"What is this fragrance?" Claud, despite having stuffed himself with some pastries earlier, gulped. The mouth-watering smell had stimulated the inwards of his digestive system, sending it into overdrive as it worked to digest whatever he'd eaten earlier.
Incidentally, there was no need to worry about Lily, who claimed that she had a separate stomach for sweets and pastries. Claud didn't quite know what she meant, but the healthy appetite she boasted every day was probably good proof that she was more than enough to handle the spread before them.
He glanced at Lily. "Drool's leaking out."
She rubbed the corner of her lips, her eyes fixated on the food. "The food's glowing, right? A faint, golden sheen…"
Claud stared at the glowing food. He wanted to figure out the principles behind such a divine sight, but his mind, which was more interested in eating, didn't feel like responding all that much. The dishes were fairly simple; most of them were staple homecooked dishes, but there was some incredible compelling force that made them simply irresistible to the five senses.
"C-can we start eating?" Lily asked, her eyes turning into little round balls.
"Finally. Someone asked a sensible question." Colidra patted his chest. "Go on. Don't wait for—"
A mad clatter interrupted his words, but Claud wasn't interested in checking out his expression. Mana, shaped in the form of threads, surged out of his hands a second later, taking the others by surprise as they curled around sausages and meatballs and took them back to his plate.
His actions inspired everyone else to do the same, and an awe-inspiring presence burst out of Holy Daughter Clarissa as hundreds of wriggling threads burst out of her hands. As for Lily, she was simply scooping up entire trats of golden rice with two hand-like structures of mana, dumping them on her plate before doing the same to some cream stew.
"That's too much!" Colidra yelled. "Spare a lot for this normal storyteller!"
Everyone paused.
"Dude has a point," Claud begrudgingly conceded.
The old storyteller glared at him. "You're the one who started it! Don't think I didn't see this! Damn it."
"Well, mister," said one of the two waiters, "we did tell you not to bring mana-users if you weren't one yourself."
"I didn't know this was the reason!"
"Now you do," the waiter replied, a hint of amusement in his words. "It's impressive, isn't it? The sight of such miraculous powers used just to get more food…this is one reason why you should become a mana-user, mister Colidra."
"But I don't have many years to use. And it feels like a waste. Mana-users are simply better killers than normal people," said the storyteller.
"I hear that there's some Holy Daughter offering you fifty pure-ranked lifestones for a story. If you convert that into low-ranked lifestones and consume them to the point of saturation, you'll gain fifty years of life. You'll have some leftovers to boot, too."
"Done that already."
"Oh. But that's kinda beside the point. As you have just seen, mana-users happen to be better at snatching food too…"
The waiter's reply hit a particular sore spot, and Colidra let out a small growl. "I'll think about it. Alright, let's just eat what's on your plate first. Everyone has a small mountain already…especially you, Claud. Why would you have so many sausages and meatballs? Moons, there aren't even sausages left! Do you like them this much?"
Under the blazing glares from nearly everyone — fortunately, Lily at least wasn't one of those giving him the stink-eye — Claud placed some sausages back sheepishly.
"That's better." Colidra picked up a sausage, and then looked around. "Please, do keep eating. Within reason."
Dishes clattered once more, but unfortunately, the golden rice that had caught Claud's eye had been depleted while he wasn't paying attention, and Claud returned his gaze to his own plate. Lily's fork, which had already stabbed through one of the sausages on his plate, paused in mid-air as he looked at it, before zipping back to its owner.
He couldn't quite blame her, since those sausages had been cooked to utter perfection. Juicy and meaty, simply chewing on them was enough to make Claud forget about the troubles of his everyday life. Lily probably needed a few more of these sausages, now that he thought about it.
Placing some of his ill-gotten bounty on her plate, Claud pointed at her rice in silence, to which Lily gestured for him to go ahead. With that little transaction done, Claud leaned back and enjoyed the fluffy rice slowly.
Being able to just communicate with hand gestures was exceptionally handy when one's mouth was full with chewing.
It was a pity that there wasn't any gravy to go along with the golden fluffy rice, but this was a perfect treat in and of itself. Letting his consciousness drift, Claud polished off his plate, and started claiming bits and pieces of whatever that was left behind. He wasn't paying too much attention to what he was eating, and before long, everyone was simply scraping at the emptied plates.
"I hope you enjoyed your meal here," said the waiter, rousing everyone from their mindless attempts to produce more food out of emptied plates. "We will send the bill over shortly."
"Thanks, Luis." Colidra nodded at him.
"Send my compliments to the chef," said Holy Daughter Clarissa. "Incidentally, tell him that there's a place for him in the Church of the White God if he or she so wills it."
"I'll convey your message, miss, but do not hold high hopes. Our chef hasn't been moved by any offer so far, even ones that offered an invitation to the Grandis Palace itself," the waiter replied.
The Holy Daughter twitched.
"Alright, alright." Colidra chuckled. "That's his usual reply, really. Anyway, now that we're all nice and full, I'll go ahead and talk about two more sources that touch upon the great Dark. The first one is, once more, a line in a very obscure poem, The Moons I cried for, written in year 39338 in the era of the Six Gods of Virtue. Here is the entire stanza. 'O Moons up high/whenceforth my bloodied cry/I howl to great Dark/and may ye howl hark!'
"As for the interpretation…I suppose your literature experts can probably do a better job than me." Colidra smiled. "It is almost certainly a song of hate, though. Do read it with other people, preferably in the daytime when you're happy and full."
"That's probably sound advice," Lily noted.
"The Moons I cried for. Got it. Do you know where one might read this poem?" Holy Daughter Clarissa asked.
"The original poem was inscribed on a ruined temple of the Six Gods. The temple itself is located in Exner Barony, which is in turn situated within the Nihila Sovereignty, under Cava County," Colidra replied. "Copies, however are available in the Courts of Culture; there is a branch in almost every dukedom capital throughout Grandis."
"I see," said Holy Daughter Clarissa. "Right, I want to ask — do you know anything about the great Dark descending? Or about this phrase 'By the decree of the five grand skies'. It's really important."
"The five grand skies?" Colidra blinked. "Do you not know about them? You are the Holy Daughter of the White Church, after all."
"It's obscure lore that I never read up on, and I don't have time to go back," Clarissa replied. "It's possible that the Thief of Time is related to either the great Dark or the five grand skies, and I can't afford to let such a person escape."
Claud withstood the urge to twitch on the spot.
"Escape?" Colidra blinked. "Young lady, Tot has been at large for many months now. The moons have changed, but we haven't caught hide nor hair of Tot at all. But to address your original question…no, I do not have anything on the five grand skies. The phrase is in my memory, but there is nothing I associate with it."
"Nothing?"
"The five grand skies are said to be the ultimate heights that anyone can conceivably hope to reach," Colidra replied. "But I have never heard anything related to a so-called decree. What exactly is going on here? Why is everyone hung up on information related to the Moons, the Dark and the five grand skies?"
"Something happened," Holy Daughter Clarissa replied. "And I don't know if I can tell you more without your head exploding on the spot."
"…I see." He closed his eyes. "I apologise for being this useless."
The door opened at this point, and the waiter that Colidra had been talking to earlier walked in. "Which is a very good argument to justify why you should be a mana-user…but anyway, here's the bill."
"Pass it on to her, please. It's on her tab."
"Very well."
The Holy Daughter took a glance at the bill, and then did a doubletake. Taking a deep breath, "If I hadn't eaten the food here, I would have thought that this was a robbery or a setup."
"Best we skip that phase," said Colidra. "Less embarrassment, more satisfaction."
As Claud exchanged curious glances with Lily, he made a mental note to ask Colidra about the bill later.
"Well, then…I suppose today's session ends here," said the Holy Daughter. "Thank you for introducing us to this restaurant, mister Colidra, and as well as for telling me important information."
"Thank you for your treat, miss."
After a round of pleasantries, everyone got up and left, with waiters leading the way out. Despite having filled himself with lots of good food, Claud couldn't quite bring himself to go back home to sleep.
There was, unfortunately, still work to do. Sneaky little assassins, people with ulterior motives, and people who were hunting a non-existent princess and an alleged monster of the Third Godsfall…all this were a day's work for the security chief of Licencia.
With Lily at his side, he slowly made his way towards the city guardhouse, where the day's inspection would begin.