Ch.4
Syr had saved me a seat at the counter again.
I'd been coming to the Hostess most evenings that week, after Dungeon runs, trading magic stones at the Guild and then walking the four blocks to the pub with whatever valis I had left. The food was decent, the prices weren't terrible, and Syr kept refilling my water without charging for it. Anya stole food off my plate every time. Chloe made comments about my arms that were getting progressively less subtle. Ryuu served me with rigid courtesy and didn't say more than six words per visit.
It was becoming routine. I was fine with that.
Tonight was different because the Hostess was full. Every table occupied, voices louder than usual, and the staff moving faster. Syr set a plate of stew in front of me and leaned close enough that her hair brushed my shoulder.
"Loki Familia," she said, tilting her chin toward the large table in the back. "They're celebrating their expedition return. They come here after every one."
I looked.
The table was packed. A small blonde Pallum sat at the head, calm and smiling, nursing a mug he held in both hands. Every other person at the table kept glancing at him between sentences, orienting around him without seeming to think about it. Finn Deimne. He looked like a kid, and every first-class adventurer in the room deferred to him.
Beside him, a tall elf woman with jade-green hair drank wine like she was the only person in the room. Riveria Ljos Alf. She didn't look at anyone who wasn't talking directly to her, and when she did look, they sat up straighter.
Two Amazons sat across from each other, both dark-haired, both loud in different ways. The one with medium-length black hair was laughing at everything, smacking the table hard enough to make plates jump. Tiona. The curvier one beside Finn was trying to sit close to him without being obvious about it and failing badly. Tione.
At the far end, silver-gray hair, wolf ears, tail draped over the back of his chair. Bete Loga. He'd been the first to arrive and had clearly been drinking since. His mug was empty and there was another empty beside it. His voice carried over the general noise, rough and getting rougher.
And between them, golden hair catching the lamplight, eating quietly while the celebration moved around her. Ais Wallenstein. She had a plate of fried potatoes and was working through them one at a time with the focused attention of someone performing surgery.
Loki was there too, a red-haired goddess sitting on the table rather than at it, legs crossed, grinning at everything, poking Ais in the cheek and getting ignored.
I turned back to my stew.
"They're impressive up close," Syr said from behind the counter. She was drying a mug and watching the table with an expression I couldn't quite pin down. It looked fond but with an edge to it. A collector looking at someone else's collection.
"They're loud up close," I said.
She smiled. "Eat your stew."
I ate my stew. It was good. Mia's cooking had a heaviness to it that sat well after a long Dungeon day, filling and solid. The noise from Loki Familia's table was a wall of sound behind me, individual voices surfacing and dropping back into the general roar. Tiona's laugh was the easiest to pick out, bright and percussive, infectious even from across the room. Tione's voice cut through when she snapped at someone. Finn's never rose above conversational, but people leaned in when he talked.
Then Bete's voice got louder.
"- pathetic. Absolutely pathetic. You shoulda seen this kid."
The conversations around his end of the table dimmed. His voice filled the gap.
"Loki Familia's on the return, right? Minotaur gets loose, runs up to the fifth floor. And this rookie, this Level 1 nobody, he's just standing there pissing himself. White hair, red eyes, tiny little knife." Bete laughed. It was an ugly sound. "Ais has to cut the thing down before it squashes him like a bug. Kid's soaked head to toe in blood. Looks like a tomato."
My fork stopped halfway to my mouth.
"Weaklings like that shouldn't even be in the Dungeon." Bete's chair scraped as he leaned back. "What's the point? Some pathetic Level 1 with no skills, no party, just wandering around the upper floors waiting to die? Takes one stray monster and he's paste. And then what, Ais has to babysit him? The Sword Princess rescuing some nobody who can't even hold his knife right?"
Riveria said something quiet. I couldn't hear the words, but the tone was a warning.
Bete ignored her. "Weaklings don't deserve to stand in the same room as first-class adventurers. They definitely don't deserve to be saved by them. Kid should've stayed home and saved everyone the trouble."
The Hostess had gone quiet. Conversations at other tables had stopped. People at the nearest tables were glancing between me and Bete, and I realized that some of them had been here the morning Syr had brought me in. They knew he was talking about me.
Syr's hand touched my wrist under the counter. A light touch, her fingers cool against my skin. I looked at her. Her eyes were on Bete and her jaw was tight.
I put my fork down.
"That was me."
I said it at normal volume. Conversation-level. But the room was quiet enough that it carried. Bete stopped mid-sentence. Heads turned. Tiona, who had been trying to kick Bete's chair leg under the table, went still.
"The tomato kid," I said. "White hair, red eyes, tiny knife. That was me." I picked my fork back up. "Is there more, or was that it?"
Silence.
Bete stared at me from across the room. His mouth was open.
"The hell?" He stood up, chair scraping back. "You're the kid? You're just gonna sit there and-"
"And eat my stew? Yeah." I took a bite. Swallowed. "You're right, by the way. I was unprepared. No potions, no backup weapon, solo on a floor I shouldn't have been on. The Minotaur would've killed me if your teammate hadn't shown up."
I looked at him across the room. He was standing, fists on the table, leaning forward. The wolf ears were flat against his skull.
"I didn't ask to be saved. But I'm glad I was. And I'm going back into that Dungeon tomorrow, and the day after that, until I'm strong enough that I don't need anyone to save me. Is that pathetic enough for you, or do you want me to cry about it first?"
Tiona made a sound that was somewhere between a gasp and a laugh. She covered her mouth with both hands but her shoulders were shaking. Tione looked from me to Bete and back with her eyebrows up.
Finn took a sip of his drink. His mouth had a curve to it that might have been a smile.
Riveria's eyebrow went up a fraction. She set her wine glass down and looked at me over the rim for a long second before picking it up again.
Ais had stopped eating her potatoes. Her fork was in her hand, a piece of potato still on it, and she was looking at me. The same blank face from Floor 5, gold eyes, nothing moving. The same look from the corridor after the Minotaur, when she'd waited for me to run and I hadn't.
She hadn't looked away.
Loki leaned forward on the table, chin in her hands, and grinned. The grin was sharp and delighted and had too many teeth in it for comfort.
Bete opened his mouth. Closed it. His fists tightened on the table.
"Tch." He sat back down. Grabbed his mug, found it empty, and slammed it on the table. "Anya! More ale!"
Anya materialized beside the table with a pitcher, filled his mug, and vanished again. The noise in the Hostess gradually resumed. Conversations picked back up. The moment dissolved into the general clatter of people eating and drinking.
Syr's hand was still on my wrist. Under the counter, where nobody could see. Her fingers had shifted from my wrist to my forearm, warm now, pressing down with deliberate pressure.
"That was brave," she said quietly.
"It was just the truth."
Her thumb drew a small circle on the inside of my forearm. She held it for a breath, then pulled her hand back and picked up the mug she'd been drying. "More water?"
"Please."
She poured. Her hand was steady and her face had the same smiling warmth it always did, but her eyes had changed. The smile was the same. Everything around the smile was different.
I finished my stew. Left money on the counter. Stood up.
On my way to the door, I passed the Loki Familia table. Tiona leaned out and grabbed my sleeve.
"Hey! Tomato kid!" She was grinning, all teeth, her dark green eyes lit up. "That was amazing. What's your name?"
"Bell."
"Bell! I'm Tiona! Are you really going back in tomorrow? Can I watch? I love watching people who don't flinch."
"Tiona." Tione's voice, tired. "Let the boy go."
"I'm just asking!" Tiona let go of my sleeve but pointed at me as I walked away. "I'm gonna remember you, Bell!"
I pushed through the front door into the night air. The evening was cool, the sky dark, the street lit by scattered magic-stone lamps.
Ryuu was leaning against the wall beside the door. Arms crossed. She was still wearing her apron, but when she shifted her weight I caught a glint of metal at her hip. A short sword, barely visible under the apron hem.
She followed my glance down to it. Her mouth thinned.
"I had my hand on this when he began speaking about you," she said. "I put it away when you spoke for yourself."
"You carry a sword while waitressing?"
"I carry a sword." She didn't add a qualifier. "There was a point during his speech where I considered using it."
I looked at her. Her posture was relaxed but her jaw was set, and her sky-blue eyes were steady on mine.
"You didn't need to," I said.
"No." She looked at the street. A cart rattled past, the driver half-asleep, the horse's hooves loud on the stone. "You didn't."
She pushed off the wall and went back inside. The door closed behind her.
I stood there for a second. The night air cooled the heat in my face that I hadn't realized was there. My hands were steady. My heartbeat was normal. But the back of my neck was warm and I could still feel where Syr's thumb had pressed a circle into my forearm.
I walked home. The streets were quieter than they'd been on the way there, fewer adventurers, more drunks and stray cats. One of the magic-stone lamps on the corner of my street was out. I stepped around the dark patch and kept going.
At the corner, I looked back. Through the Hostess's front window, warm and lit against the dark street, the Loki Familia table was visible. Most of them were drinking again, the moment already past. But at the far end, a figure with golden hair was still turned toward the door.