"It's finally over, huh…" Relaxing under the gazebo of the 'Phordite mansion with heavy eye bags under her eyes, Ophelia sipped on a cup of soothing green tea while her mind struggled to keep up with the amount of work she had to put in to get rid of the living flesh of the mansion's walls.
"It's done at least," said Amelia, sitting across from her on a bench and not a chair, seeming just as tired, if not even more than her centaurian sister.
Taking a light sip of their cups, the two heaved a sigh letting out the tension that they'd been carrying for weeks and months at this point. Looking on over to the maids and gardeners moving about through the paths leading to the mansion, the two spend their time just relaxing by themselves and enjoying the warm trickle of the sun beaming down on them through the vegetated roof of the gazebo.
An hour must've passed by the time they were finished with an entire kettle's worth of warm tea and finally turning to Ophelia, Amelia voiced today's task.
"I think we should start managing the books ourselves, the other lords are taking too large of a cut from our taxed land," slowly nudging her head to Amelia, Ophelia's eyebrows squinted to focus. "And perhaps we should send the letters to get Rose, Brenna, Tanya, and everyone else to finally live in the mansion for when Raven returns from his trip. That's what they wanted to live with him, after all."
"The house is cured, but what about their livelihoods? Brenna and Rose especially?" Ophelia asked, but Amelia had somewhat prepared for such a question.
"We have enough funds to transfer Brenna's herb production to the mansion, and I'm sure she'd love a bigger lab to brew herbs and alcohol," hearing the hum of Ophelia's voice, Amelia's chest was puffed with more confidence. "As for Rose, we can arrange for workers to stay there or incorporate a teleporter into the mansion with Linkle's help."
"Isn't the witch gone somewhere? I heard only Vlad's taking care of her shop," as the two continued to converse, a maid who'd spotted the empty kettle and cups began picking up the crockery to take it away.
Ignoring the maid in the middle, Amelia leaned her head to the side to look at Ophelia as she continued with her explanation.
"I checked with Tan, he says she's back and her shop's open again–although for only a few hours every day," speaking of Tan–the racoon boy butler, both the centaurians were reminded of something.
Sharing a knowing glance at each other, but waiting until the maid was gone to smile, the two shared a laugh and gave each other high-fives. Leaning back into their benches right after, the two still couldn't help but chuckle at the shared thought.
"Ever since that priestess healed him, he's been inseparable from his girlfriend ahaha~" Reminded of the time Kara visited on Mel's request, Ophelia couldn't help but laugh at what followed next.
Glancing over the many windows of the mansion, the girl's eyes focused on the room where the young racoon and his girlfriend now lived. Spending most of their free time inside the place, Tan and the rowdy blonde barbarian woman, both cuddled, played around and did what couples do when given enough privacy. Rarely did they go out and even when they did, seeing a young boy half the size and mass of his woman was beyond hilarious to the centaurian women.
"I suppose she's tending to her sword, eh?" Ophelia joked and Amelia had to cover her mouth to stop herself from spitting into loud laughs.
"AhAhAH~" Even so cackling behind her hand, the young aristocrat shook her head and took the joke further. "I wonder if Tan's has trouble stuffing that big wagon."
Glancing sideways at Amelia with a smirk on her face, Ophelia held her laugh better before turning to the table completely. Stretching her hand forward on the now emptied table, she leaned in closer to Amelia and they began discussing the matters that they had before getting sidetracked by Tan and his girlfriend.
To their surprise, however, no more than fifteen minutes late–the witch showed up at their doorsteps demanding to talk to the estate keepers. The guards, not realizing her closeness to the hero's party, kept her waiting by the gates and came to the centaurian girls to inform them of her presence.
'Speak of the devil.' Thought the two before allowing the guard to escort Linkle to them.
Eyeing the two once she arrived at the gazebo, the witch looked around, shrugged her shoulders before glancing at an empty chair and pulling it up for herself. Once seated, she leaned onto the table and looked between the two once again.
"So this is what you two have been doing? Sitting around twiddling my thumbs while me and the others are out there fighting for our lives?" Her words cut them deep, but staring right back at her, they let their anger be known.
"Hey! I wanted to go, but someone has to stay behind and take care of this place, don't they?" Ophelia retorted, followed swiftly by Amelia.
"Besides, Raven said it himself we're not fit to fight and will only get the way, so what's your point in bringing it up?"
Glancing between the two again, Linkel shook her head and let the matter go. Instead with a deep breath and a sigh, she presented the matter that she was there for.
"I need a quiet place to work on something, somewhere where I won't get random people showing up on my doorsteps asking for drugs." Turning in her chair to look at the many rooms of the mansion, Linkle pointed at one of them. "Let me stay and finance my work for a while and I'll help you guys with whatever it is that you need."
Instantly the thought of a teleporter popped up in the centaurians' heads, it felt almost too perfect, but seeing the opportunity present itself, they saw no reason to think about it for more than a few seconds.
"Sure, why not? But you'll have to earn your keep," Ophelia said, but as Linkle turned around with a smirk she began to regret the decision without even knowing why.
"Great! Let me bring the rest of my crew then," Linkle responded, smirking like a devil.
"What crew now?" Amelia asked, only to regret the question itself a second later.
"Darius, Vlad, Shamisha, that priestess Kara if I can find her and ever so often Mono the queen of Elenaris…"
"What?!" The girls yelled out in unison, but before they could say another word, Linkle stepped out of her chair, reached for her teleportation ring and disappeared with the parting words…
"See you soon and please get the maids to prep the rooms." Prep the room for what exactly? Linkle never said, and yet she expected it to be done by the time she returned with an army of people to experiment and quite literally prepare an army to fight against a named devil.