Chapter 14: Money Making

Chapter 14: Money Making

Sofia decided to take the long route and enter the walled city through a gate a bit further away from the churchs side. The walk was refreshing, for the first time in a while she felt free, her long golden hair swaying in the cool breeze.

All in all, she had gained much during her involuntary stay at the Holy See. If she could just escape their grasp. Being level 67 was already above and beyond all she had ever dreamed to achieve in her life. This was a level most humans would never reach. Even the guards in the Holy See were only level 60!

What she wasnt happy about was how she had had no choice in all this. If the church had given her a regular paid job, been civil about it, and allowed her to have an actual life she might have even accepted to work for them. Of course this was forgetting the bad reputation they had with how they treated their Saints... And that she couldnt actually summon any heroes.

She finally reached the gate, this was the farmers gate, situated in the very center of the U shaped mountain. Pretty much only the farmers going to and fro used it as the fields were higher and harder to reach than the city. The street beyond the gate was muddied as a result. The security also reflected that quite well, a single guard was sitting near the closed iron bars gate, sleeping.

Hello? She called out to the sleeping guard.

Excuse me!

Mister guard?

Finally the man seemed to wake up, he looked to be right around Sofias age, and was quite thin, looking like a scarecrow in his loose uniform.

Gu- weu- What? Hey, do you know how early it is? His words were a bit slurred. He held his forehead like it was going to fall.

Is he still sleepy or is he completely wasted?

Sorry, I fell asleep under a tree and I only woke up now. My parents are gonna be very worried! Can you let me in? Pleaaaase. She tried her best to act cute but the guard having to look up to her as he was quite small made the whole scene a bit weird.

Either way the guard seemed to believe her. Or he didnt care at all and wanted to go back to sleep.

Damn Dont do it again, ok? Im not supposed to open the gate anytime, you know

He sighed and disappeared into a side room in the wall. Chains clanked, and the gate was slowly lifted, it only opened up to Sofias waist and stopped.

Go through! the guard urged her from inside.

She had to crouch under the muddy spiked gate.

Thank you!

A few seconds later the gate started to slowly go back down.

When the guard came out of the gate room, the girl was already gone.The initial posting of this chapter occurred via N0v3l.B11n.

Sofia had observed the city for a long while from her cell. It wasnt an exaggeration to say that she knew the layout of the city better than most of its inhabitants. The only problem was she didnt know where anything in particular was. However she was able follow the avenues to different districts, these were easy to tell apart, even from the sky view.

The sun was almost showing itself when she found her first destination in a fancy district full of opulent stone buildings. The city being built on a mountain made it very easy to construct extravagant stone and marble mansions.

The smaller building, for the district it was in, still felt quite rich. The red and black blazons adorning the outside walls left no ambiguity as to what this was.

This was a place that had made a lot of noise when it was founded, so much that even people in a backwater village like Verenha had heard of it.

The Vampire embassy.

Her small hand swirled the blood in the glass, she brought it to her nose, then to her bright red lips. She sipped on the blood, spreading it in her mouth. Visibly done with the process, she then gulped down what was left, licked her lips and put down the glass.

Thats good stuff. Id rate it an eight, eight point five maybe. How much can you provide?

How much can you pay?

Look at you getting all confident. What do people teach their young ones nowadays Ill buy it for one gold coin a liter. It is worth more but we have to make a profit here.

I have a hundred and fifty liters. All the same kind.

The girls eyes widened slightly. Looks like this is more than she expected. Dont get all surprised, I can summon that much every day!

Do you want to be paid in silver? You should have enough space to hold the coins.

Enough space she really bought that I have a storage item. Better than being seen as an infinite source of blood.

No, thank you, a gold pouch would be nice.

That is fine. An empty leather pouch appeared on the desk, gold coins endlessly fell from the young vampires palm into it. Can you disclose where you harvested the product?

Sorry, business secret. I might come back to sell more on later occasions if the opportunity presents itself.

Alright then, the embassy thanks you for your business, Agran will take you to the bottling room, you may store the gold. She held out a fragile looking hand over the desk.

They shook hands. The vampires hand wasnt cold as Sofia had expected, it felt like any other human.

How may we address you?

Hmm

I go by Aphenoreth. Sofia said with a wide smile.

The young looking vampire was very bad at hiding her emotions, going by the shocked look that appeared on her face a second later. Her hand was shaking in Sofias grip.

Ok, names dangerous it seems, Id ask why but I can't blow my cover. I just have to keep faking it Its my real name now anyway!

Y- You may call me Astelia, lady A-... It was a pleasure doing business with you. She was visibly disturbed.

She had forcefully closed her mouth as she began voicing the name, as if just saying it was dangerous. Which would explain why she was panicking so much.

The youthful vampire looked lost in thought as Sofia grabbed the coin pouch and left the room.

My vampire trader can't be this cute.