Page 145

"Oh good, looks like it's still open!" Raya pointed to a restaurant a few streets off of the main road. It happened to be in a part of town that hadn't taken much damage. The restaurant had a cute little cow sign hanging by the door.

The door clanged with an appropriate cowbell as we came in. The restaurant was pretty quiet right now, not sure if it was the time of day or the state the city is in. There were a few adventurers by the door watching the entrance though. Their eyes looked over us and our weapons but they didn't say anything or stop us from coming in.

"Oh, hello travelers. Were you looking for lunch?" A teenage human waitress came to the front to greet us.

"My friend Raya here told us that you might serve ice cream, is that true?" I said pointing to Raya with my thumb.

She smiled. "Yep! We make it in the back. Would you like a table?"

"Sure table for..." I looked over my group, "eight."

She led us to a large table near the back of the restaurant. "Would all of you like menus or just the ice cream? We normally can mix in some fruit but we're kind of out of that right now, sorry."

I looked across the group. "Would any of you like anything else?"

Morrigan gently raised her hand. "Can I get something small too? Like a sandwich?"

I nodded. "No problem, Torien? Silva?"

They glanced at each other before Torien nodded. "The three of us should probably all get sandwiches I think."

Mimi jumped up. "Me too! I want a sandwich too!"

I laughed. "Sure, no problem Mimi."

What was left unsaid was that only the members of the group that weren't succubi actually needed to eat. The succubi in the group weren't jumping at the chance for me to treat them.

I decided to ask Raya and Sibyl just in case. "How about you two? My treat."

They both shook their heads.

I shrugged and looked back at the waitress. "So, four sandwiches and eight ice creams then."

The waitress gave an awkward smile. "Er, just to make sure, because of all the... trouble, the bowls of ice cream are ten silvers right now, is that okay?"

Raya coughed in surprise. I glanced at her and gave her a smile before turning back to the waitress. "No problem, I have the money on me."

She brightened up, "Great! I'll be right back with those sandwiches first!" She rushed to the back with a smile on her face.

Raya looked exasperated. "Lilith! You didn't tell me ice cream costs that much! I never would have asked for any if I knew it was that expensive!"

Sibyl patted her on the shoulder. "If it makes you feel better, that's actually a lot more expensive than usual. Must be because of the attack, food is short everywhere right now. With how busy this place normally is at this time of day they're probably happy anyone is ordering something at the moment. Anything they sell us is something they can't eat themselves."

"Not that ice cream is all that filling," I added.

She shrugged. "It's high in energy though. Might not be as good for you... us, but if the food shortage gets any worse then that milk and ice cream will save lives."

I nodded. "Sibyl, how is the food shortage looking? You probably have a better idea than most."

She grimaced and shook her head. "Not good. A lot of places like this have already stopped serving customers or closed entirely and there isn't news on any increased shipments of food from outside caravans yet. The only reason a lot of restaurants are still operating at all is because their stores will spoil too fast otherwise, better to get what money they can now. Hunters are still bringing in meat from some of the nearby game, which is helping, but Goldenhearth has always been a food importer since we live so close to the frontier. With the increase of people who've lost their homes and shops, more people have been turning to banditry which will probably make the roads less safe for food imports. Especially since it will be food that motivated a lot of the bandits in the first place, they'll be happy to rob a food caravan over the ones trading gold and jewels."

"Here's your sandwiches!" The waitress handed out the sandwiches. "I'll give your friends a bit of time to finish their food while we prepare the ice cream."

"Sure, thank you."

"No problem!" She smiled and headed back to the kitchen.

I turned back to Sibyl. "How did the city get to be in this bad of shape food-wise anyway?"

"I heard that in addition to the fields outside the city that were burned, one of the places that was destroyed was a local caravan company that had cornered the market on food distribution here. They had muscled out most of the competition years ago so all of the caravans trading in food had to work through them. Their largest storage warehouses were destroyed and all of the owners were killed in the attacks. Not only is there less food in the first place but everyone in the city suddenly had to figure out who to even buy food from, the only people selling food in the city were all gone. Whoever's in charge of the city right now stepped in to stop the merchants from hoarding what was left by buying up everything from the surviving warehouses. Now the city is distributing it themselves but that doesn't help places like the Ruby Vixen which isn't exactly the most respected business in the city," she finished with a grimace.

"Are they trying to starve you guys out because of your profession?" Torien asked.

Sibyl shook her head. "No, I wouldn't go that far. They just underestimated how many people actually live at our brothel. Oceane has been trying to get the city to reallocate some more of the rations to us but they've been resistant. She's had to dig into her emergency funds just to keep everyone fed. Until you guys brought the rice, our rations were quickly running out and there just wasn't any more food to buy. We've been buying other people's rations at high prices to survive until now but the food was quickly becoming more valuable than any amount of money we could offer. After getting that rice and... the other thing you're doing, we might actually be in the clear until things stabilize again."

The waitress pushed through the kitchen door with a tray covered in bowls. "Here we go! Eight ice creams, freshly prepared. She began placing them in front of us one by one until all of us had a bowl. "If you need anything else just call for me."

"Sounds good."

I turned to see that several of my friends had already started. Torien and Morrigan had looks of bliss on their face and Bella seemed to be enjoying hers almost as much. Raya gave it a little lick before getting a huge look of surprise on her face and eating it with much more gusto.

"Mmmm, oh gods, why does this taste so much better now?" Sibyl was looking at her bowl of ice cream in shock, apparently, her altered form appreciated the ice cream a lot more than her canine form had.

Raya giggled. "Sibyl you look so cute. Hey! Lemme feed you a bite!"

"Wh— why?"

"Because I want to! Come on, open up!" Raya held her spoon out to Sibyl who hesitantly took the bite in her mouth.

Silva laughed. "You two are acting like newlyweds."

Sibyl's ears turned bright red and she turned away from everyone to cover her face.

"Hey Silva, don't be mean! She was so cute!" Raya hugged the blushing catgirl from behind and pulled her against her chest.

"M— my turn!" Torien held a spoonful of ice cream out to Silva, she looked about as confident as she sounded.

Silva raised an eyebrow but had a big grin on her face. "Oh?" She leaned forward and took the spoon into her mouth, not breaking eye contact with Torien for a second. She pulled back slowly and licked her lips. Her suggestive attitude wasn't lost on Torien who was now blushing pretty hard as well.

Morrigan was looking at me with big eyes and I could tell she wanted to play this game too so I scooped up a bite and held it out for her. "My cute catgirl is getting jealous," I said with a smile.

"No..." She leaned in and ate the ice cream, her pretty red eyes looked into mine the entire time. When she pulled back she turned away with a smile.

When I turned to look at Bella I noticed she was already holding her spoon out to me. "I thought you might want to be the one treated this time."

I smiled and took the ice cream, Bella didn't seem embarrassed by it so I wiggled my eyebrows at her instead which made her laugh.

Morrigan recovered just enough to hold out her spoon to Bella. "You didn't get a turn..."

Bella smiled sweetly at Morrigan and leaned in to complete the circle. It seemed Morrigan wasn't any better being on that side of the spoon because she continued to stay bright red throughout.

"Ow!" I turned to see Silva holding her head in her hands.

"What's wrong?" Torien leaned down to try and get a look at Silva's face.

"It feels like something is stabbing into the back of my eyeballs."

Ah, poor Silva.

"Try licking the roof of your mouth, warm up any spots that feel cold," I said.

After a moment Silva let out a breath. "That was awful, what happened?"

"Brain freeze or some people call it an ice cream headache. It happens if you eat cold things too fast."

"I think I'm done with this for now." She pushed the rest of the ice cream over to Torien.

Torien looked down at it, then back up. "Are you sure?..."

"Yeah."

Torien hesitantly took it but then shrugged and dug into Silva's portion too.

The waitress giggled off to the side. "You guys look like you're having fun."

Silva looked up with a flat stare. "That was not fun."

This just made the waitress laugh again. "First time having ice cream? Yeah, that happens to a lot of people. Like your friend said, you just have to eat slower."

While the waitress was here I decided to pull out my coin pouch. "How much for everything in total? Eighty for the ice cream, how much more for the sandwiches?"

"Eighty-eight silver total," she replied.

I pulled out a gold and set it on her tray. "You can keep the change." It was close enough to a gold I figured it was just easier this way.

"Thanks!" Her eyes lit up and she ran the gold coin to the back immediately.

Raya looked nervous. "Lilith, you gave her twelve silver as a tip?"

I shrugged, "That's around fifteen percent...ish, seems fine."

Torien shook her head, "No Lilith, you don't understand. Twelve silver is a huge tip for a waitress. A coin or two at most would have done..."

Everyone was looking at me, waiting for my reaction.

I sighed. "Look, we just got paid after a very stressful meeting. I enjoyed hanging out here and since we've been in this restaurant I haven't heard one word about being a beastfolk or eating with slaves and prostitutes. Instead, she just happily served me what I asked for, without any trouble. ...I needed this break. Things have been moving so fast lately and I haven't had much time to slow down and enjoy my time with all of you. I don't mind giving her 12 silver for that and saving myself the trouble of counting out eighty-eight silver coins."

Torien smiled. "I suppose that's true."

There was a bit of an awkward pause before Raya suddenly sat up. "Oh! Morrigan! I wanted to ask you if you would teach me some magic. Would you be willing to show me a few things? I'll pay you back any way I can but it would mean a lot to me!"

Morrigan sighed. "Yeah sure, Lilith told me about your request. Are you sure you want me to teach you though? My style of magic might not be the best thing to start with..."

"Please? I don't have anyone else to ask and I can tell you're strong!" Raya gave the biggest puppy dog eyes I had ever seen.

Morrigan sighed again. "Fine. It might be a bit of a challenge though... and we should probably do it outside the city walls for safety's sake."

"Yay!" Raya jumped up from her chair and hugged Morrigan from behind.