yemalu

I told them that each of them could have dealt with the Minotaur on their own and that seemed to appease them.

While I was stuffing the corpse of the Minotaur into my Pack of Folding, Lisa came up and watched the process in fascination.

"You take the boss corpses with you after you take out their Mana Crystals?" She asked.

I nodded, "Almost every monster has their uses. You should know that as an alchemist, right?"

"Yes, but I was under the impression that we would cut it up right here and only take the useful parts instead of stuffing the entire corpse into a bag."

"Ehehe, that\'s the good thing about having this Pack of Folding~" I giggled, passing the bag in question to Katsuki after I finished stuffing it inside. "That way, I can take the entire monster with me and dissect it later instead of doing it now~"

"Ooh~ But what happens to the corpses of monsters that get left behind? Surely not every Dungeoneer has a bag that can store their kills right?"

"Then those corpses will be absorbed by the Dungeon, Miss Lisa," Katsuki answered for me. "Dungeoneers would usually just aim for the Mana Crystals and only carve up the monster for parts if it\'s a particularly rare and valuable monster or if they accepted a request for harvesting monster parts. The parties waiting outside the boss room should be such people since you might have noticed they were coming back after they completed their boss fight."

Eh? You mean to say that those people who were queuing up behind us were actually parties that had gone before us and came back to queue up again? I didn\'t even notice that…

"It must be nice to have a Pack of Folding," Lisa commented.

I have to admit that it really was. The only problem with it was the fact that it\'s quite a pain to take things out since you can only pull things out in order so if the item you wanted was somewhere in between, you\'d need to pull out everything on top of it before you can reach it.

Well, it\'s still better than not having one I would say.

With the corpse of the Minotaur safely stored away, we left the boss room to move deeper into the Dungeon.

We were only here because we wanted to reach the deeper parts of the Dungeon so there was no need for us to go back to hunt it again.

"Should we continue? Or should we go back?" I asked.

Katsuki took out a pocket watch from inside her apron before looking up at me, "I believe we should head back soon, Mistress. It\'s almost time for dinner."

Oh! I didn\'t even realise that! It\'s hard to keep track of time while you\'re underground, after all.

If that\'s the case, we must head back immediately!

Why, you ask? That\'s because the thing that comes after dinner is dessert of course! There\'s no way I am going to miss that!

I placed my hand against the wall and had Lisa and Katsuki hold my hand while I thought about traversing through the dungeon.

A mental image of the dungeon popped into my mind and I thought about going to the surface.

I felt a shift in the air behind me before I started leading them up the stairs.

Instead of reappearing at the boss room, we emerged from the Dungeon and out into the ruins.

"Oh! So that\'s how people travel through the Dungeon quickly! That\'s amazing!" Lisa gasped while looking back at the stairs we ascended from.

Truth be told, I actually still have no idea how it worked. But I guess it\'s just magic, ain\'t anyone is going to explain shit.

We made our way back to the docks again and just as I was going to board the ship, a Nekomata ran towards me from the side.

"Lady Aster! Lady Aster! Oh thank goodness I managed to find you!"

I turned to the source of the voice to see Emilia appear in front of me as though she had teleported in front of me.

"Oh, hi Emilia! Did you need something from me?"

"I hate to admit it, but I unfortunately do, Lady Aster…"

Katsuki stepped in front of me, "Apologies, Miss Emilia. But would this matter take long? It is almost dinner time for my Mistress."

"Ah… Unfortunately… If it\'s possible, I would like to ask that we take care of this right now actually…"

I tilted at her, "What is it?"

"Remember the boxes of Grey Powder and the things we stole from those smugglers back at Etaripe Cove?"

"The ones that we thought would be too hot to sell now and would only sell later after things have quietened down, yes?"

She nodded, "I\'ve found some people where I can drop off those things and get us paid immediately, but we will have to do it tonight. And since I still don\'t know who I can trust and it\'s impossible for me to move all those boxes of Grey Powder on my own… I was hoping I could ask for your help?"

I hesitated, "Would this take long?"

"Umm… Unfortunately, most likely… I don\'t have anyone else I can trust to do this… And if we miss this, I don\'t know when would be the next time we can do  this… It could even  take a year or so."

Ugh… To be honest, it\'s not really a problem even if I were to only receive that money after that amount of time since I have no immediate need for it. But I know that Emilia probably might have use for it considering what happened to her ship and crew.

She most likely knows that I know she\'s asking this more as a favour for herself than it was for me since she quickly added, "I\'ll give Lady Aster a larger cut of the sale! An extra five percent!"

Considering how much she loved money, the fact that she was willing to give me more of it without me asking kind of showed how desperate she was.

I guess she needed some immediate capital that she could use quickly, which was why she\'s eager to liquidate those assets of ours.

I shook my head, intending to reject her offer of more money but she mistook it as me refusing to help her and she held up her hand.

"Five cakes! I\'ll make sure to get five of the best cakes in this city and bring it to you tomorrow!"

Ahhhhh!! You really do know me, Emilia!!

I raised up both my hands, "You keep that five percent sale, but give me ten cakes! All ten cakes must be different flavours too!"

"Deal!"

She stretched out her hand and I grasped it, sealing the deal.

Lisa leaned towards Katsuki, "Umm… Did Aster just agree to help her in return for less than the initial offer?"

Katsuki sighed, "In case you haven\'t realised, Miss Lisa… We are not exactly pressed for money and Mistress does have a very big sweet tooth… The Madam could have just given Mistress that amount of money as pocket change if Mistress asked her for it…"

"Ehehehe~ Aster is really cute~ But what shall we do about dinner?"

"I would have to trouble Miss Lisa to leave us and tell the others that we would be late, I\'m afraid."

Lisa shot Katsuki a scowl, "You just want me to leave, don\'t you?!"

"I do not know what Miss Lisa is talking about. I\'m merely considering  the fact that if we do not inform the Madam and Head Maid Mary about our change of plans, Mistress might come back to get a cold dinner which is unacceptable."

"Grrr… Can\'t you go instead and let me stay with her?!"

"I am Mistress\'s personal maid, how could I leave Mistress\'s side without her permission? It\'s obvious that the only possible choice would be for you to go, Miss Lisa."

"Aren\'t you and the Head Maid colleagues? And I\'m also a guest right? So wouldn\'t it make more sense that you are the one to go and talk to them instead of me?"

"Ah, but aren\'t you Mistress\'s willing cumdumpster? Shouldn\'t you be happy to serve Mistress?"

"Ehehe… Of course I-- That\'s not the point!"

I don\'t even know how I should feel hearing Katsuki saying the word \'cumdumpster\' with a straight face…

While that was happening, Emilia came closer to me to lean towards me, "Umm… Lady Aster… Since when were these two like this?"

"Your guess is as good as mine, Emilia… I\'m trying to understand that myself…"

The two of them didn\'t even hear our words and were still arguing about who would stay with me while the other went to tell our plans for the other.

I don\'t even know why the option of just running there to tell them before running back to us wasn\'t brought up… It\'s like the both of them were really trying to get rid of each other for some reason.

Seriously… Did something happen between you two while I was away??