Black Silk | Chrollo

Chapter I: Flowers x Poison

I stare up at the drifting clouds as I lean back in my chair, lounging. It was a rather boring day, so no customers and not even one slowing down to examine my many items scattered across my table covered with a velvet cloth. Even though the streets remained busy, clustered, and forever moving, all in a hurry to get to unknown destinations. 

Being a vendor on the street meant you got to look at a lot of interesting faces, whether they were foreigners or locals in the area that you see every so often. Especially in the ever so busy city of Yorknew where I decided to make shop while the auctions took place over the timespan of a week or maybe more. Then once the auctions were over, I would be moving again.

A sigh escapes my lips as I think, 'but my items probably don't provoke much interest compared to the other people's table here... Well, people that aren't intelligent enough to know how exactly rare my items were.... Just proves people don't know anything nowadays.' I sit up in my chair, propping my head up in my hand as my elbow hits the table, in boredom as I look at all the flowers, plants, herbs, and silks I was selling.

The silks being on a separate table than the plants. As I think back on the silks, they were just given to me on my last journey as a free gift. The man in one of the villages I was staying at temporarily, kept pushing silks my way telling me to keep them and possibly think about marrying him in the near future. Like hell I would, he was twice my age, and his teeth were decaying. I was probably the only woman that man had seen in the last twenty years and just proves how desperate he was.

I strum my fingers against my face. Well, I did take the gift because it was free but I was a woman who rarely wore silks. So now I was stuck with trying to get rid of them, but I doubt I would be able to by the time this little trip is over. Perhaps if I start giving the silks away for free to whoever buys one of the plants or flowers. Yes...That seems like a good idea.

I was no interesting hunter in the sense of being a blacklist hunter or beast hunter, I was a simple botanical hunter, a plant hunter. So that was what I was selling. Plants, flowers, and the such being my specialty. I traveled a lot for this sort of job and also took a fair share amount of research and logging. I knew very few people who also shared the same interest as me. Mostly women were botanical hunters and very few men were from what I have seen since starting the job.

All the plants on the table I had were unique and rare, gathered from different cities and sometimes countries. Some meant to heal wounds or make you last longer in bed while others were meant to harm or even possibly kill somebody. Though I made sure to tell uneducated people about how deadly some of these plants were. I don't want them to be mistaken by their beauty like most are. I look at the white and black flowers produced by the Slit plant in particular.

Although, its flowers were beautiful, underneath the soil where the roots grew was where the poison grew. The village I acquired the plant from was from a rural area. They grew in clusters, and every villager knew of its dangers and often got rid of them, therefore making them rare. Even the petals of the flowers cause irritation to the skin and would make someone break out into hives. I had to be careful when digging it up from the ground.

As I reminisce about the past of acquiring such plant, I failed to notice a customer had slowed his steps and finally stopped in his tracks. His gray and hollow eyes were examining everything with interest. He startles me because I had failed to notice him making me jump slightly. Usually, I was very aware of my surroundings even if I started daydreaming and it bothered me that I failed to notice his entire presence altogether.

I blink at him, questioning who this man was as I stare at his strange appearance and attire. His black hair is slicked back with gel revealing a cross that was tattooed to his forehead, and he wears a long trench coat with fur lining and a black and white shirt underneath. He is silent as he studies everything and he simply ignores me at first. Though my eyes zone in on the cross, getting reminded of the religious village where people often bore the mark on their forehead with confidence.