This was a serious mess that Avery had unintentionally landed himself.
Not only was the man, who held the collar of his borrowed jacket, both big and intimidating, but now, due to the language barrier, he couldn't even talk to him to de-escalate the situation.
'Fuck! Why did this have to happen? I didn't think I'd be running into a language barrier problem this early. What do I do?' Avery asked himself in a panic.
/"I'm speaking to you, you ass! Look at what you've done to my very expensive shoes!"\ the begrudged guest spat, using his eyes to tell Avery to look down at the puddle of alcohol he was standing in.
Avery, who couldn't understand what was said, still did as instructed and as a response, he gulped.
They were some strange-looking pair of boots the man had on. A design specific to this new world Avery had found himself. However, one thing that was certain about them was the fact that they were expensive.
Avery neither had any money nor knew how the money system of this strange world worked, and if it wasn't enough proof that he had terrible luck, he had now tampered with something of unknown yet important monetary value.
This truly was a mess.
Immediately after things started to go out of hand, Kenser stepped in.
She rushed out through the opening by the side of the counter and then went to where Avery and the begrudged man were.
/"Please pardon the inconvenience that you just went through. I promise you that it wasn't his intention to collide with you or have the bottle of alcohol break and spill at your feet."\ She pleaded, placing her hand on the begrudged guest's right arm.
The begrudged guest quickly flicked his eyes to her.
/"If it isn't the sexy bargirl, Kenser. What a pleasant surprise"\ He said then grinned mischievously.
The begrudged guest looked at her soft hand on his arm and said /"After all this time of playing hard to get and acting like you're too good to have a little fun, I finally got you to break the touch barrier between the two of us and on your own for that matter. How amusing"\
Kenser lowered her gaze, her face bashful. It would seem that the two have a history together and not the positive kind.
Avery, who couldn't understand what was just said between them, observed the dejected demeanor of the beautiful bartender and he frowned.
He didn't have to know the language to know when something hurtful was said.
"Hey, Kenser, what the hell did he just say to you?" Avery asked.
She looked at him, embarrassed to answer and so she didn't.
Instead, She focused on the begrudged guest once more, sighed to regain her composure, and then said:
/"This is his first time in The Velvet Serpent, so he's not used to the overall space of the place or how everyone moves around which unfortunately resulted in both your collision. Even you can tell that it was an innocent mistake from a newbie so let's not escalate this more than it already has, please"\ she begged.
The begrudged guest chuckled.
From the looks of it, he had no problem with further escalation. In fact, he wanted it.
/"You seem to have a soft spot for this little asshole, huh Kenser? That's so unlike you or is it? Hmm… For a second there, I thought you hated the species with sausages between their legs, seeing as how you always turned me down, but I guess it was all an act, or maybe it's just this one that's special to you. How interesting"\ he said then turned to Avery, looked at him from head to toe, and scoffed.
/"I wonder who allowed an underage prick like this to come in here in the first place. I never thought I'd see the day The Velvet Serpent starts to go to shit, like all the other whorehouses, but I guess it's bound to happen sooner or later"\ the begrudged guest said then got a strong whiff of the alcohol he was standing on.
It was the drink he had gone to the bar to get. His favorite drink and there was only one left which sadly was now all over the floor.
Immediately, his anger spiked.
With frustration building, as he tightened his grip on Centshuu's jacket's collar in an attempt to choke Avery, he said:
/"None of this would have happened if this punk was decked out the moment he stepped his foot in here."\
Seeing the jacket being mishandled like it was got Mosey, who had been silent since the whole thing started, angry.
He grabbed his cup and was about to smash it on the counter to draw everyone's attention, when suddenly…
Four men, just as intimidating as the begrudged guest, approached the triangle of Kenser, Avery, and his attacker.
Kove, wanting to observe more before they do anything, held Mosey's hand and stopped him from standing up, at least for now.
With just an exchange of glances, communication was made between the two and Mosey paused for the moment.
Shieve on the other hand scooted to a chair a few feet away from everyone. He didn't want to be part of any of this, and unsurprisingly, his separation wasn't contended by any of his two companions as they expected nothing less.
/"Hey, Vox! What's going on here?"\ Asked the gentleman in front of the four who just approached the bar.
/"This is quite the interesting sight if I should say so myself"\ a second gentleman from the group remarked after seeing Kenser standing so close to Vox, the begrudged guest.
/"Interesting you say? Hmm, seems to me like there's trouble over here. I wonder what this is all about"\ said a third gentleman from the group whose angle allowed him to see Vox gripping Avery by the collar.
Avery flicked his eyes to the four men who just appeared.
He couldn't understand what they said so he instead observed their demeanors, body language, tone of voice, and distance from Vox and realized that they were all friends with his attacker.
If things escalated beyond the point that they were then he had not just one but all five of them to deal with. Was that even possible for him alone? He wondered.
Earlier, he only had a fleeting feeling that he was a fighter but had no actual memory of being in any past combat, minus the scattered memories of fighting someone while plummeting to the ground a couple of hours ago.
The only option he could see for himself was finding a way, a miracle, of handling this as peacefully as possible.
That's what reason and logic led him towards. However, at that moment, all that mattered to him—more than his safety— was getting to the bottom of Kenser's sudden change in mood a moment ago.
What did Vox say to her that soured her mood? And if anything, he had to get her to let him handle the angry Vox on his own.
He didn't want her getting hit by accident just because she was too close to him if and unfortunately when a fight does happen to breaks out.
While Vox's friends talked to him to find out why he was so angry at the weakling in his grasp, Avery tapped Kenser's foot with his to gain her attention, which he was successful in doing.
"I asked you a question so answer it. What did he say?" He asked.
She replied "He spoke in Hephsi. We call it the King's tongue 'cause it's the main language of the entire continent and beyond"
Avery, Mosey, and Kove all grimaced but for different reasons.
Mosey remarked to Kove about how the intonation of what Vox and his friends were saying sounded familiar and Kove confirmed that he was right.
They were too far away to hear what Kenser whispered to Avery about the language being spoken was Hephsi and as things would turn out, they didn't need to.
The reason why they didn't need to hear the truth from her was that Kove revealed to Mosey that after years of relying on Ripply for translations whenever they went to the capital, for the past couple of months, he had been trying to learn the king's tongue in secret.
At that point, Kove only understood a little. Not enough to maintain a full-on conversation or keep up with someone who speaks fluently like Vox and the rest, but still, he was trying his best.
On the other hand, the reason for Avery's grimace toward what Kenser had said was a response to a split-second thought he had, which was:
'King's tongue, huh? A Language which the majority of the continent and beyond speaks. If I'm correct, that must mean that Hephsi is like the English language of this world. Alright, that's good to know— Wait'
He remembered something from back in the forest. Something that had happened less than a minute after he opened his eyes and spoke for the first time.
'Hephsi, I think I heard Centshuu say that word back in the forest. Back when he was trying to figure out what language my natural tongue was. Hmm, that must mean he knows it.' He thought and then smiled inside.
"That's good to know, but it doesn't matter right now," Avery said, discarding his pondering grimace and replacing it with a more serious one.
"I don't care if he spoke Scrimis, Mongu, or even English for that matter. What I want to know is what exactly did he say to you that got you embarrassed when you tried to calm him down?" He asked Kenser.
"It's nothing. He didn't say anything to make me feel embarrassed, so stop asking me about it over and over again" she said, doing her best to keep an expression that would make Avery believe her.
Unfortunately, he was too smart for that.
Instead of doing a lot of talking, Avery was someone who preferred to observe others, just like Kove, and his observation at the time told him that something was said so no lies she told would change that.
However, he also wasn't one to persist on issues concerning others, especially when they didn't want him to.