Koyuki, the Necromancing Foxkin

CHAPTER 296: Convention, Day 1, Part 2

The conference did not close during lunch. Of course, every person running a stall was free to close up and take a break. In our case we had brought snacks and I retreated into the back of the tent. Kaito took over the front for now and answered some necromancy questions.

I collapsed on the pile of cushions we had on the floor. "This is exhausting…" I mumbled.

"Here, have a drink." Helena offered me a bottle of beer. It looked like she had cooled it with her ice magic.

"I did not know that we brought beer." I replied, eyeing the tempting bottle.

"They sell it at the convention. While you were busy I actually walked around a bit. Did you know that there is a small food section at the end of the hall?" Helena replied.

"Weird." I said, while accepting the bottle.

"Apparently it's good business." Helena replied.

"I have some bread, cheese and cured meats." Hatsumi brought us a platter of food.

"Thanks!" I replied. "I hope this isn't too troublesome for you. It feels like half of the people here want to touch your runes."

Hatsumi smiled. "Do not worry, I can handle them."

I started eating some food when I saw Yoru staring at me.

"Those are my snacks." I told the glutton.

He changed his stance and looked ready to pounce. I protectively raised a hand in front of the plate. Although, something seemed off. The cats were shameless gluttons but pouncing on our food would be new.

Yoru did pounce, but his target was not the food. He flew straight past me into the cushions.

"Huh." I watched the cat dig under the pile and heard a crunching sound. I lifted the top cushion, only to see a rat skeleton inside Yoru's mouth.

"Someone is trying to spy on us." Helena stated.

"They sent an undead rat against four undead cats. What did they expect?" I wondered.

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The other cats sat at the counter and looked back as Yoru devoured his prize. Ivy came back to investigate while Nyx and Kasai tried to get more treats from Skadi.

"Good job, Yoru!" Helena praised him.

He nodded and kept chewing the skeleton. A piece fell out of his mouth and Ivy quickly stole it.

"Yes. I wonder if they will try with other undead?" I mused.

"Or other magic." Helena added.

I went back to my food while contemplating what else they could try. Cassie joined us and flopped down on the cushions. "Why did I agree to sell potions?"

"Because you want the money and your girlfriend is the daughter of merchants." I replied.

"She does not even let me poison rude customers." Cassie complained.

"Poisoning customers is a bad business model." Helena pointed out.

Skadi joined us shortly afterwards and sat down next to Cassie. Then she patted her girlfriend on the back. "Think about all the explosions you can finance with this. And the afternoon will be less busy, there will be a presentation drawing away some of the crowd."

"Oh, I had forgotten about that!" I said. My presentation would be tomorrow but of course I was not the only one presenting some findings. My ears perked up. "What is it about?"

"Mushrooms." Skadi replied.

I blinked. "What?"

"Mushrooms. Apparently someone has experimented with combining mushrooms and undead. It's a magical sort of mushroom growing on the dead. From what I have gathered it can enhance them but comes with some risks." Skadi explained.

"I am not going there." I stated.

"You don't want to learn more about undead enhancements?" Helena asked.

"Mushrooms! They are evil!" I replied, shuddering. "I would never let something like that close to my undead."

"You should not let any living close to them either." Hatsumi added, while serving drinks to Cassie and Skadi. "From what I have gathered the spores infest living creatures and then kill them. I think they want to use the infested undead as a weapon, or something."

"So, what are the other stalls like?" I asked, changing the topic. "I haven't been able to look around yet."

"I think only Helena was able to look around so far." Hatsumi replied.

"Well, my knowledge about necromancy is limited." Helena said. "But I did see a few people offering services. You can rent a crew of undead for a day, like to have backup when hunting. They did not look too impressive though. I also saw some offering private tutoring, or advanced spells."

"Advanced spells?" I wondered.

"Someone is selling their own spellbook. Not that uncommon for a mage." Helena replied.

"They might even try to get the academy interested in using it for their lectures." Skadi added.

"Have you seen any interesting undead?" I asked.

Helena shook her head. "Mostly skeletons and zombies. Nothing really exciting. At least as far as I can tell."

"I have heard rumors that Albert Reaper will attend. He might have some interesting undead with him." Hatsumi said.

"Who?" Cassie asked.

"He is a grand mage necromancer!" I replied, suddenly feeling excited. "Hopefully he will have some cool tier three undead with him!" Then something occurred to me. "He isn't the one with mushrooms, right?"

Hatsumi shook her head. "No. I do not think he has arrived yet, however I do not actually know what he looks like."

"I guess he will come to us. A vampire spellblade is a powerful draw." I mused.

We finished our lunch and I went back to the table, talking to more people. After the rat incident we made sure to always have one cat on patrol to keep spies out. The crowd thinned in the afternoon but there were plenty of interested people left. I decided I would try to check out the other stalls tomorrow, before holding my presentation.

When we closed up in the evening I was exhausted. Even worse, once we left some people tried to talk to us. I got five different dinner invitations, two offers to buy Hatsumi and a rich woman who wanted to buy an undead cat for her son.

I declined everything and we escaped back to the hotel, had some dinner and then I collapsed onto the bed. It had been a long day.