Salvos

“Would you ladies mind if we joined you?”

A tall, lanky man asked as his shorter, more rotund companion followed behind him. Edithe glanced up at them, not even batting an eyelash.

“Apologies, but we are rather preoccupied with ourselves.”

“Oh, come on. I see that you’re both adventurers too. Can’t you spare some time for us fine gentlemen?”

I narrowed my eyes. Adventurers? I quickly identified them.

[Mage - Lvl. 27]

[Archer - Lvl. 24]

I blinked. ‘Too’...? What do they mean by ‘too’...? They’re so weak! I opened my mouth and raised a finger, but Edithe stopped me. She gave me a telling smile before simply shaking her head at them.

“Unfortunately, we are busy.”

“Let your lady friend speak— what do you say?”

He turned to me, ignoring the red haired woman as her smile disappeared off her face. He leaned closer to me.

“If you can convince your friend to join us, we’ll treat you both to a fancy restaurant not in this dull part of Hazelbury. Just give us a chance.”

He spoke with a wink and a grin, holding out a hand. I cocked my head.

“Huh?”

“There’s no need to be coy with us. We have the gold, don’t worry.”

“No. I don’t get what you’re saying at all.”

The man blinked.

“Uh, excuse me?”

I nodded, standing up.

“How are you going to ‘treat’ us to a restaurant? Don’t you eat in a restaurant, not get eaten by the restaurant? Plus, you’re both low leveled. Even if you try to force feed us to a restaurant, we won’t let you.”

I raised a hand menacingly.

“Not without a fight.”

He stared at me. Edithe smacked her forehead. The man turned to his shorter companion.

“What is she on about?”

“I don’t know man. We should just leave. I told you it’s not worth it.”

“But look at them, how can you pass up this chance?”

The lanky man looked back over to me. He reached out and lowered my hand, tugging me with him.

“It’ll just be a quick meal. We can find a place to stay after if you want—”

Edithe finally stood up. She placed a hand on the table quickly but gently, fixating them with a gaze that slowly turned to a glare.

“Excuse me, boys— no, not gentlemen, because gentlemen introduce themselves first— my friend and I are not in the mood to deal with either of you. I’ve tried turning you down nicely, but now I will have to ask you to leave.”

“Oh, how scary. I like my women strong.”

“You should be scared of Salvos, not me.”

He blinked.

“Wait, isn’t that—”

I punched the man in the nether region. He screamed— it was a high pitched scream, losing all of the deepness to his voice. He doubled over, letting go of my right hand. I grabbed his arm before it could fall limply to the ground and pulled him up into the air.

He hovered there for a moment, before I slammed back down to the table.

The lanky man groaned on the now splintered wood, with food and drinks covering him. Heads snapped to us and his companion stepped back. I turned to the other man.

“You want to try it too, huh? I will not let you treat me to a restaurant!”

“H-h-what?”

He paused for a second to give me a confused look, then the sound of a food slopping to his companion’s face drew his attention. He stared at the state of his companion then me.

He ran.

Other Humans in the room turned to stare at us. An angry man burst out of the back, screaming and yelling at me.

“What is going on?! Someone call the guards!”

A person scrambled for the door, shouting for the Human guardsmen attention. A patrol of armed men and women came in, weapons drawn and aimed at me as I tensed. Then the man leading them paused.

“Aren’t you… the Savior of Falisfield? The one who slew the Destroyer?”

I eyed his weapon, lowering my hands slowly.

“Yes.”

“Hm, I only caught a glimpse of you back when you helped defend our city... you’re a bit taller than I remembered. But that doesn’t matter right now— why would you attack a random Silver?”

I shrugged as the lanky man groaned on the floor, wiping the sludge of disgusting food off his head.

“He wanted to feed me to a building!”

Edithe burst out laughing.

—--

“So how did you think a restaurant was going to eat you?”

“I don’t know— it could be a building monster? A wild building? No one ever told me that rocks can attack you, but they can!”

“That’s a fair point, I guess.”

Edithe chuckled, wiping tears out of her eyes. She had explained the situation to the guards, telling them that the two Human men were ‘harassing’ us. However, due to my overreaction we were fined quite a bit of money— two gold coins.

I wasn’t sure how much that was worth, but it was apparently worth a lot.

“I probably should have stopped you, to be honest. I feel a little bit bad. But I just wanted to see what you would do and how you would react.”

“And you found it humorous?”

“It’s nice seeing assholes get what they deserve. Sure, he was only ‘bothering’ us. However, we’re both over 10 levels above him. Imagine if it was two poor Level 15 adventurers here— what would he have done?”

I thought about it for a moment, then shrugged.

“I don’t care.”

“Well, let’s just say he’d have been more insistent. So I’m glad I let you have at him.”

The two of us strolled down the streets of Hazelbury; she was still hungry— having not had enough to eat. We stopped by a small wooden box and she bought some food on sticks from the man inside of it.

“These market street vendors are always so good. Do you want some?”

She grabbed a chicken wing and scrunched into it, gesturing at another one still on the stick. I grimaced.

“You eat a lot.”

“Hey, are you calling me fat?”

Edithe laughed and I cocked my head. She waved a hand off.

“And before you take me literally and say ‘no I am not’, it was a joke.”

“Huh.”

The red haired woman continued chewing into her food as we just walked and talked.

“These are good, but honestly they can’t compare to the street food you can find in a Cyclops city. Those are phenomenal.”

“A… Cyclops city?”

“Well, I say cities, but they’re more like small settlements? Only the coastal ones even get as big as Hazelbury. Cyclops don’t live in very dense populations. And to add to it, many of them travel and leave their homes.”

She turned her gaze up, sighing wistfully.

“I was in Ajih— one of their bigger cities. I had these squishy white things on sticks. They called it fishballs, I think. You should try it— and with the sauce too. It was so delicious.”

I grimaced, imagining the thought of biting a small white rock with some black ooze over it. No— never. Edithe just smiled at my reaction.