Joan found that the request board for the legal guilds had some funny requests on it. One of these was a request to get rid of a peeping tom who had been terrorizing the bathhouse in Magnolia Town. The vampyress looked over the request boards as she left her inn to get something to eat and her daily dose of caffeine. For the past few days, all she had been doing was getting fat in her inn room. Her favorite author had just released a new book so she had to grab a copy before they were all sold out. There was this book store she had been to before in Magnolia Town that was pretty popular with a huge variety of books. She knew of the most famous book stores in all the towns she visited, other than Dahlia because most of the time she was in Dahlia, she was busy helping Adarian out with his cult stuff and backstabbing him by working for his enemy – Bishop Santos. So, among all the towns she had been to already in Fiore, the only town in which she had not visited a book store in was Dahlia Town. She had finished already half of the book, but she was reading slower than usual because she did not want to finish it before she left Magnolia, though Joan was not sure when she would leave this town yet. It depended on her mood, honestly, at this point. She would leave when she felt like it.

The vampyress was clothed in a simple outfit – the kind of outfit you would not normally find her in because she was always dressed as though she was a priestess or something like that. Without that usual complicated outfit, she received less stares, since she looked like a normal teenager, even though she was not really a teenager. Joan looked much younger than she actually was. Her actual age was twenty five, but she appeared to look like an eighteen year old, especially when she was dressed like a normal person. As she made her way out of the inn, she noticed that it was slightly hotter this day compared to the days before. It was going to be full on summer soon, and to be honest, Joan was not sure if she was excited or not about that. The fun part about it was that she could flaunt her features in a swimsuit at the beach or something, but the not so fun part was the heat. As a vampyre, she was not very fond of the heat. It did not hurt her, but after being exposed to the sun for a certain amount of time, she would start to tan and she hated that. So if she was going to be in a swimsuit, it would be for a very short time. As she thought about the coming season, Joan came to the request board where a bunch of request sheets were pinned.

She took a quick look at the requests pinned on the legal request board, a small smile appearing on her lips as she noticed the different types of requests that had been put up. To make sure that the people here did not see her as a threat, she wanted to take some of the requests that were meant for legal guild wizards. After severing her ties to the Phantom Lord guild, she was basically a mercenary with no affiliation to any organizations, both legal and illegal. She was not going to be given shit for helping out the legal side, even though deep down she felt that she was doing something wrong every time she took a request that was meant for a legal guild member. Of course, since she was an expert of pretense, this would not show and she would not blow her own cover. Even though she left Phantom Lord guild, all she really did was send a letter to the guild, resigning as guildmaster, but she was still a phantom at heart. She would probably never be able to pledge her loyalty to any other organization like she did to Phantom Lord. Even though she had left Phantom Lord, it was not as though she had betrayed it. She would never do anything that would affect the guild negatively. She would always have a close eye on Phantom Lord and watch over it. If she was allowed, she would naturally go back to the guild after her personal mess was cleared.

After taking some time to pick out the right request for the day, Joan decided on this hilarious request by Bella who was the owner of the bathhouse in Magnolia Town. A peeping tom needed to be identified and punished for their wrongdoing. A chuckle escaped her lips as she read the details of the request. This was the first time she came across a request like this. Having been a part of an illegal guild all this time, she never wondered what kind of quests legal guild members were offered. Now that she was taking their requests, of course she was amused to find out these were the kinds of requests they were offered. The vampyress removed the pin that attached the request sheet to the board and pinned it elsewhere on the board, folding the sheet neatly to place in her pocket. She was going to have her breakfast and coffee first before anything else – and anything else included the request. She looked around to find the cafe that the innkeeper had recommended to her. She was offered a map to find the place, but she was too smug to take it from the innkeeper and told him that she knew her way around town and just needed to know if any new places had popped up or something. The innkeeper only nodded when she said this and put the map away. Joan was sort of familiar with the places here.

According to what was written on the request paper, Bella had closed down the bathhouse so that whoever took this request could set up an ambush or something like that to catch the peeping tom. Joan was too lazy to do anything like that. She had already figured out how she was going to handle this and if that did not work, a different plan. There was no need for her to meet the client for this job so she decided to wait until evening since it was the time of day when most of the reported cases took place. For now, the vampyress was going to the cafe. After arriving at the place, Joan could see why the innkeeper had recommended it to her. With a smile plastered on her face, she pushed the glass door open and got herself coffee and a slice of red velvet cake. This reminded her of the incident about a month ago when she met a man at a flea market, invited him to join her at a cafe, fed from him and then made him dinner. It had been a while since she had done something like hat. It was not the only time either. Even before that happened, she attacked a man who was high on a windmill and got high after taking his blood which resulted in Joan making hotpot for herself and her victim. Some crazy shit happened last month. Of course she could not be doing things like that now that she was planning to lay low.

The coffee was great, and the red velvet cake made her feel like she was in some heavenly realm for a short while. She ate it slowly, to savor the flavor. As she did so, she stared at the people outside through the large window she was facing. For just a few seconds, she wondered if it was a mistake to involve Adelaide in all of this. It was for just those seconds, she was worried about the safety of these people. But as time elapsed, she was brought back to her senses. She shook her head lightly, her lips curling up into a crooked smile. There was nothing to worry about, other than of herself. Even though Joan did not know this at the time, it would have been smarter to leave Adelaide out of this, out of Fiore as well. She would not know, because of how she had been tricked by the older vampyress, to think of her in times of need, as though she was an older sister to Joan. After she finished the red velvet cake, she slowly downed the coffee as well and rose from her seat. She paid for what she ordered and then left the cafe. She would have to waste some time now before she went to the bathhouse to do the job. After leaving the cafe as she walked back, she started thinking of how to feed herself without attacking anyone.

During the time after she left the cafe and before she went to the bathhouse, Joan paid the local hospital a visit just to steal some blood bags. She did not need a lot, since she was not planning on staying in Magnolia for long. She made sure no one could catch her doing this, because her plan was to lay low and getting caught stealing blood bags from the hospital was not going to help with her case of course. She brought back the blood bags to her inn and put them in the small fridge. The sight of blood made her feel so excited she felt like drinking all of the blood she just stole, but she was able to control herself. Checking the clock, she noticed that she had about a few hours before she had planned to start the mission. She picked up the book she had recently purchased and continued reading. She had already finished the book by the time the sun began to set. It was a great read, as expected. She went into the bathroom for a quick shower and clothed herself in a dark outfit. After getting ready, she retrieved one of the blood bags from the fridge and emptied it. A few minutes later, she headed out of the inn and started walking to the bathhouse. It was a pretty popular place in Magnolia, so she knew where it was and even if she had trouble finding it, she figured she could just ask one of the locals.

It turned out the bathhouse was easier to find than she expected. It was pretty big and even though Bella said it was closed, of course she made it seem like it was not, probably to trick the peeping tom. Joan kept to the shadows around the establishment and went around it, keeping her senses on alert to pick up on anything. For the time being, there was nothing going on but she kept waiting. After a while she heard some shuffling noises, and she followed the sound to the back of the bathhouse. Then she noticed a figure inside the bathhouse, which meant that someone was inside. She sneaked in, and because she was a vampyre, she could not be heard. She spotted the figure, who was making a comment about the lack of women in the bathhouse today. He was hiding behind some decoration, looking extremely stupid. Joan wanted to get this over with fast so she approached him and confronted him. This got him all riled up and so she stabbed him in the throat with her index and middle fingers stuck together, quickly with enough force. After making sure he could not fight back or run, she looked around to see if Bella or any of the bath house staff were hiding and watching. Bella came in through the main entrance and rewarded her while ordering her employees to take the peeping tom to the authorities to deal with.