Chapter 250: Defeat Him Fair and Square!
Ultimately, with Ikki and Arisuin's 'betrayal', the photo was successfully saved.
The two girls, very dissatisfied with this result, directed their spearheads at Luke, preparing to get even with him, the chief culprit.
"We don't know much about alcohol, so let us think about it first."
"Luke, what kind do you plan to drink?"
"Hmm, that's true... Then get me a glass of orange juice."
"Or-Orange juice?!?1"
Luke's answer stunned Stella and Shizuku.
Even Arisuin couldn't hold back a twitch of the corner of his mouth.
Instead, Ikki didn't have much of a surprised expression, but asked somewhat curiously:
"Can you order normal drinks in a bar?"
"Of course you can. The ingredients for many cocktails are beverages, so things like freshly squeezed fruit juice are provided by many bars."
Luke first shot a somewhat amused glance at the dumbfounded Stella and Shizuku, and then continued explaining to Ikki:
"Not only beverages, bars will also provide various desserts like cakes and mille-feuille. Depending on the type, there are even bars that serve full meals."
"Simple and easy-to-make staple foods like pasta or sandwiches will likely be available if you just ask, though the taste won't be outstanding."
After finishing his explanation to Ikki, Luke paid no mind to his thoughtful expression, but spoke again to Stella and Shizuku:
"Since I have already decided what to drink, shouldn't it be your turn now?"
"Ugh... Wh-What should we do, Shizuku? To think he would actually play this hand."
"...H-How about we also order fruit juice to drink."
"No way! This is our first time coming to a bar, wouldn't it feel like a waste just drinking fruit juice?"
"Ugh... T-True... Then what should we do..."
Beside them, Arisuin watched the two girls huddled together quietly discussing, and spoke up somewhat helplessly to bail them out.
"You two, don't get led astray by Luke."
"Didn't I say it earlier? Tell me the type you want to drink, and I'll give you a recommendation."
"Do you want to drink something a bit sweeter? Fruity or some other type?"
"Do you want to taste the alcohol or do you not want to taste the alcohol?"
Ultimately, with Arisuin's help, the two girls quickly decided on their respective drinks.
After handling Stella and Shizuku, Arisuin looked at Luke once again.
"By the way, Luke, are you really not drinking alcohol?"
"If you don't drink, looking at Ikki, I'm afraid he won't drink either."
"That wouldn't be any fun. This is a bar I carefully selected to recommend to you~ Give me some face at least~"
Originally, when he heard Arisuin's first sentence, Luke had planned to directly refuse.
But after hearing the rest, he turned his head to look at Ikki, who had an awkward smile, and sighed somewhat helplessly.
The main reason Luke didn't drink alcohol was because alcohol paralyzed the nerves.
For an ordinary swordsman, this state was incredibly fatal.
Back in the Dungeon world, it was also for this reason that he maintained a state of not touching a single drop of alcohol for a full nine years.
However, the current situation was slightly different.
The alcohol in that Dungeon world was similarly brewed using special materials, so it would equally have an effect on adventurers.
Even if the effect wasn't great for First-Class adventurers like Luke or Finn, having an effect and not having an effect were two entirely different concepts.
Although the world of Chivalry of a Failed Knight possessed the fantasy power of 'magic', special ingredients did not exist.
The brewed alcohol was naturally also the type drunk by ordinary people.
To Luke, who possessed the stat boost of Falna, this type of alcohol could already be considered to have no effect at all. It was actually no different from drinking fruit juice.
Therefore, not drinking alcohol had merely become a pure habit; it had no practical purpose.
Since it had no effect and wouldn't touch upon matters of principle, he didn't have an absolute reason to refuse.
Furthermore, taking the lead in being a killjoy at a friends' gathering was indeed not very appropriate.
Thus, after thinking for a moment, Luke said:
"Alright then, doing it occasionally isn't a bad thing."
Luke's words made the three girls?—including Arisuin—all cheer up.
After all, one of the initial purposes of coming to the bar was to make Luke drink alcohol.
Not to mention the others, Arisuin, as a veteran drinker, was confident he could get Luke drunk after hearing that he rarely drank.
...
An hour later...
The moment Arisuin felt himself beginning to show slight signs of intoxication, he rationally slowed down his drinking speed.
He looked at Luke a bit uneasily, muttering in his heart at the same time: 'What happened to rarely drinking?!'
Holding a glass of Martini in his hand, Luke quietly looked out the window.
Having drunk for an hour, Luke's current state was no different from before he started drinking.
The reason he chose to drink a Martini wasn't because it was a so-called classic, but because the type of Martini he chose was mixed with gin and vermouth.
Luke chose to drink this kind of Martini purely out of a certain sense of nostalgia.
Aside from Luke and Arisuin, Stella, Shizuku, and Ikki were already 'unconscious' at this moment.
After discovering that Luke had actually chosen a Martini, Stella and Shizuku, relying on the fact that they were drinking low-alcohol drinks, dragged Arisuin and Ikki into continuously launching 'attacks' against Luke.
The final result was that the two girls were hugging each other, sleeping in a huddled mass.
The girls, drinking for the first time, were quickly defeated.
Fortunately, their drunken behavior was quite decent, and neither of them threw a drunken tantrum; otherwise, this might have become the dark history of their entire lives.
Ikki wasn't doing any better either. Watching him lying on the table, crying one moment and laughing the next, there was no telling what kind of dream he was having.
Instead, it was the cooking motions that appeared in his hands from time to time that made Arisuin feel a bit peculiar.
"It's about time to go back."
Luke noticed that Arisuin had slowed down his drinking speed.
He turned his gaze in from the window and said:
"You and Shizuku are in the same dorm, so I'll leave her to you."
"I'll be responsible for taking Ikki and Stella back."
Arisuin nodded and did not refuse.
Actually, he had originally intended to use his ability to send the drunken Luke and the others back to the dorm.
However, Luke's alcohol tolerance had truly exceeded his expectations.
"Umm... Luke, do you really not drink much alcohol?"
Perhaps because he was slightly drunk, Arisuin didn't plan on leaving immediately. Instead, taking advantage of his buzz, he planned to have another brief chat with Luke.
"Hm?"
"Ah, you want to ask about my alcohol tolerance, right."
Luke first smiled, then took a sip of the alcohol in his cup and said:
"You underestimate the so-called S-Rank evaluation too much."
"Not just you, but Ikki and Stella are the same."
"This S-Rank evaluation isn't as simple as being just one level higher than A-Rank."
"It represents a qualitative change."
"You'll know if you think about Stella. A magic capacity more than thirty times that of ordinary Blazers—this kind of world-class magic capacity is still only A-Rank."
"Without an essential difference, one will not be evaluated as an S-Rank."
"Let alone alcohol, even deadly poison has no effect on me whatsoever."
Luke was not merely explaining to Arisuin; to a certain extent, he was also dropping a hint.
Hinting that cheap tricks would not work on him, and that if they wanted to deal with him, they should send out an expert to defeat him fair and square.
(PS: Vote for more chapters this week. If this fanfic reaches 250 powerstones, I will upload 5 more chapters next. So, hurry up!)
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