Chapter 7

It was a little ridiculous having four people sitting on one side of the table while I sat alone on the other side. The companion and the trashbag seductress had taken one for each arm, while the nervous white mage had been pushed to the side, taking a seat next to the companion.

I eyed the white mage nervously. Of the group, she more or less invalidated the need for potions, which would kill my selling power. The only hope I had was her own nervous behavior. If she didn't have confidence in her capacity to keep the group alive, I could use that to make the sale. Well, I wasn't a merchant, but the art of manipulation could be tailored towards such ends.

Unfortunately, my character build as a seductress depended way too much on the sexual arts. Thus, I didn't know how to manipulate someone from their coin without putting my body into it. Each time I did that, Jerard became flustered, the friend would start pinching his arm, and the trash bag seductress would start peacocking her cleavage.

"Do you mind if I analyze you?" I asked.

Rosetta seemed surprised by this question. Perhaps she was a noble after all since it was unusual for anyone but nobles to ask this question. I wasn't sure how that carried over to Adventurer's guilds though, so I decided it wouldn't hurt to ask.

"Yeah, that's fine!" Jerard answered before any of the girls could say anything.

A few looked like they wanted to object, but after he spoke none of them did. I looked at each of them in turn, which turned up a flat load of nothing. With maxed examine, the sheer amount of information that buzzed through my head was a bit hard to keep together. They were all second classers, all lower level than Min. Most of my other abilities centered around finding out sexual experience… to which I found this group to be about as wholesome as they come. I took it for granted how depraved nobility usual was as I hadn't expected all of these people to be completely clean of any interesting dirt. I had expected at least Rosetta had been around, but it looked like her whole sex persona was just for show.

"So, anyway, that's my story."

I put a few vials out on the table as samples. I didn't really tell them much of a story. Simply that I needed money to go up north to find some ingredients, and I was looking to sell what I had in stock. The stock at this point included 12 healing cum potions, 5 rapid recovery potions, 2 normal potions, and 2 lubricant potions. Well, I explained the lubricant potion as something for wheel carts and the like. If they happened to discover its sexual properties that's for them to reap the benefits. Given the group it seemed less likely.

My stock didn't really have much left. I had a lot more when I left Reinhart. I'd been able to make some on the road. However, between selling them, experimenting on them, and giving them away to those in need, the numbers had dwindled. Adventurers also did sport the same kind of money as nobles, so selling a potion for over a gold coin, even a grade A potion, is not something I'd likely see this far out. Maybe in Nidia, but the farther you left civilization, the less valuable consumables become. This might seem counterintuitive, but potions aren't necessarily needed. A single white mage, like the one sitting across from me, can quickly negate the need for these supplies, which makes them far more valuable than any potions I can brew. Unnecessary things that are difficult to stock become a luxury item.

Of course, I can heal people too, but it's pretty hard to sell people on letting me kiss and lick them to make them feel better.

"We can take you!" Jerard declared after a few moments.

"Eh!" a strange voice shot out of the friend who like to pinch him.

The other two girls also looked panicked. Taking me north was clearly not part from their agenda.

"Ah… but I am looking to sell these, so I can afford to hire someone." I responded sheepishly.

He waved his hand. "Oh, well, we can take these potions and that will be our payment, right?"

"Are you kidding me, Jerard, a request like that would cost at least 30 gold. I wouldn't say there is more than 15 gold coins worth of potion here. That is if it even works…" the childhood friend, Daria, spoke first.

"I-I-I have analyze level 2… it says grade A and B… I think…" the girl called Mia tried to speak up in my defense.

"Doesn't matter!" Rosetta cut her off. "Good potions or not, we already have a white mage. We can't be taking on charity cases like this. Potions just aren't worth that much, honey."

Despite her attitude, I couldn't argue with her conclusion. At best we were hoping to get 10 gold out of the stock. It'd cost 5 gold just to have enough provisions to make the trip. Hiring someone for the remaining 5 gold seemed almost like an impossibility. That's what drove Min to suggest I sell my body in the first place.

"It might be considered a good practice to be owed a few by a skilled alchemist." Jerard tried to fight against the two bitchy women as they put their feet down.

I gave a nod, hoping that somebody had jumped to that conclusion. Of course, I could just seduce Jerard now. It might tear apart their party, but I could make him impossibly loyal to me. I could also seduce all of them. It could be a party of adventurers who loved and would die for me. However, those kinds of thoughts didn't come easy.

There was a time I thought like that, but that was when I first came to this world, desperate to cling to anyone to survive. The ramifications of those acts had bad consequences. Jenai's brutal death was one such consequence. The me who wanted to be a hero couldn't go around seducing people and turning them into her sex slaves. That was a me I wanted to put behind me. I'm not the same person I was then. I have Min. I'm level 30. I've accumulated a hefty supply of skills.

As I was pondering what to do, still slightly tempted by the prospect of just seducing them and turning them into my personal defense, a person suddenly came up to my side, putting their hand on my shoulder. I looked up to see Min standing there. He had his head to the side as if asking what I was doing.

"Who, Is he?" The way Rosetta said it, breathily while jutting out her cleavage, quickly crossed me the wrong way.

"Ah, that." I suddenly found it difficult to explain away the appearance of a second Bishounen style man appearing at the table. "He is, my… partner."

"Partner…" Jerard's face started to sink while the three girl's faces looked bright like they had just seen a light at the end of a tunnel.

"Ah, yes, he's quite skilled. A second classer like yourselves. I'd be, well, in addition to him. That is. So, he wouldn't be much of a burden, you see…" I tried to explain it the best way I could.

Jerard's face was starting to turn stubborn as I talked, and as if to add injury to insult, the girl's started nodding as if they suddenly wouldn't mind escorting us. Hey, I thought these girls were into Jerard. Are they really happy chasing after any pretty face? It wasn't like I'm jealous. Min would never cheat on me, but I really didn't want this trip to be any more uncomfortable than it had to be.

"Your friend, he wouldn't be an elf, would he?"

"Mm." Min sat down next to me, giving a single stoic nod.

The girl's started whispering excitedly.

Jerard gave a nod. "I can see why you feel the need to get some extra protection then."

"What do you mean by that?" Was Jerard secretly prejudice against elves?

He held up his hands as if to defend himself. "Ah, I don't mean anything bad. It's just that I've heard there are a lot of slavers around lately. Slavers, of course, target demi-humans mostly, although even a beautiful woman, err… such as yourself, should be concerned at being targeted. This close to the border I've heard their prone to selling human women in demon countries."

These weren't the right words to say in front of his fan club, and the girls went back to shooting me hateful looks, with one bishounen sitting next to me and another telling me I'm beautiful. I had half a mind to lift Min's shirt again, but I knew at this point it would only upset him and destroy the trust we had just rebuilt.

"I must ask, sir elf." Rosetta broke into the atmosphere. "Exactly how are you Aria's partner?"

I cringed at the question. It was the exact question I was hoping not to address until we'd finalized things. However, before I could give an answer, Min spoke up without reading the atmosphere at all.

"Aria's wife."

Daria spat out of her glass and started coughing while the other three stared forward with confused looks on their faces.

"Excuse me…" Rosetta was the first to respond. "W-wife?"

"I-is…" Daria pointed a finger out directly at me with piercing eyes. "Are you, by chance a man?"

The emotional blow of this suggestion seemed to hit Jerard the hardest as he raised up so quickly that his knee hit the table. As he sat back down, trying to hide the pain and embarrassment on his face, the table became so silent one could hear a pin drop.

"Of course not!" I waved my hands. "it's a, um… elf… thing. We're um… wives. It's kind of… weird…"

These words seemed to be relieve Jerard and sour the three women's moods. "Oh, good, I've never heard about those customs, but I've heard elves can be a bit strange."

Min was looking over at me with a furrowed brow. Come on, Min, read the mood. I love you, but can we just get past this! After another moment looking into Min's eyes, I realized that it wasn't fair to treat him that way. I gave out a long sigh.

"That's to say, I had sex with Min, and we got married."

"Eh?"

"We were both women when we got married, so even though things changed we still call each other wife."

"So-so-so you do have a dick!" Daria said it load enough a few people looked over from other tables before slapping a hand over her mouth and exploding into a crimson blush.

"Well, sometimes I have the dick, sometimes he does. We take turns."

"T-t-take turns?" Rosaria looked slightly dizzy while it seemed like the shy white mage Mia had already fainted.

Well, at least I stayed true to Min. I glanced over at Min seeking his approval to find that he had his face in both hands blushing. "Vessë is so mean, embarrassing."

God… Damn… it!

Well, suffice it to say the talks broke down after that little revelation. Jerard lost most interest upon learning I was married and the added suspicion I may be a guy killed the rest. The girls were a jittering mess by the time they got up to leave, that revelation too adult for their childish minds. Jerard was still a decent guy in the end who wanted to help. He ended up clearing out the stock of potions for 15 gold, 5 more than we had hoped to sell it for. By the time the four of them left the inn, my head was on the table and I felt like going back up to our room and sleeping for another night.

"Did, they seem odd, Vessë?"

I looked up at Min, who once again had his head tilted as if he couldn't understand what he just witnessed.

"They're virgins," I responded.

Min tilted his head further. "Virgins?"

"Yeah, even after the pink moon that group somehow kept their v-cards. Total innocents. Compared to you and me, well, let's just say they wouldn't be able to handle a healthy sexual life… not saying that my sex life is often healthy, but to those vanilla wafers even the word sex life is mind-breaking. Adult relationships are too much for them at their current stage."

Min finally gives a nod. "Oh."

I snorted. "In another world, that could have been me."

"Hmm?"

"Running around attached to a cute boy, blushing at sex terms and clinging to him like the thirstiest bitch on the planet while pretending I barely know what a penis is or does. That kind of thing. If my story had gone a slightly different direction, I'd be a generic hero protagonist I think."

"Like, Vessë the way Vessë is."

I smiled and leaned over, kissing Min on the cheek. "Is that so?"

"Mm, but think Vessë would not be so different."

"Why not?" I asked.

"Because Vessë already touching me under table." He turned his head with a slight blush.

"Ah, I guess Min is right. I never could keep things pg-13." I chuckled as I slid my hand into his pants.