AGGRESSIVE

Leonel looked away. If he could help it, there was no need to get involved. He was here for a vacation.

'Right, right. Vacation,' Leonel nodded to himself as though he really believed it.

Then, he led the group forward until they had entered a small city.

Though it was described as such, this small city still housed upward of 100,000 people. It was just that in worlds like this one, this was, indeed, a small number. In fact, even back on Earth this would likely be considered a city that was on the smaller side.

Thanks to this, though, the streets and architecture were much more homely. There was a lot more nature sporadically spread through the streets and it wasn't rare to find a home or shop built right into an ancient tree.

Even with this being the case, it didn't really feel like a countryside village either. There just enough of a modern touch to it that one could still feel the aura of a city around them, and once one was inside, it was easy to forget that this place was "small" at all.

Aina was quickly able to lead them toward one of these homes in a tree, but they were surprised to find that it wasn't just Savahn and Yuri present, but also another small group of Spirituals and Half Spirituals. They actually seemed to be having a small get together.

Leonel and Aina hadn't informed them ahead of time, so they were mostly dropping by in surprise. And while Aina knew where they lived, they hadn't had any method of communication anyway.

While they were surprised, though, the people who took part in the gathering were not, at least not for the same reasons. Rather than being surprised more people had shown up, they were actually instead astonished by the fact there were so many humans.

Although this province was the most inclusive of them all, that didn't mean its human population was high. In fact, in this whole city, there might only be a few hundred total, if that.

Leonel's gaze looked through the gathering for a moment before he nodded to himself. Of those here, he only recognized Zephyr and Silvanus, the duo of brothers. He wasn't surprised by their appearance as they had clearly had a decent relationship with the two girls. If there was a party being held, it was only natural that they were present.

With a step, Leonel and the others leapt into the tree house.

Though it was described as such, the region was quite vast and large. There were now what must have been almost three dozen people in the area and it didn't feel crowded at all. In fact, until now, Leonel had still been unable to spot the two women, at least not with his eyes.

"Ah!"

Before Zephyr could greet the new arrivals and ask who they were, a shout came from inside.

Yuri appeared from what must have been the kitchen and screamed out beside herself. She quickly clamped a hand over her mouth, but it caused the tray of food to clatter to the ground, making her even more flustered.

She hadn't expected this sort of thing to happen at all, so she reacted before she realized what she was doing, and then she was even more embarrassed afterward.

Realizing that there was no hole to hide in, she immediately did an about-face and rushed back into the kitchen, not even looking back.

Raj looked on and blinked speechlessly for a moment. He raised a hand to chin and rubbed it, feeling at the little hints of stubble he had gotten lazy with trimming in recent days.

"What do you think? Was she shocked by how handsome I am?"

"More like she was stunned you somehow got even fatter," Milan jumped in.

Raj patted his belly. "Did I? Could have sworn I slimmed down. I was a bit disappointed, thought I was losing my peak male physique."

Leonel chuckled. "You got about five seconds."

"Huh?" Raj looked toward Leonel in shock. "What's that supposed to mean, cap?"

Leonel looked at an imaginary watch on his wrist.

"You should trust a married man like me and hurry on now. I bet you if you take more than five seconds to go, you'll be apologizing for it for the next three days. And that's if you're lucky."

Raj was still confused when Milan gave him a kick to the ass that sent him sprawling forward. He barely managed to stop himself from falling on his face, but when he realized what everyone was getting at, he suddenly felt nervous.

"Dammit, why am I afraid of her?!"

Raj stood up straight to a wave of laughter and was about to go forward with a feigned confidence when a frowning man stopped him.

Zephyr stood before Raj and blocked him with a raised hand, his brows furrowed. He didn't really understand what was going on, but he didn't know who these people were and they were speaking in a language that his device had taken quite some time to translate. Because of that, he had only managed to catch the end of their words and still didn't quite understand what was happening, but he still stepped forward. © 2024.

These people were unknowns and suddenly strolled in. He had assumed they had been invited by Yuri and Savahn which was why he wanted to greet them first, but then Yuri had reacted like that.

From his perspective, it looked like Yuri was afraid of them. In that case, shouldn't he be stepping up to stop them?

Raj blinked. "What are you doing? Get out of my way."

Unsurprisingly, Raj's temper wasn't the best, and after Leonel's five second comment, he felt like he was a frog in a frying pan. He was about this close to losing it.

If not for his temper, why would he and Yuri get into so many arguments?

Zephyr frowned, not understanding why this guy was being so aggressive.