Hearing someone call out his name, Leon turned around.
What came into view was a pretty girl with pink twin-tails.
But contrasting with her sweet face was how disheveled she looked at the moment.
Her hunting-style combat gear was already torn in several places, hanging off her in tatters. The black stockings wrapped around her legs had been ripped into a few holes, and her short boots were caked with mud. A faint, sickly weariness lingered between her brows, and the residual killing intent that hadn't yet dispersed from her body made it clear she'd just taken part in Freya Familia's signature activity, "Baptism."
Looking at that tender, adorable face and the faint yandere air leaking off her, Leon instantly recognized who she was:
Someone he'd actually fought side by side with before, one of Orario's three great "wage slaves," the true vice-captain of Freya Familia, one of the future twin pillars of the city's healers, currently a berserker of Freya Familia, the [Golden Witch], Heith.
"You're... Miss Heith? Oh right! I almost forgot you're with Freya Familia too! And a high-ranking officer at that!"
"..."
Watching Leon's expression of sudden realization, Heith's little face dropped instantly. Clearly, she was deeply unhappy that Leon had actually forgotten about her.
I'm a beautiful girl too, so how do I have this little presence in his eyes?
His head's stuffed with nothing but money, money, money, huh?
Fine.
"Hmph, move it! I need to count the goods!"
She flicked her twin-tails and walked past Leon with a stiff face. Leon could only spread his hands like a little bear toward the expressionless Hedin and put on a helpless look.
He kept his composure on the surface, but inside his thoughts churned wildly:
Female, yandere, fanatic, maxed-out looks, backed by Freya Familia, and a top-tier healer too...
These buffs are practically all stacked, aren't they! Who'd dare to provoke you!
Just thinking about the trouble that getting tangled up with someone like this could bring made Leon want to steer well clear.
Especially since the biggest boss of this Familia was herself an unfathomable (lunatic) type... that made him keep his distance all the more.
Unless his fists got hard enough someday, in which case he might consider taming this pink-haired one a bit.
Picturing a future scene of Heith kneeling beneath him in shame and indignation, a subtle smile surfaced on his face.
Hedin: "..."
...
...
The rank-and-file members Heith brought were highly efficient, finishing the count in no time. She nodded to Hedin, and the elf took out a check and laid it gently on a wooden box.
"We're very satisfied with this transaction."
Leon stroked the figure on the check and said to the two of them with a beaming smile:
"Of course, I love working with straightforward partners like you the most, too."
As he spoke, he stood up, pointed at the remaining wooden boxes on the cart, and took his leave of the two:
"Then I'll excuse myself for now. As you can see, I still have to deliver to the other two clients."
Just then, something occurred to Heith, and she spoke up out of nowhere:
"Is it [Loki Familia] and [Astraea Familia]? How much did they order?"
"..."
"Ahem, that's right. Their two orders are next in line."
"As for the exact numbers..."
"As you can see, you're my biggest customer, which is why the first place I came to was Folkvangr, and not Twilight Manor or Stardust Garden."
At that, the two of them instantly grasped Leon's subtext, that their two orders weren't as large as Freya Familia's.
Realizing this, a trace of barely perceptible satisfaction crossed Hedin's face.
Heith, meanwhile, gave two cold snorts:
"Money-grubber."
Leon shrugged it off:
"Can't help it, it's all just to make a living."
"All right, Heith."
Hedin cut in at the right moment, interrupting the pink-haired girl who still wanted to bicker with Leon a bit more:
"Since Mr. Leon still has business to attend to, we won't keep him."
Leon nodded to the two of them in farewell, then pushed the cart and quickly left Folkvangr. Only when that gaze watching him from somewhere unseen had completely vanished did he let out a long breath.
He looked back at that building and cursed under his breath:
"Damn it, that peeping freak Freya. What's so good about my soul to look at? I'm no naive, pure-hearted boy either!"
"Bah!"
"Lunatic!"
Although Leon had let loose with a satisfying string of curses, there was a real touch of awkwardness in the figure that fled.
All that could be said was the Goddess of Beauty was just too overpowered.
Even though the one currently fixated on him wasn't her true self...
...
...
Just as Leon was hurrying toward his next stop, Twilight Manor, the squad Rose led was also undergoing the baptism of battle in the Dungeon.
Kureha's figure darted at high speed through the swarm of monsters, every dodge merging into one with the flash of her blade. Wherever she passed, the Killer Ants' movements came to an abrupt halt, as if time had frozen.
Sensing this enormous threat, the Killer Ants let out shrill cries!
The next second, a dense mass of monstrous shapes closed in to surround Miss Sword Saint.
"Bring it on!"
Kureha's eyes lit up, and an excited smile curled at the corner of her mouth. Heedless of the foul blood smeared across her face, her body wove like a swimming dragon once again!
As she swung her weapon time and again, several streaks of silver light crossed and flickered like phantoms in the dim cavern, and in an instant the swarm of Killer Ants surrounding her was slaughtered clean.
As for the few isolated stragglers deliberately left behind, they were handed over to the two newcomers, Margaret and Iri, as opponents for combat training.
"Killer Ants make for a good first blood, the difficulty's just right."
"Margaret, you go first!"
Rose stood off to the side, turning a blind eye to Kureha venting her pent-up energy. A woman like her just needed to be handed over to Leon to tame for a few days, and by the next time they met, Rose believed... Kureha would surely turn into a "cool and aloof" good girl, instead of the violence junkie she was now.
While she was musing, Margaret had already sprung into action.
As an academy-trained Mage facing living monsters for the first time, it would be self-deception to claim she wasn't nervous. But the slaughter that Miss Sword Saint Kureha had just put on display had long since shattered that trace of unease in her heart.
"So... so strong!"
"What was that? I couldn't even make out the path of Miss Kureha's blade at all, it was like in the blink of an eye... all the monsters surrounding her just dropped dead!"
Recalling that stunning scene, Margaret drew a deep breath and channeled her magic.
"...Flames, come!"
...
...
[Read 60+ chapters ahead on Patreon: patreon.com/NiaXD]