Chapter 88

Timani pulled her hood back over her head and hurriedly ran out, picking up a tray and pretending she hadn’t gone far, managing to keep her wages.

It seemed that “Tini” was the alias she used when working part-time.

As Timani returned to her post, the dishes on Sheffy’s table finally became abundant.

But Timani, that shameless girl—she probably felt that shouting “Lady Shaya” earlier shouldn’t go unrewarded, so with every dish she brought over, she would sneak a few bites herself. Where had her dignity gone, huh?!

However…

Sheffy and Xiarette hadn’t even had a few mouthfuls of the delicious food yet—

—when a shrill, clamorous noise sounded outside the barrier.

The isolating barrier could block most sounds, but when it was too noisy, such as slamming tables and shouting, it couldn’t fully muffle it.

Upon looking closely, it seemed a tipsy burly man clutching a wooden barrel of wine had picked up another adventurer and thrown him out.

Apparently, someone had started a fight, smashing an entire row of tables.

“Ha…?! I’m not drunk! Today, I’m telling this little bastard—when he talks to me, he’d better…better mind his manners…! You see this badge…?! I’m a Silver-rank adventurer…! Even nobles have to think twice before talking to me like that! And what the hell is he, daring to bark at me?!”

10. Two Sides of Good and Evil (5k)

Ah, the advantage of eating at a tavern was that it was cheap, with huge portions, and you could eat as much as you wanted.

But at the same time, the downsides were obvious.

—That was, you might be in the middle of your meal, and suddenly your table would be gone.

The poor guy whose table had been smashed was exactly like that.

Others fought, and he suffered for it while trying to eat.

As he was eating, someone flew over and crashed into the table. The patrons screamed and fled the tavern in a panic, leaving without paying, which practically amounted to half a free meal.

Fortunately, it wasn’t Sheffy’s table that got smashed—otherwise, they would have been treated to a taste of a bandit’s fist along with their bandit meal.

That big guy earlier said he was a Silver-rank adventurer?

Oh, Sheffy did know about that.

The Adventurers’ Guild wasn’t unique to the Kingdom of Aurus. Across the world, any nation that allowed the guild to set up branches shared the same adventurer ranking system and commissions. Adventurers accepted commissions and completed them in exchange for payment.

Adventurer ranks, from weakest to strongest, were: Copper, Silver, Gold, Platinum, and Obsidian.

But in fact, the adventurer’s rank didn’t directly reflect the individual’s strength.

After all, the way adventurers advanced their ranking plates wasn’t through a test of power, but by the number of commissions completed.

For example, if someone hunted a flying dragon, they could jump straight from a Copper-rank adventurer to a Gold-rank.

And if they didn’t have the strength to defeat a flying dragon, they could always find another way.

Hunting a million slimes could achieve the same effect.

Ahem… it was just that almost no one had that much free time to go hunt so many low-reward magical beasts just to level up their rank.

Because of this, among those who became adventurers, there were reclusive experts—and also worthless hacks who only earned their rank by slaughtering weak beasts.

As for a Silver-rank adventurer…

By average standards, it was roughly equivalent to the second-tier level in the kingdom’s official power hierarchy.

The one getting beaten up now was also an adventurer.

Though he was much leaner than the burly adventurer, the scar across his face proved he wasn’t some harmless fellow.

“Wanna fight, huh? Come on! So what if you’re a Silver-rank adventurer—don’t…don’t think you’re something special, just got lucky and got yourself a rank?!”

“Oh? Still so defiant? I was planning to let it go if you apologized for spilling your damn wine all over me. But if you won’t, then maybe I’ll just take a leg off you?”

“Ha, what a joke—

Who ends up losing a leg is still up in the air, come on…! Aaaagh!!”

Ugh.

The scar-faced man had just finished his tough talk—

—and the next second, he was getting pounded in a chaotic barrage.

Sheffy really didn’t understand the thinking of people like this. If you ran into a wild dog barking at you, wouldn’t you just hurry up and leave? But no, you had to bare your teeth and see if the dog would bite—then why would that mad dog bother being polite to you? From that moment on, the two of you were basically mad-dog brothers in arms!

But she had to admit, the scar-faced man was surprisingly durable.

The burly man’s fists, each the size of a sandbag, had smashed into his face several times, yet he still hadn’t been knocked out—he just kept shouting, “I won’t yield!” If he ever joined an adventurer party, he would definitely have a talent for being a shield-bearer!

Xiarette heard all the commotion, and her appetite was already almost gone.

Sigh…

It was so rare to bring Sheffy out to experience the royal capital’s nightlife, only to run into this kind of trouble.

“Sheffy, if you feel it’s too noisy, let’s just go. If you’re still hungry, I’ll cook something for you when we get back…”

“Wow… Xiarette, Xiarette! That scar-faced guy is really tough! Maybe his skin is naturally thicker than everyone else’s? Here, I’ll bet you a roasted duck—I think the scar-faced guy won’t necessarily be the one to go down first. What if that big guy exhausts himself before he does, huh? Do you believe me?”

“You’re really watching this?!”

“Mm… If someone ends up seriously hurt, then we’ll step in. But right now, isn’t this just two dogs fighting? If we don’t watch, it’s such a waste.”

Uh… fair point?

Fine—Xiarette had to admit her earlier concern seemed unnecessary.

Look at Sheffy’s eyes sparkling like that…!

She was treating this brawl as tonight’s impromptu dinner entertainment. She was practically ready to clap and cheer!

Sigh… well, that was fine too.

Sheffy had been cooped up indoors for so long that it was rare for her to see something she considered “fun.” Poor kid was really starved for amusement.

Besides, Sheffy was right—if things really got out of control, Xiarette could always step in to mediate.

It wasn’t just because Sheffy was enjoying herself.

More importantly, brawls like this were actually very common in alleys and streets. If Xiarette hurried to step in and resolve it, she might instead expose her identity and cause an even bigger commotion.

Miss Shaya was, in fact, a rather restrained sort of onlooker.

The true onlookers, the ones genuinely reveling in the spectacle, were the vast masses of curious bystanders.

The patrons who’d been sitting at other tables eating had completely lost interest in their meals. They surrounded the two fighters in a broad circle, keeping a safe distance while occasionally letting out cries of surprise.

“Oh, oh…! I know him—that’s ‘Bloodthirsty Hanks’! Tsk, tsk, tsk, I can’t believe we’d run into a Silver-rank adventurer here. That scar-faced guy probably won’t come out of this well… Buddy, you’d better stand back. You’ll get hurt.”

“Fight, fight! The scar-faced guy’s not bad either! Did you see the badge that fell out…? Copper-rank adventurer! Wait—doesn’t the Adventurers’ Guild forbid adventurers from fighting each other?”

“Are you stupid? This isn’t the Adventurers’ Guild! Who’s gonna care about a fight here?”

The two men in the middle seemed to rather enjoy being admired like this.

Especially that Silver-rank adventurer—he was fighting more and more viciously, caring nothing about how their brawl was destroying the tavern’s tables and chairs and ruining its business.

Some patrons who didn’t dare continue eating had already taken the chance to slip away in the confusion.

The tavern proprietress heard the noise and came out of the kitchen. The moment she saw the situation, she thought, ‘This is outrageous!’

She hurriedly set down the dishes she was carrying onto a wooden table, pushed through the crowd to the center, and shouted a stern rebuke at such violent conduct.

“You two, stop this immediately! This is a place to eat, not to fight! Lawless… absolutely lawless! Prepare to pay for damages! If you don’t stop now, I’ll call the Knight Order over!”

“Ha?”

The burly man—this so-called “Bloodthirsty Hanks”—was clearly drunk to the point of delirium.

He shook out his fists, ignoring the scar-faced man he’d already beaten into a swollen mess who was still shouting defiance, and instead turned his vicious gaze toward the proprietress trying to intervene.

At this point, some people were quietly urging Hanks not to get carried away, not to hit a woman too hard.

Unfortunately, Hanks’s head was buzzing with nothing but the urge to fight. He didn’t care whether the person standing in front of him was a man or a woman.

“Pay damages…? You want me to pay damages? Do you know who I am?! I’m an adventurer from the Holy Theocracy of Coreia… ‘hic’ I came here to take commissions to hunt monsters! You want to call the Knight Order? Let’s see if your Knight Order dares lay a hand on someone from the Theocracy! Fine, fine, pay damages, huh? I’ll… I’ll make you pay!!”

“…!!”

“?”

Hanks swung his fist at the proprietress, whose face had gone deathly pale in fright.

Seeing that the fist was about to strike her square in the face and send her flying—

—but just before it connected…

It was as if something strange and invisible had clamped Hanks’s arm in midair, rendering it completely immobile.

No matter how frantically Hanks slapped at his arm with his other hand, his thick limb looked as small as a reed under that unseen restraint, stuck fast and unable to budge an inch.

Inside the 【Perception-Isolating Barrier】.

Sheffy held a blue point of magical light between her fingers, quietly reciting the true name of the spell.

【Lesser Restraint.】

At Sheffy’s level, even without actively maintaining the magic, the restraint remained in effect.

Once she had locked Hanks’s arm in place and left him to flail around in his own panic, Sheffy happily resumed enjoying her meal~

Xiarette held a napkin and gently wiped the grease from the corner of her mouth, smiling teasingly.

“Sheffy, you always say you like watching excitement, but when ‘excitement’ really shows up, you’re always the first one who can’t stand it.”

“Well, of course.” Shaya picked up the large wooden mug and took a sip of her drink, swallowing the food in her small mouth before smiling as well. “I only like watching excitement. It doesn’t mean I enjoy watching the strong bully the weak. A dog biting another dog is one thing, but if a dog starts biting a person, that’s when it deserves a beating!”

“Mm, go ahead and eat. I’ll handle the rest—I’ll go settle this.”

“No need, no need~ You eat too. It’d be such a waste to leave all this good food untouched.”

“Ah? But if I don’t, then… Are we just going to wait for the Knight Order to arrive?”

“Doesn’t this tavern have a capable employee? Xiarette, you have to remember, not a single copper coin of wages is earned for nothing. When it’s time to work, you work.”

With Sheffy’s straightforward reminder, Xiarette immediately recalled who this “capable employee” was.

Heavy footsteps crushed the broken wooden planks scattered across the floor, step by step, drawing steadily closer to the raving Hanks who was shouting “damn it!”

A figure in a plain brown robe—looking quite odd.

But precisely because of that oddness, the crowd of onlookers instinctively parted to let her through.

Or rather…giving way was simply the natural reaction.

Because anyone who had even slightly trained their body or magical senses could feel a powerful, oppressive aura pressing toward them.

They didn’t notice that where the brown-robed figure stepped, the sawdust on the floor smoldered into tiny sparks, then faded away near the ground.

The proprietress, still trembling from fright, saw it was the temporary worker she had just hired the previous night. She slapped her palm anxiously against the stone wall and shouted,

“Tini! I’ll stay here—go find the Kingdom’s Knight Order! There’s an adventurer from the Theocracy causing trouble here…they won’t ignore this!”

“No need.”

“…Tini?”

In the brief exchange of words, Timani, wearing her hood, had already stepped to the very center of the conflict.

The scar-faced man truly had been tough, but he’d finally reached his limit—his eyes rolling back as he slipped into unconsciousness.

Only “Bloodthirsty Hanks” was still frantically hammering at the invisible restraint, completely unable to understand what was happening.

“Damn it…! Damn it! To hell with this… Which cowardly bastard?! If you’ve got guts, come out here and fight me fair and square! Tch—what the hell are you supposed to be?”

The brown-robed figure stood unmoving in front of him, and Hanks, drunk as he was, didn’t even bother to open his eyes to look properly.

Yet…somewhere deep inside, he seemed to feel an instinctive urge to flee—just like the time he’d encountered ferocious higher beasts on an adventuring commission.

But in the end, it was the liquor that gave courage to cowards.

Just moments ago, Hanks had been basking in the crowd’s praise—how could he bear this sudden reversal?

So this nearly senseless, reckless adventurer began shouting again.

“Hey! If you can hear me, let this freaky thing go! I’m going to teach this freak a proper lesson! And after I’ve flattened this robe-wearing thing, I’ll come find you, you sneaky coward, and beat you too! Ugh…?!”

Hanks suddenly tried to pull with all his strength—and nearly pitched himself headfirst onto the floor.

He flailed desperately to regain his balance, narrowly avoiding an ignominious fall flat on his face.

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