Night, in a certain pub that sits on a brick-lined street, the top adventurers of the Loki Familia including their patron God, Loki, is celebrating their successful return from a dungeon expedition. It is a two-story building made of stone that has the depth of a neat inn. As it is located along the Western Main Street, it is filled with a lot of customers.
The front entrance has a set of double doors with wood carvings decorating the frame. Carvings can be seen in various places on the front of the pub. The Hostess of Fertility sign can be seen on the left side of the entrance, as well as on an overhanging sign with a crossed fork and knife.
Among their group is the three women who Kisuke came across this afternoon.
"Fuahh~! What's wrong with Tione? We should be celebrating, so why the long face and aggressive drinking?" Loki asked after drinking a big gulp from her fruit liquor which is this pub's specialty.
Tione Hiryute, the black long-haired Amazoness with a mature body and only wears clothes that cover the bare minimum of her skin, didn't answer Loki's question and sulk.
Tiona Hiryute, Tione's twin sister, and has medium length black hair and petite body but similar outfit, could only laugh wryly and scratch her head, "Well, this afternoon. Someone touched her butt."
"Huh!? Who the hell has guts to touch my girls!?" Loki exclaimed and asked, "And why are you sulking? Did he got away?"
Everyone automatically ignored Loki's first sentence and looked towards Tiona as this might be a potentially amusing story because there is only a handful of men who could get away from the three.
"No. It's just a random drunk man and he didn't get away."
"Then what's the problem?"
Tiona first looked at her sister who's still sulking and continued, "It's when Tione tried to kick away the drunk man but a bystander is about to get caught."
Loki caught the way Tiona worded it, "About to get caught?"
"Yes. The man in the brown cloak was about to get hit at the back of his head and it's already too late for Tione to stop. We thought that we would have to pour some of our elixir on him and apologize but the man suddenly caught Tione's foot instead without even looking back and tossed her across the street, seemingly without much effort, and ended up landing in one of the food stalls. We had to pay for the damages."
Everyone in their group stopped what they are doing and looked towards the sulking Amazoness. Despite this silence, however, the pub is still being drowned by noisy and merry adventurers.
The first one to react after hearing Tiona's narration is a gray-colored hair Werewolf, along with amber eyes, as well as a sleek tail. He has a blue tattoo on the left side of his face and a muscular physique. His features are described to be handsome, and he appears cool to others. But right now, he's too drunk to even act cool.
He pointed towards Tione and laughed at her face, "Fuhahaha! A hulking woman like you was tossed around!? Find that guy and let me see it happen again!"
Tione's temple throbbed and she snapped. She stood up and approached the intoxicated wolf. Tione then grabbed his leg and threw him towards the open double door of the pub, "SHUT UP!"
The poor wolf couldn't even react as he flew across the street and landing on the nearby dumpster.
The captain of Loki Familia, Finn Deimne, a Pallum with medium length scruffy blonde hair and blue eyes with a fair skin tone, and the vice-captain, Riveria Ljos Alf, an Elf with jade-colored hair tied in a tail that reaches to her waist, same color eyes, and Elf ears could only sigh at this sight, while a top executive, Gareth Landrock, a Dwarf with brown eyes and long brown hair along with facial hair of the same color that is long enough to form a beard, laughed out loud thinking that this is a merry scene.
"And? What happened next?" Riveria asked with a poker face.
Tione gritted her teeth and answered her, "He ran away. So fast that I didn't even get a glimpse of his face."
Riveria and Loki looked towards Tiona, "I also didn't see his face nor his build, but it seems Ais did."
Ais is quietly drinking her fruit drink when she suddenly heard her name and looked up. Before she noticed, everyone is already looking at her.
"Ais. Who is the guy who countered Tione's kick? Someone who can overpower her should be pretty famous." Finn asked with interest.
Ais thought for a bit and tried to recall the man's face that she only saw slightly, "...I don't know. All I know is that he has pale blonde hair."
"Pale blonde? That isn't very rare and I don't recall any top adventurer with that feature. Maybe he came from other powers outside of Orario?" Finn muttered.
"But there is something that you're wrong about." Ais suddenly said gaining other's confusion except for Tione and Tiona.
"What is it, Ais-tan? Something that caught your attention?" Loki opened her slightly closed eyes and looked at Ais carefully.
"He never overpowered Tione," Ais answered with a straight face.
Even more confusion covered everyone's face, but Tione explained more about Ais' answer, "He rebounded the force behind my kick back to me. I don't know how he did it, but I'm sure that it isn't magic as we didn't feel any movements in magical power that moment."
"In other words, it's a purely technical skill... So he might even be just a level 4." Tiona supplemented.
The top executives and Loki's expression became serious, "Then he must have come from outside of Orario. Someone like that should be famous if he lives here." Riveria muttered. But then she noticed something wrong with Ais's expression, "What's wrong, Ais?"
Ais stayed silent for a while but she then decided to answer honestly, "I want to learn that..."
It should have been a perfectly normal desire to learn and get stronger especially coming to Ais, however, for some reason, Riveria shivered and a part of her instincts is screaming at her to stop Ais at all cost. But as a type of person that thinks and decides logically, if she couldn't find a good reason to stop her, she wouldn't be able to convince Ais.
All she could do is make a difficult expression as she looks at Ais, 'What's this feeling? It's my first time... Just what is this unease?' Riveria then promised to herself to watch Ais more closely from now on so any accident wouldn't happen.