Ralph was walking down the road to return to Furhen, feeling pleased with the money he was about to make when he returned. Ralph was an average class adventurer that took a job exterminating a few low level monsters on the road between Furhen and Ul, a simple job that would give him good pay to last a few days. Just as he debating which brothel he was gonna visit, a strange noise reached his ears.
vvvvvrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Having never heard such a sound Ralph decided that it must have been some kind of monster he hadn't seen before. He pulled out his sword and held it in a ready stance in front of him, prepared to fight for his life if need be while the noise got louder. He concluded the noise was a monster growling, and fought the sliver of fear that was starting to work its way into his heart. It was never a good thing to fight an unknown monster as one never knew what they were capable of, and judging from the ever growing noise he was hearing the monster was very large.
vvvvvvVVVVVVRRRRRRRRRR
As the noise grew louder Ralph saw what he presumed was making it, a dark red thing that looked like it was covered in metallic scales. The sliver of fear grew as the thing moved towards him faster than he dared imagine, and Ralph made his decision to at least survive and run away to warn the guild. As the creature got closer however he could feel his chances of surviving growing slimmer as something came flying at him from the monster. Ralph immediately thought it was an attack and wildly swung his sword, and felt it connect right before a foul smelling liquid covered him. Before he could register this though,
HOOOOONNNNNNNNNKKKKKKKKK
A new noise sounded out that he took for the monster roaring at him, causing Ralph to fall back on his butt in fear, a wet stain spreading on his pants. Before he knew it however the monster passed him and sped down the road, moving so fast that Ralph was also buffeted by the resulting wind.
It took nearly an hour of Ralph sitting there after the monster passed before he was willing to move again, as he seemingly forgot about the foul smelling liquid that covered him. He thought the monster would try and toy with its prey, coming back to finish him off when he thought he was safe. Realizing that wasn't the case, he was filled with a new appreciation of life as he had never been in a situation that terrifying before. Ralph then decided to quit being an adventurer and open a shop somewhere. He never realized just what it was he saw that day.
***
Meanwhile Alex was thinking hard about something before saying to his passengers,
"I think I just hit someone with Anne's barf bag." When they heard this Anne made a guilty face before putting it back into her new bag to fill it, and the other three made complicated expressions at the thought of getting hit by such a thing. Their attention was diverted however, when Hajime moved from his spot right behind Alex's car and tried to take the lead in their race.
Though they called it a race, neither of them were taking it as seriously as the girls did theirs the other day. It was merely a way for them to occupy themselves as they drove for several hours to Ul. Hajime was by himself on his motorcycle, while Alex was in his sports car with Anne, Yue, and Shia in the back seat and Rias in the front passenger. Alex smiled at the situation, he was speeding down the road in a red sports car with several women inside that would put supermodels to shame, if this was the earth he grew up in he doubted there would be a higher peak than this.
Alex then shifted his car into the second gear, which meant it started drawing more magic power from him to increase the speed. Though Azazel rarely bothered playing it safe when it came to driving, he did in fact install several safety measures in the car before giving it to Alex. Firstly it had up to five gears for top speeds, for each gear increased the magic power drawn from him would also increase and the max speed would go up. Second was that the car had several magic circles and spells added to it to allow quick stops regardless of speed without disrupting the passengers inside, as well as a balancing system to handle all but the most extreme roads, and finally he had the body and windows reinforced with several layers of barriers so that the car had the durability of a tank. Of course Alex had the Grigori add the metal azantium to the outside of the body when they collected it, which was Tortus's strongest metal ore. With all the added weapon features and gadgets that were installed, Alex's car was more of a mobile deadly fortress than a vehicle.
Though this vehicle was very nice and something to be proud of it had one flaw, the limited amount of seating in it. It only had seats for up to five people, two in the front and three in the back, unless they wanted to sit extras on others laps. Alex already had a idea to fix this however and asked the Grigori to also prepare and second car for him, except this one would be more like a large all terrain vehicle wth several rows of seating, and more features added. The sports car will be for style, and the next one will be for functionality. He smiled at the thought of his cars, which caught Rias's eye and prompted her to ask,
"What's that look for?" Alex didn't want to say he was thinking more about his cars, so he swiftly thought of something else to say before his smile was replaced by a naughty one. Rias saw his smile change and was suspicious of Alex's thoughts, until he whispered what he wanted in her ear. Rias blushed and started saying,
"N-" but stopped herself. She looked in the backseat where Yue and Shia were observing the inside of the car, both never having seen such a thing before even in Asora since they weren't commonly used. She knew that if she rejected what Alex asked for either of them would more than likely happily do it instead, so she swallowed her embarrassment and said,
"Fine."
Hajime on the other hand was speeding down the road enjoying the scenery blurring around him with his trench coat flapping in the wind. Though he was focused on the road he also couldn't help thinking of something Alex said shortly before leaving Brooke, that they might be able to meet Kaori soon. Though he didn't elaborate when soon was as it was already several days since they left, compared to the four months since he fell even if it took another couple weeks, Hajime felt that would also be considered soon. He then thought of how he never allowed expectations to build up regarding a possible relationship with her in Japan, as the popular girl liking the unpopular otaku was a thing that only happened in manga. It was only after he fell and heard Alex's words about how she reacted to his falling, and how she was more than likely in danger while being with their classmates that he allowed such expectations to build for the first time. He now truly hoped Alex was right about the way she supposedly felt about him.
He was then pulled from his thoughts when Alex's car pulled up next to him, prompting Hajime to glance over briefly before turning back to the road. He then thought of what he just saw and looked back at Alex's cars with an incredulous expression. While Alex was driving with a suspicious expression, there was a head full of Crimson red hair bobbing up and down on his lap from the passenger seat. It didn't take much imagination to figure out what was going on, and Hajime cried out,
"DIE RAIJU!" Before speeding off once more. He ended up winning their race in the end since Alex was obviously distracted, but still felt as if he lost. He waited outside Ul for only a few minutes before Alex pulled up and they stored away their vehicles. Hajime couldn't help but notice Rias refused to look towards him while her face was almost as red as her hair, and that Yue and Shia were snickering occasionally as they saw everything that happened. They then walked to the inn described by Ilwa as the best inn in town, the Water Fairy Inn.
Hajime put the earlier experience out of his mind and focused on the thing he was most excited for with this trip, that the food Ul was famous for was rice. From the day he had been summoned along with his class, Hajime had not once gotten to eat rice. As a Japanese citizen who grew up eating rice how could he not look forward to coming to Ul? They entered the inn and Alex led them to the counter where the man they assumed was the innkeeper was. Alex passed him the letter and said,
"We're here at the request of the guild branch head of Furhen, Ilwa." The innkeeper took the letter with haste and opened it to confirm Alex's words, before offering his hand in greeting and introduced himself.
"It's a pleasure to meet you mister Alex, I'm the owner of this humble inn, Foss. The letter asked that I provide you with lodging and meals for as long as you need to complete the request and it'll be taken care of by the branch head later. We're a little full at the moment but I should be able to provide the lodging you need, now how many rooms would you require?" Alex smiled at how friendly and professional Foss was, and said,
"We'd only need two rooms for tonight, one for five people and a single room if possible." If Foss found their room arrangement strange he never showed it as he quickly checked his bookings and produced two keys a moment later.
"I hope these rooms are to your liking, we start serving dinner a little after dusk and I hope you'll enjoy your night here. Though it won't effect your meal tonight, the unusual situation is also affecting my supplies and will eventually start harming my business, so I am truly grateful for your presence." Alex smiled once more at Foss's words and shook his hand once again before leading the way upstairs. Hajime then went to his single room and prepared to spend a bit of time there before getting dinner, he started putting the finishing touches on a project he had been working on ever since he saw the golems used by Miledy in Raisen, and thought would be useful for finding Will the next day. After a while he decided it was about dinner time and made his way downstairs to find Alex and the girls already waiting for him after having ordered themselves.
"HAJIME! I already ordered you some Nilshisseer HAJIME." As he already knew it was this worlds version of curry Hajime was happy that Alex already told the owner he wanted some, but something bugged him.
"Why does it feel like you're putting emphasis on my name Alex?" As he sat down Hajime couldn't help but notice that something seemed off about Alex as a large grin was continuously plastered on his face, and that for some reason he called his name a lot.
"It's nothing HAJIME, just trying to be friendly." Hajime didn't buy it, but before he could say anything else a curtain on the other side of the restaurant that was made to ensure privacy for high class guests was pulled open, and he found himself looking at a very familiar petite brown haired figure.
"NAGUMO HAJIME?!"