Chapter 34 - Growing Up

Once they got into the actual Village, it didn't take long until Arc seemed to have spotted a small building with an open front, with a few other carriages and horses inside. "We need to go there." The boy told the Imp, who tried his best to actually properly do this, stopping right in front of the structure, before a man came up to them with a bright smile.

"Well then, how can I help you, Sir?" The Tall-Built Man asked, and Arc quickly spoke up with a stutter. "E-Erm, we're... We want to..." He started to say, getting nearly infinitely quiet toward the end, tapping the Imp's leg as he was doing so to give him the signal to start speaking. "We-" The Imp said, as Arc had planned, but the young boy quickly interrupted him.

"Wait, y-you said I could do it! We want to put the carriage and horsies into the Stable!" Arc exclaimed, trying to speak as excited and nervous as he could manage at the same time, and the man standing next to the Carriage laughed and nodded his head with a smile.

"Of course, for how long do you want to stay?" The Man asked while softly laughing, before the Imp slowly spoke up. They already spoke about these things while they were on their way to town, so the Imp just needed to voice the conclusion they came to. "One Night." He said with a clear voice, and the man slowly nodded his head.

"Alright, that's just going to be one Large Copper coin, please. 5 copper for the space, and 5 for the feed we're going to give the Horses. Is that alright?" The man explained, and the Imp slowly nodded and grabbed the bag next to him, trying to pull out the small bundle of coins that he was told to be the currency the man was talking about.

It was pretty confusing to the Imp, there were three different types of coins, and each then again had a small, normal, and large version of it. It was a bit weird, but in the end it wasn't hard to figure out for a smart creature like the Imp. And so, he slowly opened the small bundle of a handful of Large copper coins and gave it to the man.

Each coin seemed to have a hole in the middle, and how things were apparently usually handles was that you pulled a thin piece of string through each hole to bundle some of the coins together to handle them more easily. The string that this one had could simply be pulled away from each other to open it up and would snap back together when each end was held near each other.

It was something neat to play around with, but the Imp was told he shouldn't do that in front of people. Either way, after giving the Large Copper coin to the man, he took a look at it and then slowly nodded his head. "Alright then. You can come by whenever if you want to get anything out of your carriage, but check in with me when you do." The Man explained and then started with disconnecting the horses off of the front of the carriage and bringing them into the open structure, while the Imp and Arc made their way to the back of the carriage, where the other children were already stepping out of, Rudy carrying the basket with the Imp's toddler in it, and Sammy carrying Leon like always.

"What should we do first?" Rudy asked, and before the Imp could make a suggestion, the Man running the stables walked up to them.

"Ah, I suggest you go ahead and go to the Inn first. It's cheaper if you get a room during regular hours." He explained as he started leading the second horse into the stables as well, and when he came back again pointed a little bit further down the street. "It's one of the larger buildings here, so it's hard to miss. If you need to buy anything, there's a general store directly opposite to it as well. They have basically everything you need there." The man pointed out, and the Imp slowly nodded his head while the Children thanked the man for his help, before the Imp made sure they had everything they needed from the carriage and then closed the door, before the man started to pull the carriage away.

"Then let's do that." Arc said with a smile as he basically led the group into the direction that the man was pointing at, while the Imp stayed at the back of the group, grasping his dagger underneath his cloak in case someone was going to attack them. It was slightly harder than usual to see because of the mask, so the Imp had to be prepared for anything, and he didn't trust any of these people here.

Ever since they got here, the Imp was having this eery feeling. At first, the Imp thought it was the same feeling as the Monster Repellant, but the Imp got used to that relatively quickly, leaving behind a different eery feeling, as if someone was staring at the Imp from behind at all times, breathing down his neck.

But whenever he turned around, the Imp never saw anyone or anything, but it put the Imp on edge. To his luck, he wasn't really feeling all that tired. After his Evolution, he was really energetic and could concentrate on a lot of things pretty well, so he was sure that he could stay up tonight to make sure that nobody just attacked them while they were sleeping.

Either way, for now, the group entered the building that the man seemed to be speaking about before and quickly headed to the first person that they saw sitting behind a table, just smiling at them happily. "Hello there! How can I help you?" The Woman asked, and the Imp quickly spoke up before Arc could. He was in an Inn before, so he kind of remembered how this worked. "We want a room for one night." The Imp said, and the Woman nodded her head with a smile, while the children looked at him surprised.

While he wasn't actually there while the room he stayed in was ordered, they had to wait near the tables people went to to get a room for a little while, so the Imp picked a few things up from what the people there said.

"Right away. Would you want a room for all of you, or two seperate rooms next to each other?" The Woman asked, and the Imp quickly responded once more. "One room for all of us." He said relatively quickly. Whenever the Children were sleeping, it seemed like they did so together in the small carriage at the same time anyway, so a single larger room would already be an Upgrade. But most importantly, the Imp wanted to make sure that he could watch the children all at once. It would be a lot harder if he had to figure out how to watch two rooms at the same time.

"Alright, then that's a five-bed room... We can give you beds for the babies for free, Sir." The Woman said with a smile and a wink, and the Imp nodded his head in response. "Thank you." He said, after all, he learned that he was supposed to do that when people did something for him, and it seemed like the beds for Leon and the Imp's toddler weren't normally included.

"That's just going to be 14 Copper, please." The Woman told him, and the Imp slowly nodded his head and pulled his bag out slowly, trying to think about which coins that were then.

A normal coin was worth 10 small coins, and a large coin was worth 10 normal coins. So that meant if she wanted 14 copper coins, the Imp needed... one large coin and four normal ones. Slowly, the Imp pulled those away and then gave them to the Woman. It was pretty hard to calculate that, but the Imp somewhat learned how to do that with small numbers from Avalin, and the rest he kind of just tried to figure out while using his Stat points, especially the later ones.

He still had 20 from leveling up, and then it seemed like he got 10 as a bonus after Evolving, so he used them as a little bit of practice as well, spreading them around Intelligence, Perception, and Agility, because those seemed to be the Imp's most important stats at the moment.

So, after handing the Woman the five different coins, he was given a key with a small numbered tag at its end. "It's room Number 19, right at the end of the hallway of the second floor." After the woman told them that, the Imp nodded his head and then slowly turned around toward the stairs, waiting for the children to go on ahead again. And after they went up the slightly creaking stairs and along the hallway, the Imp gave the key to Arc and let him unlock the door, because he didn't really understand how it worked, before they all stepped into the room.

And the first thing that Arc and Clementine did was hurry on over to the beds and throw themselves on them happily. "Aaargh! A regular bed! Finally!" Arc exclaimed with a happy laugh, pressing his head into the pillow, while Clementine just spread her whole body on a different bed. Nervously, Sammy and Rudy looked at the Imp, who simply nodded his head at them, before Sammy slowly handed Leon to the Imp, who set his dagger onto the small table in the corner, and then held the young boy who was just giggling now as well, while Rudy set the basket with the other child inside of it down.

And then, the two of them rushed over to some beds as well, while the Imp was left to amuse the two babies for a little bit. It seemed like such an unnecessary thing was important to them, so the Imp figured to just let them enjoy it for a while. They would get back into the carriage tomorrow morning, after all.

Just a few minutes later, the Imp heard a sudden knock on the door, and warily turned toward Sammy to tell her to take Leon again, while the Imp swiftly grabbed his dagger and hid it under his cloak while slowly opening the door.

"Hello there, Sir. We bring the beds for the babies?" One of the two men said, and slowly, the Imp nodded his head and made way for the two men to come inside with the two small beds with bars around them which they were pushing inside on wheels, before setting them in place so that they couldn't move.

A few minutes later, the two men already left again, and the Imp took a look at the two beds a bit confused. "Why are they different?" The Imp asked, and Arc slowly stood up and took a look at them. "Well, they're for babies... so that they can't crawl outside in the middle of the night an hurt themselves. Right?" Arc asked as he turned toward Sammy with a questioning look, and she slowly nodded her head, "Yeah, exactly." She said, but the Imp was still confused, and figured that this was a good enough time than ever to ask about something that he wanted to ask about anyway. "Why are Leon and mine smaller than you? Why can the not talk? And Why are children smaller than other people?" The Imp asked, and Arc looked back at him confused.

"Huh? What..? Well... I don't know why, but soon, Leon and the girl, who we need to name at one point, will grow bigger and stronger and be children like us, and at that point we'll be more like 'other people' taller and stronger." Arc explained to the Imp, trying to put it into words as best as he could, before the Imp slowly nodded his head in understanding.

"Like Evolution?" He asked, and Sammy slowly sighed in response and shook her head, mumbling something to herself under her breath, "Kind of, but not really. We constantly grow until we're a.d.u.l.ts, and even then we become older and more wrinkly, you know? Isn't that the same with monsters?" Sammy asked, but the Imp was pretty confused at that concept, shaking his head.

"I always looked like before."