As the afternoon approached, the rest of the group finally woke up from their slumber, even Arwin awkwardly waddled out of bed.
Leon saw the poor chap try to waddle over to the front gate with his stuff, where he was standing, and ran over to help him.
"Let me help Arwin."
Arwin merely shook his head, but tried to move once again and decided to just give Leon his bag.
With that, Leon put his hand over his eyes and looked around the whole village.
"Have you seen where the girls are?"
After a bit of thinking, Arwin also looked around.
"Now that you mention it, I thought I heard snoring when I woke up."
The moment Arwin finished his sentence, a thud could be heard and followed by a yelp as Tecia ran out of the house while carrying her belonging messily in her hands.
"AHHHH, I'M UP I'M UP!"
Tomoe simply walked out of the house with everything packed, but she had a spear in her hand as the two of them saw Leon and Arwin.
Arwin and Leon looked at each other and said the exact same thing.
"So what's going on here?"
The two girls came over to Leon and Arwin, where Tomoe put away her spear.
"Nothing really, we were just a tad bit late, that's all."
Tecia raised her hand as if to interject, but felt something ice cold on the back of her head and realized it was Tomoe's spear.
"Actua-"
Tomoe was standing in front of Tecia so Leon nor Arwin could see where her spear was currently. Although Leon felt something was off, he really wanted to get back to Verin so dismissed it.
"Well if that's all let's set off!"
As they left the front gate, a deep voice sent them off.
"I won't forget our deal."
Although Leon couldn't see him, he knew it was Lorenz and merely smiled in response as he kept his thoughts to himself.
'I can't wait to see how far he gets. After all, how am I supposed to adventure without the best gear?'
After they had left the village behind and walked towards Verin, Leon looked at Tecia's head and noticed something strange.
'Is that a red bump?'
Wanting to clear his curiosity, he caught up to Tecia.
"Hey, Tecia what's that on the back of your head?"
Tecia at first didn't realize what he was referring to so she used her hands to feel the back of her head and her heart stopped once she realized it was a huge bump.
"A-Ah it's nothing, I just fell off the bed in the middle of the night."
Although Tecia lied, Leon wasn't stupid. Sure he was naive and inexperienced, but in actuality, he was quite smart so naturally, he figured everything out from what happened in the morning and in the bump. However, he didn't voice anything out and merely kept his thoughts to himself, since he knew why Tomoe kept Tecia from saying anything.
'That Tomoe lady sure is a lot more feisty than I thought she was. Haha, I feel a little bad for whoever has to marry her.'
After that incident, the group talked the rest of the way there and became even closer as an adventuring party and as friends. Although the group didn't notice, Leon had been smiling the entire walk back to Verin with one thought in his mind.
'I wish Max and Dan were here to meet them.'
After a couple of hours of walking the sun was at its peak in the afternoon, the group finally saw Verin and subconsciously sped up as they all had their reasons. Tecia really just wanted to get drunk at her favorite pub, the Drunk for Life Tavern. Leon wanted to see if any exciting quests were available for him. Tomoe was tired from walking and wanted to sleep as Tecia's snoring had kept her awake all night. Arwin on the other hand wanted to lie on his bed for a long time as his body still felt like a stiff board.
After showing the guards guarding the north gate their guild cards they finally re-entered Verin. They walked along the main road leading to the center of Verin, where their guilds were and most importantly where the Bureau was located, as they needed to officially report what they had accomplished during their quest.
The way Verin was constructed was that there were four main roads that led from each of the gates to the middle of the city since that's where all the important buildings like big guilds, administrative buildings, and the Bureau were located.
As they walked towards the center of the city, the group made sure to discuss what they were reporting and also alert the Bureau of the hobgoblins they had encountered for potentially a bigger reward for the request. Normally if you took a request from the Bureau they wouldn't pay the adventurer for a low-level mission like getting rid of goblins and the reward money came from the village or whoever requested help. However, sometimes anomalies occurred like the hobgoblins which the Bureau might grant a small additional reward for.
The group was so embroiled and focused on their conversation, that they didn't pay attention too much to where they were walking, and as they talked, unknown to them they were on course to collide with another group that was coming from the eastern main road next to them.
With his head turned backward talking to his group, Leon didn't see anything in front of him.
"I wonder how much they would give for the hobgoblins? I mean this request was only for goblins and any other small E-Tier party would have needed to retreat or most likely die, so maybe we'll get a bigg-"
Before Leon could finish speaking, he suddenly ran into someone and they both ended up flat on their butts as neither were expecting to be hit.
As Leon stood up to apologize to whoever he had hit, he saw that the person on the ground was a lady he was familiar with. It was Emilia!