After finalising her quest and finally claiming her rewards, which turned out to be 74 gold coins, Seraphina had retrieved the [Toxic Forest Heart] from her body.
She had concluded that the missing [Poisonous Venomroots] had been absorbed by the [Toxic Forest Heart].
"Hiss..." Seraphina hissed from the residual pain she felt, even though she was quite used to physical pain and had already healed the wound, it had still hurt quite a bit.
More importantly than her physical pain was her guilt, she had never truly opposed her sister before. Even when they disagreed on some points, when night came, they would still cuddle together in the same bed.
Yet, here she was, lying to and scheming against her sister!
'It is for her own good...' Seraphina told herself, trying to ease the unpleasant feelings in her heart.
After carefully preserving the [Toxic Forest Heart] and retrieving the money from her quest, Seraphina had no more pressing matters to attend to.
Just when she planned to return to the church, the necklace she had hidden inside her inner clothes resonated from her sudden movement.
It made her recall that today was actually her 13th birthday, and that earlier, she had passed by a new bakery in town!
Seraphina quickly calculated that she could probably allocate 4 gold coins to herself, and that the 70 remaining gold coins should be enough to last 'them' for quite a while.
If it was not enough, she could always do another commission—though they would not have as generous of a reward.
With that, Seraphina departed from the Adventurer's Hall in direction of that new bakery in town.
...
"Arthur! Is it you? What are you doing here?" asked Seraphina from afar, when she spotted a familiar dark blue figure next to her destination.
The dark blue haired figure seemed to realise she was talking about him, as he turned to face where the voice had come from.
And indeed, before the bakery was the one who Seraphina called 'Arthur'.
Arthur was a young boy—one at the same age as Seraphina. He had dirty dark blue hair and a slightly tanned skin. He was one head taller than Seraphina but his body looked frail and weak, like someone who had not eaten for quite a while now.
He was wearing a loose-fitting brown linen shirt covered with multiple patches, alongside this was a gray and generously cut woolen trousers.
When Seraphina spotted him, Arthur was near the bakery's oven venting pipe.
The distance between the two was not very great, so Seraphina quickly reached Arthur's position.
"Arthur, what are you doing here so early?" asked Seraphina, a bit concerned.
The sun had only recently broken dawn and the air still carried the morning's cold. Arthur was not very covered, and he was just a simple child—one with the level a child his age should have.
Zero Star.
He did not have any resistance to cold so why would he be standing outside?
Standing next to Arthur, Seraphina too was near the bakery's oven venting pipe.
The oven's venting pipe was expelling warm and gentle air, this air also carried the alluring scent of freshly baked bread and pastries, Seraphina felt all of it.
The dark-blue haired boy in front of her shivered from the ambiant cold and pressed himself closer to the venting pipe, before mumbling :
"I... Uh... Umm... I..was— " Arthur fumbled over his words, trying to form a sentence that made sense. However, he was interrupted before he could go further—
*Gurgle!*
After Arthur's stomach growled, an awkward and deaf silence spread over their conversation before being broken by—
*GURGLE!!*
By Arthur's stomach second and even louder growl!
"Are you, perhaps, hungry, Arthur?" Seraphina gently asked him as she started removing her wite priestess robe.
"Yeah..." Arthur shyly answered her, with a blush that crept up his face. The coldness he felt was gone instantly, replaced by an intense heat of embarrassment.
"Come inside, I will buy you whatever you want." Seraphina told him as she handed Arthur her white priestess robe to wear.
Beneath that white priestess robe, Seraphina was 'surprisingly' wearing... a simple white shirt.
"Seraphina... You can keep it."
"Uh? Why?"
"I don't need it anymore... a—and it's girl's clothes..."
"What's wrong with girl's clothes?"
...
When they entered the brand new bakery—whose name was [Bleuet Bakery] , Arthur who was wearing Seraphina's robe (he was forced to), looked around with hunger in his eyes.
Seraphina tapped him on the shoulder, reminding him that he could choose whatever he wanted.
"Um, then I want this, no this, this and that and this, and this, and this, and that...." Arthur kept going on, pointing to different bread—mostly baguettes, cakes, desserts and everything findable in a bakery like he was going to feed an entire army. "I don't know what its name is but I want it too." he said pointing at what was marked as [Bleuet Bakery]'s specialty, a round confection that came in all sorts of colors, mostly pastel ones.
It was as small as an eye and it was composed of two airy and round shells with slightly ruffled edges. Sandwiched between those two shells was a thin layer of different fillings, such as cream or fruit jam—there was no poison flavor unfortunately.
It looked very enticing even for Seraphina with her strange taste, so it was expected that Arthur would want it.
This treat's name was 'Macaron'.
After picking everything Arthur wanted, Seraphina quickly calculated how much she would have to pay for all of that.
The total came up to 11 gold coins! It was way above her allowed budget! Seraphina's face twitched like she was about to have a seizure.
'Sigh... It is fine, as long as my sister remembers my birthday I don't need to celebrate it.' thought Seraphina, feeling even more guilty now that she recalled how much her sister meant to her.
Seraphina would pay the 11 gold coins with the money she had secured for herself and some of the funds she had reserved for the people at the church.
Seraphina never backed down on her words, so no matter how saddened she was, she would still keep the promise she had made to Arthur!
"Arthur, after buying that, you should return to the church right away and make sure to share with the others, alright?"
Arthur had lost his parents a few years back and had been taken in by the Church, that was one of the very few points in common between him and Seraphina beside their age. He was also the only kid Seraphina knew of her age.
The two were of equal birth and yet, the difference between them could not have been bigger.
"Hmm, OK!" Arthur nodded.
After receiving his purchases, Arthur quickly departed towards the church of Alequessa, leaving Seraphina behind.
"Wait! Don't forget to bring back my robe!!!"