Rumi brought some more drinks for our group, Jessie as always was drinking Briggs under the table. Sounds so wrong. He was groaning and moaning trying to finish one more tankard of ale mean while Jessie kept drinking like it was water and she was dehydrated.
"You will never get a piece of this cake like that! You have to drink like a dolphin! C'mon chug, chug, chug! HAHAHAHA!!!"" Jessie kept making a show out of it by standing on her chair and resting a foot on the table, occasionally turning around, bending over, and slapping her cake.
I just enjoyed the show from the other side of the table. Laughing whenever she did that, Briggs got some kinda boost to renew his stomach and kept going, for half a tankard before starting to moan and groan again.
Haruhiros party celebrated our victory at another table, with a much more tame atmosphere, or at least most of them. Ranta however was going around the whole tavern retelling our adventure into the night, or more like exaggerating his part in all of it.
Jessie and Briggs had forced an ale on me, I drank it as fast as I could but when I finished it I had another one forced into my hands. Wising up to their little game I slowed down the speed and just enjoyed the show they put up while taking sips of my drink.
Looking around I saw the red-haired mage passed out on a table, his hand holding onto a half-empty tankard. Tifa and Cloud were missing as I searched around him with my gaze, even when I looked for them on the other side of the place.
"Well guy, I gotta go. I'll see you all tomorrow." I got up to leave when Ranta stumbled onto me, all drunk and close to either passing out or throwing up all he had eaten in the last hour.
"You are not leaving here until you tell your secret," At least that is what I thought he said before doing both of the actions he looked like he was about to do. I had to jump out of the way to keep myself clean which coincidently did three things back to back, the contents of his stomach fell on the table, and the muggs of Briggs and Jessie. He fell head first onto the table flipping it and causing Briggs and Jessie to flip backward and land face-first on the floor forcefully. For a moment I thought all 3 were dead until I heard the snoring noise all of them made.
"Sorry for the trouble he has caused," Moguzo came up to me and gave me a small bow. "I will take him to his room, I can also carry Briggs upstairs if you want. But I don't think I can do the same for Jessie. Uh, not that I can't carry her you know. I'm not calling her fat or anything," he raised his hand and started scratching the back of his head. "You know... a guy in a girl's room... with her being defenseless and all. I'd rather not be in that position." He gave me a wry smile and a small hehe.
"I can help with that." Rumi bumped into our conversation. "I usually help the ladies who drank too much get to their beds, don't want them to fall into some random man's hands while unconscious."
"If you could help me with her, I'd greatly appreciate that." I gave her one of those smiles Yoriichi did when he left the coal burner's home and she turned red, after a moment she nodded with an 'mhm' sound. "Moguzo don't worry about Briggs I got him, you got your hands full with Ranta." I threw Briggs over my shoulder and carried him up the stairs and into the room Rumi said was his. I had to take some of his clothes off since they were covered in vomit or ale from the tankards that weren't fully drained or the ones still in their hands when they fell.
Getting his dirty clothes I got lost thinking about Tifa and Cloud. 'The disappeared from the tavern, the other world memories made me think were already bumping uglies. I mean Tifa and I just met while she has a history with Cloud, being childhood friends and all. Or at least that's what I think, might be different in this world. And well, we are still teens. Hormones going whiled and all does make me want to give up on her. Or I might just be overthinking and having my imagination get the best of me.'
On my way back out of the room I bumped into Rumi, On our way she kept quiet stealing glances at me but did not say anything.
"I will see you all tomorrow, have a good night!" Waving at Haruhiros' party and saying some parting words I left the place.
A small chill soon crept up my body. The sun had almost set so the temperature had gone down drastically outside.
"Brrrr I hate the sudden shift in temperature."
I walked out of the base and got ready for a full dead sprint back to Tsige, some warm-up exercises did the trick to awaken my muscles a little more from a lightly drunken state.
*SSS*
I took a runner position, the air being forced in and out from the small gap in my teeth, small illusory flames came out of my mouth before I shot straight towards Tsige. At first, the air wiping through my hair felt nice but by going faster it felt like I was trying to walk through water, then more viscous fluid, and finally jelly. At this point, I slowed down because I could see the town in the distance and if the resistance of my speed turned into something like a wall, I doubted I could go through it and not be smashed like an egg to a wall.
By the time I passed the edge of town, I had waned most of my speed down to a normal walk.
Adventurers were scarcely going back and forth unlike in the mornings, they were mostly going to taverns or inns. Mostly from the adventurers guild -where they most likely got their reward for quests done-.
As I passed the smithing district the ringing noise of a hammer hitting a hot metal was weak and spars from the lack of smiths forging something.
Getting close to the exit of the district the heavy smell of iron hit my nose and lungs. At first, I assumed it was because of the forges around me. However, once I got out of it and walked a bit closer the the slums the smell got stronger.
The buildings in the slums were mostly 2 story buildings made of wood, strings going across buildings with clothes hanging from them. Some were wet but most of them dry. The road had holes in it, forming puddles of dark brown liquid. An awful smell permeated the place. I could see a pile of excrement on a small alley between 2 buildings. The buzzing sound of flies' wings rapidly flapping could be heard not only from that alley but all around. Some doors to the building were rotting, falling off their hinges, a corner, or half of it missing and slowly creaking open while I could see eyes staring at me from behind them. Their faces are hidden by the darkness provided by the inside of the building.
People were strewn on the street. Huddled up trying to keep the warmth inside their bodies. Some of them shared a ripped blanket, a ripped piece of a sweater, or something similar. Some of them had wide-open eyes that looked dead, oblivious to the world. From one alley grunts and whimpering could be heard along with the noise of some wooden structure creaking.
Among the people in rags, a group seemed different from others, it was a group of beggars with animal ears atop their heads and tail. They had white hair and tan skin. All of them wore rags and had no sheets to cover themselves instead they covered themselves with their wolf-looking tail but they were not shivering. One of the girls on the outer edge of the group hugged the rest of the group as if protecting them, her eyes kept a lock on me. They promised violence if I threatened them. Investigating where the smell came from already had my curiosity piqued so I continued on its pursuit.
Every step made my breathing grow faster and made it harder to keep my concentration on breathing deeply. The small movements of these homeless people, noises that sounded too loud in my ears -which were most of them- and strong smells hitting me out of nowhere had me all jumpy. Alert of all small things and frying my nerves. A woman came out of the alley from where the grunting noises had originated from. A black eye adorned her face and her makeup ran down her face making it obvious she had cried during the activity. Her blond locks covered half her face blocking my view of the other half of her face. Her hand leaned on the wall to keep her up while she was clutching onto the copper or two she had earned.
My hand shot up to the handle of my blade when she appeared, making me jump and directing my eyes to her. She froze and gave me a look of dismay, unfairness, and finally acceptance. She stretched out the arm holding the money and opened her palm as if offering me to take the money. It took me a moment to notice I had half drawn my sword. Fully sheathing it I walked up to and closed her palm with the coins still in it, "Go." I urged her to leave with her earnings.
After she walked towards the area with taverns, restaurants would be too expensive if she lived around here. My legs slowly started taking me further into the poorly taken care of part of the city. Buildings slowly passed by, including a broken fountain with no water coming out of its spout. A building came into view, like a small church from my previous life it had a pointy tower in the middle of the building with a bell. However, the bell was missing.
The smell of iron grew stronger as I got closer. Beggars and workers grew fewer in number as the closer I got.
Slowly going up the steps the sound of crunching bones registered in my ears, meat being ripped apart, and some liquid being spilled. No scream accompanied it but this chilled me to my core.
My eyes looked down and they locked on the blade of my sword. With no idea when my hands drew the sword out of its sheath, but now that I was conscious of if I gripped it tighter.
With my left hand, I opened any doors that were blocked with a strong push with my palm, while my right was ready to block or slash anything that popped out.
The entrance room was filled on the sides with broken chairs and long seats able to hold 9 or 10 people. Rare tables were sparsely placed in a square around the room, chairs hung upside down from them. A puddle of blood leads deeper into the building.
When I got into the second, much bigger room filled with long seats, forming an aisle up to an altar, some broken either caved in the middle, missing half of it, or in a similar state of disrepair.
The trail of blood lead to an altar. Bodies made up a small pile just below it, on either side where two vampire creatures were eating the bottom and top half of a corpse on either side. Up on the altar sat one more, sitting cross-legged. He was of extremely pale complexion and possessed unusually long, pointed nails that appeared to be stained with a pale blue color. He had long platinum blond hair that he wore parted to his right, the shorter parts around his face seeming to flare out to either side around his head, curving backwards with one lock slanting down to the right of his face to fall between his eyes, while the longer parts were left to drape centrally down his back in a thinning spiral. Its eyes were incredibly rare and beautiful, as, in color, they appeared to be made up of an array of rainbow pastel tones that faded into one another as they circled his irises, with thick eyelashes and a set of notably large, thick black eyebrows acting to frame them above. It wore a blood-red turtleneck of a design that made it appear that the section between his neck and upper chest was covered by a black substance that looked like it was dripping slightly down his body, this same design repeated at his wrists and down his hands, as well as on the small, circular "blood stain" he adorned on his head. Below this, he wore a pair of straight, tan-colored hakama pants of a pinstriped design, their cuffs visibly loose, which he secured with a pale green-tinged golden belt, its buckle a bright silver. He also only wears plain black tabi socks on his feet.
(Image)
He was chomping on a severed arm, and a black haired beautiful woman sat in his lap, she wore a simple summer dress heavily stained with blood. Her eyes were missing the spark of life.
The sound of my heart pumping so hard in my chest, that the sound made me deaf to anything else.
"Ah, you're finally here." It slowly turned towards me and a huge smile split his face, his canine teeth bigger than they should be on a regular person, and covered in blood.
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Word Count 2199
If there are any grammatical errors let me with a comment on the paragraph.
Thank you guys. I appreciate your reading so far.