As the talks of the two families continued for a little while longer, Zareth suddenly felt a presence rapidly approaching his family from behind.
"I finally found you!" The random voice of a young man sounded from behind them, alerting everyone immediately.
Zareth had not paid attention to these words, however, as he only saw this rapidly approaching person to be a threat.
He was the first to turn around almost as if in slow motion, immediately infusing mana into his palm as he looked at who was approaching them.
Zareth saw a young man who was no older than the age of 15 who was running toward him and his family with a silly but large smile on his face, and his eyes glittering as though he had seen god or something.
However what this man didn't know was that he was actually about to see god, if it had not been for Ace, the child of Eustas and Gela, quickly stepping in and kicking the young man straight into the holy area.
From the looks of it, a small bit of mana was also infused into his foot, however, the amount was far less than what Zareth had in his hand.
If Zareth had used that attack, the young man would have died on the spot with a hole the size of a pumpkin in his chest. Thankfully, Zareth had not released any killing intent just yet.
After being kicked, the young man's face turned pale as he fell to the floor, exclaiming in pain.
"Argh! What did I do to deserve this!" He yelled as he rolled around on the ground.
Ace looked back at Zareth specifically before saying "You're welcome."
Although this slightly confused Zareth, he didn't care about it too much either.
After all, why would he care about some ten-year-olds words?
"What was your goal young man? You can not just run up on somebody without expecting to face the consequences." Drufus spoke up with a stern and serious tone in his voice.
A potential attacker that could harm his family was not something he was going to take lightly.
The young man on the floor did not speak, as the mana-infused kick from Ace seemed to destroy his manly spirit, and fill him with immeasurable pain.
After a couple of seconds, another man suddenly approached Zareth and his family, however this time, the man looked to be after the young man on the floor.
"You imbecile! You still can not control your inner urges. Come with me at once!" The man yelled furiously as he grabbed the young man on the ground by the back collar and picked him up with ease.
This man wore a fancy robe and had long black hair flowing down to his shoulders. He was quite young as well, most likely somewhere in his early thirties. From the look of it, he seemed to be a merchant.
"I am sorry for this disturbance. It must have been a terrible hassle to deal with. I promise I will repay you somehow." The man sincerely bowed to Zareth's family before dragging the young man away by his collar.
With tears flowing down his face, the young man couldn't help but reach his hand out toward Freya and Drufus. "Duo of Twisting Love..."
As he got farther and farther away, he kept on saying "No..." in a defeated tone.
Everyone present found the situation to be quite weird, but Eustas was the first to move on.
"Well how about we catch up for real huh? You know... without the kids?" He proposed to both Freya and Drufus.
Of course, Eustas didn't find this out of the ordinary to say, however, this was quite a big deal in the Vanaheim family.
Freya looked at Zareth who was looking back at her, and then looked at Drufus who had the expression of "Say ok!" plainly on his face.
"Come with me, new kid." Ace also said to Zareth before walking away into the crowd.
After a little bit of contemplating, Freya finally agreed.
'I mean... what's the worse that could happen? It is the festival day after all. I suppose I can let him have some fun today...'
Although Freya was still not fully convinced, she let the mood of the atmosphere sway her decision.
As soon as he made her decision, Zareth was already gone.
He decided to follow this kid to see what he was on about, mostly because there wasn't much else to do during the early festival anyways.
After making his way through the crowd and out of the town center, Zareth followed the boy to an alley of sorts that was hidden away from everything else.
'This doesn't seem suspicious at all.' Zareth had his doubts, but if this brat was going to try and do something violent against him, it was going to be fun teaching him a lesson that his parents were by the looks of it failing to do.
After turning a corner inside of the hidden alley, Zareth saw a group of about four kids - around his age - not including Ace who were stationed there with malicious grins on their faces.
Three of them were boys. One tall and skinny one with a long face, one fat and average-statured one with a buck tooth, and the final one was short but slightly muscular, having the ugliest face of the bunch.
The fourth was a girl, she looked normal compared to her friends.
"You managed to lure one in!" The girl of the group excitedly yelled as she saw Zareth come around the corner with his hands in his pockets and an unbothered look on his face.
"Yea, you never get one with those trash communication skills of yours." The fat one said with a prominent lisp.
'What kind of clown show has this boy gathered up? Each one looks like a character from a cartoon.' Zareth thought to himself as he stared at the four.
Ace joined in with the four before turning around and facing Zareth.
"Look, you little twerp."
Zareth was the same height as Ace.
"We're going to teach you who runs this part of town. You got that loser?"
The immaturity of this whole situation sent a shiver of cringe through Zareth's spine.
He finally let out a long, exasperated sigh before taking his hands out of his pockets.
"Let's just get this over with..."