"Oh, sorry. I mean, otherworldy hero. Doesn't that fit you better, little kid?" Leana said with a casual but slightly menacing matter.
Soren frozen and shocked by those words. He mind was making all kinds of paniced thoughts such as "How?" or "When?" or "Why?", but he decided to ask her:
"So? What does it have anything to do with you?" Soren asked with a dark and serious expression on his face while holding back his fear as much as he could. The last thing he wanted to show was his paniced expression, so he had to keep his cool at all times, but he was still nervous from this entire conversation, so his hands were shaking a bit during this conversation.
"Oh? It doesn't have anything to do with me, as long as you are not affiliated with anyone." Leana answered back casually.
"Then how did you find out?" Soren asked again with a dark and serious expression.
"I have experience with Heroes, so it's very easy to spot a Hero due to their "Special" trait." Leana answered casually again.
"So what is that said, "Special" trait?"
"No one in this world can learn ir speak the beast language. No one ever could do so, for at least, sixty thousand years. So whenever someone appears and talks with animals like the neighbor next door, it's as obvious as day and night about the identity of the Heroes. Honestly, I'm very suprised about the fact that you haven't been caught yet, otherwise you wouldn't be able to even go outside of any town for a while." Leana explained for a little while.
Once she finshed explaining, Soren facepalmed himself because he realised that he had obviously exposed himself in front of Matt when he had to deal with Krus and King Geius.
"So I can guess that you have already been exposed, right?" Leana asked in a casual manner.
"I don't know if I should thank my lucky stars for the fact that I haven't been reported, or the lack of information that person had when they saw me do that." Soren said while holding his head.
"You should. Anyways, what will you do, now that someone knows about your little secret?" Leana spoke in a slightly menacing way.
"Well... *sigh* It's not like I can do anything about, but I don't think it will be a big problem in the long run and I don't it's worth the effort to go through that, just because I'm going to be under house arrest for a while. At least I'll have the opportunity to learn as mucb as I want about the world." Soren in a more casual manner than before.
"Just prepare youself. That's all. Now, can you help me with cooking a bit or not?" Leana asked in a casual manner.
Soren was dumbfounded at that moment. Just now, she was speaking for something serious that could cause a lot of trouble for Soren and now she was talking about cooking like it was nothing or like it never happened. He didn't even know how to react to this, or even how he could process this, but considering the way she was talking and the place of this situation on her priority list, it was rather obvious that she didn't care much after the initial part of the conversation. As long as I wasn't in someone's team, she wouldn't care in the least about anything after that.
After that stressful exchange with Leana, Soren went back with Leana back in the cottage.
"By the way, what was that mole-like animal that brought you the bags?" Soren asked curiously.
"A Terrole. Some of the best critters for transporting items and produce at high speeds within thirty minutes upon purchasing." Leana answered casually.
"Then, how do you do business and stuff? It feels pretty inefficient for them to wait for hours or even days, outside of their customers' houses."
"We just use Terrole bells and the closest Terrole will arrive at the location of the sound. Then we just give them the grocery list and the appropriate amount of money to buy the produce, but they don't return change since it's their payment, so don't go giving silver coins for a couple of fruits and veggies." Leana explained at Soren with a casual look on her face.
"I see..." Soren spoke a little bit awkwardly and after that, they made their way to the kitchen.
"Do you know how to handle a kitchen knife?" Leana asked Soren.
"I cook the simple stuff quite often, so I'm used to using a kitchen knife." Soren anseered back with a confident look and he actually had the skill to back it up, since whenever his parents didn't have any time to cook, he would always cook lunch or dinner instead of them, so he has gained some cooking experience.
"Alright, for starters, clean those up and..." After that, the two of them started cooking lunch and although Soren was unfamiliar with most of the ingredients, he only did the simple stuff Leana ordered him to do, such cut that into thin slices or keep stirring and stuff like that, while she did some of the more complicated stuff and after around 3 hours of work, a lunch worthy of a feast was made.
"Woah. Mom, did you make these? Did something good happen today to make such a big feast?" Lumious asked once he saw the amount of plates on the table.
"Some good stuff happened. For now, everyone sit down and no elbows on the table." Leana spoke with a stern expression. After the 4 of them sat down to eat, the first one to speak was Leana.
"You asked me Lumious the reason for making this feast and your answer to that, is due to our guest killing the number 1 vilest piece of crap, Torque. Now that he is not with us, let's feast because we won't be having sleepless night with that son of a hob-goblin looming over our heads. Now, let's eats guys." Leana spoke happily before she started eating first.
"Cheers." Lumious spoke next happily.
"Kyuu~!" Lavenza spoke next happily.
"C-Cheers." Soren spoke last, albeit a bit nervously from witnessing this bizarre sight. After that, the 4 of them feasted for lunch happily, although Soren was slightly weirded out, but he didn't mind it too much. After eating, Soren didn't have much to do, but he didn't want to overstay their welcome, so wabted to start preparation for making their way towards Crystalia City, but just as just he wwas going to get working on his bag, Leana stopped him by saying:
"And where do you think you are going? Your injuries haven't been healed yet and you are thinking of moving anywhere?"
"Well, it's not like I can overstay your welcome and I don't like being a burden as well. Besides, it's not like I can take my time to recover since tomorrow would be my last day available to hunt." Soren answered back with a serious and apologetic expression.
"You are not a burden, but I can see where you are coming from. Let's do this. Rest here for the night and then you can leave early in the morning. Your injuries should be fine as long as you avoid battles tomorrow. If you still want that smell of blood through your nose though, just have your little partner be your little bodyguard, since she can handle most monsters." Leana explained her proposal in full-detail.
"I see... Then I can't do much anymore. Guess I'll have to take on your offer then." Soren agreed reluctuntly.
"Good. If you need me, I'll be in the living room." After Leana said that, she went to the living room, leaving Soren alone in the resting room that he was before.
Now that Soren was left alone again, he felt slightly depressed because he felt like he was stuck in a situation where he had actually nothing to do and that didn't help to lift his mood at all. The only thing he could do, was to check for information with the system, so since he had a decent amount of time, he would like to sort through all of that.
His first thing on the priority list was to check that surge of power that he felt during his battle with Torque and the answer suprised him a lot:
[Overdrive Mode: A special invisible meter that builds up during the battle. At the start of each battle, it always starts empty, but as the battle goes on, it charges either by hitting or getting hit and once it fills up fully, it forcefully activates a special innate ability that is deep in the soul of the user.]
He was suprised that such a thing existed, but then he felt even more suprised by the fact that he had a special innate ability that allows him to double his stats and those of his friends. The next thing to check in his list of checking was his status and he was quite nervous since he was afraid that he might have missed his level up, despite the fact that he dealt the killing blow on Torque.
Name: Soren
Race: Merman (Leviathan)
LV: 11
HP: 342 (+132)
MP: 108 (+32)
STR: 64 (+31)
VIT: 57 (+22)
AGL: 77 (+36)
INT: 54 (+16)
WIS: 51 (+17)
RFL: 55 (+28)
LCK: 47 (+19)
Skills (A): Merman transforantions (Human, Merfork, Beast), Sword Aura (Incomplete/ 3%), Third Eye, Water Ball, Mana Wall, Silent Dome W, Sword Arts: Seal Cutter (!), Double Edge (!)
Skills (P): Swimming (+1 AGL), Universal Translation, Blessing of the Seas (Major), Guardian, Water Magic LV.1, Mana Manipulation LV.1, Water Booster, Sword Mastery LV.1, Aura Body (!), Dismantling Mastery LV.1
Titles: Life-Bound Companions(Lavenza), Undead Hunter (Apprentice), %&6$@(;?, Survivor (!), Swordmaster (Apprentice/ +5 STR/AGL/RFL) (!), Hunter (Apprentice) (!)