Chapter 16 Designs
"Alright, we've got a few designs finished. I can only make some of them once I learn Leatherworking though. Or at least some parts of them. Well, anyway, let's get to what you want." Eisen exclaimed while looking at the five designs in front of him.
One of them was the casual work outfit with multiple pockets on the dark grey pants together with the black and red shirt. The next one they drew up was basically the same design, just with inverted colors, speak red where there was black and black where there was red and the same dark grey pants.
The third design included a durable leather tunic, made of thin, flexible leather that made up the base and thick, strong leather placed around the chest and back in different places with gaps in between, still allowing freedom of movement. The pants for this outfit were of a similar concept, with the same thin flexible leather as a base, but a thick strong leather placed around to protect the most important body parts.
The fourth was a simple thick leather apron together with baggy cloth pants, which would be useful for high-temperature work at the smithy, or wherever else Eisen may set up shop in the future.
While the other four outfits were meant for work, three of them for crafting and one for hunting, the last one was an out-of-work outfit. Sure, most people may not see it like that, but to Eisen it was. Maybe it was an old-man thing, maybe it was a thing only to Eisen, but he thought it was nice to walk around like that. The last outfit was a suit, a completely black suit, with a black shirt underneath, and a red tie.
And besides the fact that Eisen thought it was a nice looking outfit, he still thought it was kind of cool to walk around like a badass wearing such a suit.
After looking the designs over once more, he placed them to the side and then faced Bree. "Now, let's get to your outfit. What would you like to have?"
Bree immediately squinted her eyes and looked up at Eisen, "Something Cute."
"Haha, I figured that, Bree. So how about a dress?" Eisen suggested, and Bree nodded furiously.
"Yes! A Dress, please! That would be so cute~!"
Eisen laughed and drew up the basic form of Bree to layer the dress onto in the sketch. He decided to have its length be up until the halfway point on her thighs, be tight-fitting around the chest area. For the colors, he decided to mix together an intense dark green as the base with the pink color of her hair to add cute details. Since Feys, or Fairies, are supposed to be quite connected to nature, Eisen decided to draw pink flowers onto the green of the dress.
"Do you like it?" He turned to Bree and asked with a smile. She immediately nodded her head and smiled brightly, "Yes! Yes, that's super cute! Thank you so much!"
"It's fine, really. So, I think for today that's about all the time we have. We should probably get back to the Inn, or well, you should get back to wherever you live." Eisen suggested and packed up all his tools, as well as the paper he used to draw the sketches.
"Well, I also live at the Inn~. Instead of getting paid, they let me stay at the Inn and eat for free! That's super nice, right?" She explained and followed behind Eisen while he left the Workshop.
"Yeah, that really is nice. But do you want to live there for the rest of your life? Don't you want to move into your own house at some point?"
"I mean~… yeah, but…" With her face turned away, she slowly began fidgeting with her fingers. "… I want to do some things first… Like, find my mother, and stuff…"
Eisen began to frown and looked down at Bree. If she really didn't even know her own mother, it would make sense to try and find her.
"So why are you here, then? Is your mother around here somewhere?"
She shook her head and looked down on the ground as the two of them began crossing the bridge over to the street where the Inn was located, "No… I don't think so, at least. I told you about being the Carrier for an adventuring party, right? Well, they wanted to cross the mountain range. And on the first day, they found a cave not too far from here. There was a lot of treasure there… a LOT of treasure… They told me to grab as much of it as I can carry, but my strength wasn't enough to carry as much as they wanted me to, so they stole my bag and carried it themselves… They threw me out of the cave and I found my way here.. I don't know what happened to them, though. But well, I was here without any money or food or anything, but then I met the nice Owner of the Inn and he told me he would let me stay there for free if I helped out a little bit."
"Well, that's really nice of him. He did seem like quite a good guy" Eisen nodded and began scratching his beard with his eyes closed.
After another few minutes that they spent walking without talking, they reached the Inn.
Eisen and Bree walked to the restaurant together to eat, and a waitress came up. "Hey, Bree! How are you? Haven't seen you around all day!" She said with a smile, one that most might see as genuine. But Eisen could tell from his expansive life experience that this kind of smile was anything else but genuine, and held deep hatred and spite behind it.
Bree looked down at the table and avoided eye-contact, only further supporting what Eisen thought.
"Y-Yeah, I was staying with Eisen all day…"
"Ooh~? So you've finally done it and sold yourself to some lonely old man~? But I thought you'd be like that, so-" The Waitress laughed with her hand in front of her mouth, looking down onto Bree who was still keeping her head low, when Eisen stood up looked at the young Human Woman.
"Listen here, young woman. You should probably leave. Right now." He said, looking down at her with a calm face, the same one he had back when he was talking to Hendrick.
The waitress stumbled back a little bit, but then only began to laugh more, "Oh? What's this? Did you go senile~? This girl isn't a person, old man, so there's no need to get angry because of her."
"I warned you. And I don't give second chances." Eisen grumbled and leaned forward. Before the woman could even react, he picked her up and threw her over his shoulder.
"H-Hey, what's this supposed to mean?! Th-This is assault!" She yelled out and began punching Eisen in the back to make him let go. Without any words, he walked to the front desk of the Inn and looked at the Innkeeper, who simply sighed and frowned when she saw the whole scene.
"Tanya, what'd I tell ya 'bout insultin' Bree?"
"Wh-What? That's all you have to say about this?!" She yelled while Eisen slowly put her back down, her face completely flushed red. The Innkeeper crossed his arms and nodded. "Aye, it sure is, Tanya. Get in the back and change into yer normal clothes. Ye don't work 'ere anymore."
"W-Wait, what do you mean?! Because of that bitch? She isn't even a person, so why-"
"Fine, I changed my mind." The Innkeeper interrupted her, and the girl grew a smug smile as if she was about to say something even more insulting toward Bree, but before she could open her mouth he continued talking. "Get the fuck outta here, and don't ever come back. Right this second, ya 'ear?"
The Innkeeper said angrily, and seeing that he's serious, the girl, Tanya, angrily stomped out the front door, her face as red as a tomato.
Eisen smiled and looked back at the Innkeeper. "Sorry if I caused trouble. Right now and this morning as well, of course."
With a smile on his face, showing his straight white teeth, the Innkeeper shook his head. "Dontcha worry 'bout it! Wanted to fire 'er anyway, Tanya's a bitch. Ye just gave me a good opportunity ta fire 'er right now. She was super stuck-up and kept insultin' non-human customers. Which is 90% of our customers, considering this is a Dwarven Town."
"If that's so, then I guess you're welcome haha. But I will get back to Bree now." Eisen laughed lowly and turned back around to head to the Restaurant while the Innkeeper began to smile.
After that, Eisen and Bree had a lot of fun talking while they were eating, and Eisen found out some more things about Bree.
She grew up with her father, a simple human, who fell in love with a nature Fey, a Pixie, Bree's mother. Eisen didn't care to ask how the whole ordeal worked, due to the obvious size difference, and instead smiled at the thought of two people giving up their cultural differences to be with each other. Truly, it did remind him a little bit of his late wife, who he had met during his time in Japan.
But Bree's father died while she was barely 10 years old, leaving her to fend on her own in a world filled with people that hated her very existence. She struggled hard and did small jobs here and there to pay for food while living on the streets of her hometown until she found that she was good at support magic and had an extraordinary mana pool, which is when she became an Adventurer who would do small tasks. With the help of her support magic, she was able to learn spells such as 'lighten', which, how the name implied, lightened the weight of her gathered items to a certain amount.
And by completing more and more simple gathering requests, she ranked up and got the attention of some higher ranked parties that were famous in the area, and was scouted as their carrier, to basically bring the heaps of loot they would gather at times back to the guild to sell. But she was really only seen as a packing mule, and not for her support magic. For that, most parties had clerics or shamans, and Bree was always left behind once the party gathered enough money to buy spatial-storage items, because that meant they didn't have to share the money from quests with one more person.
After this whole cycle continued for years on end, she decided to only be a temporary higher for parties that went out to quests where they expected a high amount of loot. More and more she got to know the area around her hometown, and then she was hired by the party that simply left her behind.
And now she spent all her time talking to people she could meet in the Inn, hoping an adventurer would come along that could help her at least get back to a larger town.
He heard her story, and Eisen leaned into his chair, scratching his beard and closing his eyes with a smile. "Then how about I help you out? Well, it would need to wait for a month, because I have some business to attend to near here then, but after that, I do want to go on a journey. Well, we can help each other out, I guess. Having support like yours when fighting definitely seems useful. Not to speak of the help you were with my mana while smithing."
"Y-You really want my help?"
"Of course I do!" He laughs out loud and looks at the girl that is nearly in tears in front of him.
"Th-then, only in a month? Could I maybe help you before then? It's really fun watching you work!"
"Sure! Then I'll see you tomorrow?" Eisen asked and smiled, and when Bree nodded furiously, he waved for the waitress so that he could pay, and then stood up, walking to his room to practice his Mana Manipulation a bit more.