"Yes, Master!"
A sidelong glance.
And another.
Anyway, at some point it wasn't just the passersby—even the merchants tending their stalls had begun sneaking glances at Erina. Every last one of them a man, naturally.
Erina belatedly became aware of all those male eyes. She realized the hood had been blown back off her head by the wind and hastily yanked it up again—but she knew perfectly well that it made no difference at all.
"Ah. My chest..."
She hurriedly covered herself with her hands, then realized the futility of trying to hide those two enormous mounds with a pair of slender arms. Erina's face was turning pinker by the second—the same shade it turned when we had sex.
"I should've worn a cloak or something instead."
"It's fine. They're staring because you're beautiful, that's all. Just enjoy it."
"How am I supposed to enjoy it when everyone's staring holes through me...?"
"Then how did you survive in the shop all this time? The male customers couldn't take their eyes off you."
"That's... my workplace, and I'm an employee there. If I think of it as part of the job, it's fine. But right now..."
"You'll get used to looks like these soon enough. Haha."
Because I gave up on it myself, after all... haha...
The first time you came out naked on that auction stage, I couldn't tear my eyes away either. I genuinely forgot that blinking was a thing humans did. And what was I supposed to do when my gaze kept sliding to those big nipples of yours even when I didn't want it to?
In a city like Stonefield, where women actually went around dressed up, busy men might not spare them much attention. But this was Greenhill, a country village. The males here were so starved for the sight of a woman they'd probably stare at the neighborhood puppies too.
"Huh? Master, I think those women over there are looking at you?"
"Hm? Where? ...Well, what do you know. Ahem..."
A few young women were indeed looking my way. To be precise, they were alternating their gazes between me and Erina. Well... I'd lived in this town long enough to be used to looks like that. But as we passed close by a pack of them, their whispers began to reach my ears, bit by bit.
"...What a waste."
"I hear that young man's married."
"His wife is gorgeous."
"Well, he is handsome... I'm so jealous."
"I want to find a handsome man like that and get married soon, too."
Giggle, giggle, giggle.
The women tittered as they walked past us.
"Master? Are you all right? Your face is red."
"Mmhm... I'm fine."
Seriously, people would just say anything....
Hurrying our pace to escape the women's whispers had apparently done nothing but trigger everyone's herd instinct. Now it wasn't just the people we crossed paths with—even the shoppers browsing the store shelves were turning to stare at us, wondering what was going on.
"I don't think I need this after all."
Erina had finally grasped that covering her ears and face accomplished nothing, and she pulled off the stifling hood altogether. She's given up, this girl.
"Hello! Have a lovely day!"
"Wow, she said hi to me!"
From then on, she greeted every person whose eyes met hers with a light nod and a bow of the head. Which was exactly the way an idol waves at their fans coming out of the airport. Every so often, someone played the familiar card with me, too.
"Oh, it's the general store guy."
"Storekeeper. Those red work gloves I bought from you last time have served me well. They don't slip—genuinely useful."
"Ah, the leather gloves. Yes, yes... we don't sell them one at a time anymore—they come bundled in fives now. They're cheap, so when you wear them out, come buy another pack."
"I've been really enjoying that chocolate you gave me last time, too."
"Glad to hear it. Come by often. Next time I see you, I'll throw in an extra one for free."
Even if they couldn't quite remember the name Luciel, my oriental-doll features had apparently left an impression, so they just called me "sundries" or "the storekeeper." Small talk like this I could handle in my sleep.
"Master, is it like this every time you go out? We're totally popular!"
"It's not usually like this. It's because I'm with you, Erina. Ah—let's not go this way."
As Erina moved to turn down an empty corner away from the crowded market, I caught her shoulder lightly with the hand that wasn't holding the reins and steered her in another direction. A little farther down that way sat that particular shop.
The general store.
The shop that had been hanging a "General Store" sign in this village long before I ever opened mine. Its name: the Sell-Everything General Store.
But "sell-everything" was generous—the shelves mostly carried farm implements like plows and axes, leather straps for binding a cow's teats so the milk flowed freely at milking time, wooden mallets for swapping out horseshoes—a grab-bag assortment of work tools, and little else.
The owner of that place had opposed the opening of my general store harder and more viciously than anyone else in town. Kassel. Men like that—you never forget their names. We weren't on good terms even now. Whenever the Greenhill merchants' guild held a meeting, he was practically dying to sink his teeth into me there.
He was convinced that his own shop's miserable sales were entirely my doing. He'd mistaken my store's success for poaching—certain that I'd stolen his customers. No. More precisely, he wanted to believe that. His shop had never been a thriving business to begin with. It was just the village hardware store—the kind every town has exactly one of.
A long while back, I'd even extended a dinner invitation to my own store to clear the air, and he'd agreed—then simply never showed. He'd stood me up on purpose.
In truth, when I was preparing to open my shop, the thing I'd agonized over most was the location. Because of him, my store couldn't take a spot in the center of the market and had to settle for the very fringe of the district, with the added condition that our merchandise must not overlap with his. Not that it mattered—everyone knew my products couldn't have overlapped with his if I'd wanted them to.
Best not to so much as turn our heads in that direction. It would be just my luck to catch a load of garbage he'd chucked out the window for loitering in front of his shop.
"...I see. I suppose people like that exist everywhere. No matter how kind and good you try to be to everyone, there's always someone who hates you or envies you."
Having heard my story about the Sell-Everything General Store, Erina shook her head with a sigh, as if to say some things simply couldn't be helped.