Another world, Celeste

Thirty Five, pt 2

The alluring smell of pastries wakes me up from my afternoon nap. I take off my headphones and slowly sit up from the couch. Syl sits at the empty spot where my legs were as I stretch my arms up in the air.

"Erissa, you should eat something other than drinking potions."

Syl pushes a plate of sliced pie towards Erissa while I take a slice for myself. A low groan instead of a proper response is heard from the other couch occupied by the worn-out elf. Erissa and I, mainly Erissa, passed out exhausted when we finally manage to return to the mining town unnoticed by the soldiers and adventurers at the gate. That was three days ago. Erissa hasn't moved from the couch since.

"I don't understand why the two of you aren't sleeping on proper beds."

Syl shakes her head as she takes a bite of the sliced pie with her hand.

"Too tired... to move," Erissa groggily responds with her eyes covered with her arm.

"You mean you don't have the strength to move and your head feels like it's splitting into two," Syl scoffs and corrects her.

No response.

Erissa is suffering from mana exhaustion because she overdid it with the mana arrows while I'm only physically tired and too lazy to make myself walk to the bed. I concentrate on eating the pie.

During the three days of my voluntary immobility, Polina comes to our suite room once and left Syl to look after me and Erissa. No one even asked about Mint's absence. When Mint finally does return a day later, she fills us in on the monster stampede. Simply put, in her words, the monster stampede 'broke off.' Apparently, Mint and the rangers sniff out several more monster attraction scents when they ran off to support the adventurers. Mint prioritise taking care of the monster attraction scent first and when that's taken care of, the adventurers manage to suppress the monster stampede quicker than they anticipate.

The clean-up, however, is taking a long time to finish because not only the adventurers involved in the monster stampede but also merchants and travellers who were attacked by monsters on the road close to the mining town are being isolated and purified by priests and light mages for precautions. And by extension, the Commercial Guild's auction is postponed until everyone is safely cleared. Despite that, Polina, Kif and those involved with the auction are busy making rearrangements.

Everyone around me is busy. I feel kind of guilty about not helping since I technically am a member of the Adventurers' Guild too, on the other hand, it feels nice not having to do anything when everyone else is running around being busy. I'm enjoying a second of this delicious pie that is not overwhelmingly sweet with every bite. Mint returns to the suite room after another day of running around town and I can see her eyes glint at the untouched plate of sliced pie meant for Erissa.

"Iris, Serafina told me to tell you that the guild master wishes to speak with you when you're feeling better," Mint talks as she snatches the plate and devours the pie deliciously.

"Which guild master?"

Even though it's obvious, but still, just to be certain.