Demon World Boba Shop: A Cozy Fantasy Novel

Lily had stayed just long enough to help Arthur stay organized, which in turn let him clear out the lunch rush without too much trouble.

As always, the bigger majicka-draw orders for people who needed an especial push had taken it out of him. Before he got around to cleaning up, he ordered a big fried noodle thing with meat that he had recently learned could be made into as a sandwich. As the cook across the way worked it up for him, he returned to his own shop to make himself a tea for a well-deserved break.

These days, Arthur had been trying to take it easy on the pep. He had mostly succeeded too. Once the withdrawal headaches had waned, he had managed to keep his consumption down to a few lightly pepped drinks a day at most.

Today, though, he decided to reward himself. He made up a pot of a strong-flavored tea, something he usually took without milk and just enjoyed the flavor of. Pushing the last little dregs of his slightly-recovered majicka into his teapot, he juiced it to the limits. In fifteen minutes, he’d be as awake as possible.

“Oh, darn.” Arthur heard Mizu behind him. Lately, she had been experimenting with cursing, something his system auto-translation was informing him was a task she didn’t want to fully commit to yet. “Shoot. I was hoping I’d catch you in time to get you to add some pep.”

“Long day?”

Mizu sighed and kicked some mud off her boots before entering the shop. “The longest. One of the auxiliary wells kept wanting to break down. I had to do some emergency repairs on it to keep it going.”

“We have to get another weller here,” Arthur said as he pulled a chair for her. “Sooner rather than later. It’s too much work for just one of you, Mizu. Should I write another letter?”

“To the demon government? You’ve already written four. There just aren’t that many wellers to be had right now.”

“Well, something has to give. Is there anything Milo can do? With automation?”

“Nothing we’ve thought of yet. Anyway, that’s not why I’m here. I’m here to spend time with you and not work. And to find out what you did to that poor boot maker.”

“Oh, Rebes?” Arthur couldn’t imagine how an interaction between the two of them had gone, but he wasn’t surprised that he had found her. “That’s a… surprise. Why? What did he do?”

“He said that Arthur Teamaster, of Earth, wanted him to ask me about my feet. He seemed very eager to let me know you were involved so I wouldn’t think it was weird,” Mizu said as she slumped down on the table.

“What did you tell him?” Arthur asked.

“Basically just that they get wet. A lot. And muddy. He seemed satisfied with that, then measured my foot, then left.”

“Ah. I can see how that would be awkward.”

“Yes. Especially since the entire time he looked like a child at a coldfall celebration. I swear, you crafters and your little projects.” Mizu leaned over suddenly and kissed Arthur on the cheek. “Thank you for whatever present you are getting me though. It’s very sweet.”

“You are welcome.” Arthur poured both of them a glass of tea just as the cook came up to the counter, dropped off the food, and left with a nod to go back to his own work. The sandwich was gigantic. Arthur cut half of it off for Mizu, which still left more for him than he could eat. “Hopefully the present helps with your work a little when it’s done. I just wish I could do more.”

“It’ll be fine. Eventually, another weller will come. And if worse comes to worst, I can backtrack some of my rune stacks to make them more manageable.” Mizu scrunched her nose, indicating how little she wanted to do that. “I don’t want to think about that, but there are options to reduce the work. We’d just give up a little bit of water quality.”

They sat and ate for a while in silence. As much as Mizu was downplaying her problems, Arthur knew they were bigger than she was saying. According to both her and Skal, good water enhanced every single thing that a town could do. Arthur’s unique tea-making was incredible to people because it was so new and because it had a visible effect every time. But if anything, Mizu’s water had a bigger impact, split into smaller, less noticeable chunks as people used it in every aspect of their lives.

And with what was coming, they’d need every edge. Arthur shuddered a bit as he thought about how much money he had just invested into his shop ahead of a major event that might destroy everything in and around it. The monster wave was coming, even if they didn’t know exactly when. He had no doubt they’d rebuild faster and better if it destroyed everything, but he hated to think of all that lost progress. If only there was a way to stop it…

“Stop that,” Mizu said. “I can see you worrying from here. You’re supposed to be resting.”

“Sorry.” Arthur patted her hand. “I really am trying. It’s in my nature, I guess.”

“At least talk to me about it. It’s no use keeping it all inside.”

“Tell me what you are seeing,” Arthur said. “I’m watching a wall go up that we don’t have enough people to defend. This whole area is a funnel. Everything is going to hit the coast and then come down this way. It’s going to be huge.”

“Not everything,” Mizu said. “Half the monsters will go somewhere else. It’s a fifty-fifty shot. And you don’t know that the hunters and warriors won’t be enough. They’ve been getting pretty good lately. If we can get word out when we see the wave coming, or if scouts notice it early enough, we might even get help.”

“Still,” Arthur said. “You know how big those waves are. There were thousands and thousands of people In the city, and it took all of us plus a giant wall to deal with a wave. Even if it’s smaller here…”

“Which it will be. You heard Spiky’s report.”

“Yeah, and it’s good. But even if it’s smaller, I just don’t know how we make it through this. I guess at least there’s the escape boats.”

One of the few advantages demons held over the monster waves was the fact that every single dungeon in the world was an above-water, land-based thing. As such, so were the monsters they spawned. Very few of them could swim, and the small amounts of them that could usually didn’t do so well enough to even get to a settlement before some bigger predator fish scooped them up.

So for Coldbrook, it was really a land invasion that they needed to prepare for.

They first made a secondary wall in front of the docks, one that would buy the town some time if they needed to launch the lifeboats and take them away from the monsters. They were safe, at least in terms of their own bodies and lives. It was the town that was in danger.

“Which we probably won’t need. Really, Arthur. I don’t think you understand how many geniuses this town really has. Milo. You. Lily. Puka, who, by the way, you made very, very happy by giving him soft approval to set his traps. Oh, and Karra.”

“Karra?” Arthur thought of Karra as bright, sure, but her work didn’t seem to take a lot of real thinking. It was mostly moving heavy things. Although having moved some heavy things himself, he now knew even that wasn’t as simple as it seemed. “Why Karra?”

“Because she is. You need to go talk to her about her plans for the wall. I did, yesterday. She’s changing, Arthur. This town is changing her. I think she might have a class advancement,” Mizu said encouragingly.

“Advancement?” Arthur blinked. “Like, a better class?”

“Not exactly. A different, related one. When people’s classes advance, it’s usually generalists like her moving to something more specific. Their current primary skill becomes a secondary supporting skill to whatever they do next,” Mizu explained.

“Like when a class is rejected?”

“Yes, but not nearly as bad, if class rejection is bad at all. People who advance classes keep most of what they can do already. And I’ve seen her eyes, lately. She wants more than she has. And she’s not the only one. Everyone is growing, Arthur. They are growing fast. We have a chance at this.”

“I hope so,” Arthur said. He wiped the last little bit of sandwich sauce off his mouth and cleaned the dish it had come on while putting his other tea things into his washing basin to soak. “And I guess it’s time for me to go take a look at Karra’s wall. She mentioned it earlier.”

“Tomorrow,” Mizu said. “Tonight we have plans.”

“Plans?”

“Plans. But I have to get cleaned up first. Go change into some fun clothes. I’ll find you after.”

Mizu walked off towards her house with a hint of mischief in her steps. Arthur watched her until she turned enough around the bend, then decided that he had been in the shop enough today. Going towards his house, he took another long, hot shower and looked through his clothes for something appropriately fun for whatever Mizu was plotting.

After some deliberation, he decided on his coldfall garb. It was, in terms of being built to look good, the best outfit he had. And while it was meant for a festival the town had already had and slightly too formal for just walking around in. Still, it had some two-can-play-at-that-game implications for fighting back against Mizu’s tendency to always have the upper hand in their relationship. For whatever reason, when Arthur dressed in coldfall garb, Mizu got goofy.

Arthur brushed his hair, donned the clothes, and slipped back into his shoes just in time to hear Mizu knocking on his door. He opened it, watching her face move from bemused superiority to shock to a sort of dreamy look before she finally shook her head clear and looked up at him, a faux annoyance in her expression.

“Arthur Teamaster, you aren’t supposed to wear those outside of actual coldfall.” Mizu set down a large basket she was carrying and touched the fabric of his jacket. “They are special event clothes. For special events.”

“I think this counts, whatever it is.” Arthur shrugged his jacket a little straighter on his back. “There’s no law against wearing it out-of-season, right?”

“No, no law.” Mizu moved into his arms, then immediately shook herself free. “No, not yet. We need to walk.”

With determination, Mizu picked up the basket and made a beeline down the street, keeping Arthur out of her sight as much as she could. He chuckled and followed along, trying to pry loose the location they were headed to with no luck until they arrived at the foot of the stair to Arthur’s platform in the sky.

“I haven’t been up there in a long time,” Arthur said. “Almost since Milo’s wedding.”

“I know. Everyone in the town uses it more than you. I thought I’d force you to appreciate it.”

They climbed the stairs. It took a while, and Arthur was genuinely blessing the points he had dumped into his vitality stat by the time they reached the top. There were a few people around on the platform, here and there, but nobody so close that they didn’t feel like they had much privacy. Mizu led him to the edge of the platform, to one of the stone tables the town’s stone workers had donated to the park project. Setting her basket on the table, she motioned for Arthur to sit as she started unloading her things.

She had everything. Just at a glance, Arthur could see cheese, crackers, wine, cookies, bread, and an assortment of fruits and other snacks.

“I didn’t make the tea. I just stole leaves from your house, earlier, and brought hot water,” Mizu said as she presented the mini-tea making setup.

“Good. I’ll handle that. Mizu, this is a lot.”

“Well, you have to spend your new free time somehow. I thought you might not mind spending it with me.”

“Not at all.”

Arthur pulled Mizu in close. It was chilly on the platform, but Mizu had planned ahead with a portable heating device with her. By the time either of them remembered the food, the water for the tea was already cold.