Chapter 1248 (1/2)

Randidly tried his best to keep his smile even as he continued to offer the crisp bill he had admittedly gotten from Tatiana’s wallet the previous night. “Seriously, it’s no trouble. I have the cash to pay-”

The young vendor raised his hands and waved them almost frantically. “Mr. Ghosthound, please, don’t make this harder than it is on me! You designed the entire city of Kharon. It’s a moving marvel! And it’s only because of you that my little brothers can grow in relative safety here. There’s no way that I can let you pay for something as small as a coffee.”

“That’s very kind of you to say,” Randidly began. Then he stalled out as he struggled to verbalize why he would still prefer to pay for the coffee.

Randidly and Vye were standing at a long row of stall along the rather busy Banner Street, which was the more commercial street one block over from the main headquarters of many of the industrial centers of Kharon. Most of the street’s usual morning bustle was smothered by the fact that everyone was very aware that Randidly was walking around trying to buy the coffee. Nearby customers took a very long time counting change and peering over their shoulders at Randidly’s helpless expression.

As he had appeared on the street, most of the shouting vendors had fallen immediate silent and looked toward Randidly with all the carnal intensity of a thirteen-year-old boy fixated on his first crush. Randidly’s first instinct had been to turn right around and walk away, but he really did want to sit and have a talk to Vye. He didn’t know if she liked coffee, but it seemed petty to back out because of overzealous vendors. After all, this was about Vye and her particular situation. In terms of experience with how people reacted when you abruptly said you were going to leave them, Randidly thought himself relatively experienced.

At least experienced enough to understand what was really going on in that discussion… Randidly made the crisp bill dance across his fingers as the vendor refused to budge.

The coffee-order-turned-hostage-negotiation situation was made more complicated by the almost a hundred people that were drifting around Randidly in a loose ring with clearly nothing better to do than gawking. A lot of them seemed to be people in relatively non-senior positions at the various industrial corporations of Kharon, coming to work with soot stains already on their uniforms and stumbling across the Ghosthound. And since they found him, they wanted to indulge their own curiosity.

They sipped coffee and nibbled at bagels and pretended like they had nowhere to be as they cast sidelong glances at the man who made Kharon possible. It gave Randidly quite the headache. It’s not that he didn’t understand; curiosity was in human nature. Although he had shown himself a few times in Kharon in the past, it had never been as personable as this. This was, perhaps, the chance of a lifetime.

So people milled about and the influx of workers ready to go their jobs continued to flow into the street and ask in loud voices why everyone was just standing around. A hundred hushed conversations quickly drew the new arrivals into the slow orbit of Randidly Ghosthound and Vye on the increasingly packed and yet somehow deserted Banner Street. Randidly supposed he should just feel lucky that there weren’t any vehicles on Kharon or his presence on a street would have ground the whole city to a standstill.

Which was why he currently found himself in a low voiced argument with a vendor that carried quite far. Pressing his eyes closed, Randidly tried to be reasonable. After all, Vye couldn’t be enjoying the attention by proxy that she was receiving after her fight with her… whoever. It was somewhat… galling, but the best response was just to accept the charity. Despite his unwillingness to do so.

Yet Randidly found it oddly difficult to just accept. Because he had never really experienced anything quite like it. Oh, Randidly knew that he had benefited from free goods and services both in his time in Donnyton and while he had been in the finals bracket of the under-25 tournament on Tellus. But that somehow had felt different from the straightforward offer he received now from a vendor.

Randidly could tell in the young man’s eyes that he felt like he owed Randidly the coffee. And that made his skin crawl.

It’s just a coffee, Randidly sighed to himself. And just when Randidly was about to accept, a pot-bellied man stepped forward out of the crowd.

“How about this? I will buy Mr. Ghosthound’s coffees. That way-.... Ah, ahem…” The man started talking with an affable expression, but Randidly’s tight glance quickly sent him coughing and turning away. Although it was certainly a generous offer, it was exactly not what Randidly wanted right now. Someone else buying the coffees would not make any difference.

Breathing through his nose, Randidly turned back to the vendor. “...two coffees on the house then.”

As the vendor was pouring the coffees, his eyes gleamed with the spark of the god of lucre. He gestured invitingly to his steaming wares.“...and a waffle?”

Randidly’s mouth twitched. Why are you acting like you are fleecing me by giving me free food and drink…? “Fine, a waffle too.”

The delighted vendor finished preparing the goods and Randidly turned around to say something to Vye, but what he saw behind him made Randidly stop. The pot-bellied man had returned carrying a table and two chairs and set them down right in the middle of the street. He froze too when Randidly started staring intensely at him but offered a placating smile and then backed slowly away into the crowd.

Randidly’s gaze slid side to side, noticing how everyone was carefully not looking at the table and two chairs that had been prepared. Randidly probably would have hopped onto the roof and moved to a different part of the city if not for the fact that Vye snorted in amusement.

She walked up to Randidly and clapped him on the back. “You are even worse at this than I am. But it seems the Order Ducis is second fiddle Randidly Ghosthound himself.”