Chapter 756: She Doesn't Know Her Own Value
Dinner was rather simple like the one from last night, which was basically stew again with the drained monster meat and vegetables.
I guess since they needed to feed even more people, a stew was the easiest and best food they could make for this occasion.
Interestingly, I saw the slave traders letting the slaves take their food first before they took theirs.
"It wouldn't be beneficial for them if their slaves were malnourished or weak as that would lower their value," Linette explained to me without me asking.
I guess she must have seen the look on my face when I was looking in that direction which gave away the question I had in my head.
"Mnn… I see. So he paid you for the food they're eating?" I asked.
"Hmm… In a sense, yes."
I tilted my head at her, wondering what she meant by that.
She took a spoonful of her stew before answering, "I bought a few of his slaves from him. He's selling them for cheap so I don't see why I shouldn't take that opportunity to get some good slaves I can sell later in the Kingdom. I'm not restricted to the border like he is so I would get a better price anyway."
Ah… I actually forgot that Linette was still a merchant.
I did notice that she was talking to him before dinner and I assumed he was negotiating a price to buy food from her.
Well, turned out I was right but just the method of payment was off.
"So you bought all his slaves?" I asked.
She waved her hand in front of her, "Oh no, no, no. I only bought a few of the females. I'm still not that willing to travel with males. In fact, I'm only tolerant of there being males sleeping here because you are here, Aster."
I blinked, "Me?"
"Yes. Because I know I can trust you."
"Come on now. I don't think you should place that much trust in me."
"Why not? You basically saved my life twice now, haven't you? If I can't even trust the person who saved my life twice, who else can I trust?"
Touche…
"But you know… Maybe I'm just doing that to get close to you so I can get benefits?"
She raised an eyebrow at me, "What kind of benefit can I even give you that you can't get yourself?"
I blurted out the first thing I could think of, "Sex with you?"
The spoon that she was bringing up to her lips stopped before she turned to face me, "What?"
"What?" I parroted back.
Ok, what I said was completely weird and I'll admit that. But she shouldn't be that surprised right? I thought sex was something normal in this World?
She looked at me, then at her chest, then back at me again.
"What?" She repeated.
"What, what? I don't get it?"
"Miss Aster… You… You actually want to have sex with me?"
I gave her an incredulous look, "What? Did you think I agreed to have sex with you yesterday for no reason? I don't have sex with people I don't like, ok?"
She frowned, "But… You're… You're gorgeous?"
"Err… Thanks? I think you're pretty too."
"No, no… You find that… Having sex with me is a boon for you?"
"... Yes?"
She is an attractive woman after all. Why wouldn't I think so?
Obviously, not as attractive as Lisa or Delmare but that's beside the point.
"You're not just saying that, are you, Miss Aster?"
"I wonder why you even think I would be making this up in the first place."
She looked back down at her stew, scooped up some of her stew before putting the stew back in the bowl to turn to me.
"Miss Aster, I take back what I said earlier. Can I ask to have sex with you tonight? More specifically, could I sleep with you inside me?"
That's… Pretty specific but ok? I don't particularly mind doing that to be honest.
"But I don't really want to have another orgy though… I don't have a lot of those stamina potions remaining and I'm pretty sure the other girls would want to join in if we start doing it."
She seemed to take a moment to think before turning to me, "If I can make it such that we won't be found out. Would you agree to do it?"
"Hmm? Oh, of course."
After I agreed to her request, she went right back to eating without another word.
I was assuming her idea was to have both of us sleep inside her carriage instead of outside with everyone tonight. Thankfully I would be able to cast [Air Pocket] around the carriage to stop our voices from reaching outside but I don't know how we would deal with the carriage shaking if we were to do it roughly…
When we were done eating, Linette went to Meela and told her something which prompted the woman to go to get a few other girls to follow her to one of the wagons. They then went ahead to pull out a few crates that they then brought over to the centre of the camp.
She cracked open the top of one to reveal it was filled with bottles of alcohol inside it and she picked up one of them to lift it into the air.
"Everyone! Our dearest client has said that tonight we would be allowed to drink! This crate is all for us to partake tonight! For the ones on night watch, I'm only letting you take one bottle! But any leftovers will be yours tomorrow morning, got it?!"
There were loud cheers coming from the Mercenaries and there was a rush towards the crates to secure bottles of the alcohol for themselves.
Meela turned towards the slave trader party who had remained where they were, "The invitation is extended to you guys too! Even the slaves! We're drinking tonight!"
More cheers erupted and the people from that side of the camp also started to rush towards the crates.
Some of them seemed to have taken that as an invitation to mingle as they started to talk to the other female Mercs and hit on them.
Meela immediately put a stop to that, "Ah, just so you all know, no one here is into guys. Sorry about that~"
Err… What? Weren't you girls… With me… Hmm… I guess they like girls and futas but not guys? Not like I could say anything about that since I love Lisa after all.
I honestly thought those men would protest or even try to push their luck but they simply shrugged and took their bottles before switching to simply conversing with them.
It was quite an interesting sight to see to be honest.
I then found myself being pulled by some of the Mercs as they held several bottles in their hands.
"Aster! Come drink with us!"
"Yeah! Let's get drunk tonight!"
"Yes, yes! Drink with us!"
I frowned, "Is this really ok though? Wouldn't all of you get hangovers tomorrow and you won't be able to fight properly if we get attacked?"
One of them giggled, "What are you talking about, Aster? Of course we'll have our healers heal us tomorrow morning so we wouldn't need to worry about that! Let's let loose tonight!"
Oh right, I forgot you can use magic to fix that. That's really convenient.
Only one problem though…
"Ermm… Is the alcohol sweet?" I asked.
The girls paused and turned back to me.
"Err… I don't think so?" One of them muttered.
Bleh, if it's not the sweet kind, I don't want it.
"Then sorry… I don't really want to drink that…" I apologised.
The girls who were pulling me groaned collectively.
"Awww… And I was hoping that we could have drunk sex too…"
"Hey! We agreed not to say it!"
"It's already off the table anyway so no point hiding it."
Ah… So that was their goal. Yeah, sorry about that.
I let them go and enjoy the alcohol and went back to my side of the camp where Linette had intentionally placed her bedroll beside mine while everyone else was busy.
"Was this your plan?" I asked.
She turned to me, "I did say that I have a way to prevent us from being found out."
"I mean… You would need them to get drunk first right? How many bottles would it take for them to get drunk?"
"Not a lot. Those are pretty high in alcohol content. I'm pretty sure by the next hour you would see a few of them being knocked out cold."
I blinked at her, "Are those alcohol expensive then?"
"If I just need to give up three crates of that just to sleep with you tonight, that would be totally worth it. Now, shall we? I wouldn't mind starting out with some foreplay under the sheets first."
And here I thought she was just an innocent girl who wanted to listen to my stories yesterday…