Five Little Sacrifices

Chapter 11

After walking a good while through the large city with its many interesting sights, they finally stopped in front of one of the shops. There were huge writing over the window that said: "Teina Talona: Locksmith."

"Looks like we finally found it", Laxus grunted.

"Were you doubting my skills of reading the map?" Freed chuckled.

"Nah. Well, we did have to walk for a while, so..."

"I see. But it is not my fault that we can't use a tram car. With that, it would have taken much shorter time to get here."

"Fine, fine", Laxus pouted. "Let's just go inside and get rid of those collars", he growled opening the door and the little bell over it let out a dingle.

They all stepped inside and looked around. So many locks. Like, there were hundreds and hundreds of them. All kinds made out of wood, iron, copper, silver, even gold. Freed could guess that somewhere there must be also locks made out of magic sealing stones and he would not be surprised at all if there were locks made out of platinum or covered with jewels or something like that.

All the locks came with different kinds of shapes. Some were big, some small, some tiny and some long. There were carvings, accessories, attachments, all kinds of stuff that had something to do with locks.

"The owner must really like locks", Evergreen huffed looking around. If only she could find a shopkeeper who was just as devoted for making fans...

Freed looked at the counter and he blinked. He was waiting to see the shopkeeper, but instead he saw a boy sitting behind the counter and looking at them curiously. He could not be at least much older than Felix.

"Hello there", he smiled stepping closer to the counter. "Do you know where the owner of this store is?"

The boy stayed silent, picking his nose and just looked at Freed. Someone might easily think he was just dumb and his shaggy dark blue hair didn't really give an impression of someone who would have even basic manners or education.

But when Freed looked at those strikingly light blue eyes, it was evident that this kid was not stupid. Manners were something completely different matter but stupid was not something what to use to describe this boy. But obviously he wanted them all to think so.

The boy just sniffed and closed his eyes, ignoring Freed and the others completely.

"Is this supposed to be customer service?" Ever huffed annoyed.

"I guess the owner is not present right now?" Freed asked from the boy. "Is it alright if we wait here?"

The boy shrugged, not saying anything. He just turned the chair around and Felix was confused. Why was he acting so cold?

So they decided to wait and just walked around, looking at all the goods that were present. There were also few chairs so they sat down once they had seen most of the stuff. After a little while the door opened again finally and the boy behind the desk turned his chair around.

"Oh my, what a traffic there was!" a woman with brown wavy hair sighed closing the door. She was holding few paper bags with ingredients and the boy stood up, helping to carry them. "Thank you so much, Chester! I know I told you that I would make you some pie today but all the berries were sold out already so I decided that maybe some pudding wouldn't be that bad? And as for the dinner as a thank you for taking care of the cleaning here in shop I was thinking maybe I should make some meatloaf? You liked it when I did it last time so it should be fine, right? Oh no, I think I forgot to buy eggs! Well, it's too late now I will go buy them tomorrow so I can start making the food right away."