The group of friends walked out of the arcade chattering loudly while laughing occasionally.
Reo, Natsu, Ren and Hina.
These four people have been friends for years and naturally enjoyed each other's company very much.
"Let's go to the café, I could do with something nice to drink right now."
Natsu suddenly suggested.
He was answered with positive replies as the four of them moved towards the direction of the little café where they frequently visited.
A few minutes later, they were sitting at a table while sipping various drinks and exchanging small talk and banter.
"Tell us about an interesting adventure you went to, Natsu!"
Hina asked with pleading eyes.
Ren nodded silently by the side while Reo just loudly slurped his cup of mint tea.
"Eh…. You really want to hear?"
Natsu put on a teasing smile.
"Really!"
"Yes!"
Hina and Ren's voice came out at the same time.
"Well okay then."
Natsu laughed as he took a small sip of his cup of coffee.
"I will tell you about this one time I sneaked into a city where I was been hunted down!"
Just that sentence caught their attention as they started listening with rapt attention. Except for Reo.
He had heard this story before so he wasn't interested.
Their table was at the middle of the of the café and was facing the large glass window so he started staring out absentmindedly.
He watched all the people go about their weekend activities, with the numerous adverts on AOM and even got to see someone trying to challenge a dojo.
That would have been interesting to watch if his eyes hadn't suddenly caught sight of a figure walking across the street from the opposite side.
'Hmm…'
His eyes absentmindedly followed the figure walking across till eventually.
"Hey, isn't that Sara Fujino?"
Natsu's voice snapped him back to reality.
The girl in question stood frozen at the entrance of the café as she looked at the group. Natsu was waving cheerily at her and Reo was just staring intently.
She was wearing a yellow turtleneck with long sleeves and a long black skirt which covered most of her pale skin.
A pair of black metal frame glasses hung on her face and her hair was tied in two long braids behind her head.
She was holding the smart book that Reo had noticed her carrying around and the headphones were also in her hands as she stared back at them like a deer caught in headlights.
She had obviously heard Natsu calling out and seemed to be too flustered to give a response.
As the person who interrupted a good story for them, Ren and Hina also turned to give her a glance.
"H-hi…."
She stammered out a greeting.
"Are you here for a snack too? Come join our table then, there is room for one more."
Natsu invited her with a smile.
Reo gave him a side glance but just kept on drinking his tea like it was none of his business. He was very clear about what Natsu was trying to do.
'Fucking retard! I'll deal with him later!'
He swore heavily in his mind.
Sara seemed to hesitate a bit as she looked at them, her gaze involuntarily fell to Reo for a swift second before finally replying.
"Okay."
She took little steps to approach the table.
Natsu immediately had Hina make way and had her sit in between Hina and Reo.
Reo's hands trembled a bit but he still managed to take his cup to his lips.
'Fucking bastard I'll kill you! Fucking retard see if I don't wipe that smug smile off your face with a kick to the nuts! You dare play me!?'
Reo was raving and cursing in his mind as he gave Natsu occasional side glares.
Natsu acted like he didn't see him at all as he persuaded the reserved looking Sara to make an order which was quickly delivered.
Taking a side glance at what she ordered, Reo was slightly surprised.
"You like mint tea?"
He turned to look at her.
"Eh? Y-yes?"
'He actually initiated a conversation!'
Natsu was shocked inwardly but was also not too surprised about it.
Although Reo was mostly an introverted person, he was never shy about things that caught his interest.
'Hehehe! This is going pretty well. This stupid piece of shit would have probably let this slide if I let him be. Who knew this girl liked mint tea too?'
Natsu was very satisfied with the current development and decided to give them a chance to talk.
He dragged Hina and Ren's attention back to his story about his adventures in AOM.
Although the both of them, Hina especially felt a kind of weird vibe. They both pushed it to the back of their heads as they were soon engrossed in the story.
Reo on the other hand was delighted finding someone else who liked his favorite tea.
"That's refreshing, you are definitely my kind of person!"
He said with a huge smile.
Sara mumbled something as she buried her head inside her cup for a long time.
"Is it something you always liked or you just picked it up from someone?"
Reo at this point was in full swing and totally forgot all about the awkwardness that was supposed to be there.
"Well my dad liked it a lot so I kind of picked it up from him." She mumbled as she fidgeted with her cup.
Her voice was really small and had a melodic tune to it. Reo realized that this was the first time he had heard her speak ever since she came to their school at the beginning of the year.
She had a really nice voice.
But seeing her look somewhat uncomfortable, he didn't feel like continuing the conversation and fell silent too.
Seeing the matter take a turn for the worse, Natsu was quick to react as he threw a question at Sara.
"Hey Sara, do you play AOM?"
"No, not at all"
She seemed quick to reply the question this time.
"That's too bad. It would have been nice if you had some stories for us."
Hina sighed sadly by the side as she laid her head on the table.
Sara glanced at Hina's form for a second.
She knew that this was Reo's junior sister as she had seen them together before. And the resemblance was really very striking.
"Well, I just heard some rumors from some guys as I was coming here."
She suddenly spoke up.
"Eh?"
"What rumors?"
Ren that was normally quite spoke up this time around too.
"Well I am not too sure myself."
Sara was really a bit reclusive.
"They just said that a guild called Blue leaf had some trouble in a place called the epilus canyons. They found a hidden dungeon and went to explore it but the rewards were stolen by a solitary player."
This time, she got the attention of everyone at the table.
"Wait did they say where exactly?"
Natsu suddenly asked.
"Uhm, they said something like red stone spires."
She answered him.
"That wasn't you was it?"
Reo turned to Natsu.
"No way, I'm in a small village near Kurn right now."
Natsu shook his head.
"Oh…."
Reo took a sip out of his cup.
He suddenly thought of something and turned to ask Natsu.
"Wait that Waeser dude..."
"Blue leaf, yeah."
Natsu nodded.
"Really fucking venting!"
Reo cursed out loud.
__________________________________________________________________________________________
A bright flash of light and Rastel found himself back in the game.
They had a little nice conversation in the café and everyone went their separate ways after that.
As for Sara Fujino, they didn't have much conversation between them after that so he just threw her to the back of his mind.
Right now, he really had a lot of things to focus on.
The room was empty and the settlers seemed nowhere to be found.
Rastel was in no rush to find them and sat down squarely on the bed.
Opening his inventory, he brought out all the books he had that had one thing or the other to do with magic.
What he had to do now was research!
After making golem designs with Hina, he realized that his biggest problem was that he had little to no understanding of the magic system in the game.
As someone who would probably only wield low tier spells for the rest of the game, he had to gain a better understanding to see where he could gain the upper hand.
But apart from that, there was something even more urgent for him to find out more about right now.
Opening up the book on theory of magic that he had been reading previously, he flipped through the pages in search of what he was after.
'Inscriptions…. Inscriptions…. Inscriptions….'