"I just got into town, and I am in desperate need of a hot bath and a soft bed," Kai told her, resting his arms confidently on the counter while making sure his eyes lingered appreciably on her figure.
"I hear the Hollow Moon is the best place for a weary traveller to stay, especially when the view behind the bar is this distracting."
Stopping her work, Greta looked him up and down with a slow gaze.
Her eyes drifted over the fresh dirt staining his borrowed clothes before settling on the shiny new Fang Sword resting at his hip.
"We get all sorts of strays washing up in Kravengard," Greta replied, setting the empty glass down and leaning forward just enough to give him a generous view of her neckline.
"Let us see if you have the coin to afford our hospitality, handsome."
Sitting at the bar, Kai rested his forearms on the wood while waiting for her to fetch a drink.
The tavern smelled of meat, alcohol, and decades of poor management, packing the dimly lit room with merchants and rowdy mercenaries looking to drink away their daily wages.
Keeping his breathing steady required far more effort than it should have under the circumstances.
'Why is the air so hot in here?' Kai thought, subtly shifting his weight on the stool to ease the strange tension building in his chest.
It took an embarrassingly long time to comprehend that the Greed Feast skill had been passively leaking from his body.
Ever since absorbing that fraction of vampire magic back in the mill, the corrupted energy had been quietly radiating outward like an invisible heat wave.
Normal hunters or regular townsfolk probably lacked the sensory stats to pick up on the subtle drain, but Greta was obviously cut from a different cloth entirely.
Catching her glance at him from the corner of her eye left Kai feeling both aroused and genuinely shocked, since finding a woman who could casually shrug off a high-level aura without drawing a weapon was completely unexpected in a starting city.
"Staring at the wood will not make it any cleaner, boy," Greta noted.
She walked back over and wiped the counter with a rag that honestly looked greasier than the floorboards.
She was a busty woman, and assuming the local game lore was accurate, she was thirty-eight years old with passing years that had been very kind to her in ways that made younger men do stupid things.
Her boobs strained against the tight laces of a brown leather bodice, supporting an unapologetically generous figure.
Wide hips swayed slightly as she moved, carrying enough weight to anchor a ship in a storm.
She possessed green hair pulled back into a lazy bun, though a few loose strands framed a face that was handsome rather than traditionally pretty, featuring sharp hazel eyes that held the boredom of someone who had seen every cheap trick in the book and probably invented a few of them herself.
"I was not staring at the wood," Kai replied smoothly, keeping his voice perfectly level while leaning back to give her some extra space.
"I was just admiring the local management."
"You have got a leak," she murmured, letting her voice drop.
His entire posture stiffened before he could stop the reaction.
"Excuse me?" Kai asked, feigning total ignorance.
"Do not try to play dumb with me, because I run a taproom instead of a church, and I know magic when I smell it on a customer." Her eyes bored directly into his, flickering over his face as if she were reading the fine print on a bad contract.
"You are radiating power like a furnace with a broken door, and it feels hungry. Most folks walking around with that kind of cursed aura try their best to hide the taint, yet you are just letting it spill all over my clean bar."
'Well, she definitely caught me,' Kai thought, noticing the dark hum of Greed Feast vibrating deep in his chest.
The skill actively wanted to consume her energy in direct response to her proximity, tempting him to let the aura run wild, but he clamped down on the sensation hard to force the magic back into its designated corner of his status board.
"It is just a minor passive skill," Kai lied effortlessly, offering a dismissive shrug.
"There is nothing for you to worry about, though I can focus that hunger somewhere else if you prefer."
"Right, and I am a virgin princess waiting for a knight," Greta scoffed, tossing the dirty rag right over her shoulder before crossing her arms tight against her chest.
"What are you drinking?"
"Give me whatever is cheap and does not kill me on the first sip."
Fetching a mug, she slid the liquid across the counter.
"So tell me what happened to bring an anomaly to my doorstep. You do not look like a standard adventurer since your face is too clean and your clothes are wrong, making you look exactly like trouble looking for a place to happen."
"I am actually looking for some specific information regarding the vampire army, but I am also hoping to find some quality entertainment for the evening."
Greta stopped moving entirely, her hand pausing halfway to picking up a stack of dirty plates.
She looked at him with a completely different expression, letting the casual amusement fade into a very detached expression that made the space between them grow different.
The static of his uncontrolled aura hung in the air, yet she didn't flinch, looking far more intrigued than threatened by the dangerous topic.
"The bloodsuckers," she finally said, keeping her tone light while her eyes remained hyper-alert.
"They have been moving their forces north for the past week, massing near a place called the Whispering Pass. Why do you care what the dead are doing?"
"Because I plan on stopping them before they reach the human borders," Kai stated flatly.
A laugh escaped her lips, drawing the attention of a few drunk patrons sitting nearby.
"You are either completely insane or you possess a death wish, handsome. Information of that calibre does not come for free in Kravengard, and while paying for a room is one thing, buying a war map requires a different kind of currency."
"I have gold," Kai offered, pulling out the stolen bandit pouch to prove his solvency.
"But I also have other skills if you prefer a more personal trade."
"Keep your looted coins," Greta dismissed with a lazy wave of her hand, leaning in close enough for him to smell the spiced cider lingering on her breath as she lowered her voice again.
"I have a specific pest problem that requires a hand because there is a local debt collector who has been making my life very difficult lately. He is threatening my staff and scaring away good-paying customers, so if you handle him for me, I will tell you exactly where the vanguard is making their camp."
She was openly testing him, throwing out a dangerous task as her way of seeing if he had the spine to back up his confident attitude.
The dirty-talk energy was definitely present in the way her gaze dropped to his mouth, but she was not giving away any real affection just yet.
"Information is great, Greta, but a man needs a proper incentive for doing dirty work," Kai purred, reaching out to lightly trace the rim of his wooden mug while keeping his eyes locked on hers.
"If I take out your trash, I want you to personally ensure that hot bath and soft bed are put to very good use tonight."
'It's time I had a full proper sex.'