(Chpt. 20) Acceptance.

Alice.

I woke up to a knocking sound, it was coming from the door. I managed to turn around while still being hugged by Ari. She started to slowly open her eyes when she saw me looking at her while still embracing me. Her eyes shot open and her face turned bright red. She quickly let go of me while hearing the knocking on the door. She hurriedly got off from bed in a rush to the door. As I was getting up from bed Ari opened the door.

“Breakfast is here.”

Said a calm and serene voice. I managed to peer to see who it was. The charming old lady was at the doorway, she noticed my peeking however she slightly glanced above me instead.

“Oh my, if it isn’t a beastkin.”

“Please don’t chase us away.”

Ari hurriedly said in a pleading voice after hearing her reaction. However, the woman just looked at me curiously and said.

“Well, I do not mind beastkin. Besides you are customers. Interesting how I did not notice she was a beastkin when you girls first got here.”

Ari breathed a sigh of relief after hearing her. ‘Is discrimination as bad as getting thrown away?’ I muttered.

“Well, I brought you girls breakfast for three and your wolf. Consider it an act of kindness.” She said as she pushed a wooden trolley into the room. I noticed the trolley had three dome lids and a sizable chunk of raw meat on a platter. As I was eyeing the food. The lady said in a somewhat more serious tone while looking at me.

“I do not mind beastkin however, there are people here that do. Please be careful young miss.”

After saying that she left closing the door with her. Ari was just standing there unmoving. I didn’t quite understand it. I got off from the bed and moved the trolley to the center of the room next to the table. I placed Fenri’s meat next to him, he was still asleep.

I moved the platters with their covers onto the table. Ari seemed to have recovered from whatever she was thinking and rushed to me and sat down, then removed the food cover. At that moment a pleasant and savory scent filled the room.

“Uhh.” Aizen groaned like an old man while waking up from the scent. As soon as she stood up she saw the source of the smell and sat next to Ari and dragged a platter in front of her. She also removed the lid and the same smell filled the room. Drooling I finally removed the lid and was charmed by the food I saw. It looked like a small fine cut of steak and a really soft bread that seemed to be just taken out of the oven. It also came with butter. It was not something I would have for breakfast, but it looked delicious.

Aizen was eagerly eating the food. Ari was trying to be refined, but ultimately ended up eagerly eating. I pierced it easily with the fork, it let out some juices. I was drooling from the smell in itself. I brought it to my mouth and bit it. The meat was incredibly tender almost as if was melting in my mouth. Sadly I ran out of meat soon after. The bread was sweet and really soft, the heat that it was emanating was pleasant as it warmed my mouth. Fenri woke up and started eating.

“””Ahh.””” We all let satisfied voices as we finished the incredibly delicious breakfast. ‘That was so good. Is this really a regular inn?’ I satisfactorily muttered. Fenri seemed to be in a better mood after eating the meat, as he was wagging his tail. However, he still glared at me with a mean look. Is my wolf a tsundere or something?

“Well, I guess we go sightseeing.”

“... N-Nn.”

Ari awkwardly nodded, she looked at me with worry but I did not mind it. Judging her reaction to the lady I think it was most likely because I was not wearing the ring. Aizen was looking at her plate with a grim face… Ari was looking at Aizen and then suddenly her eyes sparkled making it look like she remembered something.

Ari started tugging on Aizen’s arm to bring her back. Her face became more normal now and she was looking at Ari while tilting her head.

“Aizen, what type of beast are you.” She asked the most troublesome question… Aizen looked at her with wide-open eyes and then turned to me. She gave me a piercing gaze as if she was about to kill me, her shoulders were trembling. However, after a few seconds, she

calmed down and asked.

“Yami, did you tell her?”

“Nn…” I slowly nodded.

She grabbed her forehead and let out a sigh. A few more seconds went by. Ari was now next to Aizen looking at her with somewhat worried eyes. She stood up and grabbed Ari’s shoulders.

“Ari, no matter what will I be the same Aizen to you?”

“Nn.”

She instantly nodded. Seeing her reaction Aizen let out a sigh of relief and stopped grabbing her shoulders and reluctantly talked as she was sitting down.

“I am… I was a dragon.” Ari froze and started muttering, then kept switching glances in-between me and Aizen, after repeating the same process for what felt like minutes Aizen started looking at the table and started fidgeting.

“But, you are still Aizen right?” Ari suddenly snapped back and asked Aizen, she instantly turned to see Ari in shock as if not believing her answer. However, seeing Ari’s unchanging expression she relaxed and became more like usual.

“Yes, Ari I am still the same.”

Ari’s eyes sparkled and she looking at the ground.

“Umm, can you also take care of me?”

“I already am, otherwise I would not be here.”

Aizen nonchalantly answered as if saying the obvious, Ari hearing this seemed to have somewhat moist eyes. She lovingly hugged Aizen. Aizen froze for a second from the unfamiliar experience but her eyes grew warm and hugged her back while caressing her head. ‘I feel left out.’ I dejectedly whispered to myself.

* * *

Ari and Aizen seemed to have grown closer to each other. Ari asked a lot of questions like the ones she asked me but, Aizen surprisingly only answered unimportant ones. We tidied up the room and placed all of the used food utensils and plates on the trolley. I spoke again.

“Well, I guess we should go sightseeing.”

“”Nn!””

Instead of the response, I got earlier this time the response was two cute girls cheerfully nodding. ‘This lifestyle is not so bad.’ I happily murmured.

We were getting ready to leave the room making sure to not leave anything behind including Fenri. As we got into the hallway I patted Fenri and whispered into his ear.

‘I am sorry about last night, I will make sure it never happens again.’

‘Woof.’

Fenri gave me a soft bark in response while wagging his tail… Aside from being the first time he ever ‘talked’ is he a dog? Huh… The mystery just continues… We leisurely walked down the stairs, the dining hall looked kind of empty compared to yesterday. Some people curiously glanced at us and some of them fixed their gaze on me, instead of the usual warm smiles it was now being stared at as if I was an object that people wanted. I went somewhat stiff from it.

We arrived at the bottom of the stairs and headed towards the counter with the old lady.

“Oh my, was the breakfast good.”

“””Nn!””” We all cheerfully nodded.

“I am glad.”

Wait… We are not here to say the breakfast was delicious! I decided to put the room key on the table. The lady innocently asked.

“Oh, you are leaving already?”

“No, we are just going to go sightseeing. We might come back.”

As I finish my sentence I felt killing intent from behind… Haha; The lady took the key and put it somewhere under the counter and nodded, then said in a firm voice.

“Thank you for your stay. We hope you come again.”

“””... Yea....”””

We awkwardly said due to the sudden change of atmosphere on the lady. We walked towards the door with Fenri following us. Some people looked at the white wolf and smiled, others flinched and stopped giving me sharp gazes. Others just kept looking at me with hatred. ‘Haa, does this have to do with the church or something? Well, I would not be surprised. I heard religion is scary.’ I muttered as we were exiting the inn.

We were now just right outside the inn. Some people just stared at me… Why is everyone looking at me?

“Well, we should get meat I guess.” I casually said in a somewhat quiet tone because of the number of people looking at me. It makes me rather uncomfortable. Aizen and Ari hurriedly nodded. We headed to the central plaza again seeing that was where most businesses and shops were. My hearing was sharper than usual so I heard some people whispering to themselves things like: ‘Why is that hairball here.’ or ‘What is one of those things doing here.’ I never expected to be seen like that but I guess it cannot be helped.

As we approached the plaza some people seemed to have recognized me and looked at me with wide-open eyes. Rather, they looked at my ears and tail with wide-open eyes. We arrived at the plaza and I suggested to go to a shack that was next to the adventurer’s guild. It seemed that adventurers were frequently coming in and out of it, so I thought you could find something interesting there. Aizen agreed with the idea and Ari just nodded.

As we were approaching the shack some adventurers looked at me with sharp eyes, others just looked at me with warm eyes oddly enough. ‘I don’t really understand how this works. Sigh.’ I tiredly said. Basically, everyone that could see me in the plaza was looking at me. I just started ignoring it to the best of my abilities after a certain point. Once we managed to get inside it looked like a shop rather than some shabby shack.

“Welcome to the adventurer’s guild sh-...” The lady paused as soon as she saw me enter with a big white wolf, however, she just seemed shocked rather than looking at me with hatred. The shop was rather empty with only some adventurers checking out some barrels that were full of second-hand weapons and they did not even notice we entered. We continued and arrived at the counter. The lady lovingly said while looking at me while ignoring Fenri.

“Oh my, if it isn’t a catkin. Would you like some yarn?”

“Yarn?” I reflexively questioned.

“Yes, yarn I heard catkins love it.”

I froze for a second and glanced at Ari in disbelief at what just heard, Ari nodded to the lady’s declaration. Am I actually a cat?! What is going on… I decided I had to decline the yarn offer.

“I don’t want yarn, we actually came for meat.”

“Oh meat? We do sell it, we have dried and fresh meat. If you plan on traveling we recommend dried meat since fresh goes bad in one or two days.”

The lady informed me. Well… If it goes bad it is not really a problem, rather it can’t be a problem because of my cheat skill inventory… I mean considering people don’t seem to have one it is rather a cheat, isn’t it…

“We will get dried and fresh meat.” The lady nodded and pulled out different sized boxes from under the counter and placed them on the counter. I curiously inquired.

“Those are?”

“Well, we use these as a way to know how much meat you want. Whichever you select you get about the same amount of meat that we can fit in the box you selected.”

The lady said while looking at me waiting for me to pick a box. Well let’s see, the biggest one is about half my height. Seeing we have Fenri with us we probably need a lot of meat.

“That one, also can it be filled with only fresh meat?” I pointed at the biggest box while asking, the lady froze for a second however she glanced beside me and looked at Fenri. As if reaching an understanding she did not say anything.

“Well, which box would you like to be filled with dried meat?” The lady asked me, making me look at the boxes once again. I chose a box that was around half the size of the biggest one. It was still rather big. The lady nodded and put down the boxes from the counter. She went into a room behind her.

After a few minutes, a man with chiseled muscles came carrying two boxes. They looked rather heavy, he placed them on the counter making a thunderous sound and the counter creaked. Some of the adventurers glanced at what all of the noise was about. They froze when they saw me, but they quickly returned to doing whatever they were doing.

The lady came back from the room and thanked the man.

“That would be one gold-coin, sadly we cannot help you carry it.”

“That’s fine.”

I nonchalantly answered while giving the lady the gold-coin, she seemed to be rather shocked for some reason. ‘Looking at the boxes they are rather big, do I carry them with Aizen or just put them in my inventory and pretend nothing happened?’ Haa… Both of my options are bad… Well, I guess I will go for the easier one.

I touched both of the boxes and put them in my inventory, but it kind of looked like they just vanished from existence to other people. The lady started trembling and sweating while looking at me.

“I-Is that an item bag?” I quietly nodded which made the lady freeze. We left the shop without caring too much about it.