Fire Knight Katrina Ch. 08

The stocky innkeeper whistled out of surprise, but quickly shut up and went back to cooking his guests a humble meal.

"So that Blackheart scum decided they'll get more money by stealing from the citizens?" Katrina furrowed her brow, feeling the rage building up inside her.

"Sort of, but it gets even weirder," Beld replied with a smirk, "you see, after Sailor got his ten thousand, he claimed that the money were fool's gold. Basically, he accused the mayor and the council of tricking him and called this deal a fraud. He gave them a chance to make up for it by giving him ten more thousand the following day, promising to think about how much more to charge for this offense."

"They didn't agree, of course. Because Blackheart was obviously lying," the nude girl finished for the elf.

"Sure, they explained this as him wanting to get twice as much sunshine with this ridiculous complaint," Beld said with a condescending smirk as if feeling like he could've made this work if he was in Blackheart's shoes, "since then, Sailor promised to take revenge. A good excuse for his pals to keep plundering. I think that girl with pigtails was his daughter, by the way. A chip off the old block character-wise, except for the fact that she prefers knives over swords."

"So not only we have to deal with the mages and the internal issues, but there are also mercenaries that want to destroy Zardiw over their own greed? How great," Katrina said in a tired tone, she truly could've used some rest right now.

She learned a lot about Zardiw today, now it was time to quite literally sleep on all this new information to comprehend it. But only after dinner, as the innkeeper decided to feed the redhead and her companion for free. The soup he cooked was pretty much all water, but it was better than nothing after such a fight. Katrina and Beld decided to stay here for the night, given the rainfall and how dangerous the slums became after sunset. The owner didn't object at all, he was still thankful for the warrior saving his life today. And after Katrina explained who she was and why she was here, he became even friendlier. In fact, he was so friendly that when Katrina lied down on an improvised bed made out of hay, the innkeeper tried to cover her body with an old coat to keep her warm.

"No-no, wait..." The redhead said as she noticed this with her sleepy eyes.

Yet it was too late. As soon as the old coat touched the girl's naked body, it sparked and turned into ashes.

"Any clothes that I or anyone else will try to put on my body will get magically destroyed in a second. I developed this ability as part of my wielding," Katrina explained, "sorry for your coat. I tried to warn you."

"It's uh... Nothing, no worries," the innkeeper stepped aside with a chuckle.

"Wait, you developed an ability to burn all clothes that will cover you up?" Beld smirked from another side of the room, "girl, you're getting hotter and hotter each day I know you. Quite literally! But what was the reason for it?"

"So I couldn't walk back from this new lifestyle and wear clothes if I just happened to feel like it," Katrina smiled with confidence, "when I went from a regular girl to a stark naked firewielder, I had to commit. Fully. Otherwise, it wouldn't work at all, and both my magic and my perception of myself would both be much weaker because of that... Also, it'll help if someone tried dressing me up by force."

"I'm sorry," the innkeeper bowed, "I didn't know whether you were a naturist at first."

"It's okay, I don't think I'm a naturist myself, honestly," Katrina yawned, pleasantly calmed by this nudity discussion, "I deeply respect naturists for their ideology regarding nature, purity, and things like that. I just feel like there's a lot more to my reasoning to be naked... It's just who I am, and it feels awesome to be this way. Being nude simply for the sake of nudity itself, whom does this make me? I guess someone like... A nudist?"

"Sounds logical to me," Beld chuckled, enjoying the view of Katrina's uncovered backside.

"Yep. Quite simple, but I'll take it," the self-proclaimed nudist whispered and finally allowed herself to fall asleep.

As she was dozing off, a whirlwind of various thoughts rushed across her mind. All this new information about Zardiw and The Blackhearts, these strange clues they've gathered, and that bitter feeling of being unable to help the mage girl out have all intertwined and fluctuated in Katrina's head. However, all of them still led to a single, most important thought that was reinforced by everything the redhead saw in these horrible slums: she had to get rid of the mage craze, the sooner the better.