As a gentleman, Aki could not simply leave the scene like it was.
"Say, fair lady, would you come dine with me later this evening?" He asked while winking and signaling with his eyes towards the boy trying to put up with his order.
A scene that would make the knights of Atena proud from so much repetitions later, Aki had to give up on his signals, because the woman apparently understood that he wanted to ask the boy out instead and was trying to get through her. Instead, he plain out took a small notepad and wrote it out for her 'I'm trying to say that you should ask the boy out, because you clearly have mutual feelings of something for each other.', shoved it into her face, silently put his bought supplies into his item box, and left with Ela.
They were not followed. There were sounds that would perfectly fit a normal shoujo manga trying to be adapted to anime happening behind him, but Aki dared not look.
Aki had to hold Ela's shoulder so she would follow at one point.
"You sure you don't want to..."
"Unless the girl's about to die, everything is fine." He imediatly said.
"But the boy..."
"If the problem is with him they might even bound more because of mutual incompetency. Maybe breaking his hip bones on the process, but I'd call that a fair trade." Aki got a snicker out with that and they kept walking.
*****
Aki wasn't really going to register in a guild today because he could not get a good pseudonym in case he tried to look non-suspicious. Like when people always stopped his grandfather in the airport. Give the man a cap and you would have a white muslim, but that was mostly because he always got twitchy with the wait and his beard was volumous.
People would similarly question an unregistered noble or rich young man not registered already both in the adventures guild and the mages guild since those people had the registration at home in an age much earlier than 18-17.
He also couldn't register in the merchant's guild yet though.
Instead, Aki spent the day wasting the driad's fortune. Really, she actually had coin exemplaries of three different countries, even though the forest was in a border against the wildness. When mentally nudged about it, she answered that while humans didn't come often, they always came while carrying a lot of money. Though there was this time that two thousand man simply came and tried to build a fortification, so the money she got was actually bits and pieces from the soldiers, but that kingdom had already changed its currency and official name more than two hundred years ago according to Ela.
After experiencing how a novae rich man felt in their first shopping spree, Aki now had tens of books, male and female clothing for gala, tea parties, going to town, hunting beasts, farm work, casual and official after cult orgies, etc etc, hair products, writing materials, drugs if all kinds, labels to spare, a luxurious bed and housewear, portable formations, some monster drops, jewelry and berserker medicine.
"Did we really need all of that?" Asked Ela, who was currently sorting through the items bought so they could all be inside one ring.
"Of course we did, but why are you sorting things out? We're not done yet." Aki said before grinning.
Net profit: A whole luxury chain of stores worth of money and products.
Current bounty: 500.000.000$
As Aki delited himself in finally being able to do heists with his arcane expertise and knowledge from several Bethesda games.
He could now actually walk in front of people and shoplift without being seen! Truly the dream of any south american.
Jokes asside, Aki also made sure to be seen leaving the city before even attempting any robbery, so the problems would reach the government first because of the blame game, then they'd truly focus on getting the mysterious and card identified crime organization known as the laughing daisy.
Best think he could come up with in one sitting, yes.
*****
"Ugaah..." As Alma tried to take off the uncomfortable clothes, Aki already found more baby clothes to try on, imediatly putting them on her.
The already infuriated baby released it's ultimate move to rid itself from its formidable foe. She laid on her back and cried.
Aki wanted to make a joke, but he understood he was messing with his daughter a bit too much, so instead he picked up one of the toys he'd robbed and shook the stick with calming bells.
In a strangely non-baby like reflex, she suddenly stopped crying, caught the toy and started beating him with it while crying.
Now, a normal foster parent might think their new baby simply didn't like them. Aki imediatly checked for soul parasites instead.
"Anna, go gather some more bear meat for me, please." Aki asked, causing both mother and daughter to freeze. A minute of silence later, Aki shook his head. "Forget I said anything. She is your daughter after all. Our daughter. I'm sorry for frightening you, little one." Aki apologized while showing a helpless smile. He really regret the ominous aura though, he would be 'sleeping on the sofa' tonight, no questions asked.
'Master, the humans from before are approaching the lake.'
"Fuck, the company of soldiers from before. I'm going to have to kill them after all." He didn't want to kill these random people doing their job, but he also needed to protect his family.
Some time later. While they were dinning.
"Are you sure it's fine to just... Drink, meat?" Asked Ela, looking a bit bafled as Aki fed Alma with a baby bottle filled with a pink grub. She looked really tired and reluctant, but kept sucking on it.
"Yes, of course. It's very nutritious, I made sure of that. She won't be eating only this though. Babies need their mother's milk even when eating dragon's feed after all." Aki said with a very serious tone, like he was saying a universal truth.
"Wait, what did you just say you were giving her?!" Ela was imediatly concerned, but Aki just ignored her.
Incidently, Aki found out that he could actually appraise the things he'd made.
[Dragon's feed: Created with the essence of sentience, the fruit of a greater driad's heart-tree and a minced elemental cores, this elixir is great in raising all the status of those still growing.]
Over all, it was surprisingly easy to produce. Granted, he'd failed some times, but there were more than enough to produce eighty or so portions. This was a great deal for him, since he would actually die if he tried to eat the fruit right now, the strain it'd cause simply too great yo tank and heal through, and he could still use the meat on the sapients to get stats, somehow.
The elementals he could eat directly though. Even as he fed his daughter, Aki was popping cores into his mouth like they were MMs. They tasted like gumy beans, so Aki had no calms about being unhealthy here.
Looking at the results of today's harvest, Aki nodded. He'd gotten a lot more by eating cores. Not like he would stop with meat though, nevermind he'd finally obtained one that would grant WIS.
He was mildly surprised he ended up with exactly 210 before the multipliers were applied, but wasn't complaining at all.
That said, the five or so tenants all having their first advanced classes worried him.
He knew he barely had any advantage over some noble of the same level, but he could only get so much with little time of training. His combat expertise and letality mainly relied on bombardment attacks, damn it! Just three emergency spells would not do at all!
He'd have to learn blacksmithing to an extent and probably master enchanting for the effects he wanted.
He bought the books he wanted first and them robed the rest exactly for that kind of reason, but to readily lose his ability to oneshot things had woken him up. That is usually the indication that real game is about to begin.
'Whoever is the main character of this show has got to be a damn cheat, because even I am starting to see the limits of my bonuses so soon, I've got to step up my training even more, won't I?' Aki though as he stared at the fire.
"Is it really ok to give her something like that?" Asked Elladan, kind of jealous, but also happy his sibling would be healthy. He wasn't much one to talk as much as act, so everyone looked out for the rare occasion. Aki just grinned at him though.
"So much that you actually just ate two portions of it. Of course it's fine." Aki nonchalantly told him while rolling his eyes.
"Wait, is that why my soup was so bland? What is it even supposed to do?" Asked the boy, who hadn't wanted to critique his foster parent's cooking skills since it wasn't even bad tasting.
"Yup. It's an elixir for children. I have no clue how to make it work on people who've grown up already, so I just made a bunch for you and your sister right away. The way it went out, it should work on you with a third of the effect as it will with your sister, since you grown up more than her. She probably already got the first notification. I will make sure to get more ingredients so you two can eat it every day all day long." He said with a big smile on his face, getting an admiring look from the wolf boy. The women just looked into each other's eyes and Anna noted.
"Dear, what did you use to make this?" She sweetly asked. Aki, being a basic and easy bitch, opened his mouth to describe the process, but imediatly shut up when he noticed the ingredients weren't exactly kid friendly.
"I plead the fifth and reserve the right to disclose said information" He immediately deadpaned, getting a small giggle from the baby on his arms, who imitated it's mother right after the brief lapse and looked harshly at him. "Et tu!" He said, but she didn't laugh again.
*****
'And he somehow ended up not telling anyone how it is made, I wish the scene would just cut to there for me.' Aki complained on the inside. He'd be standing watch outside of the cave for the night. 'Might as well.' Aki paused for a moment to remember the name he'd given her and told Arsenis to guard the cave entrance against anything trying to get inside in a non-violent way while informing him the moment she detected anything trying to do so, before he went out and started bandit hunting.
Even the closest outcamp was several kilometers away, but Aki actually didn't take very long to reach it thanks to his body reinforcement and the mana in the plants and the driad heart he carried around.
He'd bought a defensive casing, but there was just no way to store it and keep the thing functional without getting his personal item box to a very high level.
Anyways, the bandit hunt was actually quite profitable.
Though there weren't many groups around, they were always big, some even had people who had undergone class evolution twice.
Said examples were generally good for him, but it still irked him to have to prepare three lines of fire so he could kill those guys without attracting attention. He was still a bit irritated that one of the three people in said situation dodged his second attack when it was literally a rip in space itself, which would have severed his neck.
He probably had some kind of precognition ability though, so Aki rapidly encased the man inside a lightning cage, stopping his movements long enough to kill him.
There was a problem with the biggest camp though, because even though Aki had left it for last expecting something special in there, he still found something strange.
'OK, maybe I've also been cursed to not have any male friends, but did it have to be a damn drill haired blondie?!' Aki thought before sighing.