"Honestly… You don't even know the worth of those coins and yet you still refused to accept half of what we were willing to give you." Casting a suspicious glance at the archmage, Irea leaned her head on her shoulder. "Maybe you are sick in the head? Ah, I meant to say, practising some unheard off morals aiming at reinforcing your state of mind?"
Quickly changing both the tone and the meaning of her question, Irea giggled cutely while escaping outside of the reach of Layn's hand. Already busy carrying several items with his leading hand, his waving left palm instantly attracted the attention of the several people passing by them.
"Look where the fuck are you waving! You almost struck me! Don't you fucking know who I am?!" As if the entire camp was only waiting for anyone to do something that could be considered provocative, a stranger who was several feet away from the waving Layn suddenly appeared right in his face.
"Yeah, we have no idea who the fuck you are. Scram!" Rather than bothering with the clear scam that was about to transpire, Irea cast a single glance at the man in front of her before gently slapping at his face.
THACK!
Even though Layn saw a lot of things in his adventurous life, it was the first for him to see the phrase of slapping someone out of his boots to be actually performed in reality. With the stinky shoes of the scammer remaining right where he stood a moment ago, his body crashed into a nearby tent, instantly striking up a commotion.
From how a huge group of people with similar aura instantly surrounded the area of the crash, it was clear that he was in for the hell that he wanted to serve the others.
"How dare you snap my tent! Don't you know who I am?! You will pay for this!"
"And how dare you destroy my wares! This ordinary-looking vase was actually an heirloom of the Tanguan clan that I spent my entire fortune to buy! Pay up or don't blame me for what will happen!"
Before the poor scammer could even say a word, he was already surrounded. But rather than standing in place and feasting her eyes on the pitiful end of the idiot who attempted to scam her benefactor, Irea grabbed Layn's hand and pulled him forward.
"Ah!" After making just a few steps forward, the girl suddenly shrugged before letting go of the archmage's fingers. Retracting her hand, she looked at the man with a fear exploding in her eyes.
"Don't worry about it. It's not that I hate when other people touch me. It just makes me uncomfortable when strangers do so without notice or a real reason." Just like Layn said, there was one time when a complete stranger touched him all over without incurring his wrath or resentment. But the lack of Layn's reaction at that time could be attributed to the fact that the man was carrying the barely conscious archmage out of harm's way.
Before the atmosphere could get awkward due to the topic at hand, Layn's eyes drifted towards the stalls swarming all over the city. From those presenting weapons and armours on the racks, others selling some kind of precious books… One could walk just a few steps to go from eating breakfast, studying knowledge, upgrading his equipment and ending up at a red parol.
Seeing the red light hanging above the entrance of one of the rare, permanent buildings, a small smile crept on Layn's lips.
'It seems that some things don't change, huh…'
"Eh?" Noticing the glance that Layn sent towards the most obvious location and how his face changed after that, Irea tugged at his sleeve. "So you are not that much against a little touching, huh?"
Put in a spot by such framing, Layn could only shake his head with a slightly uneasy expression on his face. Unable to explain that he was simply admiring how this one kind of job remained the same from the ancient times all the way to the modern future he knew, the archmage had no other choice but to let the girl have her assumptions.
"You should know by heart that it's not really what you assumed… But let's just drop the topic instead. I was just surprised to see a place like this so soon." Shaking his head, Layn refused to acknowledge Irea's imaginations as the real reason why his sight was drawn towards the brothel. In the end, it was all about the similarities between the civilisation that he knew about and the world of the ancients.
Because with the constant threat to his life now gone behind two sets of enormous walls and godly barrier to add on top, Layn couldn't help but start thinking about his situation.
What should his purpose be? To return to his times? But how was he supposed to create another tier seven gran arcana? Even if he were to ignore the problem of amassing such an insane amount of energy that was required to start the chain reaction, without the conducting element in the air, the most that Layn could do was create the igniting mechanism for the magical nuke necessary to power such a spell!
There was the option of just waiting for the period of the spell to end, but that meant either spending over twenty years in the ancient world without any idea how his actions would influence the future he came from, or even going as far as dying in this times only to reappear just a second later than his gran arcana would be originally fired.
'Either way, if I don't do something, I will be stuck in this world for quite a while, huh…'
Rather than being shaken by this reality, Layn was somehow capable of just moving on. Not because he wasn't worried about it. Even though he was a former member of the hero party, he was still ultimately just a human.
The only reason that allowed the archmage to stand above those mortal worries, was the fact that he simply had no means of solving those problems of his. Rather than despairing over what he couldn't do, he was much happier to focus on what he was capable of!
"Speaking of which…" Letting go of Layn's sleeve, Irea looked at him with a serious look on her face. With her cheeks covered in a slight brush, Layn felt like sighing. It seemed that another round of lecturing prompted by how he was attracted to the sight of the brothel was about to strike.
"Thank you. Honestly, truthfully and from the bottom of my heart… Thank you for saving me back then." Rather than poking holes in the archmage's morality, the girl made a step forward before grabbing Layn's hand with her own delicate fingers. Bringing the man's hands together, she pushed them high up on her chest, before lowering her head and muttering. "I already know that you don't pay it much mind, but still. I owe you my life. And I will surely find a way to repay this debt, mkay?"
With Irea's voice turning soft and silent, even Layn, despite his rather unpleasant memories with women, felt touched a bit.
"Oh, if it isn't hunter Irea! What a chanced meeting it is, isn't it?"
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