RMGCFW — Chapter 106

Night had settled over the room, leaving just the two of them.

Banxia sat by the window, gaze drifting through the half-open shutters to the street below, where the lights were slowly thinning. He looked like he was watching for something.

Mabel sat quietly on the edge of the bed, hands twisting the hem of her clothes, not saying a word.

"Um... H-Hero, sir..." She finally worked up the nerve to speak.

He turned around, calm as ever.

"You... you take the bed." Her face went red, voice shrinking with every syllable. "I'll sleep on the floor. That's fine."

He'd bailed her out today. Fed her, put a roof over her head, covered every last expense without complaint.

She couldn't bring herself to take anything more.

And besides, she'd grown up lying flat in a treehouse, doing nothing. She had absolutely no experience with situations like this.

Banxia said nothing. He just shook his head.

"But..." Mabel hesitated. "I can't have a hero sleeping on the floor..."

"What are you even talking about?" He stood, voice flat. "There's no world where I sleep on the floor."

"Wha —"

Something seemed to occur to her. Mabel flinched, scrambled back into the corner of the bed, face burning scarlet. "Th-that kind of thing is off the table, even for a hero — I'm, I'm still young —"

"What are you babbling about?" Banxia was already at the door. He pulled it open and walked out without looking back. "I've got something important to take care of. Stay in the room. I'll take you out of the city tomorrow."

"Huh..."

Before she could process it, the door banged shut.

Mabel stared at it. Several long seconds passed before she managed to squeeze out a single sentence:

"...So he wasn't going to do anything to me."

The moment it left her mouth she wanted to die. She buried her face in the blanket, ears burning red above the fabric.

The First Hero was the original, the first human ever brought to this world through summoning magic.

In the beginning, people treated him as a Banxia. The finest welcome, the highest honors.

That didn't last long.

It didn't take long before everyone realized the man had zero interest in humanity's survival. His entire focus was below the waist, and never with his own kind.

By the time the First Hero left this world, the legacy he'd left behind was still causing problems.

From that point on, a third faction entered the war between humans and demons: the so-called beast-kin, along with a scattering of magical creatures. These "inheritances" sometimes worked against human interests outright. A thousand years of human propaganda had done its work, the First Hero's reputation sat somewhere in the range of universally reviled, and even the beast-kin who carried his bloodline were treated with open contempt.

On the Central Continent, where pure-blood human faith ran deepest, it wasn't just beast-kin who got the cold shoulder. Even dwarves and elves, fellow members of the human races, faced regular scorn.

And yet, in that same territory, one city had somehow become a place where every race was welcome.

The commercial metropolis. An anomaly by any measure.

Alongside its human population came crowds of beast-kin you'd struggle to find anywhere else on the continent. The city ran on commerce, but trade alone didn't sustain it. The adventurer population ranked among the highest in the entire Central Continent, and where adventurers gathered in numbers, the entertainment industry followed.

Banxia stopped in front of one such establishment.

The sign read: [Nature's Embrace]. A large, full-service venue. He'd spent a fair amount of time watching from his window earlier, this one had the heaviest foot traffic by a wide margin. The quality inside was probably worth it.

"Welcome, adventurer, come on in~" A bunny-girl at the entrance spotted him lingering and moved forward immediately, looping her arm through his. She'd assumed he was some pure-hearted young man fresh off the road. Exceptionally pretty-faced, but still.

These weren't humans in fake ear headbands. They were genuine rabbit-eared beast-kin, and the back of each skirt was cut to let a tuft of fluffy tail poke through.

He followed her inside and found the place was larger than it looked. Suspended from the ceiling above the main hall hung a set of specialized magical fixtures, pouring out a soft, diffuse white light. Beneath that glow, the entire interior had been transformed into something resembling a wild, primeval forest, nothing like the gaudy signage and bright facades outside.

"Extravagant." He took it in with mild appreciation. "Wide-area illusion devices like that don't come cheap."

"Oh?" The bunny-girl looked genuinely surprised. "You've got a sharp eye, adventurer."

"Nothing special. I just know a little about magic." Banxia smiled and shook his head, consciously suppressing the Insight his soul wanted to activate on its own.

The lighting was there for atmosphere. No reason to break it.

"Mmm, I don't really understand magic," she said, "but we've had mage customers come in from other regions and spend a whole evening just staring up at the fixtures." She sighed. "They paid the full one-silver entrance fee and didn't look at anything else the whole night. I'll never understand what they were thinking."

"Neither will I." Banxia took in the immersive forest atmosphere and, in passing, gave the bunny-girl's backside a light pat. "I think I understand why this place is called Nature's Embrace now."

"Oh, you're terrible." She gave his hand a playful swat, tone coquettish. "Adventurer, you can't just do that. You need to spend at least five silver coins to select someone before any of that."

"One isn't enough. Bring me the specialties of the house." He reached into his pocket and tossed out several gold coins.

"Right away, most generous adventurer!" Her eyes lit up. She scooped the coins off the floor, led him to one of the premium private rooms, and hurried off to make arrangements.

The room matched the main hall, same primeval forest aesthetic. But unlike the common area, the floor here was laid with magically cultivated turf, and forest-themed furnishings had been arranged throughout with obvious care.

Details like these said everything about the level of competition in this city. If even an entertainment venue operated at this standard, the commercial metropolis was clearly not what its reputation suggested to outsiders.

"And a one-silver entrance fee, cheaper than the establishments back south," Banxia murmured. "Is that because there are so many beast-kin here that it's driven the prices down?"

He was still turning that thought over when the evening's entertainment began to arrive.

Word had apparently spread fast: a client who threw gold around without blinking. Even the nine-tailed fox who managed the floor couldn't resist coming to introduce herself personally. Her race gave her more than just a full, voluminous tail and sharp hearing, she was born with an instinct for reading the room, able to slip between gentle, clingy, and mischievous without a moment's notice depending on what the client seemed to want.

She wasn't alone. Also entering were a petite wolf-girl who had a thing for the thrill of the size difference; a rabbit-eared girl whose stamina was remarkable but who startled easily, trembling and curling at the lightest touch; a sloth-girl who moved slowly, all languid ease, suited for clients who preferred to take their time.

And then there were the others,

➤ Next: Old News of the Royal Capital