Epilogue
Bertra was sitting behind the counter of her shop surrounded by the intoxicating smell of new books, tea, and paper. A little undercurrent of pastry smell came out as well, and in the 'Authors Only' room a few aspiring writers chatted excitedly about the characters they were creating. It was hard not to smile about that. 'Writers… they're a funny lot.' She chuckled a bit and tuned out the noise to instead enjoy the comfort of her stool and turn another page in her book.
She was on the verge of being lost in her own world when a light blue clad human with a close cropped military haircut bearing a large messenger case entered the establishment. The ringing bell caught her sharp elven ears and her eyes darted up to meet him.
"Welcome to the 'Brighter Days Book Shop' Bertra said with a smile to match the name. "What have you got for me?" She hopped down off the stool while the human courier approached the counter and reached into the bag.
"Not a lot. Just a letter." He said and drew out a small wooden tube meant to protect the document within.
It had a little cork at the top and the tube was small enough that only one finger could have reached inside to draw out the contents. "Thank you." She said and worked the cork cap out, twisting it with her hands so that she didn't damage the container or its contents. It popped loose and she laid the cork on the counter top.
The mail courier left the shop with a friendly wave and Bertra, other than the few people in the author's room, was alone.
She unrolled the tan paper and saw that it was written in a very familiar hand.
'To the dearest friend anyone could ask for,
I hope that this letter finds you well. My one regret about our last time together was that you couldn't be around to speak with about all the things I got to experience, and all the things ahead. No, I correct myself, I have one more regret, and that is that I waited so very long to write to you and kept you in suspense. I promised you I would come to visit, except that… well, read on…'
Bertra grinned, there were several pages there, and the flowing style of the maid was easily engaging, "Entoma, it's so easy to forget that you're not just a normal young girl… when not at your usual dining habits." She said under her breath and laughed before reading on.
"Inta, as it turns out, is a very enthusiastic lover and we're both very quick studies. What I was caught by surprise with was that Blood Magic has some truly exotic uses and allows lovers to go on far, far in excess of what people are normally capable of, even metahumans, heteromorphs, and so on."
Bertra briefly put down the document and covered her face with her hands, "Oh dear god she's so… shameless." Bertra mumbled, the next few pages were exceedingly lewd descriptions of trying things out and how much fun it was to do it in a hammock and recommended positions for doing so.
The wood elf never counted herself a prude in her life, but the lewdity of the young maid demon was wholly unexpected.
She skimmed that part, moving past several pages, until she returned to a more normal narrative.
"...so we have had many wonderful nights, and where exactly it might go from here, neither of us know for sure. The last few months have been some of the happiest of my life 'so far'. I do still use my mask sometimes, but often simply leave it in my drawer. The strangest thing about that to me is that really… Nobody seems to care."
"Did I imagine it all this time, that people would be focused entirely on me and what I looked like? Was I really so worried about something that was so minor to the rest of the world that it wasn't even trivial? In hindsight I'm almost embarrassed at myself."
Bertra paused and rolled her eyes, 'Even monsters have their very human side… or elven, for that matter.' She thought and went back to reading.
"We've settled into a normal routine now, Inta has settled into my home, he had very little so it was quite easy. We set our course hours so that we're teaching at the same hours or close to them, and have more time for 'other' things."
The elven bookshop owner rolled her eyes again and went through another two pages of lewd material.
"...So now, life is good, I can't control him like I could Harold, and that's been part of what I like, as nervous as I still am sometimes when I'm not sure what he's thinking, it's part of the fun. I feel better all the time, and I'm thinking about far more in my future than I imagined even a few months earlier."
Bertra sighed contentedly and with great relief, she left her counter with the letter in hand and poured herself a cup of tea while rereading the last paragraph over and over again. Without thinking, she put six spoonfuls into two cups and stirred them with milk, then laughed at herself. 'It's like she's here with me.' Bertra thought and looked down at the cup.
One quick decision later, she took out a preservation scroll from a drawer, held it over the cup, and the blue flames devoured the spell scroll. 'A cup will always be waiting for you, no matter how long it takes for you to come back.'
She returned to her spot at the counter with the letter in hand and resumed her reading.
"Of course not everything is easy, I do have to prepare more advanced books for future courses, and there are no other entomancers that I know of. There is some small chance of finding them among the scorpion-men, and I'd love to take an expedition there. In fact we're talking about doing that when the off-season comes again. It'll take us outside of the Empire's borders, but it would be a marvelous adventure and who knows what magic we might find?"
Bertra looked around her shop, and recalled with some envy the adventures of her youth, 'I love my life here, but maybe… maybe an adventure would be nice to have again.'
She then looked down at the paper again, "That is for the future though, and we're all enjoying the present to the fullest, the next big step of course will be to bring Inta to Nazarick so he can meet my sisters and of course, the Lord I serve… I have no 'father' now that my creator is gone, so he is as close as I can get. I can only hope that Inta meets with his approval."
Bertra put a hand over her heart, 'Poor Inta… has there ever been a man who was approved of by his daughter's father… and I know that's how Lord Ainz sees them all… they're his children… I do hope Inta survives." She laughed, but only half in jest, the other half, nervous for the vampire professor.
She then went on to the last part of the last page, "And of course, there is only one more thing I need to ask, I simply need the opinion of my dearest friend…"
Bertra looked at the document, it ended with that sentence. She looked in the tube, she even shook it a few times to ensure her eyes weren't lying to her. They were not. There were no other pages.
She flipped over each page in turn from last until she was back to the beginning. She flipped the first page over and found what she sought.
A single sentence on the back center of the sheet.
"...Do you think 'Bertra' would make a good name for a first child?"