Chapter 007.1: Welcome To The Market

So that's the final season huh. Although the ending is great, albeit bittersweet, I still feel upset because I haven't had enough.

I wanted to see more of the niphilim with red bladed wings. She only had 10 episodes and I already liked her character.

But Netflix says that this is their last season for the devilish series. Even though I hope for a spin-off, I can't do anything about it.

“Kuya!”

*BAM!*BAM!*BAM!

“Mom said to restock our fridge! You do it.”

But do you need to be so loud about it?

“Alright. I'll leave by 1300 anyway.”

Al and I have a plan for today. I'll just buy after we're done with it.

*Creak~*

I turn around to look at the front door. Crystal pushes the door open and then goes inside.

“Where are you going? Do you have a date today?”

“Yes.”

I'll hang out with Al after all.

“Remember your curfew.”

She shows me a look of disgust.

What is she on about?

“I know it's 1800.”

“Heh. Good thing you know. Or else you would have sleep in the street.”

Then she leaves my room without closing the door.

“That's harsh.”

Seriously though, I'm already 17 yet I still have a curfew. It's even by 6 PM.

Whatever.

I stand up and get off the bed. It's halfway to 1300 so I should prepare by now.

I will take a bath which will be done after 10 to 15 minutes.

5 minutes or so for wearing clothes. I'll wear whatever is on top of the shelf in the cabinet. My clothes are either black, white, or red anyway.

There's no problem in color harmony.

And besides, I don't care about it at all.

By quarter to 1, I'm already riding a tricycle to our meeting place.

Now I'm here. I'm in front of a convenience store under the shade of a huge old tree.

There's a lot of vehicles— both private and public vehicle passing in front of me.

The traffic here isn't too bad.

『ZzzzzZzZzzZzzzZZtttt~』

My phone in the pocket of my pants vibrates letting my legs feel a tingling sensation. It's kind of ticklish.

I pull it out and swipes to the left to answer the call.

“Al. I'm here.”

『I'm sorry Mark! I think we're cancelled for today. Something urgent came with the guys I was saying last time. They're fighting an enemy gang so they said they're sorry for not being available. Let's just have it next time!』

“I see. Too bad, I'm only available for today.”

『You're lying! That's not possible. Are you sad because you can't meet them?! I see that you're excited about it. But there's still next time!』

“‘Excited’? Where did you pull that information out? I'm just saying I won't come with you next time. You know that I don't really have the desire to join the gang you want me to be in.”

『But you said you—』

“How about this? I'll come with you next time but you need to date Mae-chan tomorrow.”

『What? What do you mea—』

*Beep!*Beep!*Beep!*

I hang up the phone call.

Well, I've done what you asked for Mae-chan. It's up to you now.

Now that I have nothing else to do, I guess I should have a date again with Eli-chan.

I dial her number and wait for her to pick her phone up.

『.........』

Well, she's taking a long time to answer. She's probably in the kitchen.

『.........』

Oh hell. Am I being ignored?

『.........』

Alright. I'm being ignored.

I turn the phone off and put it back into my pocket.

I guess I'll just buy the groceries and go home early. I'll just watch another series.

But—

『ZZzzzZZtttt~』

My phone vibrates again.

It doesn't seem like a call. More likely to be a notification.

「Cynía sent a message with pinned document」

It's an inbox notification from the forum.

She really works fast.

I go to the forum with it's own application and tap my inbox with a more than 54 of notification.

The very first notification is the latest message.

「Master, I did what you asked for. Three things stand out from the profile and background of ‘Marc Caushalt’ and his father: ‘Rolfo Caushalt’. I compiled them in an epub format. If you want the rest of their file, I can send it now.」

Hmm.

「No need. I trust your judgement. But you did well. I just asked for this last night yet you already have sorted them quicker than I expected. However stop calling me master everytime we're not on ‘play’.」

「Because you asked me of it ‘master’.」

Hey. Did you even read the last sentence of my reply?

「And speaking of ‘play’, when will you abuse me again? I'm missing it.」

「I don't know. Anyway, thank you for your help.」

「Anything you desire. You can even slap or kick me you know.」

「You're the one who wanted that!」

「Hehe」

I tap the file she sent to download it into my phone. It only has 12 mb so it's download after not even a minute.

Afterwards, I turn my phone off. I then ride a tricycle towards the market to buy necessary groceries.

I have the list mom wrote earlier in my wallet.

The market is in Centro Naga where the crowd is all over the place.

Especially now that it's weekend. There's tons of people wanting to enjoy their day off.

The small children are happy with their parents or guardians. The teenagers are with their circle of friends chatting with one another.

There's a lot of vendors at the side of the street as well. They're selling mostly fruits and street foods.

There are establishments with loud music playing from within. Those music are played from the FM radio. I can tell because there are advertisment.

Anyway, that's all I observed while waiting for the tricycle I'm riding to stop at my destination.

“Kuya, please stop here.”

“Okay.”

The tricycle stop at the side of the road. And I give the driver a 20-peso bill. He then gives me my change.

After that, he continue driving away to send another passenger to their destination.

Now then, I guess I should buy eggs and raw go foods first.

To the second floor then.

I use the wet stairs to move upstairs. There are two middle-aged beggars at the lower left side of the staircase.

I glance at their donation can and estimates the amount of money in their can laying on the cold floor. 140 to 160 pesos combined I guess. Most are peso coin so that's really a rough estimate.

Because I'm still holding my change from earlier, I divide it for the two men.

Afterwards, I continue moving forward. Halfway, I can already smell the thick fishy scent in the second floor.

The indistinct noise from the customers and sellers are heard as well.

On the second floor, dozens of customers are roaming around the place. It's now noiser and the smell gets stronger as well.

Fufufufu.

Welcome to the market.

———————

|Voracity's Note |

Thanks to a reader, I noticed a major flaw in my writing style. I seem to be way too focus in introducing the characters that I'm forgetting to move the story forward [At least I haven't even hinted what's the main conflict or main goal of Mark].

And worse, I did it horribly. I shouldn't have mentioned those characters I won't even be needing in the present arc [Like Nica, she's still far from now].

And what makes it seems all over the place is that the sub arcs aren't written in a proper story telling. The stories are disorganized as well that when I was trying to give a chapter [Chapter 002 and 003 for example] a title, I can hardly come up with one.

My pacing seems too slow as well. I actually know it already. But I'm trying to gradually find the proper pace. I'm just worried that I might mess up more. The thing that makes it slower when not needed is because I'm writing too much description about something: Settings for example [I noticed it when I reread the previous chapters].

Basically, I'm adding unnecessary details. For that, I apologize.

And honestly, I was actually about to introduce new characters which would use far from present. That would have been a mistake. The current main arc should be about Elizabeth and Iris [Previous sub arc is focusing on Elizabeth. Next Arc focuses on Iris]

So I decided to delete some details and edit the previous chapters to make things right. This isn't a major edit like what I will do 30 days later after the volume is completed [I might learn of new flaws again after all] so I'll do it soon once I got the energy to do so [If you're reading this by now 『02-06-2022』then you don't need to worry about the change I'll do soon unless you wanted to].