The girl didn’t really understand Edward’s words, but covered her chest on instinct as soon as she saw his eyes fixed on it and asked: “What are you staring at? Don’t you know isn’t no polite to stare at a girl’s chest so soon after meeting her?”
Edward teased with a smile: “Then, is it fine to look at it after some time?”
The girl also adopted a playful expression as she replied: “Maybe, but you looked on our first meeting so I think you already screwed up.”
“And what if it’s not the first time we meet, or not even the first time I happened to gaze upon your bountiful chest?” asked Edward with a small smirk.
The girl shook her head and said: “That’s impossible. I would have remembered meeting you before for sure.”
Edward put on a fake hurt face and said: “After working so hard to save your life, you don’t even remember me…”
The girl tiled her head to the side with a pensive expression and after thinking hard for a moment, a deep red blush appeared on her face. Covering her chest with one hand and using the other to point at Edward, she blabbered: “You.. You …. You.. The forest? Fox?”
Edward let out a chuckle and nodded: “Yes, I was the one who found you passed out in the forest and ended up bandaging your wound. Nice to finally be able to put a name to a face, Naomi.”
The girl blushed even deeper and a look of panic appeared on her face. Edward could guess what she was thinking and said: “Don’t worry, I didn’t take advantage of you. I just cleaned and bandaged your wound, leaving after making sure you were going to be all right.”
His words didn’t seem to help the girl at all as she couldn’t take it anymore and she bolted out the door. Leaving both Edward and the young man stunned on the spot.
The young man turned towards Edward and asked: “Do you know my sister?”
“Oh she’s your sister?” replied Edward while also turning towards the young man, “Not really know her... I just found her unconscious in the forest with a nasty wound, but I left before she regain consciousness. It’s a bit awkward since the wound happened to be just under one of her breasts and I had to remove her armor to clean and bandage it.”
The young man nodded in understanding and said: “I see. That explains her behavior.” He then proceeded to bow slightly: “I wish to thank you on her behalf since she appears to be quite embarrassed to do it herself.”
Edward nodded and also started walking towards the door when an idea came to him and he asked: “There was also a fox there. Is that fox by chance your sister’s tamed beast?”
“Yes. When my father was once walking through a forest in the southern part of the continent, he stumbled upon a fox magic beast curled around a small baby. That baby was Naomi and my father took her home, raising her as his daughter after not finding any clue about her real parents. The fox also ended up following after them and has been my sister’s tamed beasts ever since.”
Edward nodded and said his goodbyes before leaving the guild. He would have like to ask Naomi how she ended up hurt like that, but since she bolted out of embarrassment, there was nothing he could do.
With some free time on his hands, he decided to finally take a walk around the pleasure district and see what the place was like.
It took him around 10 minutes until he reached the pleasure district and he was surprised that the whole place appeared to be surrounded by a fence and there was even a tax of one silver to step inside.
After paying the tax and walking past the gate, it felt like he entered a totally different city. All the buildings all around were painted in red or pink colors and a sweet smell of perfume lingered in the air.
All around the streets he could see men, most of them already drunk even if it was still the middle of the day, walking arms crossed with all kind of skimpy dressed women, some of them even having their breasts exposed in full view. What surprised Edward was that most of them appeared to be demi-human, a fact that intrigued him to no end. There were a lot of brothels all around and there were topless women placed at their entrances, loudly advertising their services.
“Fenrir, thank you for bringing me to heaven.” Muttered Edward as he walked through the pleasure district streets, carefully observing all that it had to offer, but all of a sudden he stumbled upon something that he didn’t expect. There was a large three floor building with a large plaques placed at it’s front.
<Slave market>
“So there are slaves in this world as well… sigh” muttered Edward as he planned to ignore the place and continue exploring when it’s door opened and a fat noble looking man walked out with a young demi-human cat girl being dragged on a leash. The girl looked like she was not that old and, seeing the blank look in her eyes, a feeling of disgust and even rage started appearing in Edward’s chest. As he clenched up his fists, Fenrir’s voice sounded from his arm.
[Don’t. She’s already gone.]
“What do you mean?” asked Edward in an angry tone.
[You see that collar she wears around her neck? I can feel strong soul fluctuations coming from it. It should be used to control the souls of the slaves. If one resists orders, the collar will inflict harm to your soul, but if you keep going against those orders while ignoring the pain, it eventually end up destroying a person’s soul. That look in her eyes… her soul is already gone. Now, she’s noting more than a bag of flesh that is controlled by the orders received by the collar. She’s not alive anymore…]
Her words didn’t help the situation at all as an even greater rage appeared in Edward’s soul. Popping noises soon started coming from his hard clenched fists and if one were to look close, one would notice that his nails started extending inside his flesh.
[Calm down. It will only hurt you if you cause a scene here.]
Edward ignored Fenrir’s words as even his eyes started changing, the white around his pupils getting replaced by a deep black and even everything in his vision besides the fat noble and the cat girl started turning blurry.
As he was lost into this trance like state, slowly getting consumed by his rage, he felt a warm hand on his shoulder from the back and a soft voice entering his ear: “Are you all right?”
*Growl*
A growl escaped Edward as he turned around and fixed his predatory eyes on the one who touched him.
It turned out to be Naomi, who sneakily followed after him here all the way from the beast tamer guild.
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Naomi felt a sense of danger as she saw the pure black eyes of Edward getting fixed on her and released his shoulder while falling backwards with a scared look on her face and a small yelp.
The commotion the two of them caused brought them the attention of all the people around, everyone staring curiously at the scene playing out.
A bit of clarity returned to Edward as he saw Naomi’s terrified face and closed his eyes in an effort to calm down. A few seconds later, he opened his eyes which have now returned back to normal. Looking down at his hand and seeing that, while still covered in blood, now looked human again, he quickly cleaned it up with a water ball and extended it towards Naomi who was still sitting frozen on the ground.
“I’m sorry I scared you. I just saw something unpleasant.”
Naomi looked at his extended hand and then back at his eyes. Not seeing any trace of malice from before in them, she timidly grabbed his hand and pulled herself up.
“Haha. Who said I’m scared?” said Naomi, but her legs were still shaking slightly, betraying her true feelings.
Edward released her hand and didn’t mention her shaking leg as he asked: “What are you doing here? Did you follow me?”
Naomi quickly panicked at being found out and said: “Who followed you? I was just walking around and happen to spot you shaking in the middle of the road and decided to check to see if you were fine. I’m going now.”
Without giving the chance to Edward to say anything else, she quickly ran away once more. Edward had an awkward expression on his face and turned to look at all the people who were still staring at him. The crowd quickly pretended like nothing happened and went on their own way.
Being left relatively alone, he decided that he had enough of this pleasure district and walked towards the exit while asking softly: “Fenrir, what was that?”
[…I don’t know, but it wasn’t the curse. You almost turned on your own…]
“But that’s… isn’t it supposed to happen only when I am unconscious or asleep? How can I turn just like that?”
[It seems like there’s a lot more to learn about how the curse behaves inside a human host. It was somehow triggered by your anger… why were you so angry anyway? It’s not like you know that girl..]
Edward let out a sigh and said: “The whole thing reminded me about something. It doesn’t matter, I’ll be more careful in the future..”
Fenrir didn’t reply and Edward returned towards Violet Flower to collect the clothes he let out to dry. Once he entered the lobby, Violet smiled towards him only for her smile to turn into a concerned expression as she asked: “Is something the matter?”
Edward plastered a force smile and replied: “Nothing, I just witnessed a disturbing sight.”, then, ignoring Violet, he proceeded towards the back of the inn. He collected his now dry clothes, and came back to the counter.
Violet was already ready for him and extended her hand carrying the iron key, but as Edward picked it up, she spotted the scratching marks on the inside of his palm, marks that he made himself and didn’t have the time to completely disappear yet.
She opened her mouth to ask, but Edward turned around before she had the chance to and walked up the stairs. After placing his clothes in his room, he came down once more and said while placing the key on the counter: “I’m going out. See you in a few days Violet.”
“Edward… if I can help you with something you can tell me..” Said Violet with a sad look in her eyes.
“Don’t worry, I’m fine.” Replied Edward and walked out of the inn. He was still having a bad taste in his mouth after everything that happened in the pleasure district and wasn’t really in the mood to flirt with Violet.
Making his way out of the city, he started heading towards the place he left Minx at, but after leaving the road and walking for a little while more, he heard a soft rustling sound in the bushed behind him. Of course, Fenrir noticed it as well.
[I kept getting the feeling that someone is following you.]
Edward created a few water blades in his palm and was about to launch them when an idea came to him and he asked out loud: “Naomi, I know you are there. Come out.”
He figured it had to be Naomi since no one else really had a reason to follow him, but as his words ended, a bright light appeared in the bushes behind him.
‘Not good.’ Thought Edward as he launched the water blades towards the source of the bright light and jumped away. That proved to be the right decision since, not even two seconds after, there was a small explosion at the place he was just before, followed by another blinding light and a wave of heat sweeping past him.
Edward knew that had to be a fire spell so he already had a suspicion about who was behind the attack. Without even thinking about it, since he was not that far from the place he hid Minx, he dashed in her direction, planning to try and outrun his attacker using her speed.
He kept running and dodging simple fire attacks until Fenrir’s voice sounded from his arm once more: [Duck!]. Remembering what happened with that bird beasts, he didn’t question her instructions and, since he was still running, jumped straight forward, landing flat on his chest.
The next moment, a bird made completely out of fire swiped all the trees and bushed a few inches above his head, turning a large part of the forest into a flat plain.
Turning around, Edward finally got a look at his attacker but to his surprise, it was not a face he recognized. It wasn’t that Rave Barlow, who was also the only fire mage who he interacted with, but an unknown young man.
“Who are you?” asked Edward with a confused expression.
“You don’t need to know.” Replied the young man as fire started gathering in both hands once more.
‘Fuck, exactly what I needed in this fucked up day. An arsonist lunatic hunting me for my life. How did my heaven turn into hell so quickly Fenrir?’