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I went to look for Deirdre at her house, but Charity told me she had gone out to meet me at the entrance to the labyrinth.

'Maybe we agreed yesterday to meet there…'

When I find her waiting for me at the guild entrance, I see that Deirdre is being harassed by the typical jerks who discriminate against refugees that we meet whenever we come to the labyrinth.

However, as I approach her, the harassers freak out at the sight of me.

'I guess participating in the tournament served a purpose.... Now everyone knows my true strength.'

"Hi, did we agree to meet here?" I ask the therian, as we watch the stalkers disappear from sight after rounding a corner, "Sorry, but I don't remember much about the last thing that happened yesterday."

"I'm the same way... The last thing I remember is that we went to the house of that crazy elf friend of yours," says Deirdre, who seems relieved to see that it's not just her who doesn't remember well "I only came here because I figured we would have agreed to meet up as usual."

"Ahh... Well, later we'll have to go back to Ozy's house to find out what really happened," I say, intrigued by what will have caused neither of us to remember anything "But first, since we're here... how about we go to the labyrinth for a few hours?"

"Sounds good to me." says Deirdre enthusiastically, and she starts dragging me by the arm inside the adventurer's guild building. "I thought you might not want to go because of our partial memory loss."

...

After being in the labyrinth for a few hours, we went to Ozy's house to ask him about what happened yesterday.

When we arrive, we see that his store is closed. But we're not going to give up that easily, so both Deirdre and I start aggressively knocking on the door, until a sleepy-faced Ozy opens the door for us.

When we tell him that we don't remember what we did yesterday and that we want to know if he remembers anything, he starts laughing out loud.

We couldn't get another word out of him until, a few minutes later, he calmed down a bit.

Then Ozy laughingly tells us the story about all the crazy things we apparently did yesterday.

From imitating the sounds or movements of different animals and monsters to swearing oaths of love and brotherhood....

Through the link, I notice how Azur laughs when he hears that yesterday he almost burned down Ozy's tent, which is why Ozy kicked us out of his house.

'Damn… Who knows what else we did once we got out of his house…'

I can't think straight due to embarrassment, and I see that Deirdre's face is red as a tomato.

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"You've disappointed me, Ozy. How could you think of giving us something to drink that you knew could affect us like this?" I say this with a combination of fury and embarrassment. "Deirdre is only 12 years old! She's a child!"

And, at these words, Ozy at least has the decency to look contrite. He looked like he was about to apologize, but...

"Hey! we therians already consider ourselves adults when we turn 10!" exclaims Deirdre, offended, completely covering Ozy's voice as he is apologizing.

"Huh? Well... " I say, not quite knowing what to say in the face of this information.

'It's weird. Here we consider ourselves adults at the age of 15, as do the other four races on this continent. But, anyway... Another culture and race.'

"Still, I don't think he should have given us that without telling us..." I mutter, distracted, with my mind analyzing a lot of things from this new perspective. "Just out of curiosity. Orcs and reptilians, at what age are considered adults?"

"Reptilians are considered adults at the same age as us therians, but orcs are already considered adults at the age of 6. But that's because their bodies develop incredibly fast." says Deirdre, still looking offended by my comment from a moment ago.

"Well… all that information is fascinating and all, but I already told you what happened and I apologized. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to get some more sleep," says Ozy, who has been watching our conversation with a bored expression. And, after those words, he closes the door in our faces.

So we had no choice but to go back to our respective homes, embarrassed and with various things to think about.

***

When the tournament was over, we went back to our usual routine.

Go to the labyrinth, sell the loot, and go home to rest.

After three months of routine, we are now on the 78th floor of the labyrinth.

And, to my surprise, Deirdre was able to keep up in the fight against the mind flayers, wraiths, and the rest of the monsters on those floors.

I kept leaving the experience booster to her, even though I no longer needed to collect money, because I wanted to delay as long as possible the time when we would have to disband the group.

But I never thought she could improve so much in such a short time.

However, because she has been using the exp booster, I have only advanced a few levels. 8 levels in Explorer and 2 in the rest of the classes, bringing my Strength up to 87 and the rest of the stats to 86.

Also, when I talked to the queen during our fight, I remembered something I shouldn't have forgotten. So, I went to apologize to Sofia, the Protego district academy director, for leaving again without telling her just after renewing the deal with her.

But she told me that there was no problem, as Lilian is currently helping her with the academies' mana supply. Although she lamented the fact that she would soon be without Lilian's help, as she will be coming with Deirdre and me to the new continent.

During this time, ambassadors and troops from the other races have been arriving, obviously destined for the counterattack expedition to the orc empire.

I have not seen my aunt again, but I have not forgotten her threat. It is better not to let my guard down.

Today, three months after the tournament, we're going to start our trip to the other continent.

During the previous days, we have already said goodbye to all those who could care about us. So today all that remains is to head to the port, an area of the capital that I have never visited.

I have never been interested in ships or sailing, but as Azur and I approach, I can't help but marvel at the magnificence of the Orc vessels. They are very different from the vessels of our realm, though that is mainly due to the way they are propelled by water.

Orc vessels are usually propelled by a combination of wind power, thanks to giant sails that rise above the deck, and 'steam engines', according to what Charity told me. I don't know what 'steam engines' are, but the kingdom has added to the ships the mana-driven propulsion system used by the ships of our continent, so we will travel at a much higher speed, and it will take us less time to reach the new continent.

'Hopefully…'

While I am distracted looking at the ships, I feel hands gripping my shoulders tightly behind my back, and a body is hanging on my back. Amazed that Azur had not alerted me that someone was approaching us from behind, I tried to see who was attacking me. But I quickly realized the reason why we couldn't sense our 'attacker'. It is Deirdre who has approached us using her abilities.

"What are you doing?" I ask the therian, perplexed.

"Nothing," she says, letting go of my shoulders and stepping back a little, whereupon I can see her mischievous grin "I just wanted to see if I could scare you..."

"Aha," I say, puzzled, "well... you succeeded, at least for a few seconds."

"Yeah, sorry," she says, laughing, as she starts walking towards the boats. "But it's just that you're always so serious and calm... It's good to smile once in a while, you know?"

"I laugh enough... And, anyway, why would scaring me make me laugh?" I ask, raising an eyebrow, as we get closer and closer to the line of people waiting to be assigned one of the boats.

"Hmm. It was a joke, okay?" says Deirdre, frowning, "don't read too much into it."

As we reach the waiting line, we come across...