Enchanting Embers: Dance with the Divine

Chapter 10: Transaction

The two dark elves seemed like twins, with their jet-black hair, pale bluish skin, silver-edged coats adorned with exquisite embroidery. The speaker had an open demeanor, revealing a well-defined chest.

Only then could Aurora confirm he was male.

With the gentle gaze fixed on her, the young girl gathered her courage. "Mister, sorry, I did want to disturb you for a moment."

The dark elf had a beautiful face, seemingly habitual in wearing a smile. His tone and voice were warm, making him seem quite approachable. "If you want to buy this sapphire, you can have it for five coins less than the marked price... considering it's been here for two years."

The other dark elf chuckled, wearing a silver headband, with her dark curly hair tied up high in a ponytail. "That's because you, Lorien, carved random words on it. Humans might appreciate it, but the bloodsuckers might not."

Aurora began to understand. "Your main customers are vampires, sir?"

"Not entirely," the male dark elf lowered his head slightly, his melancholic yet charming look. He had loose strands of hair, a thick braid hanging down to his waist adorned with serpent-shaped silver clasps, with a verdant emerald dangling at the end. "That's my sister Lysa. She has a habit of interrupting."

Lysa rolled her eyes and continued talking to the shopkeeper.

"Oh," Aurora looked at him a bit confusedly, "I wanted to ask you, sir, are you proficient in spatial magic? Or do you have spatial magical artifacts?"

Lorien glanced at her in surprise, running his fingers over a secret silver ring. "I'm not proficient in any type of magic, at least not by my standards."

So, it was a spatial ring.

Spatial magic wasn't an elemental type. There were very few magicians who could wield such power, and even fewer who could create jewelry that compressed and folded space.

Even at the Tower Empire's capital auction, the space equipment available had very limited weight and volume capacity. Most were bought by nobles to store secret letters or family heirlooms. It was challenging to fit even a box, let alone several books.

Despite this, such rings could cost thousands of coins and were often in high demand. Aurora had never imagined talking to someone wearing such an expensive magical item.

"Your ring can hold this entire cabinet!"

"Yeah," the dark elf's smile became a bit more pronounced. "It can hold ten cabinets, miss."

Aurora was not stingy in expressing her surprise and admiration. "Is your ring bought? With your wealth, are you selling things everywhere?"

"Not really," Lysa finished talking to the shopkeeper and walked over. "We have crafting techniques in our clan. If you want to say we can sell to the Tower Empire's humans for profit, we did that thirty years ago—resulting in a marquis setting a trap. Two level-five mages, two assassins, and a squad of swordsmen tried to kill us."

Aurora gasped, "Thankfully, you're alright."

"More or less. We rested for a few months before fully recovering," Lorien leaned on the counter, reminiscing about the b****y battle. "Lysa was terrified, crying like a nonstop baby."

"That's because you looked like you were dying," Lysa sneered. "The mage's thunder blade pierced your heart, and you stood there like a fool."

Lorien sighed, "Because an assassin used shadow magic to immobilize me. How forgetful are you that I have to explain this time and again?"

"And you have to mention every time that I cried! As if it's such a laughable thing!"

"...because your reaction is always so entertaining, quite visibly, isn't it?"

They looked at each other without yielding, seeming like they were about to fight.

"Wait," Aurora snapped out of it, interrupting their argument, "I wanted to ask you, if I want to buy a spatial ring, uh, there aren't any nobles here..."

The two dark elves glanced at each other, then burst into laughter simultaneously. Lysa snapped her fingers, "Even if you set up another squad to ambush us, just like thirty years ago, we won't suffer as miserably."

"Don't worry, that incident just made us drop the idea of doing business with the Imperial nobility," Lorien smiled reassuringly. "I don't want to cheat your money, young girl, but making a spatial ring is complex. Even the cost would be around six hundred coins, and I can't sell it to you at cost price."

Aurora was silent for a moment, and the dark elves patiently waited for her response. After a while, she bit her lip and asked softly, "Can I exchange materials from a seventh-tier magical beast with you?"

"What is it?"

"...Thunderhorn Antelope." Aurora thought for a moment and added, "I have antlers."

The two dark elves looked at each other again, assuming it might be something like crystal core shards. "Is it a horn? How intact is it?"

Aurora looked at them somewhat puzzled, "It's a complete set. I swear it's almost scratchless, at most, it may have had a little blood on it, but I cleaned it."

"Are you saying it's undamaged? Is the magical beast fully grown?"

Aurora gestured with her hand, indicating the size of the creature's body, "Pretty much?"

The dark elves' expressions suddenly became very intriguing. "Did you participate in that hunt?"

"No."

"We had a brother who had a talent for thunder magic, so our clan decided to fight a young Thunderhorn Antelope. Due to a mistake, we attracted its parents, and the result was he didn't need it anymore because he died, along with our father."

"..."

The tone of the other person was too casual, leading her to not anticipate this outcome. The young girl fell silent for a moment. "I'm sorry."

"Oh, no need to apologize. Our relationship isn't that good anyway," Lysa waved her hand. "We're just curious, miss. The magic of the Thunderhorn Antelope gathers on its horns. When we hunted it, everyone was desperately attacking its horns. If one was broken, the magical impact would weaken by at least a third. So, a successful hunt usually means both horns are broken, sometimes even shattered."

Aurora completely understood the meaning. Apparently, some demon used an unconventional hunting method, resulting in this strange situation. "I didn't take part in the hunt. More accurately, they were given to me by someone else."

Generally, the possibility of a child hunting a high-tier magical beast alone is extremely low. However, in the Eastern Continent filled with a diverse mix of people, encountering anything wasn't surprising.

The dark elves were several hundred years old; they had seen all sorts of extraordinary things. Aurora's words led them to simultaneously consider another possibility. They stared at her stiffly, "So, were these given to you as a courtship gift?"

Aurora hadn't caught on. "What?"

Lysa calmly added, "If they were given to you as a love offering, we cannot accept them."

"..."

What on earth, a courtship gift? Moreover, those were just remnants of ingredients—well, at least to the hunter herself.

"No, I swear, it's not. I'm still single."

The dark elves exchanged a few words in their demon language, seemingly reaching some agreement. They nodded, "So, a storage space of ten feet in length, width, and height. Do you want to sign a magical contract—ring or necklace?"

Aurora was close to crying tears of joy. Such dimensions were almost equivalent to a small storeroom, which was incredibly worthwhile for her. "A ring will do, thank you."

"No need to thank us," Lysa shrugged. "This deal has been quite profitable for us... completely intact antlers, unheard of. See you next time at the tavern; bring the goods for the exchange."

They had participated in numerous hunts for seventh-tier magical beasts, but usually with at least an elite team of warriors, some of whom were even high-tier beast riders themselves. Without such individuals, hunting members would expand to hundreds, with many prepared for severe injuries or even sacrifice. In the end, the beast's body would be beyond recognition, even the crystal cores reduced to fragments, let alone those parts that could harness magic.

The Eastern Continent was smaller in size compared to the Western Continent, yet the number of magical beasts multiplied. In such circumstances, the Dark Races' armies, in the absence of the Church's intervention, spent most of their time hunting these creatures.

Apart from various cavalry patrols and those stationed on guard duty, many soldiers fought in groups in mountain ranges and forests against magical beasts. Especially in areas prone to frequent beast tides, hunting objectives varied. Besides killing magical beasts, it included taming them or snatching their young for training, depending on the situation.

Hence, people in human villages in the Eastern Continent seldom despised the Dark Races. Many even married them, with one of the reasons being that if it weren't for the Dark God's army holding back the beast tides, periodically eradicating the creatures' nests, with their reproduction rate, human towns would soon be razed to the ground.

When Aurora left, the twins were still muttering to each other in their demon language. She vaguely heard some talk about ring crafting, what to do with the horns, and how profitable the deal was.

That night, she dreamed of that silver-white forest again.

Mercury-like starlight spilled over, flowing among layers of flowers. Long branches reached toward the sky, and from deep within the forest, distant flute tunes and vibrating harp sounds echoed.

As she reached out, her fingertips touched soft petals, sensing a faint, delicate fragrance, like sweet milk and egg pancakes. Then, the entire ground shook violently.

"..."

Aurora, feeling disoriented, opened her eyes and saw a pitch-black figure jumping onto her bed.

She immediately shut her eyes.

This must be a nightmare.

The next moment, that individual lifted the blanket covering her face.

"Oh, Maker," Aurora groaned loudly. Bright light poured in suddenly. She didn't want to open her eyes, grumbling as she turned over, trying to use a pillow to cover her face. "I bought a lot of food yesterday. Can you not disturb my sleep—"

Wait.

Aurora fully woke up.

Rubbing her eyes, she looked somewhat horrified at a certain little demon she hadn't seen for many days. "You didn't eat all the desserts I bought, did you?"

Ian tilted his head, his golden eyes shining remarkably in the dim room. He was still chewing on the last piece of pancake. "What?"

"You don't even know what 'bought' means. I gave them copper coins, and they gave me food," Aurora sighed heavily, her gaze reluctantly shifting from the empty basket. "Okay, don't tell me the answer. I don't want to know. Listen, what you did was wrong—"

The other party clearly didn't want to hear her lecture. He reached out, grabbing the young girl's smooth shoulder and pulled her off the bed. "I'm hungry. Cook."

His claws!

The imagined excruciating pain didn't come. Aurora glanced at her unharmed skin, relieved that this guy had controlled his strength, and let out a breath.

"You don't need to emphasize that you've learned this word."

Aurora looked at him wearily, smoothing out her wrinkled nightdress. To be honest, she felt she'd never appeared so disheveled in front of a stranger. After all, Vivi would surely knock and wait for her to change.

The girl casually combed her messy hair and instinctively tugged at the hem of her dress. At the age of twelve or thirteen, her body was like a budding branch in spring. The dress she'd tailored last year now barely covered half her thighs. She didn't think of anything else, only that her appearance was too shabby.

She was even barefoot, looking pitifully at the edge of the bed, with a mist rising in her frost-blue eyes, like a golden retriever puppy awakened by noise.

If Vivi were here, she'd definitely send her back to sleep.

However, demons probably didn't have such a thing as a conscience.

"I want to sleep—ahhh, let go of me!"

Whatever she said, she couldn't change the other's actions. Aurora stumbled all the way, being dragged to the hall, almost tripping on the way.

The young girl felt quite displeased. She was about to throw a tantrum when she suddenly froze.

The door was wide open, and the cool morning breeze whirled into the room. What was most horrifying was a huge lizard head poking in at the doorway, with a long, forked tongue, glaring at her with fiery red eyes, slit-pupils, staring unblinkingly.

Aurora: "………………"