13 - That Night (I)

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akin to being ravaged by a fever,

only appreciating normalcy when in danger,

taking it for granted when we are well together.

-R.

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"Ah?? Ya gone deaf or something, boy??"

Kairo snapped out of it, moving out of Tiraga's way.

Tiraga stomped her feet as she marched towards the table, dropping the heavy pot onto the table with an audible bang.

"I've been cooking this for the past three days, and I'm finally done after the third night," the other maids eyed the pot expectantly as Tiraga kept her hand on the lid and shouted, "Here ya go, enjoy!!" removing the lid.

There was an explosion of aroma. White steam rose from the pot, but their eyes sparkled as they saw the luscious, thick, brown broth that enveloped the meat and potatoes. Everyone's mouths watered at the same time.

Even though Aisia was farther back from everyone else, she was the first to get a whiff of the savory smell with her remarkably sharp sense of smell. But even if her nose was better, the scent was actually pleasant. It was not overpowering to the point that it overloaded her senses.

"This dish is called 'celebatte', I remembered about it from some schmuck I encountered in my travels. Kairo boy helped me with the stirring," she motioned her head towards a cautious Kairo. "Here's the rice, now eat!!" she commanded as she plopped down a steaming pot of white rice.

The maids fought amongst each other to get a share and started to dig in. They all bore feral looks on their faces.

Once they got a taste of the dish, they screamed,

"DELICIOUS!"

"MARVELOUS!"

"HOLY!"

"Impossible...!"

Kairo calmed down with a nervous chuckle. He thought there would be a fight, but this was a different fight from what he had imagined.

The three got seated and a plate of rice and stew was already in front of them. Kairo thought maybe Tiraga knew this frenzy would occur and planned ahead, preparing a separate portion for them so they may get a proper taste.

Kairo and Aisia tasted the celebatte and found that it was so utterly heavenly, they couldn't help but let out an "UOOOGH!!!" as they felt their soul leave their body, only to come back to finish the dish.

It was sweet and savory, but not overbearing, and had a deep flavor to it with a hint of sourness and acidity to overcome being fed up with the sweetness. It was warm and homely, as if it was made just for their taste buds. The meat was remarkably tender that they could slice it in half with just their teeth in one chew, and in every bite, it released the juices and flavor it had been soaking up for days.

It was delicious, but in a complete, harmonizing, and serene way, as opposed to the brash and rough personality of the person who cooked it.

The white rice was the perfect pair for the dish, as it moderated its flavorful nature. The potatoes in the celebatte were a fitting way to reset the palette and provide variety with its starchy taste and texture.

Kairo felt like he could eat both the entire pot of rice and celebatte. Kairo and Aisia found themselves looking at each other, realizing that they both thought about doing the same thing. When they peered at the contents of the containers, they found out that they were already half-empty. Kairo and Aisia laughed at each other and proceeded to let the other get their second round first.

Everyone else was enjoying the meal, which explained why there were still so many people left in this batch, they were keenly waiting for Tiraga's special dish. 

"So, you've already met Tiraga, huh, Kairo?" Grisia asked Kairo as Aisia took his offer.

"Yes. I helped her stir that pot of stew earlier before lunch. She was very much a slave driver," Kairo joked and chuckled, serving himself with another helping of Tiraga's celebatte after Aisia. "But I liked it more than just sitting around and being idle. Just who is Tiraga anyway?" Kairo asked.

"Hmm..." Grisia closed his eyes for a moment before starting, "Many of the maids you've met here were past adversaries of mine."

Kairo looked around and saw the maids who were fighting over Tiraga's food, melting over it once they'd gotten a taste of it. "Really?!" Kairo was astonished, pondering if Grisia was jesting.

"Yes," Grisia then listed several names of maids Kairo hadn't met yet. Until he uttered a familiar name, "...even Esmeralda."

"Esmeralda? Your enemy? You fought each other? Wait, Esmeralda fights?! But she doesn't seem to be evil nor violent..."

"Yes, and she was quite tough," Grisia took a sip of his drink and put it down with a sigh. Kairo raised his eyebrow, trying to figure out if Grisia was just overstating everyone else but him once again. "I'm not a force of absolute goodness, Kairo. I am a simple adventurer who completes guild quests that fascinate me or does things on a whim. My enemies aren't always vicious beasts or evil men."

"A simple adventurer..." Kairo repeated the underestimation with a grin showing his disbelief, that Grisia seriously thought himself to be a simple person. In Kairo's eyes, he was anything but that.

"In any case, Tiraga is one of them."

"Even Tiraga, huh. Actually, I could see that," Kairo thought about how Tiraga would be the type to attack people unprovoked.

He observed her quarreling with the three maids from earlier who helped him set up the table for lunch. He could hear her lecturing them while they were eating. It was about letting Kairo do their job of preparing the table for lunch. They retaliated by shouting back, arguing that she was the one who made Kairo do the chore in the first place, and even forced him to help her in the kitchen when he was a guest of their master.

She simply pouted and looked away as she kept being shouted at while at the same time being praised for her exquisite cooking.

Kairo giggled at the sight, relieved that she seemed to be getting along well with the other people in the mansion. For some reason, he felt concerned for her because of her abrasive personality and demeanor, but it turned out he was worrying for no reason.

She had been here longer than him. He didn't know much about the norms in this household, evident by how he kept getting surprised by its eccentricity such as this event. It was arrogant of him to doubt the relationships between those who lived in this household together.

"I fought Tiraga and she lost." Grisia continued. "Now, as punishment, she has to live as a human here until she presents me with a dish so delightful, I release her."

"As a human...?" Kairo wondered what Grisia meant.

"That's simplifying our encounter too much, but it's not incorrect. Hmph," Tiraga crossed her arms, inviting herself into the conversation.

"Very well, I don't like having to remember things. But here, let's see..."

Everyone slowed down their eating to listen as Grisia began to describe their encounter in the past...

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It was a long night of fighting wild beasts.

Grisia was out on a quest to exterminate whatever was keeping merchants and travellers from using a road to another kingdom.

There he was, on the very same road that was infested with vague rumors. The ambiguity of these rumors was caused by the fact that a single person had yet to return to tell the tale, therefore it was unclear if this was the work of a pack of wild beasts or something deadlier.

The townsfolk simply knew that capable mercenaries and adventurers alike had been hired to escort and guard the people who were supposed to use that road. 

Under the pale moonlight, his dark cloak smeared in blood flowed at the tempo of the quiet gale. As he kept his exploration of the area, another shadow arose from his.

"EAT THIS!" a rowdy voice sprung into the air from the thickets behind him followed by a crazed laughter.

Without finding the need to turn around, Grisia lifted his sword behind him, right on top of his head to block the attack from above. It met with the stranger's razor claws, lighting up the dark area briefly with a spark, as if two steel weapons clashed with each other. The ground beneath Grisia cracked from the weight and sheer strength of the attack, but it left him mostly unfazed.

"Oh?" the voice landed meters away from Grisia after he successfully blocked its attack. "You're the first one ta keep on their toes after one of my attacks, let alone a surprise attack."

The moon shone its light on the brusque, feminine voice. Brown complexion stained with dry blood. Wild, red hair. Sharp, vicious claws. A tall, muscular body. And lastly, a predator's eye that glowed a dangerous yellow in the dark, perfect for hunting in the shadows.

Grisia scoffed, "Not much of a surprise attack if you shout it."

"Hrr...! Cunning vermin! I'll feast on your flesh!" she dashed right towards Grisia, aiming for a straight punch, but Grisia dodged her effortlessly, appearing behind her. Her punch missed, the stray force uprooting multiple trees in its direction, the commotion causing birds to fly away soundly into the blackness. 

"Stay still, worm!"

"Wait, am I a vermin or am I a worm? Which is it? Or are worms vermin?" Grisia pondered. The assailant knew he was taunting her, nevertheless, she dashed straight at him again, but this time, Grisia sidestepped, leaving his foot in her path and causing her to trip and eat dirt. She lifted her head up and spat out the dirt.

"FUCK! Fight back, damn it!" the female attacker shouted, jumping back up immediately, her swipes and flurry of punches becoming more fervent as her blood began to boil.

"If that is your wish," Grisia leapt away, creating some distance between the two of them. Once he was far away enough, he relaxed his body and started to fall into a trance. He closed his eyes and bent forward slightly, sheathing his sword to his side with his hand holding the handle with a still breath.

The attacker felt humiliated by how this hunter had made himself vulnerable in her presence. "Hrr!! Damn bastard! Don't ignore me!!!" she rushed at Grisia again by lunging at him as he simply stood there.

As infuriating and slippery as this human was, she was enjoying fighting with someone who didn't die after merely one or two attacks.

In the middle of her lunge, she went berserk.

She loved losing herself in the fight. Her sole focus was on getting a hold of her opponent and nothing else. Once she did, no mere human could be strong enough to prevent her from doing what she wanted. It didn't matter if she got wounded or dismembered, she would've simply regenerated a cut or lost limb with her demon biology.

And so, all that mattered was that she catches him. As long as she gets a hold of that meatbag, then she could finally let loose and reveal her pent-up carnage.

It's always like this. Once she becomes berserk, it would take days of continuous fighting to calm her down and satiate her bloodlust. There's no returning to her senses otherwise.

Sure, it would be a waste to go berserk for just a single human, but what else could she do? It had been far too long since she last saw another human, rumors might have already spread about this road, how there was a savage demon killing humans and beasts alike around these parts. That might be why there had been less and less warriors to quench her thirst for battle.

So, it wasn't her fault. It was not her fault that she was this starved for a fight. Even if it was her fault, there's no stopping her now. What's in front of her was what she had been waiting for.

She was just so excited to kill.

But as she was getting close to him, in the middle of her lunge, she suddenly froze dead in her tracks. She returned to her senses, snapping back to reality as if she was slapped hard in the face.

"Huh?" she looked down to her feet, wondering why she couldn't move them.

There was nothing rooting her or preventing her from advancing, but she felt like her lower body turned to stone as her chest tightened. For some reason, her own body didn't want to move forward one bit. She kept trying to inch forward but to no avail.

She then raised her head to where Grisia stood. Her eyes widened as she felt a chill from her arms, down to her spine.

Their surroundings grew darker than the shadows cast by the moonlight. She saw Grisia in a stance that oozed death spreading from all directions like a foul mist of tentacles.

She gulped, an unimaginable dread crept into her heart.

She trembled.

Even if she didn't mean to tremble, even if she gritted her teeth, she trembled.

"Oh?" the insidious aura coming from Grisia disippated as he finally stood straight, unsheathing his sword and lowering it, assuming an idle stance. "You have excellent instincts. You would have certainly died if you took another step forward."

She fell flat on her knees, her shaking hands were lying down and facing up in a submissive position as she stared at the ground in front of her, shocked out of her mind.

"Me...? Die...?" she couldn't fathom the idea. She was stronger than the fanged beasts, stronger than the armed humans clad in iron and leather, stronger than the numerous demons from whence she came.

How could a lone human with nothing but a thin, metal stick make her feel this helpless?

"Shit! If I knew this was going to happen, I shoulda just stayed in hell! Damn it!" she yelled, shutting her eyes tightly in frustration, so much so that her dagger-like teeth were showing.

"Oh? So, you're a demon?" she heard Grisia's soft footsteps, which didn't make much of a sound, avoiding the twigs and leaves on the forest ground. "So, what's it gonna be?" Grisia asked, using his sword to lift her face.

As the moonlight found the dark blade of his sword on her chin, Grisia saw her hateful glare. Her feisty look said it all, that she was still raring to have a go with him if it came to it. He was impressed that her will was yet to be completely shattered after avoiding death by a mere step.

"Just kill me. Ya've won, my life is in your hands... human," she told him with a snarl.

"Hold your horses, now. I didn't really plan to kill anyone when I came here," he withdrew his sword from her face.

"What?! But ya slayed all of those beasts as ya came here ta hunt me!"

"Huh? You saw all that? Well... it was self-defense. They attacked me first."

Looking back, it did seem like that was the case, she simply didn't care enough to stop and think about it. But she couldn't believe it, she was being hunted, and now that the hunt was over, she still hadn't died yet?

A frantic smile crept up to her face unconsciously. "I... I might just live through this..!"

She gasped as she realized her desperation. Oh, how pathetic she clung to life instinctively. She had never felt this weak before. She never thought about her own life, she only ever thought about killing and continuing to kill.

"But that still doesn't mean ya weren't on the hunt for me! Isn't that right? I know ya humans. You ask other humans stronger than ya ta do your dirty deeds. Because you're weak! Ya can't do it by yourself, unlike me! A proud demon who sought thrill through spilling blood and came here for just that!"

"I'm guessing you're talking about guild quests. Certainly, someone did put up a quest to investigate the events surrounding this area and to eliminate the threat, and I took that quest."

"Aha! So ya were here ta take my head!"

"Not necessarily."

"Ah??!"

He inched closer, kneeling down until his face was close to hers. "If you stop messing with the humans who use this road, then I'll let you live," he stood up and continued, "I think that counts as eliminating the threat? If you stop?" he put his hand on his chin, looking up to the night sky contemplatively.

"What? Why would ya think that I won't claim another human life once you're not lookin'?" the moment she uttered those words, Grisia placed his sword in front of her face in a flash, faster than her eyes could follow.

His face didn't change, but she received the answer well with that gesture."Hrr...! You're the victor, why not just take my life now?!"

"If I can reason with you, then there's no need for me to take one more life from this world."