The Hostess of Fertility was bustling, the waitresses running around delivering food and drinks to the customers. In the corner sat two regulars of the store enjoying food and drinks. Akira enjoying the food while Hestia enjoyed the drinks.
"Am I at least the audience's favorite?" Hestia was in her bargaining mode. After hearing she was not the heroine of the series, she thought at least the audience might like her. But Akira could only avoid her gaze and continue eating.
Thack!!!
Putting the mug of beer down, a drunk Hestia grabbed his collar.
"Tell me, I was your favorite heroine."
Akira couldn't lie to her, so he turned his head away. Hestia had a devastated look on her face and decided to drink her sorrows away.
"One more!!!"
Seeing her downing one beer mug after another, Akira felt a little concerned.
"Hestia-sama, when people say they like a heroine in a book, it doesn't translate to real life," Akira consoled her.
"Really…" Hestia, who was sobbing, cleared her tears.
"Really. After all, think about it — all the quirks of a heroine might seem cute while reading, but if a girl like that existed in real life, how difficult she would be to deal with."
Hearing his point, Hestia nodded. "That's true."
"That means the vixen you think is the best heroine is not the best in real life." Hestia's mood brightened. Akira drank his fruit juice because he didn't want to reply and admit his favorite girl in the series was still the best girl in real life.
"What are you talking about?" Syr intruded, bringing more beer for Hestia.
"Well, we were talking about heroines." Akira pushed the alcohol away; he didn't want to accidentally get drunk.
"Drink, it's your celebration." Hestia pushed the drink toward him.
"I was going to tell her the reason she can't be the heroine of the story written about this world." Akira took a sip of alcohol.
"Oh, I'd like to hear more about it." Syr was interested. Although she knew he was always guarded around her and might know more than he should, she enjoyed her conversations with him as he clumsily hid his true thoughts in his words.
"Well, think of it like this. If someone writes a story that shows the essence of this world, there are a few things you can guess about it.
First, the story would be set in Orario, as it is the center of the world.
Second, it would have a male lead — after all, male-led books sell better than female-led ones.
The male lead would be an adventurer, and he would be an underdog."
"What about the female lead?" Syr asked.
"She must be a high-level adventurer, beautiful, and if she had a mysterious past, it would be even better. She should be saved, or even better, she should help the lead complete a heroic feat." He continued, finishing his drink. Now fully drunk, he had no inhibition in his speech.
"That is why Hestia-sama can't be the heroine, no matter how cute she is," Akira announced.
"That means I'm out too." Syr, who now sat beside him, gave a sad expression.
"Yes, you're out, but not for the reason you think." Akira pointed at her. "You have a high chance of falling in love first, and with your nature, I bet you would treat him like a toy. If a writer made you the female lead, the whole comic would just become his fetish confession."
"What about me, nya?" Anya, whose ears had heard their conversation through the noise, appeared beside him.
Akira bent his neck back to see her face. "Anya is a free cat. Binding you to the male lead would only decrease your charm."
Hearing this, Anya was happy, patting his shoulder as he understood her charm.
"Then I could be the heroine?" Lunoire joined in.
"You are too lazy. It would change the genre of the story from adventure to slice-of-life." Akira downed another.
"Mew, nya," Chloe pointed to herself.
"No!!! Don't even think about it. With your preference for the male lead, the writer would be jailed for thinking about it." Akira sternly replied.
"Then Ryuu would be the best fit," Syr asked excitedly. The waitresses looked at Ryuu, who was standing beside Syr's seat, pulling Anya and Chloe back to work. Hearing the topic shift to her, Ryuu was flustered.
"Yes, our Ryuu would be a perfect heroine." Anya hugged her arm.
Akira tilted his seat back 45 degrees to get a good look at the elf.
"Akira-san?" Ryuu asked as Akira's intense gaze was on her.
"Well, Ryuu is beautiful, just like a fairy. She is strong and reliable." Akira's compliments made Ryuu even more flustered.
He turned his face toward the roof and kept on increasing the tilt. "I bet reliable Ryuu would save the male lead and, in turn, save herself. If the author decided Ryuu to be the female lead, the story would become a fairy tale. An adult who has seen misery could never accept this. Ryuu's female lead status, Rejected."
With that, the tilt was too much and the chair fell back. With a bang, he collided with the ground. The waitresses gathered around to check on him. Through his clouding vision, he saw Ryuu's face and said to his favorite heroine what he had always wanted to say: "Thinking about Ryuu as the female lead made me feel a lot more jealous of the male lead."
With that, Akira's lights went out. Just two mugs of alcohol had made him unconscious — the same alcohol Hestia was drinking her eighth mug of.
-----------------------------------
"Haagh." With a massive headache, Akira opened his eyes to find an unfamiliar ceiling. Massaging his head, he got out of the white bedsheet. Picking up the glass of water on his bedside table, he drank it.
Looking around, he saw the room was in a wooden building. It had a bed, a bedside table with a lamp, a chair, and a study table. Sitting on the bed, he peeked out the window with half-closed eyes and saw an empty garden below. Feeling the cool breeze, he guessed it was still early morning.
Getting off the bed, he opened one of the two doors, since it was closer to the bed. He found it to be the bathroom. There were clean towels and amenities present.
'Well, I should clean up.' Akira decided it was the best option, as wherever he was seemed pretty safe.
The cold shower shocked his body awake. Deciding to wear something comfortable, he put on a blue samue. Feeling the soft fabric and loose fit, he thought, Man, now I know why monks are always so calm.
Opening the other door led him into an empty corridor, with his room at one end. Walking forward, he came across stairs leading to the ground floor. At the end of the stairs, he had two ways to go: left or right.
Fuush~
Hearing the noise of wind, he took the left turn. After turning around a corner, he was stunned to see a fairy swinging a wooden sword.
'Oye! Oye! That's too dangerous.' Akira's heart thumped loudly as he looked at Ryuu practicing.
Ryuu wore a white sleeveless top with green shorts, and she was barefoot. Her blue eyes were focused on her swings, causing her light green hair to wave like the grass around her feet. It was a mesmerizing sight for Akira.
"Akira-san… Akira-san…" Ryuu, who had stopped practicing, called him out of his daze.
Akira looked at the fairy now standing in front of him. Being a straight shooter, he wanted to say he was mesmerized by her beauty, but as he opened his mouth, remembering the shameful words he spoke last night, he stopped.
He thought any more flirting would be bad. He had a promise to keep. More importantly, Ryuu was a long-lived species — his time in the world would be equivalent to a blink of an eye for her. Any more closeness would only cause her pain in the future. Akira tried to think of anything other than her beauty to talk about, but his brain was failing him.
Ryuu was confused by his repeated failed attempts to speak. "Akira-san, are you okay?"
Seeing her concern, Akira decided to take a deep breath and calm his thoughts. He smiled and asked, "Ryuu-san, would you like to have a spar?"
Hearing him speak her name formally, Ryuu was a little surprised, but her expression remained calm. She nodded her head. "Okay."
Akira took his shoes off so as not to damage the grass in the garden. The two fighters stood on opposite sides of the ground.
"Akira-san, are you going to fight barehanded?" Ryuu asked, readying her sword. Even though she knew he was Level 1, she was not going to go easy on him.
Akira smiled and opened his palm. A spear, a wooden replica of his original spear, appeared. Ryuu was shocked by the display. She tried to guess what his skill was but couldn't come to a concrete answer. She decided to see it in action.
Fuush~
With the sound of the morning breeze, the fight started. Ryuu attacked with swiftness, closing in on him. Akira, not yet adjusted to his new strength, could only block and parry with his spear. As he kept switching hands and stances, showing his full mastery of the spear, Ryuu showed why she was called the Gale — easily slipping around his attacks and keeping up her assault.
Thack!! Thack!!
The sound of their clashes had woken up the residents of the tavern. Chloe, Lunoire, and Anya were sitting at the gate, watching the two duel. Well, the first two were; it was still early for Anya, who had her head in Lunoire's lap, sleeping.
Akira was breathing heavily, his face covered in sweat. He supported himself using his spear. On the opposite side, Ryuu stood calm and composed, though in her heart she was shocked — she never expected Akira to be so skilled.
She looked at Akira as he took a deep breath. He stood straight with his right hand holding the spear, and a smaller similar spear appeared in his left palm. Smiling, finding the spar fun, he said, "Get ready, Ryuu. I'm going to get serious."
He launched his attack, his strikes faster now. Ryuu walked on her toes as she increased her strength to swat away his attacks. His second spear made her approach of closing in and forcing him on the defense impossible. Akira parried and even dodged her attacks. Before, his stance was more about keeping his feet glued to the ground; now he was sliding across it.
"It's like a dance," Syr, who had just joined, commented, enjoying their performance. Akira was starting to get comfortable with his speed and strength due to his rank-up.
"This speed looks like our storyteller is already Level 2." Chloe smiled.
'Akira-san's strength is not that of an average Level 2 adventurer. I'm sure he has raised his stats to the limit,' Ryuu thought. She had found a rhythm to his attacks and was able to neutralize them without much effort.
She raised her sword horizontally above her head, anticipating his next move — a downward slash with the long spear.
Swish!!
Akira had already completed the move, but she didn't feel the strike on her sword. She looked at him and saw Akira crouching in front of her with his head down, the spears nowhere to be seen.
"Iai," he murmured.
Bam!
She felt the attack hit her stomach. She slid back due to the force. It wasn't that painful, but the memories related to it were.
Akira was now standing, holding a wooden sword in his hand, his expression smiling. "Ryuu, don't get dazed in a fight."
Ryuu answered by launching herself forward.
The next part of the fight became a contest between Akira's versatility and Ryuu's swiftness.
Akira kept changing weapons, wielding each with the proficiency of an expert. Ryuu found some of the styles nostalgic. Following her emotions, she felt as if she were back in her happy days, causing her to smile. Seeing her beautiful smile, Akira felt his pain fade away, which made him smile back at her.
During the fight, Akira's eyes were concentrated only on the blue jewels that were Ryuu's eyes, as she looked back into his, which were now shining red.
Feeling his dance partner getting faster and stronger, Akira knew his body couldn't keep up. He decided to land one last strike.
As she went for a stab, Akira saw his chance. Shifting himself out of the sword's path, he put his weapon back into his inventory. He was going to grab her arm and throw her over his shoulder.
His palms were just a centimeter away from grabbing her arm when he stopped. His battle instincts screamed at him as he was close to victory. But his rational mind was in control. He couldn't grab her arm. For an elf, being touched like that was a big thing. For Ryuu, it was a bigger it was a confession.
The split-second hesitation was all Ryuu needed, and Akira knew it too. He hurried to defend himself, but Ryuu's kick had already reached his stomach.
Bam!!
He was blown back, the earlier injuries at his waist flaring with enormous pain. As he slid backward, he couldn't keep his balance and fell on his back.
"I surrender," he announced, covering his eyes with his elbow to hide the tears of pain. He kept breathing heavily.
Earlier in the fight, Syr had clearly seen his soul reaching out to Ryuu, but at the end, all of it was forcibly pushed down by Akira. Remembering the last line he had said last night, the only thing he had spoken straight from his heart. Syr felt that this Akira was far more interesting than she had thought.
.........................
(A/N: If you can't guess just watched Danmachi Season 4 Part 2.)
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