บท 48: Date with Aika

We wrapped ourselves in towels and made our way to the dressing room. Of course, the maids were waiting there and they changed us into clothes we liked. There were some shelves added of different clothes for our personal preferences.

I dressed in the same clothes as before and waited for Aika to finish changing so we can go on a date.

"Besides rings, should I maybe ask for other jewelry such as earrings or a necklace… Kumo do you know what earrings are?" I ask.

"Earings…?" she mutters cluelessly while tilting her head slightly.

"They are jewelry for your ears. You poke a tiny hole through your ear lobe, this thing right here..." I say while pointing to my ear lobe.

"... and then you make a tiny needle with some metal on the end or maybe one that droops down like a banner and then you put the tiny needle through the pierced hole making an earring. Also, you should place a cap on the end of the needle so it doesn't poke the side of your neck/head," I describe.

"How do you come up with these ideas?" Kumo asks.

"It's pretty common actually, did the stories you hear ever have jewelry in them?"

"Yes they did, but they never described the types of jewelry," Kumo says.

Once we finished talking I looked back at Aika who was now wearing a gold and blond dress that flowed down to her ankles. Also, the dress itself was lined with gold and the blond color matched her hair nicely as well.

Walking towards her, I grabbed her hand and waved back to the changing Kumo and Homura before we left. While we were walking down the hallway I saw some of Aiko's underlings carrying the giant phoenix corpse towards the treasure room. Giving them a thumbs up we made our way outside the castle.

Still holding hands we walked through town as many citizens waved to us. We decided to have breakfast at a local restaurant near the center of the town since Aika was getting hungry.

"U-Ummm, what would you like to order?" stutters the waitress.

"This… and this,"

I ordered some eggs with a salad made of a variety of vegetables as the side dish. I also ordered some fish that came from the local Constrictor Koi that runs through the rivers next to our kingdom.

As I and Aika waited for our food we talked about what we wanted to do for the day. Aika wanted to get a weapon as well as some custom clothing from Aimi which I doubt would work since she hasn't gotten back to me about my clothes.

Finally, the food came out with the owner of the restaurant right next to it nervous. He was a stubby amazonian about 5 foot 5, that looked like he was in his late 40s but was still up and kicking. He also wore the generic chef's hat with a white apron covering himself. Biting into the food I could hear a gulp coming from the restaurant owner.

"It's good," I mutter with a smile.

"Yeah, it's not as good as Aito but it's still tasty," Aika says.

Hearing the restaurant owner sigh in relief he made his way to the back to let us have some privacy. Chowing down on the delicious food, we soon finished it as I gestured for the waitress from before to take the payment.

"T-the owner of the restaurant said you don't have to pay," said the waitress, eyes darting.

"Well… I liked the food, so I'm going to pay, I mean even if it weren't good I would have still paid. I can't be a jackass queen, otherwise, nobody will look up to me," I say.

Handing over 2 obsidian coins, one for the food, and one for the waitress as a tip, I told her to buy herself something nice.

"Thank you so much!" I hear the waitress and restaurant owner say before exiting.

Leaving with a smile we both made our way to Aimis thrift store first since it was the closest. As soon as the people on the front desk saw us, 1 went to call Aimi while the other came to greet me.

"Welcome my queens, is there a specific reason you have come today?" said a tall elven young man around his early 20s.

He was wearing a black tuxedo with black… I assume leather shoes. It looks like it is made from some type of monster hide.

"Is Aimi here?" I ask the elven man.

"Yes, Miss Aimi should be here shortly. If you want we have a back room that you can relax in," he replies.

"It's fine… oh look, there she is!" I say while pointing towards the panicked Aimi.

"M-master I haven't finished either of your clothing sets yet. Please forgive me!" Aimi says out of breath.

"Oh, I didn't expect you to finish either of them this fast. I and Aika are on a date and she wanted to get a custom set from you but I guess that's not possible. We'll just shop here in the normal clothes, some of them look nice," I say while scanning the huge store.

"Aika, sorry but I have to work on masters clothes first, then I'll make you one since you are the queen's wife," Aimi says.

"Thanks, we'll just shop here," Aika says before checking out some of the clothes.

As we walked around the store Aika acted like a kid in a candy store. She searched through many clothes while piling up some things she liked in her arms. She even wanted to try out some of the newly made bras that I talked about a lot. An hour passed and I had to stop her from buying out the entire store and said she can only get 3 sets.

Eventually, she picked out the 3 best sets of clothes from her pile and we made our way to the cash register. Just like the restaurant worker, the cashier said we don't have to pay which I denied and paid the respected price of 3 gold coins.

When we were leaving I heard the cashier's voice call out to us from behind.

"My queen, if you would like we can bring the clothes to your castle personally. This is what we usually do since we're trying to come up with something for customers to carry their clothes in,"

"Alright," I say while taking the clothes from Aika's hands and giving them to the cashier.

Finally leaving we made our way to Aisos blacksmith since Aika wanted to practice with a sword. It didn't take us long to get there as the people in line made way for both of us. One of the blacksmiths got Aiso from his room to talk to me.

"Forgive me, I haven't finished your scythe but I have finished 2 rings so far, would you both like to try them on," Aiso says.

"That would be nice but the main reason we came here is for Aika to practice with a sword, preferably a longsword. It doesn't have to be custom made but I would like it to be heavier than normal but not so heavy that she can't swing it," I order.

"As you wish, Aika you can pick out one from the basket over there. Every weapon in it is weighted and your strength is pretty abnormal so I assume you should be fine. My queen I would like to give you the two rings now since they are done. The other 4 should be done in the next 3 days since I'm mainly focusing on the scythe right now," Aiso says.

"Sure," I say before Aika and I split up.

Walking to the backroom I see some scrapped prototypes of my scythe and a few rings that failed.

"Right here my queen," He says while gesturing to two obsidian rings lined with gold and a massive… emerald in the middle?

[Ore - Emerald]

[An extremely rare gem found only in the [Forest of Poison]. This type of the gem is so rare that a speck is kept as a natural treasure.]

"Wow, you got me something nice here didn't you," I say, impressed by the effort put in.

Slipping one of the rings onto my ring finger I feel a surge of power like when I use my soul equipment. Inspecting it I understood why I felt a surge of power.

[Equipment - Green Ring of Twilight]

[+10 Strength]

[+10 Speed]

[+10 Magic]

[Enchants: None

…

It's basically like beta soul equipment.

"If you would like some more jewelry that is high quality and that owner of the shop is our head enchantress of the kingdom, just go down this street and you should see a purple and black building made of bricks,"

"Thanks, I will check it out later," I say while grabbing the other ring and leaving Aiso to continue his work.

Asking some of the blacksmiths, I heard that Aika was practicing at a local arena which I made my way to.