Chapter 67

After finishing her explanation about why they couldn’t serve the food, Wendy returned to her seat, and the two people sitting at the table glanced at Mari’s group.

“Those guys…”

“Do you know them?”

“Don’t you remember? They’re the adventurers who came to our place a few days after we took down the Ink Wolves.”

“Ah. So they’re the ones…”

At Louis’s words, Albert looked at the three with a renewed gaze.

“Meeting in a place like this is quite a coincidence.”

“Indeed. They kept getting in the way during our ruin excavation, and now they’re here too… Ah! I just had a great idea!”

“What is it? This great idea of yours.”

“If the food being made now is by those adventurers and the Adventurer Guild can’t sell it, why don’t we just pay them extra and buy it from them directly!”

“What did you say?”

Hearing Louis’s words, Albert gave him a look as if he were appalled.

A member of the Spine Empire’s knight order, wanting to eat food made by some adventurers and even paying extra for it?

Though his eyes didn’t say anything, they seemed to ask, “Are you out of your mind?”

‘Do you have no pride as a knight?’

Just as Albert was about to scold Louis with a look of disbelief…

*Sizzle*

The sound of meat frying echoed again, followed by the irresistible aroma of fried food.

*Gulp*

“You…”

Albert tried to continue speaking, but the alluring scent was too much to resist.

In the end, instead of scolding Louis, he silently nodded, permitting his actions.

…

Meanwhile, at that moment, Mari was giving a long speech to Serena about the dish she had eaten.

“So, the Sea Golem dish I had back then was incredibly delicious!”

“Eww… Sea Golems are basically bugs. You eat that?”

“Hmph. How pathetic to be prejudiced against bugs! Such trivial biases block you from experiencing new flavors!”

Karina, who had also made a fuss about not wanting to eat Sea Golem dishes, now spoke loudly as if she had forgotten all about it.

But Serena made a disgusted face at Karina’s words.

“No matter how delicious it is, I don’t really want to eat bugs…”

“Hoo… Fine then! Next time, I’ll catch a cockroach and ask Kurt to cook it for us!”

“What!? Hey! Don’t do that!”

The three of them were chatting about something that would have made Kurt smack Mari on the head if he heard it.

As they chattered, Louis, the vice-captain of the Holy Sword Knight Order, approached them with a casual tone.

“Hey.”

“Uh… Karina, do you know who’s calling?”

“No, I have no idea… Serena, do you know him?”

“I don’t know him either. Hey, who are you?”

Concluding that none of them knew him, Serena naturally responded to Louis with a sharp tone.

It was simply a reaction to Louis’s casual attitude, but Louis didn’t even consider his own demeanor.

“What? Ha! Look at this guy talking! Anyway, is the food being made in the kitchen yours?”

“Yeah, it’s ours. Got a problem with that?”

“Sell it to us. We’ll pay extra.”

“…”

“…”

“…”

Louis’s abrupt and rude demand.

It wasn’t out of malice but rather a habit ingrained over 20 years as a citizen of the Spine Empire, deeply rooted in human supremacist ideology.

After all, the group in front of him was a mix of dwarves and elves.

From his perspective, he thought he was being quite gentlemanly by offering extra money despite Serena’s sharp tone.

But he was in the Kingdom of Eustia now, not the Spine Empire, and his behavior here was nothing but rude.

At Louis’s actions, the three were momentarily speechless, and soon Serena, as their representative, spoke with a fierce expression.

“Are you crazy? Get lost.”

“What, what did you say!? I never liked you guys from the start, and now this is perfect.”

Neither Louis nor Serena had a gentle personality, and with the two of them meeting, a fight was almost inevitable.

Louis frowned and subtly moved his hand toward the sword at his waist, while Serena, with a fierce expression, chugged her beer and began circulating her mana.

As the tension between the two escalated to its peak, someone intervened.

“Enough. His words were rude, but it’s not something to start a fight over.”

“Karina…!”

“Louis. You should stop too. You boasted about buying the food, but now you’re resorting to violence? Have you forgotten your position?”

“V-Vice Captain…! It’s not that…”

The ones who stopped them were Karina and Albert.

Karina scolded Serena for her impulsive nature, and Albert reprimanded Louis.

Unlike Karina, who simply scolded Serena’s recklessness, Albert was genuinely displeased with Louis’s actions.

Confidently claiming he would buy the food, only to create a tense atmosphere within a minute of leaving.

If Albert hadn’t intervened, a fight would have broken out, potentially revealing their identities as members of the Empire’s knight order.

It was a dangerous move that could have ruined their mission, which was almost complete.

Albert shot Louis a fierce glare, and Louis, realizing his mistake, could only look embarrassed.

Confirming that Louis had come to his senses, Albert immediately changed his attitude and apologized gracefully to Mari’s group.

“I apologize. My companion is a bit hot-headed… Let me make it up to you.”

“Well, well… If you’re apologizing, I guess we can accept it.”

At Albert’s apology, Serena, whose anger had already cooled, awkwardly averted her eyes and accepted his apology, and the tense atmosphere at the table subsided.

Seeing the mood calm down, Albert brought up the main point on Louis’s behalf.

“Actually, we smelled the food from outside and came in because it made us hungry, but the guild staff said the food emitting this aroma isn’t for sale since it was made by adventurers. So, we were wondering if we could perhaps get some of that food. Of course, we’ll pay generously for it.”

Albert’s words were essentially the same as Louis’s, but the way the three felt about them was completely different.

Explaining the reason for his request and making it politely, combined with Albert’s noble appearance and courteous demeanor, was enough to soften their hearts, unlike Louis’s arrogant attitude.

“Well, if that’s the case, I can understand…”

“Hmm. But this isn’t something we can decide on our own.”

“Right. We’ll need to ask Kurt for permission first.”

“Kurt?”

“Yes. He’s the one making the food right now!”

At that, Albert nodded in understanding.

“I see… Alright. Then let’s talk to this Kurt.”

“Tch. It’s not even a high-end restaurant, but getting a meal is such a hassle.”

“Louis.”

At that, Louis grumbled with an insolent attitude, but when Albert gave him a look, he had no choice but to turn away.

However, it was only because Albert had given him a look that he reluctantly kept his mouth shut, not because his dissatisfaction had disappeared.

And as they say, speak of the devil.

As if he knew they were talking about him, Kurt returned to the table with a large plate of golden, oil-glazed A-Dragon meat fried in various shapes.

“What’s this? I don’t recognize these people. Do you know them?”

Placing the deformed A-Dragon-shaped nuggets on the table, Kurt looked at Mari’s group and asked.

“Ah, Kurt. These people are actually…”

As Karina tried to explain, Louis cut in and shouted.

“Ha! I thought someone important was coming, but it’s just a Lizardman?”

Despite Albert’s warning, Louis once again interrupted and spoke loudly.

In his homeland, the Spine Empire, beastkin like Lizardmen were treated as third-class citizens, lower even than dwarves and elves.

And third-class was a step below second-class, which was considered quasi-citizens.

In other words, it meant slaves.

The fact that the person who had caused them so much trouble was just a Lizardman, who would have been a slave in his country, made Louis forget Albert’s warning and lose his temper again.

At Louis’s rude words, Kurt’s pupils slit vertically, and even Mari’s group was on the verge of losing their temper.

*Smack!*

In an instant, a hand slapped the back of Louis’s head, and the sudden impact made him grab his head and look at the owner of the hand.

“Ouch… Vice Captain! Why!?”

But Albert, instead of answering, grabbed the back of Louis’s head and forced him to bow again.

And in a low voice that only Louis could hear, Albert spoke.

“Shut up, you idiot.”

It was a desperate voice, filled with tension and fear, unlike his usual composed and noble demeanor.

Albert, forcing Louis’s head down, looked at Kurt with eyes full of terror.

By now, cold sweat was dripping down his cheeks.