Chapter 12: Fiery Foodplay
Beld was about to step back, but Katrina's gaze convinced him that if he retreats again, her majestic curves will never be grouped by him again. So he stayed, carefully preparing his knife. The waitress was clearly scared, blabbering something about a new visitor and his gluttony. Someone very odd must've entered that inn while the nudies were away. Katrina told the blondie to lead them and put her hand on the handle of her sword. As they entered the dining area, the redhead immediately saw an unusually large figure sitting near the window. It was a walrus of a man, probably weighted more than Katrina and her companions combined, his archmage robe was barely holding on his shoulders.
His skin was dark gray, nearing the color of charcoal, and his empty gaze was fixed on the giant tray of food in front of him. Suddenly, a small figure dropped from the ceiling with devilish screeching. Katrina raised the sword and slashed it in half, causing it to fall near her feet. It looked like a large bat, but with an exceptionally ugly face, giant claws and brightly red teeth. There was no blood on that corpse, and a second later it simply turned into ash. The redhead read about these creatures enough to know what she was seeing...
"A demon," Sophia gasped.
"The demonologist," the firewielder pointed at the large man, "must be one of our targets from that damned academy!"
Sophia nodded, remembering how she heard someone from her church discussing this man before she even met Katrina. The solarists said that this man possessed a very peculiar power of summoning weak demonic entities and keeping them under control, which made him a valuable expert in the field of dark magic. As the majority of archmages lost their sense of morality and turned to their manias and animalistic desires after they'd been cursed, the demonologist did so as well. But his primal passion wasn't about demonic arts... It was, boringly, about food. He was known as a fine diner before, but after the curse it seemed to have became his only purpose. His demons kept following him, fueled by his sinful gluttony, and kept him company during all of his feasts, where they ate everything the folks could offer them, and then... The folks themselves.
"So the man is capable of causing a famine all by himself?" Katrina frowned, realizing how dangerous of a foe he must be.
"Y-yes," Sophia nodded, "but the worst part is that he seems to summon more demons as he eats... They share a magical connection of some sort, where the more the demons eat, the more mana he has, and the more he eats, the more demons there are... They're unstoppable."
"Well, I'm sure plenty of folks would say that about a whole bunch of other archmages we've already hunted down," Katrina smirked, "let me have a talk with this guy!"
As she approached the man and called him out, she realized that his mind simply wasn't there. He simply kept eating, sometimes complimenting the food or ordering more, while his demons fought for some of the plates between each other. While he seemed lucid, it was impossible to redirect his attention. Katrina tried everything: screaming, snapping her fingers, and even using her beautiful curves as a way to attract his attention. She assumed suggestive poses, bent over in front of him, jiggled her round breasts, placed her leg right on the table, but to no avail. Even when Katrina got bold enough to climb up on the table and raised her legs up, spreading them as far as she could and shamelessly demonstrating her pussy, the gluttonous mage simply moved her hip away to reach a porkchop.
"Now that's just offensive!" The defeated firewielder said while climbing down, "listen, my friend, you're not eating these people out of their business, you got this?!"
She firmly placed her strong hand on the mage's shoulders. Suddenly, the whole room got filled with screeching as the demons flew towards Katrina with their mouths wide open. She barely dodged the hungry beasts and managed to kill three of them before they calmed down. Damn things were furious, it took all of Katrina's speed to avoid their clams, and one of them still managed to scratch her.
"They seem to like this guy quite a lot," Beld concluded.
"Yes, but he's not invincible, besides, he's ignoring all of my moves," Katrina said while the demonologist asked for more pork chops, "I just need to hit fast enough and..."
"W-wait!" Sophia screamed at her, "I just remembered... I think the pastor also told somebody that if he loses composure, the demons won't disappear... They'll just break free from his will!"
"So they'll become even worse? Gods!" Katrina took a step away, deciding not to tempt fate this time.
"Seems like a fine puzzle! Let's put our brains to work!" The short elf said as he slapped Sophia's naked butt.
"Ouch!" She gasped and covered her backside, full of embarrassment, "what was that for?"
"It enhances my thought process!" The elf explained.
"Alright, let's all come down and see what we can do," Katrina returned her sword to the scabbard.
Five minutes later, everyone gathered in the kitchen to brainstorm an efficient way of capturing this archmage without bad consequences. The waitress, the cook and the bearded bartender stood near the large furnace, the blonde girl enjoying its warmth with her body which now was, as the redhead just noticed, completely naked except for the apron. Sophia sat near Katrina, trying to occupy as little space as possible, while Beld rubbed the redhead's shoulders, fully satisfied with his position.
"So, how many of those flying creatures does he have now, about a dozen?" Katrina rubbed her chin, "I take it killing them one by one is a hard task, not to mention useless if he can just summon them back by eating. But what if we just wait he... I dunno, runs out of mana? Summong those bastards must cost him a ton."
"Then you would have to stop his minions from consuming food as well, my lady," the bartender replied, "which is not an easy task. There are meals in every home, they can just fly in and take whatever they wish."
Katrina couldn't help but chuckle when he called her a lady, but the man was right.
"What if we keep food on the table the whole time and kill enough of those things so he'd stop summoning them, while not allowing them to feast? Actually, how much food do you have left?"
"Oh, we've got a ton of meat safely stored," the broad-shouldered and quite imposing cook said with a hint of pride, "the problem's to cook this stuff! We only got so much space in our stove!"
"Plus, you'd have to find a way to arrange the meals in such a way that there'd be no way demons could reach them," the almost-naked waitress added.
Katrina was about to reply, but suddenly felt a soft grip on her breasts. It was Beld, who decided to change his position a bit and now was shamelessly groping the girl's breasts instead of her shoulders. The redhead felt a sexual tingling in her bare nipples which was nice, but quite distracting, so she raised her body's temperature for a bit and made Beld withdraw in an instant.
