After spending the night at Lord Kara's mansion, we headed straight to our home, Fumiko's mansion.
I must keep my contract with that demon we met; he was a huge help and may continue to be.
Now, we are in Fumiko's office, where she is sorting some paperwork and listening to our story.
"So, you guys are telling me that a Hikaru made a contract with another demon to have you defended while you are in evolutionary sleep. And now you are telling me he only wants food and good clothes?"- Fumiko looked at me, her face showing no emotion, a tired look that speaks for the amount of work she does daily.
"Yes, that's what the contract is about, Sia would have notified me if there was anything sketchy about him, so no need, today I want to prepare the gifts for him today and then go out and kill monsters tomorrow to evolve once more."- I sat down the table across from Fumiko, she is still thinking about it, if not I will buy things with my own money from some shops in Welcia.
"Sure, I will give him some clothes and food. What can I say? The contract is pretty cheap, ok, I approve. I am a bit tired; sorry if I seem mean"- Fumiko got up from the table and walked to her room upstairs. She came back a few minutes later with a paper in her hands. Her movements were slow and janky, and she yawled. As she wanted to take one more step, she almost tripped on a chair left in the room.
"What's that for?"- Hana looked at the paper.
"Well, it's to justify the expense of clothes and food. I will say it's for guard training and that they need to level up since they are low-level. That's what I am writing about, at least. There are many fields to fill in here: name, date, the sum of money spent, items being used, the guild rank that the 2 of you are on, training time, and then my signature on it. This is to explain the expense to the king; I can find loopholes since you two are a low-level rank at the guild. Your levels are high enough, but I will write an arbitrary low level number here. Don't worry, I got you two covered here"- Fumiko sat at the table and began to fill in the paper that she showed us; it took her a bit to do that. We looked at it to see for ourselves, and there were too many fields; it reminds me of documents back home that had many more fields to complete than this. I remember that there were certain countries where bureaucracy dominated.
"Well, thank you, Fumiko; we will protect you to the best of our ability; plus, we will be a lot stronger than we are now. You can be weak, but never too strong"- She smiled and walked from her chair again to her room. She should rest for a bit before continuing her work.
"Well, we will talk when you evolve; the budget is 20 gold coins. Go to Welcia and buy clothes and food supplies for him within that limit." That's the last thing we heard before she locked herself in her room, maybe resting or doing more paperwork.
"Now, Hana, let's go and do some shopping, take our mind off things, what do you say?"- Hana looks a little bit off; she doesn't talk much as of late, neither with me nor with Fumiko; I wonder what's up.
"It's not in your style to recommend things like that, Hikaru. Sure, let's go."
On the road to Welcia:
"Hana, are you feeling all right? I can see something is on your mind"- I am worried about her not talking that much to me; she is usually much more talkative.
"No. Let's rest here for a while,"- Hana pointed to an enormous tree. We rested sitting against his trunk; we were close to one another. Hana is a few inches away from me.
"What happened to you, I didn't see you talk that much recently. It's concerning me, usually, when you are silent, something is awfully wrong"- I turned my head to look at her.
"I have been thinking over the fact of becoming demon lords. I can reach the maximum evolution level, but can I do the last requirement that is needed to become a Demon Lord? The part where we need to harvest 100000 souls? Can we do that? I can't imagine killing that many people, I don't think neither can you. I still having to think about what King Wieka said, is he really going to sacrifice himself and the whole army of Wieka only for us to defeat Goddess Ifrit, this is too great of a sacrifice to be made"- She looked at the ground and then at me, staring daggers at me.
"Well, to put it the other way, if we don't do that, Goddess Ifrit will kill many more people than we can imagine: humans, demi-humans and sentient monsters like us. I don't want to imagine what will happen if Goddess Ifrit wins. Look, we are in this together; we need to stay strong in whichever way we can. It's hard, but we need to manage that."- I don't want to think that if the worst happens and Ifrit wins, everything will come crumbling down.
"You have a point, Hikaru, but that doesn't make me feel any better. Maybe a hug or something can make me feel a bit better for the moment, but I need to find some peace of mind before that. I need to truly comes to terms with everything that there is."- Hana leaned her hand around my shoulders and leaned her head on them, staring into the forest.
"Heck, not even I am sure if we can do all of this ourselves, doing so will be pure insanity. We have the help of Ayame, Fumiko and that demon. We have not been enough, but I hope we can at least manage.
The two of us got up from the ground and walked to Welcia. Hana was silent the whole trip.,Have I done something to upset her? Well, I guess aid wasn't right, or suitable for that matter.
"Hana, can you hear me?"- I initiated a telepathic conversation as we entered a store.
"Yes, it's not what you think. I need some time for myself, as I said. Think you can give me 3 days alone in the hut? I need some time for myself to think things over. What you said helped me a little."- She turned to me and smiled.
"Anyway, let's search for some clothes and food supplies for him, " Hana said aloud. We entered the first shop, it was a clothes shop.
"Hello, wait, you 2 are Lord Fumiko's guards, right? Came here on official duty, right?"- She looked a little scared.
"Yes, we came to buy some clothes; we are having a training exercise, get us a few pair of clothes that will last a long time, our budget is 5 gold coins"- The woman nodded; she looked somewhat different from the person who was here before, doesn't matter either way.
The woman brought 10 pairs of clothes, including shoes, pants, shirts, and hats.
"Yes, they look good as long as they are durable."
"Sia?"
!The material is durable; it even absorbs magic. It will be good for him, and he can suppress the magic. Also, these clothes will be cleaned and repaired when they have enough mana!
"Yes, they are very durable. 5 gold coins for all, it's a discount for you 2"- She smiled and we left her store.
Next, we have to get food.
"Hikaru, let's choose some high-quality ingredients for him"- Hana and I have gone to the market. Welcia has recently opened a new market, which I only learned about now.
We went through each stall and bought all available food ingredients; we had no money left. Looks like it is time to head back to Fumiko and give the report. We will postpone the evolution for now. There are some things I need to take care of first.