Chapter 99: A Commotion in the Dining Hall

“Wait a moment! What’s this! The char is on the inside? And the feel of the char is different too. What’s this? It isn’t charcoal, either…”

“Errr…. The last one got used up straight away, so I thought I’d make one that would last as long as possible…”

“It’s true that with the first sort you made, the wound-on kind, once you’ve used up the part of the char that’s showing you have to make it over again…. That’s convenient enough in itself, but this one…”

“…Ah! I’m going to lunch with Victor and the others, so…”

Ren noticed Victor standing at the entrance of the dining hall, looking his way. Realising he was keeping them waiting, Ren made hurriedly to leave.

“Ah…. Well…”

Mikaila looked as though she wanted to hear a good deal more from Ren, but she glanced across at the dining hall entrance and nodded, her expression still not quite settled.

After running over to where Victor was waiting, Ren turned back towards Mikaila, a little worried. Thinking it over, he had left in the middle of the conversation, and he started and pulled a troubled face. But Mikaila was waving her hand at him and smiling, and he was relieved.

“Was it all right? Did you get told off for something?”

“No. But she said it didn’t have to be a pretty feather…”

“A feather’s better if it looks splendid, though.”

“That’s what I think!”

Victor seemed to be of the same mind as Ren, and Ren felt a little easier for it.

“Victor! Ren!”

Colette called to them from the far end of the dining hall. But something was odd about it. Her voice sounded rather hard-pressed.

“Over here! It’s Fred and the others!”

“Eh!?”

Hurrying into the dining hall to see what was the matter, he found Fred and Loren at a table in a spot shadowed from the entrance, facing off with some other adventurers and arguing about something.

The other adventurers were boys of about Victor’s age, or perhaps a little older. Smaller than Fred, but the nearest of them, a black-haired boy with his hair tied back, had bare upper arms that were noticeably muscled and tanned.

“I’m telling you to give it back!”

“And I’m asking you what this is!”

In the hand the black-haired boy had raised was a card with a number written on it.

“Oi! What do you think you’re doing!”

Victor shouted as he ran over, and the boy adventurers gave a snort of laughter.

“Well, if it isn’t Victor.”

“Larc, are you picking a fight?”

“I only asked what he had there. They had boards like this laid out all over the table.”

Holding the card between his forefinger and middle finger, the black-haired boy waved it about. Loren shouted.

“Give it back! You can’t even read it!”

“Haaah?”

The black-haired boy’s eyebrows went up. He leaned in towards Loren, glaring.

“What was that? You can’t read letters either, Loren, same as me.”

“I–I can read them now! …A bit, anyway…”

“Hah! Don’t lie!”

“I’m not lying! …That card is a ‘3’.”

“What?”

The black-haired boy stared hard at the card in his hand, then thrust it at a grown adventurer at a nearby table.

“Here, is this a ‘3’?”

“…Aye, that’s a ‘3’. …Any more noise out of you and you can take it outside.”

“…”

The bearded adventurer answered with a faintly put-upon look. The black-haired boy slapped the card down on the table near Loren.

“I just have to give it back, do I. Fine.”

Ren looked at the card on the table. It was one he had made. Learning that something he had made was the cause of an argument, Ren was shaken.

And then a low, drawling voice rang out.

“Now then. Fighting in the dining hall is strictly forbidden.”

As Mikaila came into the dining hall the temperature of the place dropped all at once. The room went suddenly quiet. Mikaila had a beaming smile on her face, but her eyes weren’t smiling at all.

“Ah, it isn’t a fight—”

“They picked the fight.”

“This one took the card.”

Hearing Loren, Mikaila turned a sharp look on the black-haired boy.

“Larc, is that true?”

“I— I only had a look at it because they had something a bit out of the ordinary.”

“You took it by force!”

“I gave it back, didn’t I!”

With Loren cutting in while he was in the middle of answering Mikaila’s question, the black-haired boy — Larc — raised his voice.