Chương 41: Chapter 39 - Willow's News

"'We will try to find a time when we are both free.'" Chelsea repeated dramatically in a mock male voice while gesturing vaguely with her spoon at the table.

"What do you think that means?" The group sat around the inn's dinner table once more. Warm candlelight flickered across bowls of stew, fresh bread, and mugs of watered wine and ale. The atmosphere felt comfortable now. Like a family settling into a routine.

"Edgar said you ate a human's eye in front of him?" Bea asked between bites of stew. Chelsea burst out laughing.

"Yeah. I had to do something. The guy was giving me the puppy dog eyes, and I don't do well with telling people no."

"Little sister," Dewey said seriously while pointing his spoon toward her, "did the human eye taste better than goat eye?" Chelsea leaned back in thought.

"You know, I'd have to try them both at the same time." She tapped her chin with the spoon.

"I remember liking goat eye a lot, but I've also tried a lot of new things since." Fiona looked deeply invested in the answer.

"Human eye was good," Chelsea admitted, "but I remember that first goat eye fondly." She pointed her spoon toward Fiona.

"Seriously though, Fiona, thank you so much. I have enough food for days now."

"You're welcome," the massive woman replied proudly before taking another huge bite of stew.

"Thank you for reading for me." Chelsea smiled warmly at her before another thought crossed her mind.

"Oh, actually." She looked around the table.

"Can we not tell Adriane about me getting yelled at for reading? Well… the guild leader didn't yell. It was more like… Implied yelling." Everyone looked at her.

"I don't want Adriane raising a big fuss," Chelsea explained.

"We are in a very delicate state financially right now, and I don't want her risking her employment with the guild." The entire table stared at her. Including Fiona. Chelsea slowly lowered her spoon.

"I said something that doesn't make sense, didn't I?"

"Adriane is an S-ranker," Fiona answered carefully.

"Right." Chelsea nodded.

"Which means," Edgar continued calmly, "she outranks most guildmasters." Chelsea blinked. Oh. Right. She still occasionally forgot her sister was apparently fantasy Batman mixed with a natural disaster.

"If she wanted," Edgar continued, "she could simply override the decision and allow you to read postings whenever you pleased."

"Well that seems wildly abusable."

"It is," Bea answered immediately.

"Though," Edgar added, "in this case, I hate to say it, the guildmaster is correct. You do not have time to sit around the guildhall reading for every adventurer who walks through the doors." Chelsea sighed into her bowl dramatically.

"Yeah, I know." She tore off a piece of bread.

"I just wish there was something I could do. That Easton guy was a real slimeball."

"Slimeball?" Fiona repeated slowly.

"He's gross," Chelsea corrected. Recognition immediately crossed Fiona's face.

"Oh. Yes. Gross." Bea snorted into her drink. Chelsea glanced toward the empty seat where Adriane normally sat.

"Any word on when Adriane will be back?" Nobody answered immediately.

"Or what her mission is?"

"We never know until she returns," Bea explained.

"She just disappears. Slays the dragon. Comes back."

"She does that often?" Chelsea asked.

"Pretty much," Bea replied with a shrug.

"We had no idea she was your bodyguard until she told us that night at the safehouse." Fiona perked up immediately at the mention of a possible story.

"Bodyguard?"

"Don't ask. Literal death sentence if you hear that story," Edgar explained calmly while turning his mask toward his wife. The mask never changed expression, but somehow everyone at the table still understood exactly what kind of look he was giving her. Fiona immediately stopped asking questions.

"At least a death sentence for non-Wixx," Chelsea added while wiggling her eyebrows at Dewey. Dewey promptly looked away and focused very hard on his stew. Fiona slowly pointed at Chelsea with her spoon. Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

"So, what's with your new outfit?" Chelsea looked down at the red-and-black dress proudly.

"It's to get my Charisma up. I need someone to rip it because it's too good for me. But not so ripped it's hard to put back on." Fiona stared at her. Chelsea nodded and casually explained, "Spooky demon magic." This time she skipped the dramatic finger wiggling.

"Ah," Fiona replied as if that somehow explained everything and immediately returned to eating. Bea leaned back in her chair.

"Why are you trying to get your Charisma up? I thought you went to get armor."

"We got armor too," Chelsea explained.

"But Edgar brought up a good point. I have the demon skill 'Attract.'" That got everyone's attention.

"Let me see what it does exactly. Give me a second." Chelsea opened the skill description and started reading aloud. -Attract (racial): -Increase Charisma 3x while conversing with the opposite gender [male]. -All [males] with less Charisma will find you attractive. -Has a chance of forcing the target to fall in love if Charisma is at least 10x higher than the target. -Option available to turn the target into a love thrall if Charisma is at least 15x higher than the target. Silence filled the table.

Chelsea blinked twice.

"I was not expecting so much to be involved." She looked up from the invisible window.

"What's a love thrall?" Fiona replied immediately.

"That's a terrifying ability." Her tone had gone flat and serious.

"They are demonic love slaves. They will do your bidding and won't care if they get hurt."

"Oh." Chelsea slowly closed the status screen.

"Ah," she repeated weakly.

"That really is a terrifying ability." She sat there for a moment processing the implications.

"I think I'll stick to my armor."

"Good choice," Edgar said instantly. Chelsea suddenly perked back up.

"Wait." She started counting on her fingers.

"So my Charisma is six. If it's tripled when talking to a male, would increase it to eighteen..." Her eyes widened slightly.

"Do you think Henry's Charisma is one? or less?"

"Doubtful," Bea answered casually while buttering bread.

"That's a really low number, and that kid was in love with you before you spoke to him." Chelsea pointed accusingly.

"Though, I did speak to him when we…" Bea groaned loudly.

"Chelsea, either fuck him or don't. Either way, can we move on?" Fiona snorted so hard she nearly choked on her drink.

"Fiona," Chelsea scolded, "you're supposed to be on my side." The large woman wiped at her mouth while laughing.

"I agree with your sister. Sorry. You seem to be talking a lot about a guy you claim to have no interest in." Chelsea opened her mouth to argue. Nothing came out. She frowned.

"Okay. Fine," she finally relented. Guildmaster Willow Willow was kept waiting outside the study for nearly twenty minutes. Not because the king was entertaining nobles or because he was in a strategy meeting. Because, according to the exhausted servant outside the door, "His Majesty forgot to eat again and was feeling shaky and needed alone time." The servant eventually opened the door with visible relief.

"You may enter, Guildmaster." Willow stepped into the royal study and immediately understood why half the palace staff looked permanently exhausted. The room was chaos. Maps covered the walls beneath layers of notes pinned over older notes. Towers of books sat stacked across the floor in unstable formations that looked one loud noise away from collapse. The desk itself had almost vanished beneath mountains of paperwork. King Juice sat at the center of it all with his forehead pressed against a ledger.

His crown sat abandoned on a bookshelf several feet away with dried ink quills shoved through it.

"Please tell me you're here with good news," he mumbled into the paper.

"If this is about another massive threat, monster migration, noble disputes, or crop failure, I may actually die in front of you."

"You look terrible, Your Majesty."

"Thank you, Willow. I strive for consistency." He finally looked up. The king looked younger than most people expected. Probably because everyone imagined kings as regal old men instead of exhausted scholars being crushed under administrative hell. His dark hair with a few silver strands had partially escaped the tie behind his head, and the shadows beneath his eyes looked almost bruised.

"What is it?" he asked.

"And please let it matter. I was halfway through calculating road repair budgets because apparently literacy is a rare skill among my advisors." Willow stepped forward and placed a folder onto the desk.

"A new family registered with the guild yesterday as permanent residents of Junstruce." The king stared at her blankly. Then sighed.

"Willow. If you personally came here to inform me people moved into the city, I am going to walk off the balcony and make it look like you pushed me."

"The family name is Wixx." Everything stopped. The king slowly sat upright.

"The Wixx family?"

"Yes." He grabbed the folder and flipped it open immediately.

"Adriane Wixx?" His tired expression faded slightly.

"The Silver Sword?"

"She's listed as head of household." The king leaned back in his chair and shut his eyes.

"Oh thank the gods." The relief in his voice was genuine. Willow remained silent while he processed the information.

"You have any idea how difficult the last three years have been?" he asked finally.

"Without an S-ranker every neighboring territory starts testing boundaries. Monster territories expand faster. Nobles start acting brave. Every crisis becomes three times harder because nobody strong enough can simply walk into the problem and end it."

"I can imagine."

"No, you really can't." He pointed vaguely toward a stack of papers.

"Last month I had to negotiate with an elder sand-worm."

"You negotiated with it?"

"It was fucking intelligent!" he rubbed at his forehead.

"It wanted cattle and geothermal spring access." he explained before slumping back into his chair.

"My point is Adriane returning is massive."

"It is," Willow agreed wanted to add more but… The king exhaled slowly.

"That alone may stabilize the kingdom." Willow hesitated.

"Adriane is a get. Yes." She folded her hands behind her back.

"But she isn't why I came personally." That made him pause.

"What do you mean?" Willow reached over and turned the folder toward him, tapping a specific name.

"Chelsea Wixx." The king frowned slightly.

"A demon? Wait, there's a demon in the Wixx family now? What in the…"

"Yes. You should pay very close attention to her." Something in Willow's tone made him stop treating the conversation casually.

"She refinanced the Wixx family debt within hours of arriving in the city," Willow continued.

"A debt that had existed for thirty-three years.." His eyebrows rose slightly.

"She what?"

"She identified predatory loan structuring immediately without legal aid, approached the Grand Bank personally, negotiated a new fixed-rate agreement, and eliminated the interest spiral strangling their family." The king stared.

"She did all of that yesterday?"

"Yes. In about an hour."

"Is she's a scholar?"

"She's only eighteen." The king squinted. Practically a child.

"She's the same age as my own daughter." He muttered quietly.

"She also reads faster than anyone I have ever seen," Willow added.

"She was scanning entire job boards in seconds and sorting requests by compatibility." The king leaned forward slowly now with even more interest.

"She is strange," Willow admitted.

"Dangerous too, potentially. But Your Majesty..." She paused carefully.

"Chelsea Wixx is potentially what will truly save this kingdom. Adriane kills a worm? A dragon shows up next week. But this child… if she fixes the economy… she can put structures into place that last years and years."

"That is an extremely large statement." He replies.

"I know." He looked back down at the folder.

"A demon. Sisters with Adriane Wixx. A Financial Genius."

"Yes."

"And apparently charismatic enough that guild members already like her despite being a demon?" Willow thought back to the reports she'd received throughout the day and sighed.

"Some of them are terrified of her," she corrected.

"The rest seem confused about whether they want to be her friend or ask her out." The king barked out a tired laugh.

"That poor girl."

"No," Willow replied quietly.

"I think it's the rest of us we should feel sorry for."

"Oh? Why?"

"She has only been in this city for two days," Willow continued.

"And somehow it already feels like Junstruce shifted around her." The king looked toward the study window overlooking the dark city beyond. Then back to the file. Then finally smiled for the first time since she'd entered the room. It was a small tired genuine smile.

"Try very hard not to let anyone kill her before I get the chance to meet her."