Ebony's Fable

Ning Xin soaked in the bath for hours with a bag full of mixed feelings.

‘Curse that shop owner.’

She slapped her unmasked face hard enough to leave red marks on her face before she slipped down to blow bubbles in the water. The memories of the day before were recounted in her head again, none of which concerned the dungeon race.

Right after Ebony went to his playground academy where he insisted that he was learning useful knowledge, she washed the dishes and got dressed.

Tidal had too many people and her Intuition was rather whimsical. Once bitten twice shy.

There were dangers she couldn’t sense and people capable enough to escape her detection.

Most worrisome of all was the unknown stealth spell that could knock her out. It would be fine if the spell worked but not if there were still people who could see her.

She played it off in front of Ebony the previous time but the people who didn’t speak Elcra screamed trouble. It felt a little pathetic to worry about something that already happened then and she didn’t want Ebony to feel the same worry.

Maybe the young man who seemed in charge wasn’t too much of an issue but one of his bodyguards was undetectable through all her senses but sight. She’d rather be awake and be able to fight or run than become invisible or forgettable. The half-hearted stealth skill didn’t even make them forget her presence completely.

Her only countermeasure at the moment was to have more stockpiled energy in the form of mana and vitality in her mask. The changes her mask underwent with her evolution were far greater than the past few evolutions but she hadn’t made use of it as well as she should.

Be that as it may, she was far from uptight or paranoid about unknown dangers.

Unlike Ebony who had the patience of taking carriages or flights, she didn’t. A speed walk on the main road for ten minutes got her onto the closest shopping street. The bright lights on memory light boards and screens that cycled through catalogues of each shop’s wares were slightly unfamiliar to her.

Luckily, the women's clothing stores all carried underwear and it wasn’t blatantly advertised or she would be a little embarrassed entering the stores.

‘This is too coarse.’ She found the corner section that sold what she was looking for and removed her gloves to feel the fabric. She entered a larger store hoping it would have a Grandmaster in charge and the equivalent quality but didn’t find materials that felt comfortable enough.

It was a pity since not every store catered to every build and frame. The clothing stores for female warriors that often had her sizes were more of an armour store and focused on strong clothing that handled physical wear and tear.

‘I’ve been to eight places already, do I need to find some specialised store…’ Ning Xin strolled along the pavement in thought.

She forced herself to take in the heavy mixture of scents in the surroundings since it was one of her strongest senses besides Intuition. The smell of metal and perfume was the strongest of the bunch. It would be foolish to breathe her from her air supply and block out one of her best detectors.

By the tenth store, she gave up and checked every store, small or big.

She didn’t know if it was because she was getting impatient or desperate but her Intuition was moving her feet and she finally found a rather boring building without any sign boards or decor that told people it was a shop. Only an ‘open’ signboard was hung on the door. Ning Xin found that most shops here kept their doors physically open so finding one that had closed doors and glass windows or doors to show the interior was uncommon.

She opened the door without knocking and noticed that the interior was just like every other clothing store so she relaxed and quickly found what she was looking for. For a shop the size of Roya’s house, about half the shop was selling underwear.

“Good afternoon, may I help you?” The only free employee at the moment walked up to her. Looking around, the shop was rather popular. They were all women so she didn’t feel out of place compared to large shops that sold clothing for both genders with male tailors and employees present.

‘It was quiet from outside, I guess it’s popular and rich enough to have noise suppression.’ Ning Xin might have caught a little of Ebony’s thought patterns. She wouldn’t have thought about these things in the past.

“Just looking for underwear.” She didn’t need any help since one sweep of her eye was enough for her to find what she was looking for.

‘This feels good, smooth and soft. It has a lot of different sizes too.’ She got her business done as quickly as she could and guesstimated which were her sizes before checking the items out.

She still tended to choose red but she saw a few nice patterns that were pink or black. With how often she accidentally found herself going into battle, she didn’t limit how many sets she planned to buy. Her main focus was to check if the hidden padding in front was thick enough to cover her.

The employee followed her tightly and kept trying to promote different sets based on what she already picked and carried in her arms. Annoyed at first, she was trying her best to get it over with but impressed by the employee's pick soon enough. She managed to introduce what Ning Xin liked in a matter of seconds and made her spend more than she assumed she would.

“For spending more than ten Blues in a single purchase you’re entitled to check out our owner’s secret collection.” The employee made her trip piqued her interest. The price was way too high if she still had her wits but the mammoth materials made both of them richer than she could wrap her head around. She didn’t even buy thirty sets.

Without a good sense for money, Ebony called them millionaire equivalents. Something about not being billionaires because they had no real or stable access to Purples. He used big words that she could barely remember sometimes.

“Why would a shop owner have a secret collection?” Not one for business, she asked the first thing that came to mind. It was one thing if it was items that were rare but these were just clothes. It wasn’t anything special even if the materials were very high quality. She didn’t believe the tailor was a King ranked either.

“She has a separate collection for rich merchant ladies and ladies of high society.” The employee bowed slightly and gestured to a door behind the changing room.

‘I’m not interested so why am I following her?’ Ning Xin didn’t know why she followed the flow so easily. On second thoughts, it didn’t hurt to see more options.

The door opened and the sales lady gestured for her customer to enter first. Ning Xin entered when she saw more dresses and clothes hung in the dark room beyond the door.

“She has a large collection tailored for inexperienced and experienced ladies alike. It’s her personal hobby.”

Ning Xin’s Intuition warned her when she heard the sales lady’s words. The moment the sentence echoed out of her head, the sales lady closed the door behind her. Her hands flew to the door too late.

The door didn’t budge but the door handle creaked under her accidental acceleration. ‘What does she mean by that?’

“Woah, easy on the door. I’m pretty sure I reinforced that greatly.”

Ning Xin wasn’t alarmed, she still didn’t sense danger and her Intuition was keeping her curious in a fresh way. She turned to the woman’s voice. It was someone a full head shorter than her.

The woman had pale white hair but with bright red eyes.

Ning Xin’s pupils dilated under her mask when her brain fully took in the information at record speeds.

The woman who spoke wore a black nightgown that reached above her knees. That was fine and all since Ning Xin bought a few of the full body types as well but she was trying to think why bother when she saw that the night gown was see-through. It was almost completely transparent and even the dark room wasn’t enough to stop her sight from checking out that the woman was not wearing anything else under the see-through nightgown.

Ning Xin wasn’t shocked by that. It was a women-only clothing store and she was brought into a room behind a door inside a changing room. She was shocked by the floppy ears that hung on the side of the white-haired, red-eyed woman.

‘Bunny beastmen…but my intuition is still not picking up danger.’ She still had time in her hyper-accelerated perception and quickly scanned the secret room but the surprisingly large room had pitch-black curtains that blocked out her sight. She smelled a few more women in the room and traces of this bunny woman’s scent everywhere.

Her bullet time ran out and her expressionless mask faced the bunny beastwoman.

“You’re the owner?”

“Yes, since you’re new I’ll show you around.”

Despite her initial shock, the bunny woman who had soft facial features and a body that wasn’t fit for swordsmanship walked her through the secret room without any vigilance or bad intentions.

‘All I’m picking up is interest and…glee I suppose.’ Walking closer to the black curtains with women behind them allowed her to feel a general sense of excitement and happiness together with another emotion in the mix that she wasn’t able to pinpoint. It was slightly different from the owner’s emotions.

Her mana sense couldn’t pick up much since she didn’t see the world through mana but she could hear the rustling and could tell that women here were changing behind the curtains.

The next fifteen minutes were spent looking through weird articles of clothing and underwear in the same scope as what the owner wore. Ning Xin had a hard time figuring out the purpose of wearing…strips of cloth. They served no purpose but to cover the barest. The only normal dresses she was shown were the evening dresses for Nobles’ balls and social events.

Although the dresses left the back completely open for everyone to see, she knew this much was normal. Mallory already told her that showing a spotless back was the beauty standard in the Empire's high society. The Princess said that the standards had been passed down for a long time. Something about a woman’s back being the most attractive part of a woman.

Ning Xin shook her head at the Noble’s customs. Why would the women want to show themselves without underwear to show their undefended backs?

‘Do I need to think like Ebony to understand, no way, I don’t believe he understands women better than me. Let me think…ah, maybe a show of power. Like, I can show my back and you can’t do anything. Or to show off they’re so strong they didn’t receive any injuries. Make sense. See, I’m not completely stupid after all.’ Ning Xin zoned out for a moment.

“My apologies, I’m not interested in anything here.”

“Hehe, understood. All my new customers say that. I opened this store for young noble and rich merchant daughters who had bad experiences with relationships thanks to their inexperience.” The owner covered her mouth and giggled.

“What do you mean by inexperienced?” Ning Xin didn’t want to listen to her and leave the store but couldn’t help but ask now that she had the chance.

She held the urge to slap the owner when she giggled again. Something about the act or the person was very annoying.

“I suppose you’re not married or in a romantic relationship with a man?”

Perhaps annoyed by her tone, Ning Xin denied the accusations as if to spite the woman. “I am.” She wasn’t lying anyway.

“Ah, someone new in your life. A week?”

“Years.”

“Poor man.” She stepped back in visible shock.

Ning Xin didn’t know she was so easily annoyed, she didn’t know she could dislike someone without bad intentions so fast, so badly. Even now, she was sensing good intentions from the owner. Wasn’t she just insulting her as if she was a bad match for anyone?

Despite the fuel for her meditation skill, her feet didn’t pull her out of the store.

“You must watch out, men get bored easily. I can tell a person’s age range with a look, you’re very young.” She eyed her swords before looking up at her mask again, “I presume your partner’s a noble, one that’s about as young as you hence his possible ignorance but that won’t last. Come, I have the perfect thing for all girls like you. I can’t watch young ladies get hurt.”

The strong sense of goodwill spilling from the owner stunned her and allowed her to be pulled forward to a workshop. It wasn’t that different from Roya’s workshop, minus the type of clothing being made.

“Don’t reject me so fast, just take this book. I’m sure you don’t want your man to lose interest in you. You’re still good for some time if he’s as inexperienced as you, so now's a good time to start preparing and training. These are some basics for ignorant young nobles.”

The owner finally caught her attention in a good way. Training? Now she was interested. The part about Ebony losing interest in her hadn’t sounded real until the thought continued to stay in her head. ‘What if he really isn’t interested?’

Since Ebony always persuaded her to read more as knowledge was important, she figured she could hear the lady out.

“Here’s a tip before you begin these exercises, it might help if you have some physical contact with your partner beforehand. Oh right, some girls complained to me about something. Don’t forget to be somewhere completely private. Now off you go, I have customers to attend to. I’ll see you again if you trust me and follow the exercises.”

Before she knew it, Ning Xin was booted out of the shop by a hidden back door in the owner’s workshop.

‘That was one weird shopping trip.’ She tossed the book inside her bag and double-checked that she wasn’t kidnapped to some random location or underground cave.

More exhausted by the shopping trip than the dungeon race, she slumped on the sofa after unpacking. The laundry for her new stuff could wait. Taking out the book that she didn’t even glance at, she didn’t know what to expect.

The book appeared new, with an undecorated leather cover that lacked a title. It was as boring as the shop’s external design. She flipped it open to read the first page. Then, the pieces of the puzzle aligned. The owner was talking about her sexual experience. She shut the book, reminded of the talk with Mallory and her chef friends. Now she was worried, after all, the older ladies understood men better as married women and they all said the same thing.

‘Wasted half my day.’

Hoping to distract herself from the insecurities of Ebony choosing a different woman, she pulled up her status to check her growth. It was always a good distraction to see how much closer she was to being able to go to Fragadal’s Sea to search for more clues. Not that she believes she could find her parents if her grandmother couldn’t.