Following the crowd, Chikao walked among the many people who were all walking in one direction. Chikao, being the height he was, was having a decently hard time getting through the crowd.
'Damn, these short legs.' Chikao thought while trying to look around a particularly tall person.
[Ha Ha]
[Short] The system screens popped up in front of Chikao's face, making it even more difficult for Chikao to see anything now.
'I'm trying to see here, asshole.' Chikao grunted with annoyance while trying again to look around not only the taller person but also the system's annoying bright screens.
[If you continue to walk around like that, you're bound to run into the person in front of you]
'I know that, but I gotta see around this dude.' Chikao thought while still trying to get around.
[Oh look]
[The crowd stopped]
'Wait really-' Chikao thought, turning his head to the front before running into the tall person in front of him with a loud thud.
'Ow.' Chikao thought before processing what he had run into. The surface that he landed on was hard. Like hard muscles kinda hard. Like the kind of muscles that you get after working out every day.
'Damn, he's jacked.' Chikao thought while staring at the taller male's back.
Since he knocked into the taller male, the male in question turned his head around to see who had knocked into him, which resulted in Chikao realizing who he bumped into.
It was the person who stopped him at the gate.
'Isn't that the person who Ayuka called...Taro was it?' Chikao thought back to the first time that he came to Wortac where he was stopped at the gate and Ayuka helped him.
[He's also someone who doesn't trust you]
'Oh yeah. Forgot about that.'
"Ah, sorry about that-" Chikao started to apologize and try to run away but was later interrupted by a loud voice that belonged to the blue-haired giant.
"Hey!" Taro said loudly, turning around while pointing at the smaller male. "What are you doing here?!?"
"I, uh, walking?" Chikao stumbled over his words as he came up with something extremely stupid. Luckily the giant was with a certain cold red head. Before the giant could even respond, a cold chill ran down Chikao's spine as he heard an ice-cold voice.
"Taro." A cold voice that belonged to an all too familiar redhead had said from behind Taro. Taro seemed to get the message this time and shivered slightly before looking in the back of him once again, this time towards the redhead.
"W-what do ya need, Ayuka?" Taro said while rubbing the back of his head and forcing an awkward smile on his face, looked at Ayuka.
"What did I tell you before?" Ayuka made eye contact with Taro while leaving an Ayuka-like expression, neutral on her face.
"That he was with you...?" Taro asked for confirmation from the smaller female. Although Taro answered, Ayuka did not change her expression or tone of voice.
"No, I said he was safe," Ayuka rolled her eyes a bit before looking back at Chikao. "But what are you doing here, Chikao?"
"Wait- You said he was safe?" Ya sure about that?" Taro said while moving his hands in a disapproving way.
"What does safe even mean-" Chikao asked but was cut off.
"Temporarily that is," Ayuka said, cutting off Chikao before he could ask any more questions which shut him up pretty quickly.
Pausing for a moment to look back at Chikao, Ayuka lightly glared at Chikao.
"You remember our deal, right?" Ayuka asked but ended up sounding more like a demand. But before he could respond again, Chikao was luckily rescued by another person. This time someone he didn't know too well.
From a bit of a distance in the crowd, a person was running towards them at an alarming speed. Barely being able to go running and dodging through the crowd, the blond girl who Chikao remembered as the chatty blond girl, was running in their direction.
'Please don't crash into us.' Chikao prayed, crossing his fingers as the girl came closer and closer by the second. Fortunately for Chikao, the female wasn't heading to Chikao, but rather the other familiar female who was trying to kill him one way or another.
"AYUKA!!!" The girl yelled before jumping quite high for a human, to then landing on top of the redhead female. Thankfully for Ayuka, she was already used to this and could keep her ground from being jumped by the girl.
The girl was hugging Ayuka from the side as Ayuka was turning her head to face the girl. Patting the blond's back Ayuka questioned the girl's actions.
"What did I tell you about running through crowds; especially when it's for the Town Hall meetings?"
"Don't do it 'cause you can hurt someone?" The blond said, sounding very questionable from Chikao's perspective.
"Potentially yes, you could hurt someone," Ayuka said while trying to pull the girl's arms off her shoulders while blushing slightly from the extra contact.
"But I didn't hurt anyone this time and I wanted to hug you!" The blond girl exclaimed when Ayuka composed herself back up from the messy blond's little bit of affection.
"Well for now I'll let it slide because you just wanted a hug, but next time, don't be so reckless, alright?" Ayuka sighed out loud in defeat from the literal sunshine that was blinding everyone with sparkles.
"Thank you Ayuka!!!" The blond girl thanked the redhead while Ayuka looked the other way.
"Whatever," Ayuka responded while her face became scarlet.
'Ayuka does know that I can see her face from here, right.' Chikao thought while looking at the redhead.
[Let the tsundere's, be tsundere's]
'What?' Chikao questioned the terms that the system used to describe the short-tempered girl.
[nvm]
"Oh hey! You're the dude that I ran into right?" The blond exclaimed. "Sorry about that! I was in such a big rush 'cause I thought Ayuka would kill me! See, me and her have a certain meeting time so that we can talk about everything! Ayuka and I have known each other forever and we always meet at the same time so that we can have lunch together. I had forgotten my super important pendent at the adventurers guild and I had to run back and go get it! By the time I had found it, I was already 10 minutes late!" The girl frantically said.
"Ruma. You were only 5 minutes late. You were perfectly fine that time," The blond girl tried to cut her off, but Ayuka continued by putting a finger up to silence the other. "Plus I was making a deal with Chikao so you came at a perfectly good time."
Seemingly defeated, the blond girl responded, "Fine." Pouting stubbornly a bit afterward.
Silence fell over the group as the blue-giant Taro was trying to figure out what was happening, the blond girl was pouting, Ayuka was sighing, and Chikao was just straight-up confused. That was until Ayuka broke the silence once again.
"Well since we are all here, I'd like to introduce my acquaintances." Ayuka said, but was then interrupted by her 'acquaintances'.
"Really Ayuka? How come we've been reduced to acquaintances again?" Taro asked Ayuka with a softened expression.
"Yeah, Ayuka! How come!" The other female asked while pouting even more than before.
"Fine, fine," Ayuka paused. "Friends." There was a silent celebration between Taro and the blond with a small high-five before the blond girl introduced herself.
"Hi! My name is Aoi Kuruma! I'm an adventurer at the Adventurer's Guild. I mainly hunt monsters with Ayuka and Taro! Zack is there sometimes, but he's a great healer! Our teams like the best when we all group together and hunt, but that's so rare these days!" The girl named Aoi said with excitement in her eyes.
"Nice to meet you, Aoi," Chikao said while holding out his hand to shake hers which Aoi returned. Next was the giant, Taro.
"Names Taro Yamada. I work as the guard at the front gate, but I also work at the adventurer's guild. I'm mainly in defense and heavy offense," Taro held out his right hand to Chikao. "Nice to meet you." Returning the firm handshake that Taro gave, Chikao then introduced himself.
"My name is Chikao Katsunori and I'm a detective," Chikao said to the rest of the group. "Nice to meet you all." He finished with a smile of satisfaction, though it didn't last long.
"What's a detective?" Another pang to the heart when Aoi spoke. Pain, similar to the one the child caused, was refound as familiar words were spoken.
"Well, it's kinda like-" Chikao tried to explain, but the rest of the group was already feeling the empty air with questions.
"Never heard of it." Taro shrugged.
"Perhaps it's an occupation?" Ayuka asked the 'detective'.
"If you could just let me explain-" Chikao tried again.
"Oh! I know what a 'detective' is!" Aoi cut Chikao off with pure excitement and sparkles in her eyes. "You're a human radar!" Aoi said brightly with a huge smile on her face.
However the same could not be said for the poor detective. Another shot of pain was given to Chikao and mentally scarred him, in the same way, the other child named Ishimaru had. Fortunately, Chikao wasn't the only one with the same reaction to this conclusion.
Nodding her head, Ayuka raised a hand to Aoi. "I don't think that's the definition of a detective." She calmly stated to Aoi who still wasn't giving up on her conclusion.
"But wait! Detective has the word detect which means that it should mean something like detecting, right? And detecting means to find things, right? Like a radar! So Chikao's a human radar!" Aoi exclaimed again.
Another shot right to the heart by the gun emotional damage once again as Chikao felt like toppling over like one of those staged gunshots.
[Ha ha]
[Human Radar]
'Oh fuck off system.' Chikao thought, trying to make the system windows disappear.
[Oh]
[Ouch]
[How could you do this to me?] The system typed in a way that sounded extremely sarcastic and annoying to Chikao. Rolling his eyes, Chikao just shrugged off the dramatic system and its drama. Seemingly disappointed in this reaction, the system then typed another message.
[Did I forget to mention that in this world, the occupation of 'detective' does not exist?]
'Are you fucking kidding me? Go to hell.' Chikao thought while glaring at the floor, trying his best not to lash out at the irritating blue screens.
After a few seconds of silence, Chikao started composing himself as he explained. "Aoi, a detective is kinda like an occupation. This occupation is for people who solve problems. Unlike a scientist or an engineer, a detective is someone who solves problems that are related to mysteries. In that case, a detective solves mysteries that are unsolved which are considered problems. The detective then presents this theory that they have to what they believe, based on evidence, happened and how the crime or situation came to be." Exhaling a sigh of relief, Chikao hoped for the best as Aoi looked at him like the gears in her head were creaking.
Finally, it looked like the gears in her head clicked a millimeter and she exclaimed the first thoughts that came to mind. "I have no idea what a scientist or an engineer is, but a detective sounds super cool!" Aoi, seemingly not disappointed in her conclusion, gave another blinding smile.
'Close enough.' Chikao thought while trying to give Aoi a genuine smile which hid him grimacing at the situation.
"Oi! You guys hurry up! The line's moving already!" Taro shouted to Chikao and Aoi.
"Coming!!" Aoi yelled back to the giant, but ran to the cold redhead instead, hanging off her shoulder with another bright smile.
Trying to catch up with the group, Chikao started walking over to where they were. Walking at his own pace, Chikao took a look at the group ahead of him.
'They sure are comfortable with each other.' Chikao thought while looking at the two girls who were hugging each other as Aoi was clinging to Ayuka's side.
[Perhaps they're more than what they say they are?]
'Well they sure as hell aren't acquaintances,' Pausing, Chikao added. "Maybe more than friends," Chikao responded to the system through their communication system.
[Knowing Ayuka, they are way more than close friends since she is such a tsundere]
'Again. What's a tsundere?' Chikao asked the system.
[Basically Ayuka] The system responded to Chikao's, according to the systems, dumb question.
'Okay?' Chikao thought.
The group halted at this time and so did Chikao who was only about a couple of meters behind them. The 3 adventurers had reached the entrance of the supposed town hall meeting building which was huge.
To say this building was just big, was a pretty big understatement. The building was so tall that it cast a huge shadow over half of the crowd that was surrounding the area. The town hall must've been at least as wide as 5 houses put together.
'Damn, that must've taken a lot of wood to put together.' Chikao thought while observing the wooden building.
Walking in with the other group, Chikao looked inside the town hall to find it extremely spacious inside too. The half of the building closest to the entrance had rows and rows of seats that were all lined up and were partially empty. It looked to be about 500 seats at the very least. The other half had a long wooden table that extended from one side of the room to the other. Six, nicely decorated chairs were placed on one side of the table with 2 huge seats that seemed extremely loyal were placed behind the table. The room was decorated simply but had a magical glow to it.
Following, the group sat near the left section of the seats. Chikao sat next to Taro, who was at the edge of the seats to the left, so basically next to the wall. On his right was Ayuka, and after that was Aoi who was bouncing around in her seat.
'She seems like she can't sit still.' Chikao thought, letting out a small breath of laughter.
Whispering to Ayuka, Chikao asked, "So what do we do here?"
Whispering back to Chikao in response, Ayuka answered, "Just stay quiet. You aren't from here so it's better to stay quiet and make your presence unknown."
"Alright," Chikao said quietly, returning to look at the rest of the room. The room had filled up quite a bit with many people entering and seats filling up.
[Hey] The system popped out of nowhere.
'What.' Chikao responded, not really looking anywhere in particular.
[You've got a new side case]
'Really?' Chikao asked the system.
[Yeah they just appear sometimes in my messages]
'People message you?' Chikao raised his eyebrow slightly, judging the system's words.
[...]
[Anyway]
[Here's the side case]
----------------------
{Side Case: Town Hall meeting}
{Case time limit: Until Town Meeting is adjourned}
{Case Description:
{You've entered the Town Meeting Hall! Listen to the meeting and gain information about people and events around the Town!}
{Reward:
__Gain the ability: Profile Index__
__Randomized reward wheel (Extra!)__
{Penalty: ???}
{Good Luck!}
[With love,]
[System :}]
__________________
(Extra scene):
"Did you seriously add 'With love, system'?" -Chikao
[I mean]
[Why not? :)] -System
"Why though?" -Chikao
[Can't I send love to the only person I can actually talk to?] -System
"Damn, that just sounds sad." -Chikao
[And half the time it looks like you're talking to yourself] -System
"Oh come on. Fuck you!" -Chikao
[ :') ] -System