The dishes arrived one after the other and before anyone noticed, the whole table was full to the brim with different kinds of foods, Sofia as the host invited everyone to dig in.
“Please, enjoy the best cuisine that Hawthorn city can offer”, she said.
Contrary to what Sofia expected both Kana and Alice immediately started attacking the dishes, while Aster and Sarina found amusing the sight of those two gluttons, they also tried several different dishes.
Eric was also enjoying the food… until Sofia interrupted him, she placed her hand on Eric’s shoulder and spoke with a smile that wasn’t a smile.
“What are you doing, we are a couple so shouldn’t you feed me while I do the same for you?”.
…
Aster stopped eating, he put on a grin as he watched Eric being suppressed by someone for the first time in his life, of course he ignored the pleading gazes his friend directed at him.
“That’s a lover’s quarrel, don’t expect me to interfere… I can’t even imagine how much the old man Egil prayed for you to find a woman that could control you hahaha”, he thought.
Seeing that the only one that could help him was frankly ignoring him, Eric sighed and did as Sofia asked, he could refuse but his pride avoided him from doing so, he lost fair and square and the bet was that he would marry Sofia if he lost, so he will fulfill his promise, it’s not that he didn’t find her beautiful, what he didn’t like was that she was a bit too clingy with him, for God knows why reasons.
“Once I breakthrough… things will be different”, he said to himself while he was eating what Sofia was feeding him.
The say that karma is a bitch is quite accurate because while Aster was laughing at his friend’s disgrace, he saw from the corner of his eyes that not only Alice but Kana and even Sarina, stopped eating the very moment Sofia told Eric to feed her.
Unfortunately for the balance of the universe, Aster was instead quite happy for what was about to happen, he even smiled at Eric as he made the first move, he cut a piece of the meat he was eating and used his fork to feed it to Alice.
Alice’s joyful expression as she accepted her brother’s offer made Kana’s innocent lovestruck heart feel a bit bitter, fortunately the slight feel of jealousy faded away when she saw Aster smiling at her as he made the same offer to her.
Kana blushed a bit but she immediately ate what Aster was giving her, the cute sight of Kana munching was a bliss too see, Sarina on the other hand calmly waited for her turn, but on the inside, she did feel a bit nervous because this kind of lovely interactions were still quite new to her, but looking at her daughter and Alice clearly enjoying it she also wanted to try it.
Aster of course noticed it so cut another piece of the grilled meat that was on his plate and gave it to Sarina, in contrast Eric looked frustrated as Sofia continuously stuffed his mouth with food.
Once everyone was full, the maids retrieved the empty dishes and left, this time even Sarina ate more than usual as she lost herself in the moment.
After a couple of minutes Aster stood up followed by the girls and left the mansion of the city lord, Eric was going to go but Sofia did notice that something was going on between Aster and Sarina… maybe even Kana, so she stopped Eric from going with them and being a third wheel.
Hawthorn city was quite prosperous so there were a lot of things to do, Kana and Sarina have come here before, so they fulfilled the role of tourist guides for Aster and Alice, Kana was specially enjoying this, she revolted around like butterfly as she dragged Aster to all the places that she liked in the city.
The first place they visited was a whole block of streets which was destined for commerce, there were many small towns near this city, so the city lord created place for all the people that wanted to sell their fruits of their work, from many types of crops which the town people cultivated, meat from different spirit beasts and all kinds of treasures and other things that people found in the forest, if there was a market for it, then you could find it here.
Kana’s eyes were sparking as she introduced the place to Aster.
“Look big brother, this is the street bazaar of Hawthorn city, mom used to take me here whenever we had the chance, they sell a sweet which you can only find in this city in the whole Luonto continent!!!”.
Sarina was happy that Kana was enjoying all this, although now it was clear it wasn’t her fault getting infected with corruption, she still felt a bit guilty for all the years she couldn’t spend with her daughter.
Aster bought a pack of the sweets Kana talked about, they were made out of the sap of a plant called “sugar thorn bush”, surprisingly it tasted a bit like sugar cotton combined with honey.
“A bit cloying for me, but I guess once in a while it’s not that bad”, thought Aster as he tasted the soft candy which Kana gave him.
Still, since the girls seemed to like it quite a bit, he bought more packages of it for later, and also as a gift for Lilia and Aria which will be arriving at Prasil soon.
“Happy wives, happy life”, he said to himself as he paid for the candies.
They walked through the bazaar while looking at the many stalls, while the girls stopped from time to time when something caught their attention, they didn’t buy anything else, Aster smiled, thinking that no matter in which star cluster you live, women like shopping, not like he wasn’t enjoying seeing them interacting with each other.
“It’s good to see they get along… I hope mom and Aria think the same, because I already decided they will join our family”, he thought.
Aster came out of his daze when he accidentally looked away and caught a glimpse of something on the stall of a middle-aged woman which was selling some random things she found on the forest.
Aster couldn’t help but smile, still he needed to get closer to confirm if his supposition was right, Sarina was watching over Alice and Kana so he separated from them and went to the stall, there were other people looking at the things the woman was selling but the thing Aster was interested didn’t caught anyone’s attention.
And it was justified, the thing was just a little black sprout, so everyone thought it was just the rotten remain of a low rank spirit herb, even the owner didn’t seem to care that Aster took it from the stall to inspect it.
Contrary to the apathic reaction of the seller, Aster was mentally laughing while Rya was in awe.
“No way… that is the sprout of a black water yin flower!!!”.
Getting Rya’s confirmation Aster smiled, it was one of the rarest things on the list that Rya gave him, once the flower was completely developed, if it was refined by a skilled alchemist, it had the property to restore the vitality of a woman thus making her regain her youth.
The problem was that it had some hard conditions to be usable, first, only one could appear in a planet every dozens of thousands of years, as it absorbed a lot of yin element from the atmosphere, secondly you needed to pull it out from the ground and within 72 hours after that, the sprout needed to be watered with the something that contained the yin of the person that will use it, or it won’t ever bloom and the sprout will wither away in a couple of days.
So now the only thing left was to confirm when was the sprout pulled out from the ground, Aster put on a cunning smile, since the woman didn’t look too interested on it, he tried a different approach.
“When did you find this herb?”, he asked in a solemn voice.
“Mm?”, the woman heard the young man in front of her ask her something and she snorted.
“Excuse me but, thy do you care about it, if you aren’t buying it then leave it”.
Aster shook his head, a small wisp of Rigel’s flame appeared on his free hand as he spoke.
“I’m an alchemist, not many people know that the ground where this herb grows is extremely poisonous, that’s why this herb doesn’t have any use, if you took it from the earth and you don’t drink a special antidote in less than a week… then unless you have surpassed the star vertex realm you will die”.
He said as the flame swallowed the herb making it disappear, Aster also took out an identity token which identified him as a guest of the royal family, a little gift that Orson gave him just in case.
“The place where that herb grew needs to be purified so no one else gets affected by it, I guess you can recognize this badge, tell me when and where did you find this thing”.
The woman doubted at first but the blue flame in front of her did remind her the one of an alchemist, and the token completely convinced her, which meant that if she didn’t get the antidote she will die.
“I-I found it yesterday in a cave… into the forest”, said the woman as she took out a map of Hawthorn city and its surroundings, she drew a red circle a couple of kilometers away from the east wall of the city before handing the map to Aster.
“That is the place where I found it, now please tell me where can I find the antidote?”.
Aster nodded and handed her a little bottle with a couple of drops of a green liquid.
“Drink it immediately, and don’t tell anyone about the location you drew on the map, or I would be in the need to notify it to the royal guards”.
The woman did as he told, she felt relieved that the antidote seemed to work, after she drank it, all her body felt fresh and renewed.
“I won’t ever take anything from that stupid forest ever again, if not for the fact that someone could recognize that herb I would have died”, thought the woman as Aster walked away with a smile on his face.
Of course, he didn’t burn the sprout, he used Rigel’s flame to prevent others seeing when he sent the herb to the mind space, speaking of that right now Rya had a complex expression on her face.
When Aurelian told them that the cosmos tree killed the second king any possibility of getting the rainbow clover disappeared, and then out of nowhere Aster managed to find one of the three rarest materials on the list.
“I don’t know if your luck is really good… or if mine is really bad”, said Rya, according to the little bet they did, she will have to do some naughty things with Aster even in her spirit form.
Aster was smiling from ear to ear.
“You won’t think that way later, besides we need something which contains your yin to water the sprout, and I have a good idea if what it’s going to be hahaha”.
Rya felt her legs trembling a bit, “sigh this pervert master of mine”, she thought.