Appetite for Food and Sex

Apetito, in the Northern Lands.

After leaving Sword Village, the group encountered several more blizzards along the way.

It took them nearly half a month to reach the town.

After renting rooms at an inn, they went their separate ways.

Inside a room.

Frieren lay on her stomach on the bed, lightly dressed as she leafed through a grimoire, swinging her feet now and then.

The rare moment of leisure made her very happy.

Sitting in front of the mirror and tending to her long hair, Fern asked, "Lady Frieren, would you like to go shopping together?"

Frieren refused without hesitation. Because of the harsh weather in Mount Schvia, she had not been able to properly study a grimoire in a long time.

"I'll pass. I want to read my grimoire at the inn."

"I see. Then I'll go by myself..."

"Come to think of it, today is Stark's eighteenth birthday."

Fern froze and looked at Frieren on the bed. "Why didn't you tell me sooner? I haven't prepared anything."

Frieren said casually, "Can't you just buy something in town?"

"I don't even know what kind of things Lord Stark likes," Fern said helplessly.

"Fern, you really are careless."

"Isn't this your fault, Lady Frieren?" Fern sighed and asked, "Speaking of which, what gift are you planning to give him, Lady Frieren?"

Frieren closed her grimoire, rolled over and jumped off the bed, then began rummaging through her trunk.

"My secret treasure!"

After searching for a while, Frieren held up a bottle of purple potion in front of her as if showing it off.

"A potion that only dissolves clothes."

Fern stared at Frieren in shock. She clearly remembered telling Frieren to return the potion before, but she had never expected her to have secretly kept it.

"Any boy would be happy to receive something like this. My teacher told me so. Isn't it perfect? Hehe~"

Frieren failed to notice anything unusual about Fern and looked thoroughly pleased with herself.

Fern was silent for a while. Looking at the still-smug Frieren, she took the potion from her hand and pulled out the stopper.

Although Frieren felt a trace of unease, she could not help asking, "Are you interested in this potion too, Fern?"

Fern's expression darkened at those words, and her previously hesitant movements suddenly became decisive.

She poured the potion over Frieren.

A cloud of white smoke rose, and the potion's effect was exactly as Frieren had said: it only dissolved clothes.

"When you bought this indecent potion, I told you to go back and return it, didn't I?"

"Do whatever you want, Lady Frieren."

With that, Fern tossed the empty bottle to Frieren and left the room.

Looking at the closed door, Frieren murmured, "That potion was expensive..."

After wrapping a thin blanket around her exposed body, Frieren looked at her trunk in distress.

The potion was gone, so she had to choose another gift.

Then Frieren spotted a recipe Eisen had given her, and an idea came to mind.

A ring shaped like a Mirror Lotus rested quietly at the edge of the trunk.

After leaving the room, Fern planned to ask Stark directly what he wanted. At this point, she could not worry about giving away that it was a birthday gift.

Besides, given how Stark reacted to things like this, he might not even make the connection.

With that thought, Fern hesitated no longer and knocked on the door to Rienta and Stark's room.

"Knock, knock."

Rienta had turned down Stark's invitation to go out together and was lying alone on his bed, thinking about the Hero's Sword and the reward that had yet to have much effect.

There were also the two utterly different letters the Hero of the South and Schlacht the Omniscient had given him.

But there was too little information, and the more he thought, the more confused he became. Just then, someone knocked on the door. Rienta decided to stop dwelling on it and got up to answer.

"Fern? What's wrong?"

Seeing that Rienta was alone, Fern breathed a sigh of relief and said, "Brother Rienta, today is Lord Stark's eighteenth birthday. I haven't prepared anything, so I wanted to ask him directly what he wants."

Rienta thought for a moment, but Stark had not said where he was going before he left. He said helplessly, "He said he wanted to look around town and have a good rest. Try looking for him in town. Stark is pretty easy to recognize."

"All right." Fern nodded, then asked, "What are you planning to give him, Brother Rienta?"

"Um, I only just found out about it too. Let me think."

Fern silently complained about Frieren to herself once more, then left the inn to look for Stark.

Rienta returned to his room. The question of what gift to choose had come at just the right time, giving him something else to think about.

Just as he began to get an idea, someone knocked on the door again.

Rienta opened it and found Frieren there.

"Lady Frieren, what's wrong?"

"Fern must have told you about Stark's birthday, right? What gift are you planning to give him, Rienta?"

Rienta invited Frieren into the room and had her sit down. After thinking for a while, he said, "Longevity noodles."

"?"

The composure and confidence Frieren had arrived with vanished. Her cooking was passable, but that depended on who she was being compared to.

"I was planning to make an extra-large hamburger steak..."

"Haha, there's no need to worry, Lady Frieren. It's the thought that counts most with a gift, and one bowl of noodles won't be enough for Stark anyway."

"True."

It was not until evening that Fern finally found Stark, who had spent the day doing side quests.

Stark was sitting on a bench, admiring the various clouds on the horizon.

The setting sun shone on Stark, and Fern's heart stirred as she watched the scene.

"Lord Stark..."

Fern was about to go up and greet him, but then she heard him muttering to himself.

"That cloud really looks like oppai!"

Fern: "..."

Fern had originally thought that Frieren, who had planned to give him that kind of potion, had no idea what boys were thinking.

After hearing that, Fern silently apologized to Frieren in her heart.

Boys really are all perverts.

Just as Fern was hesitating over whether to go up and greet him now, she heard Stark talking to himself again.

"Seriously? That cloud looks like shit."

Fern breathed a sigh of relief. That childish remark was the Stark she knew, not the perverted one.

But Stark immediately added, "I'll have to tell Fern about it later."

Fern: "???"

Fern sighed and walked over, pretending she had not heard a thing.

"Lord Stark."

Stark, who had just been thinking about Fern, heard her voice and excitedly pointed at a cloud in the sky.

"Fern, you're just in time. That cloud looks..."

But Fern's expression, as if she were looking at (), stopped him from continuing.

"Sumimasen, forget I said anything."

Both of them fell silent for a moment.

"Um..." An embarrassed Stark was about to say something.

"Shall we take a little walk?"

Stark quickly agreed.

On the evening streets, the young boy and girl walked side by side.

Their thoughts were elsewhere.

Fern hesitated, wondering how she should ask Stark what gift he wanted.

But to Stark, this looked like a sign that she was angry, although he had no idea what he had done to make Fern so angry.

His innate survival instinct made the decision for him.

"Um, Fern, please don't be angry. I'll apologize..."

Fern had been thinking about it the whole way and felt that no matter how she asked, it would seem suspicious. Since it was already nearly evening, she decided to ask him outright.

She ignored Stark's tearful apology.

"Lord Stark, is there anything you want?"

Realizing that Fern had not been silent because she was angry, Stark asked in confusion, "Why do you ask?"

Having decided to come clean, Fern stopped being hesitant and said, "Because today is your birthday, Lord Stark."

"Is it?" Stark, who had never received a birthday gift, still did not understand what Fern meant.

"What does that have to do with what I want?"

"It's for your birthday gift, Lord Stark." Fern turned her head away in embarrassment. After all, she was asking the person himself what gift he wanted.

"Huh? You're going to give me something?"

Fern stared at Stark speechlessly. "I'm getting a little annoyed. I'm not giving you anything."

With that, she turned and left, but her steps were slow.

Stark hurried after her. "No, I'm not joking around. I've just never received a birthday gift before."

Fern stopped and looked at Stark.

Stark continued, "My master and my family back home, who have passed away, never gave me any, so I always thought that was how birthdays were supposed to be."

"Was it a custom in your hometown?"

"I guess they just didn't think it was important..."