Calm Wanderer
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(AKJ) Chapter 31 - Shopping is a necessary evil
🕑 Added 2023-12-22 11:57:26 +0000 UTCDamovotsk, Molkovia, Earth.
Demian's P.O.V.
The SUV quickly took the direction of the closest shopping area from where they lived, which was less than 10 minutes away and located in the northwestern part of Damovotsk. During the journey, Adeliya, who sat in the front passenger seat, grabbed her phone and made a call to the driving school's owner while the others chatted quietly.
After a few minutes of negotiation, the older woman succeeded in persuading the female owner to help him go through the driving test as soon as possible without forcing him to go through the mandatory driving hours. The only caveat was that Demian had to drive for an hour under the supervision of one of her instructors to make sure that he was capable enough.
After all, if the young man was not able to drive correctly, the woman's driving school would lose some credibility, and with that came a host of other problems that would not be worth the trouble for her. Of course, if the redhead could bribe the official in charge of passing the students, then she would not even need to negotiate with a 'mere' driving school's owner.
“Unfortunately, I only have some influence on affiliates and even that is mostly giving me access to their services. So it's better to forget about bribing officials.” The mature redhead explained to Demian after she hung up with the woman. “In any case, you only need to drive for an hour before being sent to the test in a few days.”
The young man then replied. “Don't worry about it, Aunty! One hour is pretty much nothing. It's great that I'll finally be able to drive legally!” “You mean you'll finally get to drive the Impala, right?” Adeliya retorted in a teasing tone, which drew a few chuckles from him. “That too.” The two then continue to banter along the way, with Seraphine sometimes intervening in the conversation.
The only odd one was Brynhild who kept silent the whole way. However, the young man noticed her lack of denial when it came to letting him drive her car. The group only stopped conversing when they reached the shopping area. Then, they drove until they reached a high-end furniture store and swiftly parked in front of it. It then took them around 40 minutes overall to choose what they wanted and order everything to be delivered directly to their penthouse.
Those pieces of furniture were heavy, so why should they bother lifting them when they had enough money to pay other people to do it for them? Once done with that store, Adeliya remarked. “Demian, why don't we go get you some new clothes? Your old ones seem a bit too small now.” The beautiful redhead was gazing at the black shirt he was wearing, which was much too tight on his upper torso and upper arms.
At her words, the brown-haired teenager looked toward the car window at his reflection and realized how much he changed over the course of a single month. He did 'notice' it before, but only now, with his gaze examining the old shirt he was currently wearing, did he truly realize how much he changed, to the point he he almost became unrecognizable for anyone else but the three women. The realization brought a smile to his face as he turned toward his lovely Aunt before replying. “I think you're right, Aunty. I did grow a bit, didn't I?” The three women chuckled at his euphemistic statement. Even Sera, who thanks to the fact that she spent the previous night lying on his body, was certainly aware of his physical changes.
Thus the group, instead of going back home, drove toward a franchise clothing store close by. As Demian put it. “I might grow even more, so it'd be a waste to buy anything too expensive now if, in a few months, we need to buy new ones again.” His argument convinced the other three who chose a relatively common men's clothing store not far away.
As soon as they reached the shop, however, something suddenly came to him. He recalled that he had bandages on both his left shoulder and on the left side of his stomach making it inconvenient to exert himself. It was not exactly painful, thanks to his Perk boosting his healing factor, but it was still annoying for him to try on multiple shirts since it would scratch his injuries through the compress. And that was not the most enjoyable way to shop around. 'I'll have to make do, I guess...' He thought, helpless.
However, Sera offered a simple solution to his problem. “Why don't you just try a basic shirt and then get a few similar but with different colors?” As for the pants, since he had no injury on his lower body, he could try any pair without feeling any pain. But, did he want to do that? Heck, no! The reason being that although the young man enjoyed wearing nice clothes, he despised shopping for them. Or even shopping in general.
The blaring music, the constant presence of a salesperson looking over your shoulder at what you were doing, and the disrespectful crowd of people bumbling around the store thinking their own needs were more important than others... That particular disgust may have only come from one obscure bad experience, and not all stores and people were the same, but he could not help himself. He simply loathed shopping.
Back to the clothing store, Demian decided to follow Sera's idea, by only trying a basic pair of straight jeans and a basic pair of shorts after the shirt. After that, they simply picked a few more of each type and went to pay for them. When the bill came, Demian felt extremely lucky that his family was rich, since, despite the clothes not being of great quality, the amount of clothes ended up inflating the bill, making it far from cheap.
Done with that, the group then went to the sports store close by to buy him a few sports clothes. Despite his old ones being made from a stretchy fabric, he was starting to feel cramped when he wore them. Another 'agonizing' moment later and they were done with the brown-haired young man's needs.
Unfortunately, for him at least, the ordeal was not over. “Since we have to wait til 6 for your appointment, Demian, we might as well take a look around for a bit.” Adeliya suggested. What she meant by 'take a look around' was more shopping, but this time for the three women. 'Somebody help me, please...' He thought in a half-joking, half-serious 'tone'.
From there, a few hours went by, with only a third spent in the clothing stores. The three women did not even buy anything, mostly because they already had more than everything they needed at the penthouse. The second reason was particular to each of them. Sera was blind and so had no particular attraction to how beautiful she looked with them on. She did like wearing comfortable clothes though. Bryn had a muscular physique and because of that trait, she did not like wearing dresses and other 'feminine' clothes. She preferred wearing basic long-sleeved tops and long pants in general. As for Adeliya, she wore similar clothes to Bryn outside for reasons unknown to Demian and usually had a pair of shorts coupled with a thin shirt inside the penthouse.
As his Aunt put it, they were mostly 'looking around', and buying things was not the priority. In any case, the group was done and decided to spend the rest of the time at a café close by. Because the weather was hot that day, they all opted for some smoothies, the epitome of cold deliciousness. The group then picked a table outside the shop where they were certain they could speak freely as long as they kept their voice down. While sipping on the refreshing drink, Demian asked. “I've been thinking... Does any one of you girls know a way to 'check' on the 'director'? I mean, we've got no gear or professional training. At least, I know I don't.”
The look on the three women's faces made it clear to him that they understood what he was talking about, with Sera even remarking in an amused tone. “I don't have any either. Mom? Big Sis?” The irritating smile on her face made the two roll their eyes while the young man chuckled briefly. “I don't.” “Me neither. I've trained myself in combat but not in 'checking' as you said.”
Tapping his chin, Demian muttered. “That's a problem. We need reliable info on the guy and we can't exactly follow him all day long. We'd be discovered very quickly...” The four then pondered for a few moments before Sera commented. “Dem, remember those web novels you read to me?” Nodding his head, he asked. “Of course! What about them?” The petite woman then tilted her head slightly making her shoulder-length burgundy-colored hair fall to the side and, coupled with her beautiful oval face and mysterious smile, created a stunning picture in the young man's mind.
“In one of those, I think the Main Character went to an information broker for... Well, information. Do you think that kind of organization exists here?” A brief moment of silence later, the young man realized he was still staring dazedly at his lover, which was painfully obvious to everyone present, but the woman in question. Ignoring the look of annoyance from Bryn and helplessness from his Aunt, he replied. “That-that's a good idea. Cough Aunty, since you’ve got some connections, do you know any of those brokers?” The mature woman gave him an amused look before answering. “I don't. But I know they do exist and I might be able to find someone who knows how to contact one.”
“You've never gotten any of those people in your office?” Shaking her head, the older redhead responded. “I only cater to the affiliates' higher-ups, and since I started practicing a few years ago, none of them came by. It's either, selling information is very safe, or only the low-level members risk their lives. I’m not really sure.”
The young man, who pulled himself together, replied in a serious tone. “Got it. We'll be relying on you to contact a broker, then. We still need to be careful, though. I don't think we can trust the people who sell information for a living to not also sell the fact that we're looking for info on the 'director' to the guy himself. So, the situation may go out of control at any time.”
The three women nodded and Adeliya remarked. “We don't have to deal with that right away. We could wait till you reach the goal we agreed on earlier.” “That's true. But we can't waste too much time, or the man might take some drastic measures to deal with us. How about this: We'll wait till I get my license and then you'll contact those people.”
Pausing for a second, he added. “It should take me around a week to get it if everything goes as well as you described it earlier, so the timing should be perfect. I'll train myself in the meantime. Big Sis, I'll need your help with that.” The others agreed, even Bryn, and as the 'serious' conversation was over, they returned to chatting about random topics until the time to leave arrived.
A while later, the group was in the car, the latter moving toward the driving school. The school was not very far from Adeliya's office, which was itself located between the City Center and their penthouse in the North of the City. Thus despite the heavier Saturday traffic, the journey was pretty smooth. Along the way, his Aunt started to explain to them about the woman they were about to meet.
The female owner was actually one of her patient's family members. The mature redhead met the other woman when the latter came with her family member to the office for an injury that would be considered suspicious in a normal hospital. And since it was her specialty, the patient directly brought her there to be treated. After the 'consultation', the two kept in contact superficially.
“You see, in this country, connections are everything. If your network is powerful enough, you can get anything done and get away with anything. It's both incredibly practical when it's us using it and infuriating when someone uses it against us.” His Aunt commented, making the two younger ones pensive. Brynhild was definitely aware of that from her career as a fighting champion however and thus did not seem surprised.
As they were chatting about how corrupt Molkovia was, the car quickly reached their destination.
