Rena's Family Trouble

The once warm and adorable girl still looked a little nervous, but her sneak attack just now had been utterly decisive.

While the lead thug tried to beg Pete for mercy, she greeted him with a heavy, righteous blow and knocked him out on the spot.

"Phew... Thank goodness! Mr. Pete, you weren't hurt. When I saw them rushing at you, I was terrified!"

Pete's eye twitched slightly.

Terrified?

You were the one who scared the hell out of me, okay!

That brick strike had frightened Pete just watching it. The big man had already taken an [Arcane Missile], but even a professional would be seeing his ancestors if he got hit like that without being prepared—unless his skull was exceptionally hard!

Pete felt like there might be a bug in his understanding of Rena.

When they had first met, she had seemed so polite and gentle that he had taken her for the sweet girl-next-door type.

When the thugs started causing trouble, her first thought had also been to take Pete away and avoid them.

So how had things ended up like this?

Judging by how deftly Rena had ambushed him and smashed him with a brick, Pete seriously doubted this was her first time doing it!

As she spoke, Rena reached out and forcefully dragged the unconscious thug away, hauling him and his four underlings one after another into an alley by the roadside.

"Let them stay here."

"Thank you so much. With this lesson, I'm sure they won't dare come here and cause trouble again anytime soon." The girl happily thanked Pete.

Pete could not help feeling embarrassed. Was the lower district really this tough?

He had thought he was merely going to have a drink at the tavern run by the girl's family, yet before he had even stepped inside, he had received a small but shocking introduction to the lower district.

"Won't they come back and cause trouble after they wake up?"

Rena shook her head. "No. These guys don't actually dare do anything too outrageous. They just come around every so often to make trouble."

"After all, if they block the entrance like this, no customers will dare come into the tavern."

"They've already come several times lately. Because of them, the tavern hardly has any customers now."

"Oh, and... please, don't tell my family about those people in black robes today, all right?"

"If they knew I'd run into something so dangerous, they'd definitely worry."

Pete naturally nodded in agreement.

Everyone had their own difficulties. He himself had believed the nonsense of those black-robed people for the sake of a third-tier spell. Though he still did not know what trouble the girl had encountered that had led her to be tricked into the black-robed people's ritual site—

They had both done the same foolish thing, so Pete could naturally understand how she felt:

It was best not to let anyone else know about this kind of dark history!

With the troublemaking thugs defeated, the street finally returned to quiet. The tightly shut tavern door soon opened a crack, and a middle-aged man with brown hair like Rena's poked his head out to survey the situation outside.

"Dad! Are you okay?" The moment Rena saw him, she ran over excitedly. "Those guys didn't hurt you, did they?"

Rena's father, Moni, was a somewhat burly middle-aged man. His clothes were simple but neat, his beard lightly streaked with white, and his face bore the marks of time.

"Sweetheart! Where did you run off to? We hadn't seen you since this morning, and when you still hadn't come back, I thought something had happened to you!"

The moment Moni saw Rena, his face broke into a smile. He opened his arms and pulled the running girl into an embrace.

"I... I had something to do and went out. I forgot to tell you before I left." Rena smiled and smoothly changed the subject. "Dad, let me introduce you. This is Mr. Pete Chinar. He was the one who stepped in just now and helped us drive those bad guys away!"

"Mr. Pete is a powerful mage!"

Moni could hardly believe it.

"A mage? Mr. Chinar, th-this... Hello, sir mage. How can I possibly thank you? Our place really..."

When Moni heard Rena say that Pete had driven the thugs away, his first thought was to repay him. But then he remembered that ordinary people from the lower district like them seemed to have nothing a professional would value. The only thing they could offer was probably money.

The problem was that hiring a mage—someone who stood above even other professionals—required no small number of gold coins!

After all, mages were a money-burning profession. Precious magical materials and items all cost money. Mages who worshipped the Goddess of Magic needed more than talent and hard work; they had to possess sufficient wealth to walk this path.

Even a first-tier mage who knew only one offensive spell required a commission of at least fifty silver coins before they might be willing to accept a job.

For an ordinary man like Moni, who ran a small tavern in the lower district, a good day's revenue from normal business would only be two or three hundred copper coins. At an exchange rate of one hundred to one, that was less than three silver coins. After costs, the actual profit might not even reach one silver coin.

For him to suddenly produce such a large sum would be crippling.

Pete could tell that Moni was short on money, so he readily said there was no need to make such a fuss. He was not lacking in money, and he had merely helped because he had seen an injustice.

Upon hearing this, Moni proved to be just as warm and hospitable as his daughter Rena. He hurriedly invited Pete to at least sit in the tavern for a while. As thanks, he would bring out his finest liquor and treat Pete properly.

The Moni Brothers Tavern was not very large. The moment Pete entered, the rich scent of ale washed over him. The interior was simply decorated, and various alcoholic drinks stood behind the wooden bar, most of them ale stored in wooden barrels.

Several stools lined the outside of the bar, while a few sets of tables and chairs were arranged around the fireplace, taking up the rest of the tavern's space.

Since night had not yet fallen, the fireplace was unlit, leaving the room pleasantly cool.

Small taverns of this size were common in both Greenport and the Rayak Kingdom. They needed only two servers, perhaps with an additional cook responsible for roasting meat and baking bread, to operate. They could accommodate over a dozen customers at once.

Pete pulled out a stool beside the bar and sat down. Rena went behind the counter, took out a wooden mug, filled it with ale topped by a fine foam from a barrel, and placed it before Pete. Then she took a seat on the stool beside him.

"Please give it a try. It's the Moni family's specially fermented ale."

Pete picked up the mug and took a sip.

The rich, slightly bitter liquor blossomed across his tongue, followed by the sweetness of malt, giving him a distinctly layered taste.

"Not bad! It's very good!"

The two clinked their mugs. The cold, delicious ale eased much of the tension brought on by the string of events earlier.

"So, what exactly is the situation with those troublemakers? What kind of trouble have you run into?"