Ch 47 – Barrels and Jealousy

"Ehh"

The awkwardness continued, as Necro and Ace each sat on a bed nearby. They just stood there, gazing into random directions, mostly the floor in the case of Necro and Mary, for a good moment until Necro decided there was a pressing matter and made the first sound,

*Growl*

Followed by that of her stomach growling. Necro blushed in shame, as the eyes of both stared at her.

"... Did the boys leave anything behind for us to eat?" She asked, making Ace and Mary stare at each other, their eyes opened wide.

"I... I don't think they did..." Mary said, almost stuttering. "Where's your stuff Ace?"

"Bid didn't give me back any of it... What about yours?" Ace said, making it seem like an obvious thing, and asked for Mary whether she had anything to eat with her.

"It's here but... I have no food in there, only water and spirits."

'... Should I take food out?' Necro considered the possibility of taking food out of her ring, but there was still Mary around, who she didn't know whether to trust just yet. As she looked around, she noticed Ace and Mary staring onto the back of the room. She suddenly realized there were the barrels the bandits were using for storage.

"You guys wanna check those for food?"

Mary nodded with her head, and so did Ace. Apparently, the noise of her stomach reminded the two they had also not eaten since lunch. Out of nowhere, the two jumped up from the beds and quickly made their way to the back of the room, leaving Necro staring at their backs, unaware of what to do next.

"Ey! Wait for me." She said, standing up and following the two.

The girls helped each other unstack the heavy barrels, before checking what was stored in each one. As it turns out, the bandits were fond of drinking, as almost half of them were sealed and tapped.

"Alright! Let's check the tapped ones first~!" A happy response like this wasn't what they expected, but Mary always seemed to surprise even Ace when it came to drinking. Out of the twelve barrels, eight were tapped. Mary slowly made her way to each of the taps, dripping a little bit of whatever was inside and tasting. Her reaction varied quite a bit, until the last one, which was a completely flat one.

"This is water..."

"So, which were what?" Ace asked her, since she hadn't actually said what most of them were. Necro just looked at it from behind Ace.

"The fist three were beer, one was wine, two more were some kind of mead. The rest were water."

"Nice! These will sell for a good price when we get back in town."

"We are selling them!?" It felt odd to everyone else, but apparently Mary thought they'd be drinking them all.

"Of course we are! There's no way we can carry those things around." Ace stated the obvious.

"Aw..." While Mary sulked over the lost alcohol, Necro was thinking about the rest of the barrels.

"We gotta check the non tapped ones now. I'm hungry."

"Oh, sure." Mary stood up. "Do any of you have a dagger handy?"

Ace and Necro tilted their heads, not understanding her request.

"I'm serious. Those barrels are for long term storage. They don't have the hole for opening. you have to pry them."

"Ah, take mine then." Necro quickly understood what she was saying and pulled her dagger from under her dress. As she proceeded to hand it out, Mary was looking away from her. "Sorry..." She turned red once more, realizing why Mary was looking away. As she took the dagger out, she'd raised her dress almost all the way up to her thighs.

"Thank you..." A blushed Mary looked back towards her, avoiding to look her in the face, as she took the borrowed blade and pried the barrels open.

They took their time looking into them. As it turns out, there was one barrel of each food. Hard bread, dried meat, dried fruit and, surprisingly, vegetables.

"These guys... They didn't seem thoughtful enough to be bringing Vegetables all the way back here..." Ace let out a caustic remark.

"It was probably because of that guy..." With Necro's reply, Ace sulked a bit, looking towards the ground. They might have been shameless but, aside from caring for their colleagues as Necro stated, she shared something with them. In the end, she still had to hide her origin from all but Necro, whom she still hadn't shared it with.

"Well, this means we can have some decent food for a change!" Realizing the conversation took an uncomfortable turn for Ace, Mary changed the subject onto food. "There's also a large pot over there."

Thanks to her intrusion, Ace could breathe relieved, and moved on to help her place the large pot over the fire. The hut's inside had been well thought out, leaving a small area made out of stone for the fire, which led all the fumes outside.

"We having soup then, right?" Necro asked.

"Yes! I just hope we had a little bit of salt..."

"I can arrange that." Necro said, pulling a small pile of salt out of the storage ring onto her hand. Taking stuff like this was unthinkable before. But since she managed to see the inside of the storage ring, she had way more control over what to retrieve from it.

"Ah~! Thank you so much!" Unaware of this fact, Mary thanked her, putting her palm off for Necro to give her the salt.

"I'll be getting the meat then." Ace, still weary of the two together, passed behind Necro and whispered into her ear "If you flirt with her again you won't get anything from me tonight." before going her merry way to the other barrel.

'What have I gotten myself into...' Necro though as she looked at Ace's back.

"Did she tell you anything?" Mary asked, curious.

"Nothing important... I guess she's jealous..."

"Of you and... Me?!" Mary widened her eyes and was raising her hand.

"The salt!"

"Ah! Thank goodness it was in time... Sorry." She quickly closed her hand and threw the salt into the pot, just as a precaution. She stared at Necro once again and opened her mouth to say something, but decided to keep it to herself. 'There's no reason for her to be jealous of me and you... right?...'