Chapter 82
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 82
Chapter Title: Festival - 11
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I turn my head and look around.
The noisiest person at the table was undoubtedly Raymond.
He had so many stories he wanted to tell that he kept his mouth opening non-stop to the people around him, leading the atmosphere.
In other places, groups of three or five were commonly seen clinking glasses, and there were spots where couples created an intimate vibe.
Koon, noticing my gaze darting this way and that, spoke up lightly.
"He's even further to the right in the corner. Drinking with Deina."
"I never said I was looking for Delion."
"You seemed like you were. ...Was I wrong?"
I didn't bother denying it.
As he said, Delion was sitting right next to Deina, enjoying the meal together.
There was a glass in front of Delion too, but he didn't drink from it nearly as often as Deina gripped hers.
Was he even talking to her? Except when swallowing food, it didn't seem like he opened his mouth at all.
There was no bigger chatterbox than Deina, so he was probably just nodding along to her words without a chance to speak.
It was clear that Delion felt the same discomfort as Koon.
"I'm sorry."
"Nah, whatever. Fights happen."
"Still, I should've kept it from affecting the festival."
Koon, as one of the people involved, knew better than anyone that his actions had been immature.
Even if it was a wooden sword, he'd shown emotions and forgotten his purpose in a place where matches with weapons took place.
It was fortunate that the sword broke midway, giving them a breather; if things had worsened, the mood among the spectating villagers would've soured too.
But he knew better than anyone that human hearts don't always turn rationally.
Their friendship had lasted so long that the rift between them couldn't be from something trivial.
They knew each other's personalities better than anyone, yet they couldn't avoid clashing opinions.
In the end, the swordsmanship match had concluded without issue.
I had no intention of continuing with foolish reprimands.
It was far better to worry about where the discord started and how to resolve it.
Blaming others could always be done later, but resolution wasn't always possible.
"At first, I thought it was just a difference in opinion, but trying to fix it for no reason only hurt our feelings more."
"From what I felt, Delion personally doesn't like Sua much."
"...Yes. That's true."
As expected, Sua was involved between the two.
"There were complaints even before. Do you remember those two adventurers fighting in front of the clinic?"
"Yeah, I know. And this guy let them go after they were arrested."
The reason guards in the village arrested adventurers was simple.
They'd already caused trouble and shouldn't cause more.
Under that pretext, they could restrain adventurers, but even that simple measure was ultimately limited to unaffiliated ones.
The moment they joined a guild, responsibility for a guild member's actions could be passed up the chain.
They could easily get off by saying the guild would handle the punishment.
So, guards detaining adventurers was practically meaningless in reality.
A single word from the guild could spring a novice adventurer easily.
Of course, it was possible because Phria had caught Sua's eye.
There was no reason to recruit a low-potential adventurer, and no need to bail out one they wouldn't recruit.
The other male adventurer involved in the incident had ended up with an unexpected gain.
"I know. I know that the current level of restraint already takes our situation into heavy consideration."
Unlike floors with only monsters, village-type floors had residents capable of communication.
Adventurers took quests from them, bought items, and gained experience.
Rankers and guild leaders alike followed an unspoken rule.
Don't occupy or destroy villages.
It was for the public good.
If a village fell, all adventurers would suffer.
Thanks to that, when discovering unpublicized job changes or items, they often concealed the info.
Under the principle that everyone should use them, they could occupy specific areas, so they kept even the existence of those areas secret.
That way, guilds could maintain their edge in recruiting new talent.
"Problems might arise now, but Earthbound Spirit helps out, and Instructor Tiana's here too. We feel peace because guilds don't mess with the village on an organizational level."
As Koon said, the village had me.
Even without me, there were still no adventurers who could beat Tiana yet.
But conversely, if it came to all-out war with a guild, excluding Tiana, the village had no meaningful forces.
How many minutes could Koon and Delion last against Sua?
It might end in seconds if quick.
The guild master's words might feel less like a polite request and more like intense pressure.
"We can't do much. When trouble happens, we rush out first, catch the culprits somehow with someone's help, detain them briefly, then hand them over to the guild that comes calling."
"......"
"And then we stand in front of the forest again, spending half the day like that."
Koon felt the same frustration as anyone at not being able to counter guild opinions even once.
Delion expressed that negative feeling even more directly.
Yet Koon admired the ideal image of adventurers, while Delion recognized the realistic damage they caused.
"I understand. I think... it's plenty understandable."
"Sua's actions?"
"And all the rude things adventurers do that might seem that way."
Before he knew it, Koon's glass was empty.
Mine too.
"Most adventurers treat me like an annoying scarecrow, and while it hurts, I understand it rationally too."
"......"
"Even when fights break out, they're between adventurers, and they've never targeted villagers."
Conversely, the moment an adventurer pointed a weapon at villagers, Koon would stop his rational guard duties—in aspiration, if nothing else.
Koon understood that raid parties always needed fresh blood, and thus the reality that they couldn't punish troublemaking adventurers harshly.
Acceptance was the better word.
He was one of those who admired adventurers' journeys, wanting to see them climb to higher floors.
But Delion wasn't.
He had no need or desire to understand.
"That adventurer's name was Phria, right? Anyway, after Sua handled her by the book, Delion's hostility seemed to worsen."
"The hate must've dug in deep that day. Can't look at her favorably now."
"Since she's your acquaintance, Earthbound Spirit, he probably held it back in front of you."
Then a few days ago, the situation that made Delion's emotions explode arrived.
"Truth is, we could enjoy the festival carefree today all thanks to magic."
"The one Sua summoned... Damn, I just scratched the wound more."
"No. If anything, it was partly my fault too......"
Koon admitted his attitude had provoked Delion's anger.
Delion had felt uneasy from the start about participating in the festival with help from Sua.
"I rarely see mages, and seeing magic up close like that is even rarer, so I must've been extra excited that day."
As time passed, oblivious to Delion's worsening expression, Koon had been busy praising Sua's summoning magic as amazing.
He admitted it enough to call his actions lacking in awareness, so he clearly hadn't looked good to Delion.
In the end, Delion vented his discomfort with rather extreme words.
Starting with whether getting help from a mage was so great, up to whether he wasn't mad about being replaced by a mere summon.
"I thought good is good, that we could enjoy the festival, so I snapped at Delion, asking what he didn't like about it."
"You must've been pretty heated by then too."
"Well, I could've said it more gently."
Neither understood the other, and one side was already fully pissed.
Eventually, stress built up on the remaining one too.
"Then we said things we shouldn't have, and... it ended up like this."
"Did you touch Delion's reverse scale? Or did he touch yours?"
"To each other, we both seemed like fools living stupidly."
Friends had lines they shouldn't cross, but in the argument, both had gone over them.
"Stupid how?"
"We're each obsessed with weird stuff. Already short on sleep, splitting time to train stamina."
Koon said both guards were fools obsessed with strange things.
Rare was the person who described their own actions as foolish and weird, yet continued knowing that.
"Delion... is looking for an excuse to kick Sua out of the village. Every night."
"......"
"Suuuua! One more glass......"
For some reason, it felt fortunate that Sua was drunk and out of her mind right now.
I feared she'd hurl a fireball at Delion if she remembered this conversation.