He was a person of large and exaggerated stature, with muscle bulging everywhere.

His amber hair puffed out like a lion's mane, his face was as angular as an anvil, and his chin stuck out like a brick. His clothing, somehow, is even more exaggerated than his poise, looking like a romantic adventurous sailor of the seven seas, the type you see in every single cheap romance novel.

With an open-chest white blouse, revealing his majestic hairy chest, he strutted forward. With his fur cape made from the mane of a great beast flowing smoothly behind him, he jumped with great force. With his shoe both needlessly ornate and worn from the making of countless steps, he skips tip-toeingly, like a fiery flamenco dancer burning with passion and heat.

One spin, two spin, a triple axel in the sky...He finally landed in front of them, as gently and softly as a swan. Within his countenance filled with pride and consternation, a fiery glare of amber stared deep into Marigold's tiny form, like a hawk.

“Such a young Mademoiselle, forgive me for my transgression...Yet, such powerful gaze dwells within those eyes of yours, like a refined cut of thunderous obsidian."

“Yes! That Eyes, And That Skill Of Your! You Must Be Who I Was Looking For! The one who has taken my throne must be you, and you alone!!!"

“Then...Yes, That, Must, Be, Then! You Have Received My Message, And Have Already Prepared Yourself! En Garde, My Lady, And Let Us Decide Who The Usurper, And Who Will Be Usurped!”

Stupefying gesture, an arrogant booming voice, and a grandiose stand, as if the light will always shine upon him...Like the main protagonist of the greatest play, he declares himself proudly and justly, as if he's the force of all the right in the world.

In front of that stupefying performance, the air comes to a still, as everyone stops to take a look with an exasperated face. Meanwhile, the recipient of all that declaration, is also frozen in place with a... complicated emotion.

To put it briefly, it's between the 'Ah, so such a person exists in another world, as well~!!' and 'He is actually kinda cool!' feeling of awe and admiration, the ‘Aw, I wanna fight him immediately, he looks pretty decent!’ spirit of challenge rising up impatiently, and ‘But, I still want to go to the Adventure Guild, first of all’ sort of conflicting emotion and desire kind of thing. Overall, it’s like 70% excitement and 30% trepidation, and her thoughts keep flying out of the handle in ways that would make a person think she's a maiden in love all of a sudden.

“(Or rather, some weird eyes are imagining fanarts already, Bossess-kyu.)” Dragon whisper in jest “(A quite amusing amount have already start pulling out notebook and paintbrush as well, kyu.)”

“(Got it. Let me handle this, Dragon) So, now that your declaration has concluded, could you perhaps introduce yourself, please? Don’t tell me you would not tell us your name?”

Before things turn even weirder among the peanuts, Rose steps forward in front of Marigold and converses with him politely, extending a gesture of courtesy.

In response, the lion-like man also stopped posing and flexing his muscles flamboyantly, and extended a polite and graceful bow as well.

“Oh, Madam, where are my manners ~...But of course, it’s only courtesy for our prestigious lady.”

“Hm, should I be introducing myself as the one who stands against a million beast...No no, perhaps the one sole challenger against the Great Benken-No, that’s not it...The First Voyager of Seewin, the Krakens Conqueror, and The Great Liberator..Nah, the last one doesn't sound quite right…"

"Well, no matter who I am or what I am, there’s only one thing that matters to me, at the end of the day...No, perhaps at the end of eternity. Yes, for I may stand to the end of the universe with my head held high, as long as I can do it in Her name!!”

First, is a heart. Second, is a heart. Third, is The Heart.

Drawing 3 hearts upon the sky, lining up side-by-side, he jumps through it with pride, and somersaults through all three with the absolute vigor of a manly man. At the end of it all, as he spread all of his limbs and let his magical angel wing out, he made a grand superhero landing right in front of them, marking the triple heart in the air all over the ground, with a giant R glowing in the middle.

“The Champion of Love, The Eternal Paladin In The Name Of Goddess My Dear, The First One Who Completed Her Heaven… But, for convenience's sake, you can perhaps call me “Ricardo The Lion”. ”

“[The Lion Of Love And Pride], such is the meaning behind my humble name. Lovely to meet you, My Lady."

Kissing the back of her hand while on one knee, he elegantly stood up, before bowing gracefully, like a gentleman respecting the ladyship of a great noble. His hair gently swayed in the wind, carrying to their nose a faint scent of the sweetest rose, as petals floated ever so gently around his air.

With all that extravaganza done, the peanuts really get to confirm it once again as to who he is, as confirmed as the creaking noise of their scrubbleling cringing face.

To say he is a man of many names is an understatement, for better or for worse. Once just a mere peanut like they were, he suddenly rose in fame on one fateful day, when he proclaimed his love for the goddess of love in full 4K footage in public, earning him the meteoric rise of meme stardom and mockery for nearly 1 month straight. Undeterred by that, however, he keeps spouting his love for her one day after another, while at the same time keeps jumping into one heroic deed after another in the name of his (near-delusional) love, steadily rising in strength.

From his first unbelievable feat of beating Benken, The Duel Beast bare-handed, to standing up against an army of a million strong to protect a small town, to even personally saving the goddess during the fight against the endless wave of heroes past… In the end, he managed to earn the goddess's dearest love in both heart and body, the most normies achievement every peanuts would kill him for, and even earning him the first Incalculable achievement in the world.

“The Eternal Simp”, “World’s Most Romantic Man”, “Muscle Freak”, “No.1 Bare-Knuckle Fighter”, “One Who Choke A Kraken To Death”,… Among all the Irregular players that are known so far, he is one of the most famous ones, second only to the Hero and the Demon Lord.

“(At least that is what we have gathered up when we searched the official wiki about him, along with some others thing...As an aside, his merch is also the second-most famous behind the Hero/Demon Lord pair as well, with the vast majority of buyer being middle-aged lady, kyu.)” (Dragon)

“(? What do you even searching up that for, Dra-kun?)” (Marigold)

“(Oh, I coincidentally found that out when I was looking for Tessa's merch to buy. In the end though, I found that it's better if I (read: you) just made it myself, kyu. I was trying to replicate the wings part to be as accurate as possible, but it's just surprising how much her feathers just have their own law...)” (Dragon)

“(...That’s stalker behavior, Dra-kun. Also, how did you even know that much anyway?)” (Marigold)

“(Nothing much, just simply managed to get some sample back when I heist the heaven for the achievement...So, will you help me on that?)” (Dragon)

“(That’s real stalker behavior, Dra-kun! Also, just D.I.Y it yourself, I’m not that interested...)” (Marigold)

“(Speaking of, her wings was truly mecha-like in its mechanism, with multiple layers of transformation gimmick behind its, also-)” (Dragon)

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“(You had me at ‘mecha-like’, Deal!)” (Marigold)

“(Would you two stop whispering, please…) And please to meet you as well, Mr. Ricardo. My name is Roadside Rose, and here’s my sister, Marigold, and here is her pet, JustADragon."

“”Please to meet you. / Kyu. (immediately straighten up)””

Snapping them back to focus in a matter of milliseconds, Rose then courtly responded back his greeting with a casual introduction of her own, with the two immediately following up, prim and proper. It takes a lot of effort for her to instill proper etiquette in those two rowdy kids, but in the end, they're thoroughly well-trained.

As such, surprised by such neatness and tidiness, Ricardo is taken aback slightly, his eyes open up wide.

“Oui~, such rowdy souls, yet such delicate manners… Nice to meet you as well, I have heard of you three. The Transcendence Trio, is what people have called of you, after you three have more than proven yourselves capable of repeatedly fighting against providence and common sense.” (Ricardo)

“Ehe~, you spoke too highly of us, we haven't done much of anything to earn such a nickname..." (Marigold)

“Kyu (Yeah, if beating that idiotic Third Son is considered enough for that, the world has much too low of a standard.)" (Dragon)

“You two...being humble is fine, but look around you before you start doing that." (Rose)

Hearing that statement, the peanut crowds give them a collective side-eyes, for the nerve of speaking it out loud despite the fact that they exist. They give a particularly harsh glare toward Dragon, who just shrugged it all away with a smug, to Marigold's silent chargin'.

“Hohoho~, too much humility is arrogance itself, my fair lady!” Ricardo laughed it all away with a piece of casual advice "Anyway, among those many, many deeds, there's one incident in particular that caught my attention, so to say…"

“!!I-Incident, you s-said??”

Suddenly, Marigold shuttered a little, as she broke in a cold sweat.

“Yeah...that one incident in which you stole the seat of my greatest Hall Of Fame achievement, that's what! Haven’t I announced my purpose during my introduction earlier?" (Ricardo)

"O-Oh! That's the one, yeah! No other incidents worth mentioning, no siree~...” (Marigold)

Despite Marigold’s clearly masterful display of keeping it cool, the side-eye glare immediately shifts toward her filled with undue annoyance, wondering what she has messed up this time...

(Please tell me it’s from an incident that I know of at leas-Argh, my head!)

Specifically, it’s from the Headmaster, before he is assaulted by a sudden headache, as if a hammer repeatedly nails on his skull. It was as if, as he tried to recall it, a barrier made of straw aggressively blocked his thought away, filling his thought with hay. Meanwhile, Marigold takes a glance at him nervously...

“As such, as the now-challenger, I have the duty, the responsibility, and the obligation to fight back against the usurper!” The conversation continued, as Ricardo continued his grandiose exaggerated gesture “My beloved lovely goddess of a wife vehemently suggested otherwise, but my mind is set! Even if you were capable of overturning heaven and earth itself, my love for her is indomitable."

“Eh? W-Who is overturning the cosmos above, certainly not me, hehe…” (Marigold)

“So, As Such, It Must Be! Accept My Duel, If You Dare!! I Won’t Back Down No Matter What, Even If All The Stars Were To Fall Out Of The Sky, And The Earth Plunged Into Inferno!!!” (Ricardo)

“Eh, Ah, A-re? E-Even I won't do those kinds of things for no reason, you know-N-Not that there were such things in the first place…” (Marigold)

(...Seriously) (Rose)

Seeing that the conversation is going sideways, and Marigold's mental state is in complete disarray, Rose once again pulls Marigold behind her, thinking about how best to talk to her later. Taking her turn, she gives him a proper answer.

“Excuse me...while your spirit is commendable, and our little Marigold over here would also like to answer your word of challenge, I’m afraid that it isn’t something we can do right now. Today we already have our own plan with the Adventure Guild, and our time is already short.” (Rose)

“Oh? The Adventure Guild? Far be it from me to prevent your first foray into the world, then… Very well, then let me guide you toward the Guild myself, and show you all the rope!” (Ricardo)

“I appreciate your kind gesture, but we must decline. We prefer it to be a private outing, you see, and your presence would disrupt things.” (Rose)

“Non non, I promise in my honor that I won’t be a bother! You can bet I will give my all, for all your Fair Lady’s Best Adventure Experience!” (Ricardo)

“That might run counter to our goal as well, so we must decline your advance, once again. I personally promise that Marigold will not run away from your request, so you need not worry." (Rose)

“That is that, and this is this, My Lady. It runs against my code to leave all you lovely maiden alone on such an important occasion, no matter how strong you are. Please, I also will not budge myself out of this courtesy as well.” (Ricardo)

With a white-showing smile, glittering all over the place, the lion stands imposing in front of the gate, his back bows toward them in a courtly gesture. Like an imposing boulder, he will not move from his spot, until his demands are met.

For better or for worse, this is how the Lion of Love and Pride conducts himself. Respectful, yet prideful, he is confident in both his willpower and his stubbornness, which can make even the most guarded of goddesses give in to his advance.

“...Then you leave me no choice. [Shadow Blade Art: Stitching Shadow Snare]” (Rose)

In response, Rose brandished her obsidian blade within an instant, before piercing her blade through both his body and his shadow, stitching them perfectly in place before he even realized.

As he realized that he couldn't move all of a sudden, no matter how much strength he put into removing the restraint, his smile crumbled for a bit, as his muscle flexed in confusion.

“Sorry, but until we're done with our business, you have to stay within the confines of the Dojo for a while. The binding will be released at dusk, so you must wait until then." (Rose)

“Urgnn, this binding...will not...stop me…!” (Ricardo)

“I’m afraid it will be. The more you struggle, the stronger and tighter the shadow of your heart and soul will affix you in place, so until you give up on your intention, this binding will not let you go." (Rose)

“Argh, but I...will not... give up...No Matter What!” (Ricardo)

“Then you will continue to stay here then, unfortunately. Now if you excuse us…” (Rose)

“Kyu (If you excuse us. Now then...Marigold, who the heck taught you to be that obvious? What would Dad even say about you if he saw you like this…)" (Dragon)

“Uh...’If you want to act, at least act properly?’ “ (Marigold)

“Kyu! (Exactly, so why are you acting like a peanut earlier? Not like you even need to do that in the first place, if you aren’t so desperate to hide it…)” (Dragon)

“Uuu...But you know I have to...” (Marigold)

Moving around the stifling statues, Rose leads the trio outside the dojo, and together they walk their leg toward their destination, with Dragon chiding by the side.

“Wait, at least take my butler with you, he knows what to do~~!" (Ricardo)

“...Well, this is already an annoying day already, but at least good luck is in my grasp. Hello, Ricardo, nice to see my flunkies having it all working out, without even telling me.” (Headmaster)

“! (Cold sweat) O-Oui, Headmaster, my vaulted Master. How are you doing, and could you remove the binding, please?” (Ricardo)

“Still fine, despite everything… Now now, before all of that nonsense like having you getting away, why don’t you and I have a little mano-i-mano talk for a while? I'm sure all the peanuts over here are all eager to hear it~~." (Headmaster)

“””Yes yes yes, we sure like to hear all of your normies exploits.””” (Peanuts)

Meanwhile, all this stuff aside…

No matter how much they want to follow them and see the stars, all the peanuts around here can't wait to fulfill their desire, and drill out the lion for all of his worth. Despite all the smiles, their malice and jealousy are all laid bare to see.

And as such, for the first time in a while, Ricardo visibly gulped.