Chapter 21 Black Bread Breakfast
As the long night deepened, the faint light of the stars gradually faded beneath the night sky.
After guiding Ignett through his cultivation issues, Verafia could no longer resist the drowsiness and, with a rather perfunctory goodnight, let out a big yawn and returned to her bed.
Curling her small body on the not-so-comfortable wooden bed, the young girl’s eyes, peeking out from under the covers, gazed at the young man who was still meditating beside her.
“What a diligent young man… Yawn, I’m so sleepy.”
Verafia thought of the “Blood-patterned Stone” she had scavenged from the trio of thieves that morning, and a trace of thought suddenly flickered in her eyes.
The girl lifted the covers and sank into a dream.
…
The next morning, with no copper coins on his person, Ignett had no choice but to bring back the complimentary breakfast and then shake awake the beautiful young girl who seemed to still be in a daze.
The girl fumbled her way out of the warm covers, her little face still appearing a bit dazed from sleep.
However, when Verafia saw the black bread, as hard as stone, on the plate Ignett brought, her snow-white little face became incredibly stiff.
“Can this bread be eaten?”
She hesitated and looked up at the young man.
“Young Lady, you can crunch even Magic Crystals, so aren’t you afraid of this mere black bread?”
Ignett couldn’t help but think this, but he said gently on the surface.
“Young Lady, this is all the free breakfast available here. Please bear with it for now. Once we earn money from our requests at the Adventurer’s Guild, we won’t have to deal with such things.”
“Mmm…”
Taking the tableware handed by the young man with her head lowered, Verafia glanced sideways at the pitch-black bread, which looked like a fire poker, and wondered in her heart if the inferior knife and fork were harder than this bread.
After much deliberation, Verafia took out a small, shiny silver dagger, its sharp edge gleaming with a cold light, indicating its extreme sharpness.
—Ignett remembered that this small dagger was also what the young girl had used the previous night to melt and reforge the long sword she had bought from the dwarf craftsman, using “Sunflame Skyfire”.
At that time, seeing the dagger, comparable to a thousand forgings, easily take shape in the girl’s hands, Ignett’s eyes were no less shocked than when he saw her eat a Magic Crystal in one go.
Although Verafia hummed something like “What’s so surprising about such a small piece of craftsmanship,” her turned-up little face was brimming with pride.
“Hiss!”
The silver blade in the girl’s hand flashed with a bright silver cold light and cut down, and the rock-hard black bread broke with a sound.
Looking at the broken black bread, Verafia’s slightly furrowed brow hesitated as she picked up a small piece and took a bite…
On the other side, Ignett had also cut off a small piece of bread, chewed it thoroughly, and then swallowed it with water.
Although he came from a noble family, Ignett didn’t feel that such unpalatable food was something to complain about. After all, free food would never quite satisfy one’s taste, especially…
Suddenly, Ignett saw the young girl beside him make a face even more unpleasant than crying, and a sense of foreboding arose in his heart.
Verafia slapped the table with her small hand, causing the entire room to shake, and Ignett’s heart to tremble.
“Young Lady…”
Ignett tremblingly raised his head to look at her.
The young girl’s eyebrows were raised, her lips pursed, and her exquisite, porcelain-white, delicate little face, like a doll’s, showed an unprecedented expression of anger.
This is bad! Will this young lady cut me in her rage?
Ignett trembled, as he didn’t believe he was tougher than that piece of black bread.
“Damn you, Ignett! How dare you feed this young lady such low-grade food! I should have eaten you right then and there! I want Galon’s honey milk, Sirena’s roasted sausages, Mariana’s blood wine, and Rhineau’s baked apple pie! I don’t want this garbage!”
“But… Young Lady, you spent all our gold coins on your snacks yesterday, so we have no money left! Next time, I promise…”
On the side, a certain young man reminded her cautiously, for fear of angering this dangerous phoenix young lady.
“This… I don’t care, it’s all your fault anyway! If you still had money, why would I suffer like this, sob, it’s all your fault!”
—
After Ignett repeatedly apologized sincerely and promised that such a thing would never happen again, the girl’s expression eased slightly, and she magnanimously forgave her attendant who had offended her again.
—Of course, Verafia threw all the black bread to the young man and expressed her contempt for the inferior productivity of humans who could produce such “garbage.”
Vist City, the adventurer headquarters that governed the entire eastern border of the kingdom, was vast and luxurious, with adventurers flocking to it, risking their lives for gold coins and materials.
Compared to their predecessors, the younger adventurers possessed a more vigorous vitality, carrying metal swords and shields, their faces filled with the yearning for glory and gold coins, and their hearts full of passion.
Verafia slightly peeked her little face from behind Ignett, her pair of scorching gold eyes falling on the Adventurer’s Guild’s most prominent silver crest:
A pair of sword and shield plunged into a radiant sun, with wings growing on the sides of the framed cross, and a magical staff pointing forward.
“Miss Verafia, this is the symbol that now represents the Adventurer’s Guild: the Sun Sword and Shield, and the Wings of Freedom.”
Ignett noticed the girl’s gaze and smiled as he explained.
“However, the Adventurer’s Guild has not always been like this. The current one was probably re-established about a hundred years ago during the Demon Race War, after the elite adventurers gathered at the Empire’s Adventurer’s Guild were wiped out by one of the Four Heavenly Kings of the Demon Race, the King of Rocky Mountain. A new crest was also made… I think Lord Lothel must have been involved in this.”
As he spoke of this, Ignett’s eyes flashed with reverence. The young man said solemnly:
“The emblem of the Sun Sword and Shield and the Wings of Freedom also represents their wish at that time: to protect the world’s light with swords and shields, to pursue life’s freedom with wings, and to explore the continent’s unknown with staffs.”
“That’s right. As for the Lothel you mentioned… well, this human did participate, probably after their leadership, humans repelled the Demon King’s army for the first time and relieved the Empire’s siege.”
Verafia yawned, but her little face didn’t show much interest, seeming uninterested in the matter.
“Of course, this crest doesn’t mean as much as you think. It was simply because Lothel and his companions thought it looked better designed this way.”
“However, that staff was insisted upon by a female mage friend of this human, who said that the magic profession should not be forgotten… If I remember correctly, this female mage died in a battle in the fifth year of the Demon Race War.”
After speaking, Verafia walked forward.
