The morning sun shone onto the balcony as Walter patiently waited at his table. If he were to glance over the balcony’s railing, he would see a bustling market below him while an open clearing that lead to the castle walls could be seen to his right. 

Of course, he wasn’t the only one at the balcony. There were also other wealthy nobles, merchants and even burghers who either conserved as they awaited their meals or conversed while eating it. Thankfully, the difference in distance between tables meant that their ceaseless talking wasn’t much of a distraction.

Despite the fact that he was in an open balcony, the rich smells of numerous different meals still found their way to his nostrils. But that was only to be expected. The building which the balcony was part of was known as a ‘Pleasure Palace’ which was essentially just an upper-class tavern.

But Walter wasn’t here to enjoy the scenery and he especially wasn’t here to listen to the incessant ramblings of the self-important merchants and noblemen. He was simply here for two reasons.

One is to meet with a specific someone.

And the other was so he could enjoy a delicacy that he didn’t think he would find again after his transmigration.

And soon enough, that delicacy came.

“Here is the coffee you ordered, my lord.”

“Splendid.”

With a smile on his face, he accepted the cup of coffee from the waitress who just arrived. Soon, she placed a small delicate saucer with a cup of coffee onto his table. A small, almost indistinguishable trail of smoke rose upwards from the pitch black coffee. As one would expect, a pleasant bitter aroma accompanied the coffee as it was placed in front of Walter.

Whether it was a gracious gift from the almighty or just a pure coincidence, he was grateful that coffee was available in this world. In fact, he almost couldn’t believe it when he discovered that ‘premium coffee’ was sold as a luxury at the ‘inner city’ of Belmud.

But the glorious ‘Paulus’s Pleasure Palace’ has proven all of his doubts to be wrong. It was indeed possible for him to once again enjoy coffee in his second life. The pleasure palace itself wasn’t that bad either. It was basically the nobility’s equivalent of a medieval commoner’s tavern and the modern man’s restaurant.

While it was a bit of a stretch, he could see some semblance of his experiences from modern gourmet fine dining in Paulus’s Pleasure Palace. The rich smells of gourmet meals cooked to perfection or well aged wine that only the wealthy could afford, all of it bore a resemblance to the modern environment that Walter was so acquainted with.

Not even the background noise was unfamiliar either. The sounds of pompous nobles and merchants conversing weren’t that much different from what Walter would overhear from the conversations of modern politicians and businessmen. Although the aesthetic of both a different era and a different world did bring its own flavours and changes into the mix.

But at the very least, the bitter aroma of hot coffee was still quite appealing for Walter’s nose. Even in another world, the smell of coffee would always be accompanied with a calm and refreshing atmosphere. It even gave him a nostalgic sense of his original life.

Yet what was good coffee without–

“And here’s your sugar, my lord. I believe that you asked for eight sugar cubes?”

Walter only smiled and nodded in response to her question who in turn, then placed eight separate sugar cubes into the coffee. After all sugar cubes were in the cup, the waitress then took out a single silver spoon and gently stirred the coffee.

Soon enough, the sweet scent of the sugar mixed with the bitter aroma of the black coffee, creating a truly unique smell. They were many in Walter’s original world that called his peculiar taste in coffee strange and eccentric. Perhaps they are right.

But this was exactly how he liked his coffee.

Bittersweet.

“Will that be all, my lord?”

Like before, Walter only silently nodded to answer her question, prompting her to return the nod with a smile before moving on to serve another table.

Once she was gone, he sipped his coffee as he turned his gaze to stare out onto the bustling market. Down below were all manner of people. Peasants, burghers, merchants, adventurers, and minor nobles came in and out of the district from all directions. Some bought basic necessities like a weeks worth of food, others bought armaments while the wealthy ones purchased luxuries.

Since the castle wall near the right indicated the split between the commerce district and the castle district, there were also more weaponsmiths and armoursmiths in the area. That also meant that knights and guards occasionally came from the castle to collect weapons and armour from the smiths before returning to the castle.

Like the guards at the city walls, the guards at the castle district wore padded gambesons and a metal sallet as their protective armour. Their weapons consisted of pollaxes with short swords as their secondary weapon. Placed evenly along the walls were trebuchets and ballistas, most of them being positioned at the castle wall’s bastions.

There were probably more heavy siege weapons behind the castle walls but Walter couldn’t see them from this angle. The truth was the balcony’s height was only around two thirds of the castle walls. Thus, he only had a clear view of what was in front of the castle walls and a little bit on top of it. He had no idea what lay behind those walls.

Regardless, he placed these thoughts aside as continued to silently enjoy his coffee. All he was waiting for now, was the arrival of a certain necromancer.

…

While being escorted by one of the Eikthyrnir family knights, Thyvin made his way over to Paulus’s Pleasure Palace. The knight wore the typical ‘Eikthyrnir’ armour, consisting of shiny silver plate armour with an armet as the helmet. The front face of a stag with horns was carved onto the breastplate while carvings of a rearing stag were engraved onto both pauldrons.

A long flowing gold-coloured cape was attached to the back of the knight’s pauldrons while a single large yellow plume feather was affixed to the top of the knight’s helmet. At the knight’s waist was a buckler shield attached to the hilt of a knightly arming sword within its scabbard.

Since he was a knight of the ruling Eikthyrnir family, his armour and armament was of the highest possible quality. Supposedly, he was also afforded the best possible martial training too, both as a warrior and as a commander.

However, the armoured knight wasn’t even necessary as a bodyguard. Just one skeleton knight alone would have sufficed and as a novice necromancer, Thyvin was more than capable of defending himself in a pinch. Unfortunately, circumstances demanded that he used regular, human knights as his guard whenever he was out in public.

Other than to somewhat appease the populace who didn’t take a liking to him practicing ‘heretical’ magic, the knight also kept an eye on Thyvin’s actions for his family. It truly was a shame that a magic art like necromancy was untolerated, otherwise he wouldn’t have to deal with these inconvenient restraints.

But that was also why he was making his way over to the pleasure palace.

Because there was someone out there who was genuinely interested in working with him and developing his necromantic powers. While there others who were similar to this man, they usually ended up being pathetic commoners dabbling in magic beyond their understanding. Their intentions were mostly just to leech off Thyvin’s progress in mastering necromancy.

It would be truly troublesome if the mystery man was just some amateur who could only perform the most basic of necromancy. All ‘necromancers’ like them do is ask for too much and offer too little in return. People like them usually ended up joining an adventurer party willing to accept a necromancer into the team, content with their level of necromancy mastery.

While necromancy is frowned upon, people still can’t deny its practicality. In the end, they can only turn a blind eye to it. And since necromancers were useful as substitutes for clerics, even the Church can’t do anything. Otherwise, the number of still living clerics would drop drastically.

Although he couldn’t guarantee that this mystery man won’t turn out to be a useless commoner, he still had some form of assurance in the form of the letter given to him by Leistro. Unlike all the others who reached out to Thyvin, only this person did so through a message written on paper, meaning that he was literate and thus part of the wealthy middle class or above.

Not only that but the handwriting on said letter was very well written, both in terms of calligraphy and in terms of eloquence. This only reinforced the idea that this mystery man belonged to the upper classes of society, perhaps even the nobility. Nevertheless, Thyvin will never truly know until he has met this mystery man.

Multiple eyes stared at Thyvin as he walked down the streets of Belmud. Whether they were a peasant from the lower classes, a burgher from the middle class, or a noble from the upper class, it was all the same. All of their eyes held varying levels of contempt. While they may hate him, there was nothing they could do except to silently glare. 

But Thyvin didn’t really care. He wouldn’t have chosen this magic path if he did.

If he could stand the hateful glares of the family knights and his own family members, then he could surely stand the glares of these strangers. Eventually, under the contemptuous gaze of others, he finally reached the pleasure palace. The quiet sigh of relief from the family knight also told Thyvin that he too was glad to have finally reached their destination.

He probably didn’t appreciate being under the glares of the others for his mere association with Thyvin, even if the knight had no other choice. Thyvin himself didn’t even bother to remember the names of the knights assigned to guard him anymore. All he knew was that there was a new face at least once a fortnight and they tended to be younger knights who only just came of age.

It wasn’t a surprise that these knights frequently requested to be reassigned as soon as possible. Honestly speaking, Thyvin couldn’t care less about them. He only used them as his guards because he was obligated to by his family, there was no real need for him to befriend them.

After passing through the reception and making their way to the second floor, the duo walked towards the balcony, the meeting place stated within the letter. Soon enough, they found a table near the balcony’s railing with only one man sitting at it. His two emerald eyes remained fixated on his cup of black coffee as sipped it while he seemingly awaited their arrival.

As was stated in the letter, the man with emerald eyes was the only one to smile at Thyvin when he walked around the balcony. It wasn’t a forced smile either, but a real genuine smile. This was the first real genuine smile aimed towards Thyvin ever since he decided to walk down the path of necromancy. Not even his own parents gave him such a pleasure.

Thyvin first ordered the knight to remain on guard near one of the balcony’s entrances before he took a seat on the opposite side of the table. As expected, the knight enthusiastically followed the order. Neither of the two wanted to be within close proximity of each other, even if it was for two different reasons.

A few short moments later, Thyvin was greeted by a friendly voice.

“Greetings, my lord, Thyvin Eikthyrnir. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”

“Oh please the pleasure is mine. The truth is that I must thank you, meeting like minded people is such a rarity.” 

Thyvin first returned the man’s friendly greeting before he asked for the man’s name.

“But how can I properly thank you if don’t know your name?”

“Ohoho, I’m sorry, where are my manners?”

The man chuckled lightly and took another sip of his coffee before he proceeded to answer Thyvin’s question.

“My name is Walter Faust. And I have come to you with a proposition.”