"Elizabeth, were these guys really strong enough to escape from you?" Furor asked as they watched various adventurers filling out forms at the tables.

Her face soured when she heard and took a few moments to respond.

"Don't worry about it. What they did against me, could only be done against me. You guys should fare better."

"What do you mean, Elizabeth?" Jake asked.

She looked around the room and whispered "I'll tell you what happened in detail, somewhere private later."

"It's that serious?"

"It's that serious!!?!?"

They both responded with one of them substantially louder than the other.

They soon went back to watching the adventurers around them. Jake eventually took out a notepad and started making notes of some kind. Elizabeth herself decided to pass the time by doing a wall sit. At first, Furor stood patiently but as the minutes passed he started tapping one of his feet. He soon started grinding his teeth as he crossed his arms. After another few, he opened his mouth.

"Tch, fuck this. Oi old man, when the hell are we gonna talk about killing those bastards!!!" He shouted in the direction of Mr. Bentley.

Elizabeth shook her head and Jake looked away in an attempt to not be associated with him.

"Hmm, I suppose we can start discussing that now, we have been wasting time on getting these forms signed when we could have done both." He said in a carefree tone.

("Then why didn't you start when they were handed out?") most of the room thought to themselves.

"First off, fighting them isn't going to be mandatory. We will ask you all for help locating them but after that, it is your own choice. As for locating them, that will be discussed in detail later this week with the trackers of your various guilds. For the time being, if you have no intentions of fighting you may leave now. If you'd like you can bring the forms back here later today."

Several people soon got up and left the building. However, including the ones that left before only about ⅓ of them were gone.

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"What the hell's the hold-up!?" Furor shouted at them. "Don't act brave now, you little bastards, I saw how some of you were crying before and rushing for the door to cry in some whore's chest. Get the fuck out! I don't want to work with a single one of you bastards if you don't even have the balls to stand your ground after hearing what the old man said."

Most of the people in the building held their heads down in shame but did not attempt to leave.

Irate at this point he grabbed one of them and tried to drag him out but he refused to budge.

"What the hell are you doing? I saw go towards the door earlier, so get the fuck out!"

"no."

"WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT!?"

"i said no." the average-height man with white hair responded.

Furor looked like he was trying to glare a hole through him but the young man continued.

"Of course, I tried to run away. Who wouldn't after being told we were being hunted down? But…" He seemed to be struggling to get the words but another man walked up next to him and patted his shoulder. "They killed Ezekiel. He was the person who showed me the ropes as soon as I came here. My parents always told me being an adventurer here was worse than being a farmer but I held onto my dream of eventually making it to the capital if I tried hard enough and Ezekiel told me my dream wasn't so far-fetched. He said I had potential and always accepted my requests if I wanted to spar with him. If I ran away from these guys I don't know how I'd face him in the afterlife."

Someone else spoke up.

"As if I'd just let those bastards kill the man we all looked up to, just because I'm scared. Not only have they killed Ezekiel but possibly one of my own as well? I don't care how strong they are, I'm gonna kill them if it's the last thing I do."

More and more people began speaking up to Furor explaining why they were staying behind to fight.

Furor let go of the young man he was holding and muttered "whatever" before returning to Elizabeth (who was giggling at him) and Jake.

"I suppose I spoke too soon about them," Elizabeth said.

"Shut up," Furor responded.

"Thank you, Mr. Graham, for testing the mettle of those who remained. They seemed quite roused up now. I hope you can do the same when they're staring down the enemy." The old man said in a gentle tone.

"My name's Furor you senile fart." He shouted back.

"Now, now, considering you seem ready to go another round with this cult and these new lackeys they've sent out, I suppose it's time to get our discussion under the way."

****************************************************************************************

Tibaut was standing in front of a door. He looked indecisive on whether to walk away from it or not.

"What am I doing here? This is probably only going to rock the boat even further."

Moved a foot to walk away but stopped it mid-air.

"I'm not really good at these sorts of things, so I'd probably just make things worse."

He moved his hand to knock on the door but used his other hand to stop it.

"There's no point, besides it isn't my problem if she stays in her room for a few days."

Finally, he knocked on the door.

"Well it looks like she isn't accepting visitors so I'll ju-"

Before he could finish, the door opened. Two eyes stared at him from the darkness before coming out. It was the pink-haired woman, who annoyed him a few days earlier, Tina.

"Oh, it's you. What do you want?"