Thomas flipped through the menu for the restaurant and read through it. Needless to say, he was rather shocked when one of the meal options was 'Mermaid & Chips'. In the majority of games he'd played, mermaids were usually one of the intelligent species that lived in the sea and would become a part of the story once players went to the underwater kingdoms. It was practically a trope for that to be the case. Seeing them being served on a menu like common fish was unexpected, to say the least. On the other hand...

When the waitress arrived, Thomas ordered two sets of the 'Mermaid & Chips' along with some appetizers made from common animals such as fried calamari. Not EVERYTHING needed to be made from monster meat. Though... it really was so much tastier than regular animals. Sadly, he had not been able to find an equivalent in vegetables. They all tasted rather normal. Maybe he needed to find rare things to eat like '1,000-year-old ginseng' or something. He didn't really know or care as long as the food ended up tasting good.

Snowlily just sat in her chair wagging her tail as her nose constantly sniffed the aromas permeating the place. Thomas looked over at her and smiled happily. It was good to be reunited with the little ball of fluff. He leaned over the table and gently stroked her head, "I'm going to have to ask Selena about that tracking enchantment so I can make a pair for the two of us. That way we never lose each other again. If I had known that you weren't captured I'd have left the pirates the first day."

Snowlily woofed condescendingly at him as if saying 'As if I would ever be captured!'. Thomas just smiled and leaned back in his seat to relax while he waited for the food. Even if he still wanted to go back and beat the snot out of the pirates, they did teach him an important lesson. As long as he had to take care of Snowlily he needed to be strong enough to protect both of them. It wasn't like before when he was alone and could do whatever he pleased. Now, he needed to be there for someone and he needed to use that as his motivation for the things he did.

Right now his main motivation was 'strength'. He didn't intend to stay in this city long. He wanted to get to Breidset sooner rather than later so he could enter the dungeon and gain more experience. Not just for himself but for Snowlily as well. Speaking of, he'd completely forgotten to check her status ever since they'd reunited. Subconsciously he'd just assumed that she'd stagnated without him around to kill things for her to gain experience. He needed to be sure of her strength before he started diving into the lower floors of a dungeon to hunt stronger monsters.

Name: Snowlily Race: Garou (Lord Class) Experience Gained: 799,887 Experience Spent: 798,220 Experience Remaining: 1,667 Power: 210 (+) 2,110 Exp Endurance: 160 (+) 1,610 Exp Agility: 185 (+) 1,860 Exp Magic: 235 (+) 2,360 Exp Skills: Stealth // Rank 26 // 30/270 Exp Hide Presence // Rank 27 // 80/280 Exp Sense Presence // Rank 15 // 60/160 Exp Abilities: Tracking (Scent) // Rank 26 // 255/270 Exp Mana Control // Rank 29 // 66/300 Exp Magic: Ice Magic // Rank 52 // 135/530 Exp Water Magic // Rank 16 // 125/170 Exp Wind Magic // Rank 15 // 60/160 Exp Titles: First Soul Companion Big Game Hunter

Thomas was pleasantly surprised, or more like shocked when he saw how much stronger Snowlily had become since they parted. It was like she was a completely different being since the last time he saw her. Her attributes had greatly increased and she'd become a Lord class entity. All of her skills, abilities, and magic had increased in rank. Especially her Ice magic. Then there was the new title 'Big Game Hunter'. Unfortunately, he couldn't read the details of the title so he wasn't sure what it did. From the sounds of it though she'd at least killed, or helped to kill, something pretty big. He'd have to try and remember to ask the two women about it.

He was still enjoying the fact that Snowlily had become stronger when the waitress returned with their order. She set several plates of food on the table, gave the two a smile, and left. Snowlily wasted no time digging into the steaming hot food. Her tail wagged rapidly as she practically inhaled her portion. Thomas watched, amused, before digging into his own food. He decided to try the 'Mermaid & Chips' dish first. Given the name he'd expected it to be a sort of play on 'Fish & Chips'. He was half right. The mermaid filets had been battered and deep-fried but the 'chips' were actually crunchy potato chips instead of thick-cut french fries.

The first bite into the mermaid filet was heavenly. It was probably the best fish he'd ever eaten in his life. The meat was tender and flaky yet firm and a little chewy. The flavor was a little salty and fishy but somehow left a fresh flavor in his mouth. He didn't know what heavenly technique was used to cut and cook the mermaid but it didn't stop him from devouring the entire basket. He'd ordered mostly seafood. Who goes to a nice restaurant near the sea and doesn't eat fresh seafood? Idiots, that's who.

After the mermaid filets, he grabbed a large red crab leg and cracked it open to pluck out the meat within. He dipped it in some melted butter and took a bite. His eyes instinctively closed as his whole body relaxed. A soft moan escaped his stuffed mouth while the sweet soft meat practically melted on his tongue. The flavor of the crab meat was prominent and made him question if it might be a form of monster. No regular crab could be so tasty.

The next thing he grabbed with his greedy little mitts was, ironically, the main appetizer. Fried calamari. It was one of his favorite foods in the real world so he was rather curious about how it would taste inside of AoG. He popped one of the little deep-fried rings into his mouth and slowly chewed on it. The calamari had a slightly chewy but still soft texture. The flavor was hard to describe, a subtle taste of the sea with a burst of pepper and a spritz of acidity from something like a lemon. He released another groan of pleasure that caused Snowlily to give him a disdainful look for his unsavory behavior.

Every scrap of food that had been delivered to the table was devoured by the two gluttons. Though Snowlily wasn't as vocal about her approval of the food as Thomas, he could still see the look of satisfaction on her muzzle as they basked in the afterglow of a good meal. They relaxed for a good half-an-hour before paying the bill and exiting the restaurant. Thankfully they were heading toward the bank, the bill for the food had left him with less than fifty gold in his pockets. Well, inventory technically. Who would be stupid enough to carry money in pockets?

The bank was similar to all the other branches he'd been to. To him, even the goblins all looked the same. That might be racist but he honestly couldn't tell the difference from one goblin to the next unless they had some distinguishing feature. Who knows, maybe the goblins view humans the same way. He waited in line until it was his turn and presented his Bank Card to the goblin behind the counter, "I'd like to check my balance and make a withdrawal."

The goblin said nothing as it took his card and walked into the back of the bank. A short time later it returned with a little piece of paper and presented it to Thomas. He flipped it open and gaped at the amount shown. One, two, five, six, seven... Seven digits! His bank account held close to two million gold inside of it! What the hell was going on with Rock's deposits into his account?! They'd been getting more and more ridiculous as time went by. There's no way that Pseudo-Magical weapons should still be popular with players! By this point, Magical rarity items should be pretty common! Hell, even the occasional Uncommon shouldn't be too unheard of. So what the actual hell?

He subconsciously glanced over his shoulder in the general direction of the inn where he was staying. He was pretty certain that a particular stalker princess could answer his questions about the flood of gold coming from Rock. There was simply no way in hell that Rock and his handful of people could produce enough items to make this kind of money. No one would pay enough for the Psuedo-Magical items for it to generate this kind of profit. He shook his head and cleared those thoughts for now so he could address the goblin, "I'd like to withdraw a hundred thousand gold."

He was one hundred percent certain that there would be another bank branch in Breidset. There was no need for him to take out a copious amount of gold and carry it around when he planned to spend it all when he arrived at his next major destination. Well, not all of it. Who knew what would actually be for sale there? He was definitely looking forward to the auction house and would likely spend a fair amount of his fortune there.

The goblin, unaware of Thomas's internal rambling, went about his job proficiently and collected the gold that Thomas had requested. Several minutes later the diminutive teller returned with several sacks containing the money requested. Thomas didn't bother trying to count the small mountain of gold coins and just directly deposited it into his inventory. After thanking the goblin, he left the bank and made his way back out onto the streets. He planned to do a little sightseeing and see if there was anything interesting to pick up on the way back to the inn.

A few hours later, Thomas returned to the inn and spotted Selena and Lexiana sitting at a table eating their dinner. He hadn't found anything really interesting while looking around so he was still plenty flush with cash. The only thing he really wanted was a large pile of Mithril ingots to work with but he would buy that in Breidset for a cheaper price. It could also wait until then as he didn't plan to sit around in this city for long. In fact, he wanted to leave tomorrow morning.

He and Snowlily joined the two women at the table while ordering dinner. Once he was comfortable he looked over at Selena and gave her a smile that wasn't a smile, "I want to ask you something."

Selena took a sip of her drink before looking back at him with a questioning gaze. So he got straight to the point, "What's going on with Rock? The man has been depositing insane amounts of gold into my bank account."

Selena looked surprised for a moment. She was unaware of any relationship between Rock and Thomas. She answered his question though, "When I left the capitol I passed though Ulvstad. I happened to see the items that Rock was selling. Being able to make items like that from plain iron is a big deal. So, I gave him a letter of introduction to my father. If things went right then my father should have hired Rock and his blacksmiths to produce weapons and armor for him. I don't know the details since I wasn't there personally but my father has a large army at his command. Outfitting them all with magical weapons and armor would cost a fortune. So outfitting them with the items Rock makes from cheaper materials would be far more cost-effective."

Thomas nodded in understanding. Even he had to cheat a bit to make a magical rarity item with plain materials by purifying them. If he couldn't do that he might have still be stuck making Common items until he got his hands on the materials in the pirate cave. He decided to use this opportunity to test Selena a little. He wanted to know how honest she was willing to be with him so he asked, "Who is your father? To have such a large force under his command he must be someone important."

As he asked the question he could see not one but two sets of wolf ears perk up and begin listening in. Well, technically it was only one pair as Lexiana's were hidden with the Ring of Disguise. Still, he could tell by the way her whole head seemed to rise a few inches. Selena looked uncomfortable for a moment as she internally fought over whether or not to tell him the truth. Finally, she let out a sigh and looked down, almost looking guilty, as she said, "My father is the King of Reykhoten."

Thomas just smiled and didn't even try to pretend to be shocked. Unlike the two clearly shocked wolves nearby. He dug into his dinner and enjoyed it. Though it wasn't nearly as good as the food from the little shop Snowlily found. Once everyone had finished eating and were just relaxing after the meal he spoke up, "Tomorrow I want to leave and head north. The sooner we get to Breidset the better. I plan to stay there for a little while to make some changes to my equipment as well as to gain some experience in their dungeon before we move on to Kafla. We'll all head into the dungeon together and grow stronger. There are rumors going around about an increase in demonic monsters attacking people. We need to be prepared."

While what he said was true, he was only using the demonic monsters as an excuse. He couldn't admit to the two of them that he just didn't want to feel weak and powerless again. He would grow stronger, design and produce weapons of war, and decimate anyone that tried to get in his way. He was brimming with determination. Seeing him like that, the two women nodded and agreed with his plan. Not that they had much choice if they wanted to stick with them. He had no intention of asking their opinion on the matter. They were stalking him, not the other way around.

With dinner finished and the sun setting on the horizon, Thomas led Snowlily up to their room and got ready for bed. Tomorrow he would begin another, much shorter, journey and get much closer to his final destination. He had no idea what awaited him there but he was definitely looking forward to it.