Shades of the New World

Chapter 188: Break

"Deminte said that she'll send Arza here in the morning, so you'll have the afternoon to prepare, I suppose. I'm guessing you'll be meeting Rith afterwards?" 

"Yes, we'll go to town afterwards," Evin answered.

Nasst looked at Evin with a face that seemed to want to say something, with a slightly mocking smile one his face but in the end didn't say anything and just waved his hands lazily. 

'He's thinking I'm going to see the pretty coffee shop owner but he has to play dumb since I never told him about the coffee thing and he can't admit that he's spying on me,' Evin thought with amusement.

A similar interaction happened a few other times and Evin's mood would turn better every time it happened. Smilingly, he walked towards his room. 

Rith was on his bed, idly reading a book. Seeing Evin, she looked up and lightly bobbed her head.

"Let's go see Rhea and then we'll buy some communication devices from a shop somewhere," Evin said.

"What happened?" 

"I'm getting a 10-day break and I'm thinking I should leave a communication device with my family, so we can talk from afar," Evin answered.

"What about coffee?" Rith immediately asked.

"Man, you definitely have a problem."

"I know you're thinking about it as well," Rith retorted almost immediately. 

"We'll ask Rhea when we get there," Evin sighed.

"Well, whatever More importantly, I thought you were the type to not want a communication device, so you don't have to interact with people, especially your family?" Rith said with a fake puzzled face.

Evin glanced back and asked: "And how do you reach that conclusion?"

"Well, you seem to hate the concept of honestly talking with them about any problem you face?" 

'Is she just trying to diss me somehow? Did she get pissed off because I pointed out her addiction to coffee? Is this what it is?' 

"Well, sadly, you're wrong. I don't have any issues with talking about my problems. Why you may ask? As you can see, I grew almost two and a half years older in a span of half a year and I'm planning to tell my parents the reason why. Plus of course, Aran and Liza. Their child got caught up in that mess as well, after all," Evin said.

"But you're not going to tell them you melted like a candle in the process."

"I-" Evin said and stopped for a bit, but continued calmly: "At that point, I'd just be wanting the attention by playing victim. Sometimes, the details aren't that necessary."

"Whatever you say," Rith shrugged.

"In any case, we should also see Ssatsko afterwards, to see if he's able to come along," Evin said.

At Rhea's coffee shop, Evin sat silently with Rith, relishing the wary glares from the surrounding people. He even felt some hatred in the mix as well. He wondered why and tried to listen to some of the whisperings using the World of Storms, and learned that the reason was his fight against Arza.

At some point, that fight became a public thing, so apparently everyone was extra scared of him.

'Now that I think about it, Arza's a bit too popular, isn't he?' Evin thought idly.

'Perhaps it's because he's so popular among the kids, their parents automatically learn about his as well?'

If Evin was a child and he looked up to Arza, he would probably constantly blabber on about it to his parents 

'No wonder he's so popular'

'But why do some of these adults end up idolizing him as well? What's up with that? Are they that bored?' He thought and smiled wryly. 

"I feel like I'll be the reason why this coffee shop won't be so popular" he then said to Rhea, sighing exaggeratedly.

Rhea, on the other hand, was just baffled.

"I've literally had seven men come to tell me that you're a murdering Child of the Empress since yesterday And every one of them would spin a different story. One of them told me that you constantly talk to yourself like a madman. Another told me that you keep living children inside your basement. One even told me that you hunt down women at nights. What the hell do you do in your spare time?" 

Evin chuckled at the news, imagining adult men come to Rhea and snitch on him like that.

"I'm just as confused as you are. Most of the time I just go home and train, but somehow everyone in this Tribe seems to think I drink the blood of a virgin before sleeping"

"Why exactly the blood of a virgin?" Rhea asked suspiciously.

"You don't have stories about mythical creatures who bathe in the blood of virgin girls to stay young?"

Rhea looked at him with a 'What the hell is this idiot talking about' face and answered: "No? Most of the bedtime horror stories I heard include Chaos Creatures and the monsters from the South."

"Huh? Well, I guess you're right" Evin murmured, taking a sip from his coffee.

'What the hell are bedtime horror stories?' he then thought with confusion.

"Oh, Rhea, could you give the two of us twenty cups of coffee? We'll be leaving to Evin's hometown tomorrow," Rith said from the side after finishing her milk and coffee combination.

"Oh, really? But how are you going to store it?" Rhea asked.

"Well, I'm a Cosmic after all, I have my ways," Rith answered.

Rhea, as a lower-middle class citizen, didn't really think of spatial pockets and whatnot when faced with the problem of storage. Obviously, people with abundant money used the Cosmics' services all the time, so they were more familiar with the miracles of magic.

"Oh, well, you can just take the coffee beans and make the coffee yourselves, if you want. Usually we wouldn't sell them to customers, but Boss said that it was okay if it was you," Rhea said.

Rith looked at Evin, leaving the decision to him. 

"I'd rather have yours, since I'm so used to it. But make sure you put a lot of love into it, alright?" Evin said with a beaming smile.

Rhea just shook her head at Evin's words and went to prepare the cups, though she did look awfully focused when doing it.

'Maybe she is putting some love into it,' Evin thought with satisfaction as he watched the woman work.

Half an hour later, Rith had neatly stored away everything in her special space. Evin never seen her handle something so carefully. Even when she was interacting with her kittens, she didn't show the same care and love she showed towards these 20 cups of coffee.

"Oh, Rith, could you go buy the communication device for me? I'll go and check on Ssatsko," he then asked.

Rith didn't mind and agreed. Now that her job as an observer had ended, she didn't have to spend every single minute with Evin after all.

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