touchnovel Chapter 1714 Time to Wind it all Down
Chapter 1714 Time to Wind it all Down
--- Kat ---
With the threat all wrapped up and the decision to leave put in place everyone dispersed for the moment. Lily wanted to meet up with Kat and that’s exactly what she did. Kat, Lily and Kamiko spent some time watching over the clones until they’d dispersed into nothing, a thankfully painless process. Once done they found a place to rest. Nobody cared to bother with dinner, and the three simply plonked their tents down in the middle of the street.
The next morning was slow to start, even Kat who was awake early was perfectly willing to laze around in bed with Lily for a bit before getting up. Once the pair heard Kamiko getting up they made their own way out of their tents and set up something for breakfast. With the fighting that had happened they decided to go a bit all out just in case anyone from nearby needed the food.
This triggered a hoard once word got around and suddenly they were working at a vastly accelerated pace. It was kind of fun, but also a bit of a mess. Kat didn’t know WHY so many people were coming around for food. It’s not like there had been a siege or anything, and she was pretty sure that some people had stopped by to grab things more than once.
Kat herself was working a few stations. They’d decided on a meaty soup once they’d settled on the idea of handing some of it out and everyone had their roles. Kat was doing basically everything for a series of pots. She stirred them when needed, sliced the vegetables, and refilled the stock in the pot to keep it all rolling. Kat mostly used her tail to stir while chopping vegetables.
Kamiko was focused just on chopping things up. Unlike Kat who was doing a little bit of everything Kamiko ensured that all of her slicing was perfect so that every piece was the same size, only varying a bit based on what it was she was cutting at the time. She worked together with Lily who was doing basically everything else.
At the start Lily was stirring a bunch of ladles with her shadow hands, to make use of Kamiko’s ridiculous cutting speed. Kat had two pots to herself but Lily was able to manage five while still ladling the soup out without issue. Kamiko even got a break occasionally when everything just needed to cook for a while. Eventually Lily did away with the ladles entirely. There was no reason for her to use shadow hands on real ladles when she was perfectly capable of using shadow ladles for the job.
This kept up until Pebbles emerged from the ground nearby and looked around. Upon seeing all of the people he yelled. "Clear out! I need to fix the roads!"
There was a lot of grumbling but the crowd dispersed and the three workers quickly collapsed into a heap on the ground. Pebbles laughed for a bit before sighing. "Sorry about that,"
"Why are you sorry?" asked Kamiko. "Didn’t you just save us from more work?"
Strdl nodded to them all and sat down in the spare chair at the table. After a few moments of silence Kat said, "Hello Strdl... I take it you’re here for a reason?"
"Ah... yeah I’ve still got a few injuries from yesterday and I was hoping to get some healing but I was intending to catch you while you were working and you’re clearly on break so... yeah that sort of got awkward," admitted Strdl.
Kamiko smiled and said, "I’ve recovered enough demonic energy that it should be fine!" Kamiko rose from her seat and started to examine Strdl. She had a great number of bruises and cuts that needed to be dealt with. Once Kamiko got going, rolling up Strdl’s sleaves and whatnot it was clear she’d been through the ringer. Of course Kamiko might be a bit annoyed to realise how Strdl got the wounds.
"So, how is the rest of your team?" asked Kat as she ran her fingers through Lily’s fur. "I sort of forgot about them before... but it gives us something to chat about while Kamiko fixes you up,"
"Urgh, I don’t know what to tell you. I saw them but they were... not all that happy with me at the time. I think they’re being overly critical about it and have basically decided to sulk in the corridors. Apparently they didn’t even know about the issues with the crystal and saw no evidence of the attack.
"Heck! According to them they didn’t even feel the place shake with the bombs went off... and maybe Pebbles IS that good at construction but I honestly think they’re just trying to make things harder for me because they’re upset. I... didn’t end up sleeping there. Pebbles made an offer for us to use some spare rooms in the mansion that I went back for. I just..."
Strdl let out a long sigh. "I think the truth is that those guys were scared of you all and fell in line when they noticed that I had your favour... but they were still chosen by my captain for a reason and not one I really like so... yeah not sure how things are going to go down once we get back to town.
"Not only do we need to actually... you know DO that but with you leaving soon it’ll be my word against there’s... and it’s not looking great. I can only hope my reputation as someone honest and loyal that apparently every fucking person already knows will help me here but I just... yeah I don’t really know,"
Stay tuned to empire
Kat winced at the news but didn’t really know what to say. She’d already accepted having to leave the town as it was because they needed to leave these issues behind... but she knew Strdl somewhat personally at this point and hearing that... was not a good thing.