Post-nut clarity.

Banxia rested the back of his head against that soft, springy pillow and drew a long breath.

"Praise the goddess for creating so many kinds of demi-human races."

"Young man, you've got that wrong." The snake woman still had a lingering flush on her face. She flicked her slender red tongue — just as exhausted as the rest of her. "The demi-human races weren't created by the goddess.

The one who created us was Lord Hero."

"The Hero?" Banxia turned his head, puzzled, and rested his chin on the soft mound with a look of genuine attention.

Serious lore like this, he actually found interesting.

"Mm..." She let out a soft groan under his weight, then explained, "It's no secret. Almost all demi-humans know that the first generation of our bloodline all traces back to a single person."

"That person was the Hero?" Banxia stopped shifting around.

"Yes. According to the histories passed down among our people, a thousand years ago this world had only humans and demons.

Then, for reasons no one fully understands, the first hero from another world arrived here."

"...Please tell me it's not going where I think it's going."

"You're not wrong. The first Lord Hero had no interest in war or the conflict between humans and demons whatsoever. His only passion was monsters and wild beasts."

"Doesn't this world have reproductive isolation?"

"It does." At that, the snake woman couldn't help feeling a pang of secondhand embarrassment for her founding ancestor.

"But that Lord Hero was also a great mage. He invented all manner of bizarre and convenient magical tools, and he even researched forbidden magic..."

"I think I understand." Banxia nodded with full solemnity. A genuine sense of reverence rose in his eyes. "He was a great man."

"...I'm glad you can see it that way." He was her founding ancestor, after all. She couldn't quite endorse his particular interests, but she respected him all the same.

Once they'd both recovered, Banxia rose again.

"...You're the most formidable client I've ever had." The snake woman's eyelid gave a small twitch.

Demi-humans were supposed to have far greater stamina and recovery than ordinary humans, one of the key reasons the City Lord had chosen peaceful negotiations with their kind in the first place.

She had never once felt overwhelmed. Until now. A faint thread of dread was quietly winding its way through her chest.

...

"Did you hear? A rookie party got nearly wiped out by goblins. Only one of them made it back alive."

"Seriously?"

"I heard the guy who writes that Interspecies Review Guide was in the party."

"No way. I was just thinking about checking out that slime pleasure house he recommended."

The tavern in the inner city was alive with chatter.

Adventurers cradled their ales, talking about the day's entertainment, dropping in a few casual words about the day's dead.

Becoming an adventurer didn't mean you were safe.

It was an occupation where your head could roll on any given morning. Even if word came tomorrow that Alterna's strongest adventurer had met his end, no one would truly be surprised.

That was just the life.

"From what I heard, the guy didn't actually die. He's still holed up in the red-light district right now. It's everyone else in his party who got slaughtered by the goblins."

"After something like that, I doubt he'll ever dare step outside the walls again."

"Poor bastard..."

Every last word of it floated straight into the ears of the master and servant sitting in the corner.

"Eldest Miss Jill, now you understand why the family head won't let you become an adventurer, yes?" The maid turned, watching Jill's face and waiting for the fearful expression she'd been hoping to see.

What surfaced instead was undisguised contempt.

"So utterly weak, and yet the Church still hands them the title of 'Hero.' Pathetic."

As a prominent noble of the inner city who had been raised in luxury from birth, Jill had long since grown sick of these suffocatingly peaceful days. As one of the top mages at Alterna's noble magic academy, all that ability sat coiled in Jill's chest with nowhere to go, a smoldering fire with no outlet.

"Miss, just as the family head said, the world outside isn't the same as inside the city..."

"I'm a genius, and detection is my specialty. Do you honestly think I'd end up like that trash?" Jill shot the maid an impatient glance.

"I apologize. I spoke out of turn."

"It's fine. I know you only said it because you care." Jill waved a hand. A deeper, more gleeful malice curled onto Jill's lips.

"Crowned with the name of 'Hero,' and yet he can't even beat the weakest goblins. Crawled back in complete disgrace. What a miserable creature he must be."

"Miss, you mean...?"

"I want to see it myself. I want to see exactly what kind of pathetic expression is on his face right now."

"Understood. I'll arrange for someone to bring him here—"

"You're missing the point. It's only fun while the terror of losing his whole party is still fresh on him."

Dressed in a pristine white skirt, Jill spared one glance at the portrait of the Interspecies Guide's author hanging on the tavern wall, picked up the staff, and walked straight toward the place the adventurers had been talking about.

It was the most notorious money-squandering den in the city. Even someone who rarely left the manor had heard of it.

"Miss... that kind of place..."

Utterly helpless, the maid hurried to keep up.

The young mistress's wicked streak was normally wrapped tight beneath a veneer of noble elegance. Only a handful of people close to Jill ever saw through it.

Eager to get there faster, Jill even cast a folk spell that quickened one's stride.

Before long, the two of them were standing at the entrance to the brightly lit pleasure street.

"..."

The maid drew breath to plead one more time, please, Miss, don't let anyone see you in a place like this.

The words never made it out.

Jill had stopped dead.

The maid stepped closer, puzzled, and followed Jill's line of sight.

It wasn't that Jill didn't want to go in. It was that the man rumored to have barely escaped with his life was stepping out through a shop door right now, his expression cold and sharp.

His face was a seventy or eighty percent match to the portrait, handsome enough that you wouldn't forget him after a single glance.

Pity that in Alterna, good looks alone couldn't keep you fed.

This was the kingdom's frontier. War had not stopped here since ancient times, and the people who lived here recognized only one thing,

Martial might.

Strength above all else.

"...He feels different from what the rumors said." As a personal maid of a grand noble house, the maid's eye for people was sharper than any street-corner adventurer's.

Every inch of the young man's frame looked packed with explosive power, the thin black shirt stretched nearly to tearing.

The presence that leaked off him without any apparent effort was more unsettling than anything she had ever felt from the head guard at the manor.

"No — no, no. What am I thinking?" She shook her head and pushed the thought down.

That head guard was a Silver-rank adventurer who had held his own in real combat. The master had hired him at great expense after retirement.

She kept second-guessing herself. What she didn't know was that standing right beside her, Jill was seeing far more, and far deeper.

Jill was Alterna's most celebrated genius mage, and Jill's mastery of detection magic had long since surpassed many of the senior instructors at the noble academy.

Jill could see it.

Coiled around this man was a terrifying aura, the kind that has no name in casual speech.

It was a grandmaster's presence. The kind that only crystallizes after someone casts everything else aside and pours an entire lifetime of blood and sweat into the martial path without a single backward glance.

The level this man had reached was likely already beyond anything a mortal could imagine.

Every rumor the street had been circulating dissolved the moment Jill laid eyes on him.

Those weaklings had no idea. No idea at all, how powerful this man truly was, or how beautiful.

"..."

The black-clad silhouette turned the corner and disappeared.

Master and servant were still standing there, frozen.

➤ Next: I Accidentally Extended My Session

Chapter 8 - I Accidentally Extended My Session

"What am I going to do tonight..."

Banxia walked down the street with a headache.

He hadn't been able to hold back just now and had accidentally extended his session by an extra hour.

Now all he had on him was a few dozen copper coins, not nearly enough to find an inn anywhere in the inner city.

"Gambling and vices are my sworn enemies!"

He sighed and decided to head back to the outer city first, to the place where the monk Marl was staying.

"That place was paid by the month, if I recall. Shouldn't be expired yet..."

Just as he was about to leave the inner city, he spotted the two traveling merchants he'd hitched a ride with earlier.

They were standing at a market stall, apparently caught in an argument with someone.

...

Alterna was a prosperous city, and even after nightfall it stayed fully lit.

Beyond those seeking pleasure in the red-light district, plenty of residents drifted through the night markets with nowhere in particular to be.

"Miss, I can take this wool off your hands as medium-grade." The pot-bellied steward gave the bundled fleece a casual prod, pinched a few fibers between his fingertips, and turned them over beneath the lamplight.

"Fibers are clean enough, but the length isn't there. That puts it at medium. One silver coin per unit — I'll take the lot."

"Medium-grade?" The blond youth pressed down his irritation and drew a wax-sealed document from inside his coat, holding it out to the steward.

"This is a grading certificate issued by the Datong Chamber of Commerce in Silvermoon City. The fiber length and cleanliness of this combed wool are all clearly stated — every metric qualifies as superior grade.

If you doubt it, you're welcome to have a market appraiser re-examine it on the spot."

The steward took the certificate, gave it a glance, and set it on the table. "The Datong Chamber's seal carries weight in Silvermoon City, sure. But you hauled this cargo a long way. Whether it got damp or picked up insects along the road — nobody can say for certain."

"If I take this batch, I'll have to sort through it myself. Who covers the spoilage?"

"Look, you're young and running trade isn't easy. I'll throw in another twenty copper coins to the unit price."

"That won't even cover freight." The blond youth shook his head. "And this is the last batch of combed wool out of Silvermoon City for the whole spring. I waited half a month there just to put it together."

"You know the market price for superior-grade goods in Alterna better than I do. Three silver coins, at minimum."

"Market price is market price." The fat steward was unhurried. "Market price is what a shop charges customers. Taking your goods means warehousing, transit, finding a buyer, none of that comes free."

"Two silver coins. That's my floor. You can try the other merchants, but good luck finding anyone willing to take loose cargo from outside the city."

The blond youth was about to reply when his companion, wearing a black gauze hat, laid a hand lightly on his arm and stepped half a pace forward.

Her voice was quiet, but steady. "What about two silver coins and fifty copper per unit?

We both give a little. You skip the trouble of sourcing stock from Twinmoon City, and our trip isn't a complete loss. Next time we come through Alterna, you get first pick of our goods."

The steward went quiet, as if genuinely weighing it. After a moment he nodded. "Fine. But I have one condition."

"This batch needs to be inspected by a market appraiser tomorrow before anything's settled. Tonight, you move the goods to my designated warehouse. If the appraisal checks out, we settle on the spot."

It sounded airtight on the surface. It could only fool the greenest of traveling merchants.

"An appraisal is perfectly fine. But the goods don't go to you tonight."

"Because if the goods were swapped out overnight, we'd have no way to prove it."

The two hadn't taken the bait. The fat steward's patience started to crack.

If this dragged on and someone with an eye for quality came by, he'd be the one losing out.

So he went straight to threatening them. "You two just arrived in Alterna, you probably don't know. The city lord recently issued a new market decree. Any goods sold at a unit price above one silver coin must be vouched for by a reputable local figure."

"Otherwise... I think you can work out what happens next."

The two young merchants exchanged a glance.

This was something they genuinely hadn't known. "That's only your word for it. We don't actually know whether that's the case."

"I have no reason to lie to you about something like this. Ask any merchant on this street, they'll all tell you the same thing." On this point, the fat steward wasn't wrong.

The rule had been issued not long ago, apparently because some high noble had been swindled by an outside merchant, which prompted the new regulation.

In practice, merchants barely gave it a second thought. Getting taken in due to poor judgment was something that only happened to the lowest rungs of the trade.

Truly good merchandise spoke for itself.

In the commerce wars, the weak fed the strong. It had always been that way.

"...Then don't trouble yourself. We have people we can call on."

The fat steward could see they weren't buying it. He cut a glance at the attendant standing nearby.

The attendant understood immediately and stepped squarely in front of the stall.

High-stakes commercial warfare often called for the simplest of methods.

Now, even if other buyers wanted to come over and ask about the goods, they couldn't get through.

And if any guards wandered past and noticed, they'd look the other way out of deference to the noble lord standing behind the fat steward.

"What exactly is the meaning of this?" The young merchant couple bristled, though they had no outlet for it.

They were outsiders. They didn't have the resources to dig in and wait him out.

Stall rental in this part of the market was far from cheap.

If they got blocked for even a few days, they'd be the first to fold.

Traveling merchants generally didn't carry much float, most of what they had was tied up in the goods themselves, with the whole operation depending on selling in the next city to turn a margin and keep moving.

"Didn't you say you have people you can call on? Bring them around and let us see." The fat steward's smile didn't waver.

He didn't believe for a second that bottom-tier traveling merchants could know anyone worth mentioning.

If they had connections like that, why would they be doing work this dangerous in the first place?

It had to be said, this move landed squarely. It pinned them in place and crushed whatever hope they had left.

This was a brutal world. The law didn't carry nearly as much weight as a clenched fist.

They'd been too naive.

"..."

Arguing further wasn't going to change anything. The two exchanged a look, each sighing quietly to themselves.

They were about to open their mouths and concede, when a voice rang out from somewhere not far ahead.

"Hey, small world. We meet again."

A youth in a short black jacket was standing behind the fat steward. Nobody could say when he'd gotten there.

The blond merchant blinked, then recognized the face.

"You're... Mister Banxia?"

They'd only spoken that afternoon in the forest. It wasn't the kind of face you forgot in a matter of hours.

"Truth is, I'm pretty curious about goods from outside."

Banxia stepped forward and laid one hand on the fat steward's shoulder and the other on the attendant's, as if steadying himself, then pressed them gently inward.

"Pardon me. Coming through."

"Hey, kid. Can't you see we're in the middle of something? You know who you're dealing with?" The attendant raised a hand to swat the palm off his shoulder.

It didn't move at all.

That hand sat on him like the weight of a mountain. Unnervingly still.

"Oh?" Banxia tilted his head, gaze drifting to the fat steward. "Who are you, exactly?"

His eyes were lazy and unhurried. But the moment that look passed over him, the fat steward felt his back go cold.

That body, refined through years of training. The sheer pressure rolling off it.

Every bit of it said the same thing: this person was dangerous.

"Useless idiot! You're just a servant, who gave you the right to speak?!" The fat steward landed a hard kick on the attendant's backside, then dabbed at his forehead, bent at the waist, and arranged his face into a wide smile. "My apologies, my deepest apologies, I failed to keep my man in line... Please, right this way, sir, right this way..."

"..."

...

➤ Next: The Legendary Elf