Georgia got off the bus at the station in East Hamlet, along with the two Rat Men.
The Rat Man is here to purchase fresh catch from Innsmouth, while Georgia is going to the mayor's office to take over the affairs, and make statistics and total the affairs of the town, and finally report to the real authority of the entire Hamlet Town. Sonja, the one in power, listens.
Melina and Mr. Mo took a car and parked at Hamlet Manor, where Mr. Mo wanted to cook for the two lazy dog banshees and make some desserts for Melina.
"Would you rather have dragon fruit and lemon pudding or smoothie? For smoothie..."
"Smoothie!" Melina said subconsciously, then blushed a little.
Mr. Mo laughed: "I knew you were leaning toward smoothies. For smoothies, I will ask my friend to go to Haiwen. He is a collector and can get the things back in the afternoon. As for the braised pork, I will prepare more Order some rice.”
…
In Hamlet Manor, Melina did not find Sonia. Instead, she saw Maria sitting on a spinning bicycle and pedaling wildly, keeping her upper body elegantly still. Next to him was a wind-up cat, Dumpling, about the height of a person. The cat was holding a newspaper on its paws and purring in its throat. Seeing Melina come back, Maria waved to her and pointed to the table.
The fluffy wind-up cat Dumpling rolled his eyes (Melina was sure she saw it), then walked to the alchemy room with very heavy steps, took a pot of coffee that was being refined in a funnel bottle, and placed it on the table. Then he suddenly meowed again, carefully adjusted the position and angle of the coffee saucer with the tips of his paws, and then swung his tail with satisfaction.
Melina looked at the cat and felt quite friendly, but when the cat looked over, she raised her chin and pretended not to care.
"Where's Senior Sonia?"
She walked to sit down next to Maria, took a sip of coffee, and sighed unexpectedly. taste good.
Maria, who observed her expression, also relaxed a little, and said with a small breath:
"Hmm... Sonia, she... ah... is checking two, ah, two mushroom fields in the pure white forest."
Lao Ma, Lao Ma.
Melina felt as if she and the other party were obviously together, but it was like they were communicating on the phone and you said you were in the gym, and her expression almost stopped.
Sister Maria's carefully taken care of long golden hair has been soaked with sweat, and it is messy and stuck to her face and healthy-skinned neck. Fine beads of sweat stick to her rosy cheeks, forming sweat. Dripping from the delicate chin. Her plump chest bounced with the movements, and her belly without any fat could be seen through the sweat-soaked training clothes.
Maria-senpai has abs and muscles.
Not the kind of muscles that are like fitness freaks, but more streamlined, more like muscles practicing yoga, softer, and the increase in muscle groups will not prevent her from completing some combat moves like in the past.
"Then it..."
"It's her." After finishing the exercise, Maria picked up a towel to wipe her sweat, and at the same time corrected Melina's statement, "This is the cat Gnaros, a clockwork cat who specializes in the old woman's code, and what we call mastery. Types of clockwork cats, compared with ordinary clockwork cats..."
"The cat is bigger!" Cat Genaros said in a proud low voice.
"Cats are bigger." Melina naturally placed her hands on the neck of the clockwork cat (does it really have a neck?), and the soft fur made people feel comfortable unconsciously.
Maria put her hands on her hips and quickly caught her breath. This kind of reaction makes people wonder if her system has a lottery prize like "energy drink", which contains five tons of energy recovery medicines. She soon smiled:
"It can be seen that you both like each other very much, which is..."
Maria paused. Because just after she finished saying this, Melina had already retracted her hand as fast as lightning and put her hands on the table. He looked away and studied the coffee still in the alchemy room. Gnaros the cat looked at the ceiling, his paws on his furry belly.
There was a second between the person and the cat, and they secretly looked at each other. Then they noticed that Maria was looking here, and they turned away together.
Maria licked her lower lip, shook her head slowly, and clicked her tongue.
"...Anyway, Catgnaros will stay here to look after the house while So... we are gone, or stay to take care of some things. She will also be responsible for our food bank, the manor, the underground excavation team, and She is responsible for material processing, etc. At the same time, she also occasionally purchases limited-time otherworld products, such as comic books and so on..."
"Hey!" Melina said in surprise, and the next second she covered her mouth with both hands, maintaining her cold persona.
Maria paused again and clicked her tongue again.
"Cat Gnaros doesn't care whether we are time travellers, does he?"
Is it okay to say this to her? Melina looked at Cat Genaros.
This chubby wind-up cat raised its neck proudly (does it really have a neck?), "Meow, even a cat like me can become so fat, speak human language, and read Magical Economics well. With sociology, this is the most miraculous thing in the world. As for time travellers? Meow, it’s not that I look down on them, it’s nothing!”
Melina stared at her, then looked at Maria:
"You never walk alone, right?"
"Meow! We're in the top 16!"
Melina was sure that Maria had a pained expression for a moment.
…
Sonia hadn't come back yet when dinner started at noon.
This made Melina, who was waiting for her, a little unhappy. She spent some time in the alchemy room to recharge her sigil. It's really cool to throw out a lot of magic in one go, but the consumption is really scary. The cost of supplementation, calculated based on the current market price, is approximately:
[Appease the Beast], cheap, 6 copper lei.
[Soil that breeds, mortals that love], not bad, 8 copper lei.
[I love like blood], this one is cheap, 2 copper lei.
After calculating the bargain, Melina's face began to show a bitter melon expression. However, after noticing the cat's tail swaying past the door of the alchemy room, Melina was immediately filled with idol baggage, with a sullen face. But his hands were trembling slightly as he calculated:
[Too stupid and too young], the love I gave her was too young, and I was too stupid when I was young. How could I know that the price of that love was 15 gold lei.
[Morning Star's Radiant Alchemy], isn't it a great level six spell to use? 50 gold lei a time, which is insignificant compared to several human lives. For Melina, it is a knife that makes things worse.
A total of 65 gold, 1 silver and 6 bronze lei.
Thump thump thump.
Melina took two steps back as if she was hit hard.
Maria walked in and saw this scene. She tilted her head like a golden retriever and licked her upper lip:
"What's wrong with you?"
"...I met a glorious species on the road."
"Huh? Didn't you say it several times? I can recite it all by heart." Maria knew Melina's request for credit by heart, "Why did you kill the radiant swamp dragon with your own strength? What if this guy wasn't cunning, he would have given up." It came and went, and it was all because Mo was driving like a Goba."
Melina is usually the loudest when taking credit.
She once tried to remain aloof when asking for credit, but when she found out that her teammates had openly taken away the credit for starting a group, she immediately said, "You said Gouba, I started the group, but you followed well." Credit needs to be shouted out!
Melina kept her calm but desperate expression:
"I used some magic."
"Yeah." Maria yawned, walked to the alchemy table next to her, and opened her geology notebook.
"The consumption is now being calculated."
"Yeah." Maria took out the geological samples and the local folkware from the visit, a heavy stone bowl decorated with feather stone carvings.
"I want 65 gold, 1 silver and 6 copper lei."
Boom.
The stone bowl in Maria's hand fell on the table.
"How many?"
Melina said again.
"Amei, Amei, you burned more than sixty gold leus in one go. I feel like this is a huge loss."
"..." Melina stared at her, biting her lip.
"Let's do this." Maria said, "You spent so much money while protecting Georgia and the others. Let me see if I can help you fill out the reimbursement form."
"Reimbursement form?"
Even if Melina conducted a detailed search in her mind, she could not find any information related to reimbursement.
Could it be that Maria made it up?
She looked at Maria suspiciously.
"The reimbursement system is a tacit agreement between the guild and the royal government. If an explorer takes action because the local manager is attacked after completing the mission, the materials consumed will be able to apply for reimbursement through the Adventurer's Guild."
"After the guild has completed its reimbursement, a general accounting will be made to the local kingdom on the first day of each quarter, and the kingdom will conduct remittance settlement on the last day of the quarter."
"This is the whole system, designed to mobilize explorers' conservation enthusiasm for local managers."
Melina understood, then she showed a happy expression and picked up her calculation sheet:
"How to apply, how to fill it out, do you have a system to write a formula?"
Maria's big wet eyes had a mischievous look similar to Sonia's, and she said mysteriously:
"You'll know in a minute."
…
There was a tent set up in the garden of the manor.
Maria led the way and opened the tent. The space inside was slightly expanded. From the outside, it looked like a normal single-person camping tent, but inside it was almost six square meters. It was a study room that felt round. The floor was covered with a thick warm fur blanket, and the blanket walls were covered with various scrolls and card collections.
In the thick fur nest in the center, there is the cat Genaros.
The cat was reading a novel. When he saw them coming in, he meowed in confusion:
"Meow, it's time to get off work, meow."
Melina guessed that this was a euphemism for 'don't call the cat if something happens'.
Maria slapped a silver lei on the belly of the fat cat:
"For overtime work, a reimbursement document will be sent to the Adventurer's Guild in Haven as a rush."
The clockwork behind the clockwork cat twisted rapidly. She shook her head, grinned, and let out a low, strange smile:
"I want two."
Maria glanced at Melina, and Meimei reluctantly took out the silver lei from her pocket and handed it over.
…
"This cat not only serves as a housekeeper, you can call her if you need any paperwork..."
While Maria was talking, she heard the sound of the gate fence and shouted happily: "It seems that Suosuo is back!"
How intimate... Melina thought.
Maria glanced at the sky:
"It's only noon and the temperature has dropped? Interesting."
