A World Full Of Yanderes

Chapter 16: The Town of Hull

After realizing that none of us had any money, I decided to speak up on our group’s behalf.

“Sir, is there by any chance, a way to enter the town without using any money, and also perhaps a way to gain a free stay at the inn for a night?”

For some reason, every single inn I went to had a female receptionist who would tell me I could stay the night for free. It was a true blessing for so many people to be so kind, but it only makes sense to run into someone who will force us to pay some sort of fee for entry.

“Hmmmm, a few younguns like you? Give me a sec to go ask somebody something.” the man said with a thick Texas accent. We then watched him slowly waltz down some stairs attached to the wall.

After waiting for over 25 minutes, he finally came back to clear all of our boredom, and this time he had brought a companion. She was an elegant-looking lady, not the type of person you would expect to meet in a small town like this.

Nevertheless, she was still there in front of us. She walked up to the edge of the wall and took a long look at us. Her eyes almost devouring me, all the people in this world have the most horrifying of glares, there all so intense.

“Alright kids, here’s the deal, you work at my bar on the first floor of my inn tonight, and I will not only pay for your toll but give you free lodging, however, you have to work here for the rest of tomorrow too. Two days of working should be worth roughly the same amount of coppers as the toll and lodgings for a night. What do you say?”

She spoke in a much more professional tone than the tower guard, when I looked at our options, I realized a flaw in the agreement.

“Madam, we would love to take this job, however, if we work all day tomorrow as well with no lodgings, then wouldn’t we be in the exact same situation we are in right now, close to night time with nowhere else to go?”

“That would be correct, very well, I will let you stay the second night, however, only if I approve of your work ethic, this ensures me a good work ethic in my waiters, and it will ensure you the second night of lodgings for free, that is, as long as you put in the work. Don’t worry, my standards aren’t too high”

Though it sounded good to me, I had to check in with my companions before working with this beauty. “What do you guys want to do?” I asked after turning around and entering a small huddle with them.

“I think it doesn’t sound that bad, we work for a bit and get free lodgings, and were not in too much of a rush to get to the academy, once we arrive we should still have several days until the first day of school.” Seth proposed his opinion first, he was in agreement. I looked toward Sophia and saw her nodding her head as well. Looks like we have come to a decision.

“Alright Madam, please take care of us over the next two days” I agreed politely. this lead to a small smile growing on her face as she replied, “don’t worry, I will take very good care of you”.

I amicably smiled back and after paying the toll, we entered the town.

It was quite a large town, however, the more populated part of the town where everyone seemed to congregate was small, there was one main street with a few branching side streets, all these streets were covered with shops.

Besides these shops in the center of Hull. The town of Hull was primarily made up of houses all along the outskirts of the town, we entered through the main gate which was directly attached to the center road, a road containing all sorts of businesses.

From blacksmiths to potion shops, restaurants, and bars, there was even a clothing store. At the very end of the street was the inn owned by the lady. As we walked through the town, admiring the small bustle and copious amounts of street vendors, we were extremely silent.

For Seth and Sophia, it was their first time in a semi-busy location, and for me, it was the first time I had been in such a typical medieval scenario. Though Adrianna had brought me along the streets of the capital to explore once or twice, we would often have a large parade of people following us, this ruined a large part of the atmosphere, and though it was an amazing thing to witness, it wasn’t the same as this typical medieval town that we were in right now.

The lady however broke this silence with her introduction.

“Well then, here is my inn, you may call me Ms. Helen. Now, you will be working as waiters tonight, but in the meantime, before the night arrives, you will begin to clean, there are supplies in the stables out back for the horses to stay. Get to work”

After leaving us to begin, Ms. Helen began to walk away, I may have stared at her bountiful behind a moment too long as Sophia nudged me angrily, but can you blame me, that thing was just swaying, this isn’t even hormones, just me admiring the beauty of nature.

We headed to the shed, and once finding two brooms, as well as a bucket and dirty cloth inside with water, we began to clean the place. It was quite disgusting, to be honest. Seth even had to scrub out some dried up puke from the floor. After Sophia’s strong disapproval of me scrubbing instead of sweeping with her. Seth was stuck with the bucket of month old water and the dirty rag, I seriously thought that using this water could only make the place more disgusting.

To be honest, though, I was quite amazed at our progress. We had turned a “dirty old bar”, into just an “old bar”. Though not the greatest of improvements, a good scrubbing really made a difference, there was at least no visible puke anywhere in the bar. If I had learned anything, the standard cleanliness in this world was absolutely disgusting.

Following our complete makeover of the bar, guests began to show up, so we used the last bit of effort we had from scrubbing for the last 4-5 hours and put a smile on our faces.

Being a waiter was extremely difficult, but with 3 of us, and the only thing to remember being the number of cups full of ale we had to bring to each table, it wasn’t terrible. Of course, there was a time where I dropped a few cups after trying to carry one too many, I ended up having to clean up the mess, but the night continued with little fuss, and Ms. Helen forgave me for wasting some ale.

After a hard night of work, it was already fairly dark, we decided to head to bed, at first I thought that the boy’s and girl would be separated, but instead, we were only given one room, it had three beds, but it was still a bit awkward, I guess Sophias still only a 12-year-old, so it’s not too weird for me. Plus we’re the same age, it’s just like a sleepover. But my mental age made it more awkward than it had to be.

It did however get extremely weird when Sophia began to enter the bed I had already occupied, but after reminding her I was sleeping here, she just looked disappointed and went to the bed nearest to me, acting as if she had never noticed I was in that bed all along, choosing the bed beside me made her in the middle and Seth on the other side of the room from me. So sadly I and Seth couldn’t spend the night talking about the beautiful Ms. Helen, and her grown-up women parts.

Sophia is definitely a strange girl now that I know her better, she rarely talks and just seems to stare at me all the time. Though the thought that she was like Nura continued to creep in my head, I still told myself that she was just a normal friend, possibly out of desperation for friendship, or fear of having a huge mess on my hands, maybe a bit of both.

After we blew out the candles, the entire room became pitch black, and following the darkness, I succumbed to sleep within seconds…

I slowly regained consciousness. peeling my eyes open to begin a new day, but then I realized it was still the middle of the night, looking out the window of the room, I saw the moon had moved a good amount, so it had been at least a few hours.

I suddenly heard the sound of footsteps passing by my door in the hall, since I knew it couldn’t be any of the guests as no one else was staying in a room tonight, I assumed it was Ms. Helen.

But I wondered what she was doing awake at this hour, it couldn’t have been the bathroom, as for part of my work, she had asked/forced us to clean her room. And when we were cleaning it, I had found out she had her own private bathroom.

My curiosity was peaked so I walked closer to the door to hear something. After hearing a few more footsteps walking down the old wooden stairs, creating sounds comparable to a symphony of mouse squeaks due to the noisiness of each step, I heard the person walk across the floorboards of the bar, and stop roughly by the bottom of the stairs.

That was where a small door was located, it was supposedly there to keep extra alcohol, but why would Ms. Helen head there at this time, even if it was for an extremely desperate late-night drink, there was plenty of drinks and alcohol at the bar.

I knew it was a terrible idea, but with my curiosity ignited, there was no way to dowse it without finding out what Ms. Helen was getting.

I as quietly as possible, opened the door by a small crack, squeezing through it and making my way across the hall. Each step seemed to take several minutes as I quietly worked my way through the inn. One step, two steps, three steps.

I travelled down the hall without making a peep, then once I had arrived at the infamously deafening stairs, I took slow steps, making sure to skip over 3 steps at a time while standing as close as possible to the inside of each step. I knew that the edge of each step was exactly what would make the loudest sound.

After a still painfully loud descent, despite all of my best efforts, I peaked around hoping to find Ms. Helen, however, she seemed to have disappeared entirely. After walking around for a bit, checking the kitchen, and even the tables outside.

I made my way to the small closet-like door under the stairs, it distinctly reminded me of the room of a certain wizard from one of my preferred books growing up as a kid, though this fantasy world is great, and I’m sure I’ll love the others to come, I really do miss earth sometimes, but now isn’t the time to think of that, I can reminisce later.

After reaching the small closet for storing extra alcohol, I tried to open the door, only to find out it was locked. This may be a problem for the average person, but with my wind magic, it was nothing. I began to manipulate my magic so that the locking mechanism would undo itself.

I knew this was a terrible idea, but I just had to know what was inside here. If anything goes wrong I will just take full responsibility and pay Ms. Helen back in full, though I hope she won’t get mad.

After tinkering with my wind magic for a few minutes, I finally popped the lock open and slowly opened the door, anticipation filled my eyes, as I prepared myself for some grand secret.

Unsurprisingly after seeing what lay inside the closet, only disappointment filled me. It was a small room full of crates that seemed to contain an endless supply of alcohol.

However something did pick up my attention, though the entire room was covered in dust, there was one place on the floor directly next to the closest box that seemed to have no dust. It was a small box-shaped area clear of dust, just as if something had been placed there or moved, and that something cleared away all the dust, also it seemed that the object which had moved or cleaned up the dust was a similar size or shape to the box right in front of me.

My lost anticipation instantly returned, and I slowly took the box in front of me and pulled it to the side. Once it was out of the way I simply stood there, crouched in the small room full of shock. Below me was a small hole with a ladder leading down into unknown depths.

Though I should have seen something like this coming, it was still surprising to find it in Ms. Helen’s bar. And though I knew it was the worst idea I have had in an incredibly long time, I was dying to know where the ladder leads.

After processing the positives and negatives as I had a habit to do. I threw caution to the wind and began my descent into the secret trapdoor.