Chapter 41

Chapter 41

A Drinking Party

“Mr. Zeto, I was waiting for you! As expected, you find your way perfectly on your own. Come this way!”

Following Edward’s words, I approached them, and Edward tossed Kaliman, who had been sprawled out with his head buried on the table, into one corner of the tavern.

Kaliman, like Amon after inhaling the paralysis powder, had gone completely limp and showed no reaction at all.

Collapsed against the wall, Kaliman let his head droop and began snoring in earnest.

“...Now, please sit.”

Edward turned his head away from Kaliman, looked at me, and said with a grin.

“Don’t mind him. He’s the sort who sleeps well anywhere.”

Priscilla, seated on my left, said this as she casually slung her arm over my shoulder.

On my right, Eisel was crunching on a long snack that looked like something meant to go with drinks.

Once I took an appropriate seat, Edward spoke first.

“Since Student Zeto has arrived, I should introduce someone first. On our way back from traveling, my wife and I stopped by for a moment.”

“I am Vanessa Klaus.”

Edward’s wife, Vanessa, placed a hand over her chest and introduced herself in an elegant voice.

“I am Zeto, a Class A student under Instructor Edward.”

I also bowed my head politely to Vanessa and introduced myself.

Then Eisel, beside me, held out to me the same kind of snack she had been eating.

“...Want one?”

“Miss Eisel, how did you end up here...?”

I accepted the snack Eisel held out and immediately asked her.

“Miss Eisel happened to come to the tavern alone, so I suggested she join us to chat. Since Mr. Zeto was going to come anyway, I thought it would make for a nice picture. Hah!”

Edward, sitting across from me, answered the question meant for Eisel.

The corners of Edward’s mouth rose as if asking to be praised, saying, “I did well, didn’t I?”

I had no intention of praising him.

I had planned to leave the place quickly, but thanks to him, getting out fast did not seem easy.

“Eisel can hold her liquor pretty well, you know?”

Priscilla tapped my shoulder with the hand she had draped over it and said that.

“...”

Eisel, who had continued nibbling at the snack, had a slightly reddish face.

It seemed she had already had a few drinks.

“In any case, let’s finish the business quickly and leave.”

I only needed to receive the reward money.

I glanced at Reina, who was seated across from me beside Vanessa.

However, Reina, the very person who was supposed to give me the reward money, already had her eyes half-unfocused.

“...She’s gone. Completely gone.”

After confirming that Reina had more than enough alcohol in her, I quietly felt a headache begin to creep in.

“Drink! Drink!”

“When it comes to liquor... hic... I won’t lose...!”

“Sh-shut up and hurry up and drink already!”

“Drink! Drink!”

At the sudden burst of noise from behind, I turned my head slightly and saw rugged men apparently competing over who could drink better.

[ Drink! Hurry and drink! ]

Sierra was there with them too, waving her arms fervently and urging them on.

Sierra seemed to be enjoying herself in her own way.

The unfortunate part was that her cheers toward them were ringing in my head.

“I guess it can’t be helped...”

Occasionally sitting together with others like this was not so bad.

“Zeto, you’re drinking too, right?”

Priscilla looked at me and said that.

“I need to keep my distance from Priscilla, yet the physical distance is this close...”

Perhaps because she had her arm around my shoulders, the distance between us was quite close.

“Do you perhaps have any drinks other than alcohol?”

“No.”

“We do not.”

Priscilla and Edward gave firm answers to my question.

“This is bad.”

I wanted to rise from my seat immediately, but I could not exactly slap away Priscilla’s arm when she had it around my shoulders.

“Then... please give me the weakest alcohol you have.”

“A good idea. Mr. Zeto, that must be a judgment made while thinking of my class tomorrow.”

“What a model student you are, Student Zeto... Hmhm.”

As if to prove they were husband and wife, Vanessa and Edward fit together perfectly.

“One butter beer here.”

Soon, Priscilla waved her hand and ordered the drink.

“I heard the story on the way here. Mr. Zeto, it seems you were quite active both inside and outside the Labyrinth during the practice period... Thanks to you, I am on my way back after landing a blow on the headmaster. Hahahaha.”

Edward clapped loudly and laughed.

“Eddy... what did you say to Father?”

Vanessa’s cold dagger pierced Edward.

“Mm... I spoke well. I told him that thanks to you taking such good care of me by my side, I was able to provide good education to the students.”

“That’s a lie. It’s obvious you took the chance to boast to Father as much as you could.”

“Ahem...”

Struck directly by Vanessa, Edward cleared his throat for no reason.

When Vanessa appeared, one could see Edward utterly unable to stand against her like this.

That was why, even in the game, I did not skip when Vanessa appeared.

How could I miss such a fresh scene?

“Good education, my ass... It was thanks to my bracelet, puhahaha!”

Reina, who had been swaying her head while listening to Edward’s conversation, loudly laughed while tapping her wrist as if to show it off.

“Who knows? Perhaps it was thanks to me teaching him acupuncture very ‘earnestly.’”

Priscilla also added a word and stared steadily at me.

“Earnestly...”

The sight of Priscilla in her underwear as she taught me acupuncture with all her heart flickered through my head.

Judging from her smile, she did not seem to care about that at all, but from my perspective, there was no way I could not be conscious of it.

For no reason, my gaze drifted toward her chest, where her buttons were undone.

[ What nonsense are these people spouting? I raised my disciple from childhood! Th-therefore, it is my strength...! ]

Just then, Sierra, who had appeared without my noticing, joined their conversation.

Naturally, this was an argument they could not hear.

Moreover, her taking me in as her disciple when I was young was nothing more than a kind of “setting.”

After acting so smug, Sierra went back to watching the drinking contest. It seemed she found the drinking contest very amusing.

“Um... Instructor Reina?”

Before the alcohol arrived, I tried speaking to Reina, just in case.

“...Mmm? Student Zeto...”

At my call, Reina blinked.

“You called for me...”

“...Did I?”

Soon, Reina frowned.

I began to doubt whether I could receive the reward money at all.

Unable to watch any longer, Priscilla explained on her behalf.

“She called you because of the reward money for the lycanthrope matter.”

“...I see.”

“Since Reina is in that state, I took care of the reward money. I’ll be sure to give it to you later, so... for now, don’t worry and enjoy yourself. I’m good with alcohol.”

From Priscilla’s gentle voice, the words, “That is not what I am worried about,” nearly slipped out, but I held them back.

“This may be a rude question, but... is it difficult for you to distinguish people, Student Zeto? Everyone else seems used to it.”

Vanessa, who had been watching my conversation with Priscilla, asked me with her eyes round.

And so... just as I was about to begin the explanation that had become customary whenever I met someone new, Eisel opened her mouth.

“By vibrations, voices, and things like heartbeats... right?”

Eisel answered in my place, glanced at me once, then drank.

“Wow, heartbeats... Hmhm, that sounds very romantic.”

Vanessa clasped her hands as if satisfied by Eisel’s answer.

Soon, Vanessa whispered with Edward. Were they having some intimate conversation between husband and wife?

Reina was sprawled over the table, counting stars in the air, and Priscilla was silently drinking.

...Eisel was lying over the table, looking at me.

Hearing about heartbeats made me remember the “pranks” Eisel and Sierra had played on me.

I drank a little of the alcohol that had come out during the conversation, trying to clear my head.

As I drank and checked Eisel beside me, I saw that her ears had turned red.

“Is she really drunk?”

Her ears were red, but Eisel maintained her indifferent face.

I drank only a little, not enough to get drunk, then put the glass down.

Perhaps because the alcohol Priscilla ordered was truly weak, I did not feel as if I had gotten drunk from only a single sip.

If anything, I grew curious about the alcohol content in the coffee from the cafe I had gone to with Eisel before.

I absolutely could not collapse in this place.

“Reina and Kaliman are already dead drunk, so let’s put them aside...”

Eisel, the regressor.

Priscilla’s hidden past.

Excluding these two, the only remaining people were the Klaus couple.

“The safest one being Edward, of all people...”

—Tap!

Soon, Edward, having cleanly emptied one glass and set it down on the table, began leading the conversation.

“Seeing you two students brings back old memories. Wouldn’t you say, Miss Priscilla?”

“When we attended the academy?”

“Yes, myself, Mr. Kaliman, Miss Reina, and Miss Priscilla too. They were rather good days, weren’t they?”

Edward smiled toward Priscilla.

“Good days... If war against the demons hadn’t broken out in the middle... yes, I suppose they probably would have been good days.”

When Priscilla brought up the word demons, Eisel flinched and reacted, if only for a brief moment.

Eisel could not help being sensitive about demons.

No one else noticed, so I let it pass.

Suddenly, Reina, who had been sprawled on the floor drooling, finally rose from her seat and raised her arm high, shouting.

“...War? Th’ three! Of Black Blooood!”

Reina’s tongue was badly twisted, perhaps because she was very drunk.

The Three of Black Blood.

It was the epithet given to Reina, Kaliman, and Edward, who had participated in the war while they were students.

I remembered that, unlike the others, Reina particularly liked that epithet.

Something about it being cool.

Of course, it was likely a taste that only came out when she was as drunk as she was now.

“I do not miss the days when we were drenched in black blood....Demon blood has a foul smell, you see.”

Edward added this to Reina’s shout.

“...”

Priscilla, still with her arm around my shoulder, spared her words and took a sip of alcohol.

Priscilla also had an epithet she had earned during the war.

Priscilla of Fresh Blood.

It was an epithet given to her as a medical officer.

It had been given because she devoted herself to treating allies on the front lines until she was soaked in their blood, but she did not particularly like it.

Because even when she had been an assassin of the “Order” in her childhood, red, thick human blood had always clung to her.

The others here had long-standing relationships with Priscilla.

Even if they did not know her past, they knew she hated that epithet, so no one asked about it.

The same went for Eisel.

Since she was a regressor, she probably already knew at least that Priscilla disliked that epithet.

By the time the smell of alcohol in the tavern had become familiar to my nose, the drinking contest in the back still had not ended, and Sierra’s passionate shouts kept ringing through my head.

At the table, the conversation moved between each person’s trivial stories.

Mostly stories from the instructors’ academy days.

“Oh dear, to think time has passed like this after only a few words. We should be going first.”

Edward rose from his seat and said this.

“It was short, but I enjoyed myself. Student Zeto, Student Eisel, come visit our home sometime. I will prepare delicious food.”

Vanessa rose after him and spoke with plenty of elegance.

I smiled and rose to see them off.

To me, there was no better news than this.

I stood from my seat partly to check how much alcohol had reached me, exchanged farewells with them, and saw them off.

Eisel also followed me and saw them off.

At the tavern entrance, I bowed my head politely to Edward and Vanessa and thought.

“Now we can naturally break up the gathering.”

That was how drinking parties were.

One person left, another followed, and as the number of people dwindled, everyone scattered.

Returning to the table, I tried to speak to Priscilla.

But Reina, who should have been collapsed on the table, had somehow regained herself. Her eyes were clear, and she was waiting for me and Eisel.

“Student Zeto! Student Eisel! Drink...!”

“...Pardon?”

I was confused by Reina suddenly looking perfectly fine.

“...I just used Divine Clear.”

Priscilla said this casually while sipping her drink.

“Hah! This is why I like coming to taverns with Priscilla.”

Regardless of whether I stood there dazed, Reina held her stomach and laughed.

“Divine Clear,” which purified conditions, was considered relatively high-ranking even among holy magic.

“Is it really all right to waste high-ranking magic just to sober someone up...?”

Only now did the mystery of how Reina, despite being weak to alcohol, could remain in taverns for so long get solved.

“Round two! Student Zeto! Today, you shall pay!”

Reina shouted loudly.

“What are you doing? Hurry up and sit.”

Next, Priscilla glanced at me and spoke in a soft voice.

“...Aren’t you going to drink more?”

Eisel beside me grabbed my arm and whispered, her large eyes turning toward me.

Kaliman was still stuck over there in the corner, snoring.

Soon, unable to withstand the burdensome gazes pouring from the three women, I sank back into my seat and thought.

“If I get drunk too, should I ask her to use Divine Clear on me?”