Lone and his friends went down to the Tavern's main hall and were once again pleased by the ambient and lively atmosphere of the place. Lone couldn't help but compare it to the far simpler and duller Taverns of Milindo which he has spent some time in with Grimsley while he was learning how to smith.
The group of four, after looking around for a moment longer, found a waiter and were led to a table before they sat down and ordered some drinks. An apple fruit juice for Breena, water for Swind, strong Elven wine for Eolande and a tankard of Dwarven ale for Lone.
"I didn't know you drank, Lone," Eolande said with a coquettish smile. She took a sip from the tall wine glass that held a smooth looking and almost clear, red wine.
"I don't really," Lone replied with a shrug as he curiously took a small swig from his very ornate-looking wooden tankard. His face crumpled in mild disgust as he started smacking his lips in an attempt to expel the foul taste from his mouth.
"Hehehehe, definitely a first timer," Eolande teased before she took another sip from her glass.
"Oh shut up, you Hag. I never drank before since I couldn't afford it. Trust me, I was depressed enough to get into the habit, I was just too poor," Lone grumbled in a slightly grim tone as he forced down another mouthful of the rather strong ale.
"You? Poor? That's laughable, you're the richest person I've ever met," Eolande said with genuine praise, ignoring Lone's petty insult.
"Not anymore," Lone grumbled loud enough so only he could hear himself. He too a third swig, now starting to get somewhat used to the taste, it went down easier. "I told you before, you scatterbrain. I haven't always had my powers," he said in a seemingly uncaring tone.
"Boo, stop calling me names. Surely you could have made enough money back on Earth with your intellect? Or has the world changed so much that smart people can't survive there?" Eolande asked with a sense of interest to her words.
"It was more because I had a lack of motivation rather than not having the means," Lone cynically stated. He was watching the Elven performers sing and dance in their revealing outfits and he, along with a large majority of the patrons, found them to be very entertaining.
"Motivation, huh? You don't seem to lack that now," was Eolande's response as another mouthful of wine found itself being consumed.
"You'd be surprised how shallow my current reasons for doing what I'm doing are. I need to find a better goal than just, 'become famous and powerful and learn as much as I can soon'. That's too vague. Although there is a certain God I wanna beat the shit out of, so there's that I guess," Lone said with a laugh.
"Is that so?" Eolande responded with a knowing smile. Her eyebrows arched up as she spotted something interesting approaching their group. "Here comes a fun encounter," she murmured to herself while she continued to happily drink her very alcoholic wine.
"Huh?" Lone uttered in confusion as four large men, all Wolfkin with greyish-brown furry ears and tails, sat down at the same table that Lone's group was at, on the opposite side to Lone's group, directly facing them.
They were all wearing Adventurer's gear while a small and odd looking plate metal hung around their necks on a loose chain. The one on the largest Wolfkin was clearly bronze while the other three had copper plates. Lone didn't know if these tags meant anything, but for now, he focused on the men's appearances.
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These Wolfkin looked rough, but still young, as if they were in their mid-twenties but beyond that, while Lone looked at them, he suddenly felt an urge to leap across the table and bite their throats out.
'What the hell? Why did these guys sit down here? Why do I feel so aggressive?... Is it because they're Wolfkin? They seem to all be roughly D-Rankers, same as me except for the big one, he's, what, a C-Ranker? What the fuck do they want?' Lone thought as his blood started to boil and his arms began to shake slightly, not in fear, but out of him trying his best to not rip the Wolfkin to pieces immediately.
"Hey, Fox, how's it goin'?" the apparent leader and best looking of the four said to Lone with a slight grin and a lazy look in his eyes.
"What? Can I help you guys somehow? This is our table, so I'd appreciate it if you left," Lone said while he tried his best to calm his slowly building rage. 'Why do I want to kill them so badly?! They haven't even done anything yet.'
"What's wrong, buddy? Scared? We don't wanna hurt ya, we just saw that you had two pretty young ladies with you, and you look a bit inexperienced, so we thought maybe we could spend the evening with them, you know, 'get to know' each other a bit," the leader of the Wolfkin said with a chuckle while his eyes tried to scan every inch of Eolande and Breena's bodies.
Eolande flapped her purple butterfly-shaped wings lightly and glued herself to Lone's side. Her face then took on a terrified expression as she cried, "What should we do, Husband? There's so many of them and they look so strong!"
Breena, at the same time, had put her apple juice down and was very firmly holding the hilt of one of her alterion daggers, ready to slit a throat or two if needed.
Lone looked down at Eolande who stuck her tongue out at him playfully, out of the view of the Wolfkin. "Fuck you," he whispered to her. This forced her to giggle silently. She was certainly feeling no tension and was rather enjoying the cliched scene.
"Look, guys," Lone said as his expression turned slightly vicious. "I don't know what kind of impression you have of me, but fuck off, 'kay? I don't want to kill you to stroke my ego. My companions won't be getting "to know you" in any way at all, so, for your own good, leave, before I stop holding myself back. We just wanna enjoy our drinks and be left alone by thugs like yourselves."
'That was passive, right? Maybe I should have used my Actor skill to convince them to leave, but at least I didn't attack them. That's good, right?' Lone asked himself with uncertainty. He was still struggling to keep his cool and avoid leaping across the table, so Lone was proud of his newfound self-restraint in this awkward situation.
The Wolfkin grinned, exposing his protruding fangs and he replied, "You've got balls, uncommon for a Foxkin. Your kind tend to enjoy their mind games and petty tricks. Care to fight me? An official duel, of course, sanctioned and hosted by this Tavern. I like you, buddy, so let me smack ya around for a bit, 'kay?"
'... This... this is progress, right? Let's compare. Last time someone approached me wanting to do sexual things to my companion, I made him chop his own dick off before killing himself, this time, I steered the situation towards a normal fight that doesn't need to end in death. Yup, this one is definitely a step forward,' Lone convinced himself.
"Master, please, let me deal with these scum," Breena growled from Lone's side. Her hair was standing on end slightly and her three tails were swishing about violently.
'What's going on with her? Is she angry at them for thinking about her sexually, or am I not the only one here wanting to kill these Wolfkin out of pure instinct? I need to ask Lossa about this in depth at the Clan and ask Breena later tonight,' Lone said to himself.
Lone then stretched his hand out and gently stroked Breena hair, accidentally brushing his fingers across her fluffy ears in the process making her blush slightly since ears were very sensitive when it came to beastkin.
"Don't worry. Calm down, okay, Breena? Let me take care of this. You enjoy your drinks and order some food or something. I want you all to have some fun here. I happen to like fighting, and someone fucked me over recently, so I'm glad a giant, ugly, stress-ball appeared," Lone smirked as he looked at the four Wolfkin condescendingly.
'Atcha, there he goes, antagonising people. Oh well, at least they're still alive right now. Maybe he won't kill them? I'd hate for another, 'element', as he called them, to come out and go on a rampage like with the Swind incident. The wine here is fantastic, It'd be a shame if we got kicked out,' Eolande thought to herself in amusement.