Water Magician

Editor: Tseirp

The inn where the four stayed did not have a cafeteria.

Because there was a diner and bar next door.

Incidentally, it seemed that the owner of the inn and the owner of the diner/bar were the same person.

He’s quite the businessman!

The diner/bar had a counter in the back with a line of liquors, where the men were hanging out.

In the front, there were many desks and chairs where men and women, young and old, ate and drank.

The place seemed to be doing quite well.

As soon as the four of them sat down, a young man approached them. He looked like he just come of age.

“Four beers for now.”

Niels answered without hesitation.

The fact that a commonplace scene on Earth is now spreading on ‘Phi’ is something that Ryo is witnessing in real-time….

“Beer for now, what a powerful statement…”

His muttering was drowned out by the surrounding clamor and no one heard it.

In the midst of all this, Ryo’s eyes caught a strange sight.

Amon, who was sitting in front of Ryo, was slanting his head quite significantly.

“What is it, Amon?”

“Nothing… just, the woman behind the counter…”

Amon answered Ryo’s question with his head still stretched out.

“Oh! Finally, a woman who can steal Amon’s heart?”

“No, I don’t think that’s the case.”

Niels said laughing, and Etho refuted it.

Ryo also turned around and looked towards the counter.

Indeed, a woman was working behind the counter.

It seemed that many of the men at the counter were there just to talk to her.

That’s how eye-catching she was.

But then, he remembered having seen her from somewhere…

Ryo then tilted his head as well, like Amon.

Niels and Etho must be wondering the same thing.

Tilting their heads.

It must be very strange seeing all four of them tilting their heads so openly.

However, they were in a diner and bar.

People who have had their fill of alcohol didn’t care about such things!

“Ah, I got it!”

Etho said.

At about the same time, Amon shouted.

“It’s that woman!”

“See, Etho and Amon both seem to have figured it out. While Niels here, is still wracking up his head.”

“Shut it! Ryo hasn’t either, have you?”

Ryo and Niels had yet to figure it out…

But after thirty seconds.

“Got it!”

They both said at the same time.

“It’s the woman on the locket!”

“To think I’d draw with Niels, talk about a new low.”

Nils said, and Ryo felt depressed.

Anyway, the woman behind the counter was the woman depicted on the locket pendant.

Her name is probably ‘Elena’.

“What a convenient turn of events…”

Ryo’s muttering was drowned out by the clamor and no one could hear him.

Then he continued.

“But sometimes, this kind of convenient development is good!”

“I’d like to go and ask about the locket, but…”

“Yeah, good luck with that. Look at all those men surrounding her.”

“Let’s just have our dinner for now. Once they’re all drunk silly, we can go ahead and talk to her.”

Etho spoke up, Amon pointed out the difficulty, and Niels made a realistic proposal.

“Niels here, just need to go taunt them like, let’s have a drinking contest! And just get them all wasted, simple right?”

“As if, I can’t hold my liquor that well…”

“What a surprise! I seem to recall you drinking like a champion back at the centaur’s.”

“Of course, I know how to hold my liquor, but… some people are simply monsters when it comes to their tolerance for alcohol.”

Niels may have recalled someone from his memory who was a heavy drinker.

And he shook his head slightly.

At any rate, the four of them decided to eat.

Needless to say, they all unanimously ordered ‘karaage’…

It was almost closing time when most of the customers at the counter had either drunk themselves into a stupor or left.

As for the four, Etho was completely drunk.

The other three were talking, drinking, and eating moderately.

“Shall we?”

“Let’s go.”

“And Etho… well, let’s just let him sleep and we’ll pick him up later.”

“Welcome. The store is about to close, would you like a drink before you go?”

When the three of them got to the counter, the woman.. probably Elena, the bartender, called out to them.

“No, we already ate and drank over there. We just wanted to ask you something.”

“Me? What~?”

Elena answered Niels’ question while wiping the glass cups.

Niels took out a locket and placed it on the counter.

Elena glanced at it.

But her expression didn’t waver.

Niels opened the locket and showed her the picture of ‘Elena’ inside.

“This is you, isn’t it?”

“Oh, that’s a beautiful picture. It kinda looks like me, but… it’s hard to say.”

All the while, Elena’s expression did not change.

“Oh… right, I’d also be wary of an adventurer coming in here all of a sudden and saying something like that. I want you to calm down and listen to me for a moment… the owner of this locket was killed. We’re trying to avenge him… or rather, find out why he was killed.”

“Eh…”

As expected, when she heard that he had been killed, her expression wavered.

For a brief moment, her gaze swept across the locket pendant.

At the very least, she knew the owner of the locket, that’s for sure.

“You said he was killed.”

Elena did not open her mouth until well over a minute later.

“That’s right.”

“Do you know who killed him?”

“Eighty to ninety percent positive.”

Niels responded calmly and consciously to Elena’s monotonous words.

“What I am about to tell you is a parable. It has nothing to do with this person of interest.”

“Sure.”

“There was a third son of a Count’s family. Let’s call him Tommaso. Tommaso, from Count Padawan’s family. He was the third son of the Count, so he couldn’t take over the family. He could either become a government official or a clergyman… He was somewhat religious, so he became a clergyman. And he was trained at home from a young age, so he could use a sword pretty well. He was only in his mid-twenties when he became the captain of the famous Order of the Holy Knights. For a third son of a noble family, he must have been quite a career man.”

Elena poured herself a glass of water and drank it down in one gulp.

Then she continued.

“But then he went astray. He fell in love with a bar girl. Stupid, isn’t it? It’s not very admirable for a Holy Knight to frequent a bar… but to fall in love with a bar girl is like throwing away one’s career. But he said it was still fine…”

Elena, whose tone of voice had been completely undisturbed up to this point, became a little shaky.

Her fingers were shaking as she wiped the glass cup.

“The two promised their future together. In a year, the man would quit the Holy Knights and transfer to a knight order in a neighboring country, and the woman would follow him… that kind of promise. Six months later, the man took on a pretty big assignment. Until then, he had always smiled cheerfully, but his face gradually became more and more distressed. Still, in front of the woman, he was as gentle as ever…. And the day before yesterday… the man told the woman. That his father was also involved in the case…and that the Count family was entrusted with taking care of a matter. The woman didn’t understand what he meant. But all she knew was that the man was suffering…”

Elena let out a small sigh.

“That is my story. Was it helpful?”

“Yes. Very much.”

Niels said and got up from his seat.

Amon and Ryo followed.

Their destination, Padawan County, Tommaso’s family home….

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