Demon World Boba Shop: A Cozy Fantasy Novel

Arthur woke up sore, not in his muscles, but in the non-physical parts of him that managed his majicka. Other people would also empty their majicka stores, but Arthur had noticed that they didn’t seem to take the same hit from it that he did. Lily had once said that Arthur’s majicka was delicate, which he figured was about as accurate as anything. Where other people encountered Coldbrook’s abundant majicka without so much as a sniffle, Arthur got seriously sick. Where they drooped a little when they overused their majicka, Arthur fully wilted.

His actual body felt fine, which meant getting out of bed was more of a matter of willing himself past the desire to rest more than it was about actual physical stiffness. For all that his majicka stores felt, they were still full, and he had tea to make.

The town felt a little different on his walk to his shop than it had the last several days. Before, there was a certain-focused bustle to it all. Every person he had seen those days was walking somewhere with a purpose, like they had a specific task to accomplish on a specific schedule that they were unwilling to fall behind on. Now, that focus was gone. Mostly. People weren’t exactly milling around and some still had the same laser-like intensity they had before. But overall, things seemed a little slower and less focused.

Arthur asked Karra about it, once she showed up for her morning tea, which she ate alongside a huge breakfast of sausages and fresh bread.

“Unfocused? I hadn’t noticed that, but yeah, I think I see what you are saying. It’s not that surprising though.”

“Is it something I should… address, I guess? Try to fix?”

“Nope. At least, probably not.” Karra cut a huge sausage in half and impaled it on her fork, holding off on eating it while she thought. “Most people chose their projects thinking they’d want them finished before the monster wave hit. A lot of them are finishing up now. For them, it’s the calm before the storm. There’s not enough time to start anything new, so they’re just recharginging. Waiting.”

“That sounds like a lot of stress.”

“It honestly probably does.” Karra finally took a huge bite of sausage, letting her hunger overwhelm her politeness.

“So I wanted to ask,” Arthur said as he settled a bit more into his seat. “Did you end up deciding for your class? Did you become a Foreman? Or I guess Forewoman?”

“I did,” Karra said. “It made the work go so much faster. The wall is just about finished and the last of the workers I assigned to Milo’s traps was done yesterday. I’m taking it kind of easy today while the last of the work finishes up, so I’m ready to bolster the walls whenever the attack comes. They’ll last a lot longer if we reinforce them as they get damaged.”

“So you’ll be like them tonight,” Arthur concluded.

“Waiting,” Karra sighed.

Arthur paused. “What’s wrong? The class isn’t to your liking?”

“No, it’s not that. We worked so much quicker when I took the class. I’m just afraid that we won’t have much need for the class once this is all over,” Karra admitted.

“Definitely not,” Arthur said. “Coldbrook’s only a town. If we hold off the monster wave, we’ll start building it toward a city. And that means a lot more work for our new Forewoman. I promise.”

“Thanks, that helps.” Karra smiled at Arthur. “One thing at a time for now. How are your preparations for the wave? All done too?”

“Nope. I’ll be working right up to the wave,” Arthur said. “I need to make as many boba pearls as I can. Every one of them counts. That’s it, though. I’m closing the shop after the morning rush today and not reopening until after the attack is resolved, one way or the other.”

“It will be fine, Arthur.” Karra patted her friend’s hand. “I really think so.”

“Yeah.” Arthur wished he could feel the same way. “I hope so too.”

Just like the town in general, the rest of Arthur’s day settled into a tense sort of calm. Alone in the back of his shop, he pumped out pearls. He’d make a batch, rest, then make another. A few people stopped by during the process to say hello, Mizu among them, but eventually filtered back out to deal with their own business. Arthur kept at his own work, draining his majicka directly into the ingredients that would boost his efforts during the battle. He even got a nap in there somewhere, which helped a lot.

Lily wasn’t helping today, which Arthur was fine with. Wherever she was presumably needed her more. The pattern seemed to hold true for all his friends, outside of the short visits they had made. When he finished the last batch of boba pearls he could productively make that day, he closed up his shop and walked home without seeing a single soul he knew well enough to need to stop and have a conversation with.

He planned on spending the evening doing something productive. There was still gardening he could do and his house could always use a bit of extra cleaning. There would be something, no matter what it was, that could keep his hands busy and put him a little bit more ahead of the game.

But as soon as his butt hit the corner of his bed, those plans changed. The same pre-battle doldrums he had just talked to Karra about hit him like a cruise missile. All the motivation and drive that had sustained him over the last few months suddenly puffed away from him like fluttering white seeds from a blown-on dandelion, and he was left with a bare stalk of laziness and nothing more.

Arthur wasn’t sleepy, but he laid down anyway. It was funny how easy it was to hold still. Normally, he’d be antsy for work. Or to see Mizu. Or to make some use of his time. Instead, for the first time in months, he was fine doing nothing.

He laid on his back, lifted his arms, and flexed his hands open and closed a few times as he idly considered how much they had changed. They were more calloused and rough than they’d ever been on Earth and even more than they had been in the city. It was a rougher life, out on the frontier.

And yet, he wasn’t worn out by things. This wasn’t a collapse because of stress or because of worry. Both those things were confusingly absent from him. He was just calm and a normal kind of post-work tired. He just needed rest in a different way than sleep.

When he finally went to sleep, it was a decision. It was just late enough for him to get a full night’s sleep in before dawn, plus a few hours for good measure. He closed his eyes and winked out almost immediately, sleeping dreamless until he suddenly awoke and found a feathered hand on his arm.

“Hey, Milo. It’s time?” Arthur asked.

“It’s time. The warriors got back a few hours ago,” Milo answered.

“I understand.” Arthur rose from bed and shrugged into his toughest multipurpose clothes, then his brand-new boots. “Let’s get to the wall.”

It seemed that the entire town was moving in the same direction. There was a familiar-looking tension on a lot of faces, something Arthur recognized from sight as the same kind of apprehension he was feeling himself at that moment. But there wasn’t any panic. Everyone knew their jobs, from the lowliest rock-thrower to the operators of the highest-importance stations.

Onna found them on the way there, trotting up to their side and matching their pace. Arthur nodded at her in greeting as they kept walking.

“Everyone made it back?” Arthur asked.

“Yeah, it was a good trip for the warriors,” Onna said in a loud voice. “I don’t think we got as many of the burrowers as we wanted, but we managed to pick off almost every flier in the horde. It should make things easier.”

“And everyone will stay behind the wall now?”

“Mostly. We still have some tricks up our sleeve, so there might be some exceptions to that rule. And we have one more decision to make beyond that too.”

“Oh? What’s that?”

Onna pointed towards the top of the wall. Standing there, unstealthed and uncharacteristically serious, was Corbin. “There he is. He’s the last undecided bit of this whole thing.”

“Corbin? Why?”

“He’s the only person who can safely leave at this point. The Hings are behind the wall and we’re about to close the gates for good. Corbin is the only one of us who can get past the wave safely if we wanted to send him. So now’s the time to make a choice.”

“Send him where?”

“Ask him.”

They climbed the wall, nodded at the people who seemed to need nods in passing, and made their way straight to the stealth-cat.

“Hey, Arthur.” Corbin didn’t take his eyes from the treeline for a second. “You can’t see them yet. Should be another hour before they actually get here.”

“Onna says you want to sneak out before then,” Arthur said.

“Kinda. I’m a stealth user, you know. I’m not very strong. Up on the wall, I’m going to be about as useful as a crafter. A bit better than that because my dexterity is so high but not much,” Corbin said.

“And out there?”

“I was thinking today about how there’s still a militia out there. Most of them got stationed in various towns to cover retreats but Chuck and some others are still out there. They aren’t enough to take care of a whole wave but if they knew one was attacking here, I could probably convince some of them to work on chewing up the back of it. That way, the wave would thin out on both sides.”

“Could you do it and keep yourself safe?”

“Of course.” Corbin said with a hint of a smile. “In a wave like that, most of the monsters couldn’t find me unless I actually touched them. And the ones that can won’t be able to move through the others fast enough to get to me, even if I wasn’t faster than them. And I am.”

Arthur doubted it was exactly as safe as Corbin was representing it to be but he also knew that the cat-demon wouldn’t have lied outright. If he was saying it was completely safe for him to go, it probably really was mostly okay. He looked at Onna questioningly, and she confirmed his thinking with a nod.

“What are your chances of finding Chuck and the others?” Arthur asked.

“Probably about one in three. They move around a lot, taking care of whatever monsters and dungeons they can as they go. I’m a fair scout but it’s a big wilderness. I’d have to get lucky,” Corbin said.

That was about what Arthur had expected. He worked the balance of the odds and rewards in his head. He’d lose Corbin for the duration of the fight, but he stood to gain a small, organized fighting force of warriors if the bet paid off. And as much as he liked Corbin, his presence really wasn’t a make-or-break thing for the town during the battle.

“You can go,” Arthur said. “I mean can, by the way. You don’t have to and I’m certainly not ordering you. But if you want to and you think it’s safe, you can.”

“Good.” Corbin nodded as he took one last look at the treeline, then turned and clapped Arthur on the shoulder. “You’re a good mayor, you know that? Probably the best.”

And then he was stealthed, presumably on his way to wherever he thought was best to look for Chuck and the others. He must have let the gate guards know as he passed because a few seconds later, Arthur heard the gate shutting.

“Will he really be okay, do you think?” Arthur asked. “I wouldn’t have sent him if he didn’t seem confident but now it’s starting to seem like a mistake.”

“That guy? Nobody can find that guy. He’s the best, Arthur.” Onna’s eyes glinted. “You’ll never find a better stealther than him.”

Arthur laughed. “That’s a terrible joke. I feel bad for laughing at it.”

“But you did laugh.”

“He did.” Lily had just arrived over the ladder and walked over. “He’s a sucker for puns.”

“I can’t help it. I’m getting old, I guess.” Arthur patted Lily on the head. “How are you holding up?”

“Fine. It’s the easy part now. I can’t give much majicka to people who are fighting but I hope the system at least lets me help out a little. If it doesn’t, I’ll just stay with the stampers and builders the whole time and help them bolster the wall.”

“I’m done too.” Mizu finally made it up the wall as well. “So I’ll just be throwing rocks.”

“What about your surprise?” Arthur asked.

“Don’t worry. You’ll see it,” Mizu said with a blush.

One by one, all of Arthur’s friends joined him up on the wall and watched the treeline. There wasn’t much talk beyond greetings and figuring out where each person would be that day. The entire town council had decided to take the first shift, just so everyone could see them up there from the very beginning. After that, they’d be scattered. People still had to sleep.

And then, much more silently than Arthur had imagined they would, the monster wave began to seep out of the trees.

There were clawed things, things with fangs, and things with tusks. Some of them had fur, while others had scales or exposed hide. Most walked. Some rolled. Thankfully, very few flew. The town’s monster-wave raiding party had seen to that. But a good many of them seemed like they could burrow, which meant they’d have to be constantly on guard for monsters that managed to make it under the wall. Only warriors would be allowed on the ground, ready to pin down anything that made it through.

The wave moved slowly as the entire first shift grabbed rocks and gripped them in preparation for its arrival. And then, finally, the first rock flew. Arthur never knew who had thrown it, but as soon as it made contact with a monster, the entire wave roared, as if they knew things were starting too.

The battle for Coldbrook was on.