Omake Week 2021, Day 1: This year's Omake Week is going to feature less variety than previous years. And by "less variety" I mean "only three different series" and "a whooooooole lot of Bloodborne." Which may be good or bad, depending on your personal tastes.

~X X X~

"I just can't understand you outsiders," declared the bartender at the Leprous Hound as he fetched down a bottle.

"You mean, why we'd choose to live in such an open and welcoming community as Yharnam?" Balyn responded. He was a little snarky, he had to admit; he'd had a long day in his new temporary placement with Yharnam Public Works, getting the street décor arranged just so as to make the proper impression. Coffins were heavy, especially with all the chains wrapped around them! Not that he begrudged the extra ironware. Balyn had been to Yahar'gul; he'd seen first-hand what happened when local government tried to save a few coins by just putting dead bodies in plain boxes.

"No, no," Louis said. "I mean, why you like this stuff straight, without mixing a little into your blood."

He waggled the rum bottle for emphasis.

Yharnam definitely had a thing about blood. Blood ministration for medical treatment. Blood stones to reinforce weapons for combat. Blood gems to channel eldritch power. And if the night of the hunt and the scourge of the beast were just getting too stressful for a person to deal with, there was nothing like a bottle of thick human blood to act as a sedative to calm the nerves.

Balyn supposed that it made perfect sense that a Yharnamite's favorite after-dinner drink was yet more blood, cut with liquor and pungent spices.

"I don't know, Louis. The last time I tried drinking a local cocktail, things…did not go well. Ended up hitting on the wrong girl."

Louis winced in sympathy.

"Ouch. That never ends well."

"No, it did not. And since I no longer wake up sadder but wiser when someone tears my skull open, I think I'll stick to boring foreign drinks."

Louis lifted an eyebrow at Balyn's reference to his past as a hunter. Or at least Balyn thought he did. It was a little hard to tell; between the heavy sideburns, moustache, beard, and the way his hair came nearly all the way down his forehead the only part of the bartender's flesh showing on his face was his eyes and lips.

In Yharnam, especially after the whole Red Moon thing, if a fellow wasn't trying to eat your spleen, you didn't make trouble about him being a little more beastly than expected. Heck, if he was a good enough bartender, people probably would overlook a little casual spleen-eating. Everybody had their problems, right?

"You know, though, shouldn't sell yourself short," Louis said as he poured rum into a glitteringly clean glass.

"Oh? How so?"

"Well, sure you're ordering a pretty plain drink right now, it's true, but you ought to have a little more pride in yourself as a foreigner."

He passed the rum over, and Balyn took a drink. It was surprisingly good; one reason why Balyn liked the Leprous Hound was that Louis maintained a respectable stock of liquor for actual drinking, not just to put alcohol content into blood.

"Pride as a foreigner, huh? How so?"

"Well, it's true, we Yharnam-folk are pretty proud of our blood cocktails and their potency. I mean, they really take a person over and bring out their wild side, don't you know? But they've got nothing on some of those drinks you outsiders have introduced."

"I'm surprised to hear you say that." Not a lot of Yharnamites were willing to admit that a foreigner could be superior to them in anything, even the ones who were relatively accepting of outsiders.

"Well, sure. Like, for example, I don't know where he was from, but that fellow Molotov was seriously hardcore about his cocktails!"