With some distance as the wake up call for both Ayva and the knightess, Ayva kicked the ground as a way to build a momentum. Then his right hook was in her face. However, at the last moment a hand stops him.

"Didn't anybody tell you a lady's face is never to be touched?"

Their fifth party member, Micah the actual knight that Ayva respected returns to stop the fight. It seems he was accompanying this Aeana but let her go first.

Looking at Micah in the eyes, Ayva finally calm down.

"I'm sorry." Ayva bows to Micah.

"It's alright. My junior always pulls these kind of stunts. One of these days I was going to teach her a lesson anyway."

The knight seems tired. Well, he was in charged of handing the bandit to the authority after all. While Micah was accompanied by a few guards sent by the government that days he was still tired.

As a knight, Micah must have endured a lot more during training. Ayva can respect that kind of endurance because he feels like shit right now even though it has only been a night.

Micah sighs tiredly and turns toward Aeana

"And Aeana, what did I told you? For all you talk of letting your guard down, just now, what was you doing? You should quit it before you hurt yourself."

Micah starts lecturing the younger Aeana with princess Aries looking on with interest.

However, before Micah could stop, suddenly Aeana yells and singlehandedly charges Ayva.

"Fuck you."

Much more aware, Ayva was able to sidestep the entire thing with his peak of humanity agility. Aeana immediately turns around, and it becomes an all out brawl. Aeana tries to grab Ayva's shoulder again like what she did at the start. From what he knows, it is a kind of disarming maneuver. He has a feeling that it is bad news to let her get her hand on him.

Ayva easily moves back while Aeana grabs empty air. Then, Aeana throws a right hook at Ayva. Ayva dodges low and moves his neck just right out of the way. Then, while Aeana is overextending, Ayva quickly jab with his right into her left hand that was guarding her body. When Aeana's guard flinches, from below Ayva punches upward with his left while reeling back his right. Aeana's guard drops because of the impact from below that took her breath from her. Then, with all his weight behind him, Ayva's right connects with Aeana's chin knocking her out.

It was under one minute.

For some reason Ayva wants to throw his hand in the air while an announcer is speaking in the background.

Micah was only looking at Aeana with disappointment while princess Aries has one hand covering her mouth.

'How barbaric'

Meanwhile Ayva's other female childhood friend is also covering her mouth with her hand, but with a different reason.

"Ku ku ku."

She was laughing.

Suddenly, she turns toward Aries

"I told you, Ayva alone is worth 10 of your imperial knights."

Ayva sweatdropped at the comment. There was actually two imperial knights here, and one imperial princess. If he could, he would say

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'Please don't. What if the princess takes it seriously.'

It was already too late. With his peripheral vision, Ayva could feel Micah looking at him. However, just at quickly, the knight turns away.

What was that about?

Suddenly, Leonel was next to Ayva. Taking his hand, the hero raises it into the air to signal the winner. It was just for theatric. It wasn't a real fight anyway, but somehow, Leonel knows exactly what Ayva was expecting.

'And the winner is AYVA!'

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With Eliza's healing magic, all injuries could be smooth away. However, Leonel and Ayva's childhood friend refuses to heal the new girl and told Micah to find someone else.

"I won't. You understand right?"

Taking the girl away, Micah is currently in town looking for a healer. Ayva thinks it is just an excuse to separate Aeana from the rest because the situation was getting a bit ridiculous.

At the inn, the first thing Ayva did was jumps on the bed. Not even taking off his smelly travel clothes, the boy puts a hand of his head and drifts into dreamland. Eliza comes over later and heats a soaked towel with her magic before putting it over his eyes. Ayva takes it with grace and then immediately went back to sleep.

"It is thank." Eliza says

"You did well today." Ayva was touched

"snubbing that bitch's underling..."

Eliza mutters under her breath. Ayva pretends that he didn't hear that and went back to sleep.

His mind drifts back to when he was 13 years old.

It was a situation just like today.

Ayva suddenly remembers that time he beat a full grown knight from the capital in full armor with a rusted knife.

At that time, Ayva too hit three times.

However, now that he is thinking about it, Ayva did not feel any regret.

The boy was cold toward people he didn't know.

----------------------------------------

"Ayva! Ayva! Are you sleeping? We are going to visit town."

Ayva's childhood friend went in the room of the tired boy and saw him sleeping with a soaked towel on his face. The towel has grown cold, but Ayva fell asleep without taking it off. Carefully, that person took the towel off and takes another towel to wipe him off.

After checking that Ayva does not have a cold, that person takes a sigh of relief. Seeing his friend sleeping with his clothes on, that person shakes his head and takes off their friend's clothes.

That person gave Ayva a change of clothes.

Then, silently, that person whispers in Ayva's ears.

"It is alright. You did nothing wrong today. Sleep well."

Carefully, that person left the room without disturbing his friend's sleep any further.

In the distance, a girl calls out.

"What about Ayva?"

"He is still asleep. It is alright, he has a long day."

"Ah alright. Let's go to town alone then. Ayva could go at night." The girl smiles.

That person smiles back

"Let's go."