Chapter 2: Adventurers Who Walk Into Their Own Trap.
....
Kihara's familiarity with DanMachi was, if he was being honest with himself, fairly surface-level. He'd been planning to catch up on it at one point, but word had reached him that the animation quality took a notable dive from the second season onward, and that had been enough to send him back to his Yuzusoft visual novels without much deliberation.
Still, he knew the essentials. The Hostess of Fertility was renowned for exceptional food and an equally exceptional waitstaff — and the staff themselves were anything but ordinary.
He had barely stepped through the door before a cat-eared girl in a green uniform appeared at his side with a bright smile.
"Welcome to the Hostess of Fertility! Will it be just you today?"
"Just me. I'm new to Orario — could you recommend your house specialties?"
"Of course! Right this way!"
At a nearby table, an adventurer in the middle of tearing through a rack of meat looked up with naked envy. "Why does she come out to greet him the moment he walks in—"
His companion swirled his cup with the air of someone delivering an obvious verdict.
"Because he's better looking than you."
"Being good-looking isn't everything! I'm an adventurer!"
"Sure you are. Eat your food — we've got the dungeon this afternoon."
The cat-eared girl — her name, Kihara would shortly learn, was Chloe — guided him to a single seat and turned to him with a practiced, pretty smile. "We have quite a few signature dishes, and I'd hate for you to overorder on your first visit. Shall I suggest a few?"
"Please. I like meat — give me three recommendations."
"In that case — flame-seared steak, creamy cheese-braised meat, and our fried chicken set. How does that sound?"
"Perfect. Thank you."
"It'll be right out~!"
The kitchen moved quickly. In barely five minutes, all three dishes arrived, each portion generous enough to raise an eyebrow. Chloe leaned in with a helpful note: "We can wrap anything you don't finish,
though there is a small packaging fee."
"I'll finish it."
"Hehe~ Enjoy your meal — just call if you need anything~"
Kihara worked through the food at a comfortable pace. Shinobu, unable to restrain herself, extended one small hand from within his shadow and quietly appropriated half the fried chicken, settling in to enjoy it from the shadow-space with evident satisfaction.
[The cook here is genuinely skilled. A shame there are no doughnuts.]
[If you want some, I'll do another lap of the shopping district later and see if I can find the ingredients.]
[Mm, mm, mm — truly my most beloved master. Shall I attend you tonight?]
[Yes.]
[How refreshingly honest about your burning desires. I'm in the shadow-space, and yet I have this vivid sense of a Black Flame Dragon Spear already being levelled at a vital point. I'm so~ scared~]
Kihara was in the middle of composing a suitably flirtatious reply when his peripheral vision caught movement at the entrance. The two adventurers he'd stripped of their equipment earlier came pushing through the door, faces dark with purpose.
He set down his chopsticks and let the smile fade. "Looks like this meal needs to be boxed up after all. Your doughnuts are going to have to wait."
[How thoroughly irritating. My first instinct is to simply kill them, but that would only invite larger problems. What if you challenged them to a duel instead? It resolves the immediate issue and puts your name on the map at the same time.]
[Not a bad idea at all. This is why you're my auxiliary brain.]
[Hmph~ Remember that means extra doughnuts.]
He filed away a mental note to be generous with the doughnuts, then rose from his seat and flagged down Chloe. "Could you box up what's left? I need to deal with something."
"Eh—?"
He was already walking toward the door before she could respond.
"That's him, big brother Hans — that's the one who ambushed us and took our gear, and now he's just sitting here eating like nothing happened!"
"He's probably already sold it all to the black market. That equipment cost you serious falis, big brother Hans—"
The man at the front of the group was built like a wall. At a single gesture from Hans, the adventurers flanking him spread out and encircled Kihara in a loose ring. Hans let his killing intent unfurl deliberately — the kind of pressure that made children cry and grown men reconsider their life choices — and directed it at the slight, plainly-dressed figure in front of him.
In Hans's experience, this was the part where the pretty-faced civilian wet himself and started pleading. Then they'd escort him somewhere quiet, empty his pockets, and call it an evening. According to his boys, this particular mark had spent a hundred thousand falis on clothes without blinking — more than enough to cover his divine wine budget for the month, with room to spare. A prize worth collecting.
What he had not anticipated was the expression of mild, genuine disgust that crossed Kihara's face.
"You all smell terrible. Any chance you could show yourselves out before you ruin the air in here?"
The tavern erupted.
The other adventurers, most of whom had been watching with casual interest, dissolved into laughter. Hans and his crew were a known quantity in Orario — the Soma Familia's reputation for running every variety of scam and shakedown had made them few friends. Seeing them on the receiving end of open contempt was, broadly speaking, a source of community entertainment.
"Why you little—!"
Hans's face went red. He was a Level 1 adventurer. The fact that this nobody — this civilian who didn't even have a Falna — was standing here insulting him to his face, in public, in the Hostess of Fertility of all places, was an affront that under different circumstances would have ended very badly for the insulter.
One of his boys sidled up and muttered something in his ear. Hans's expression shifted from fury to something nastier and more calculated.
"Nearly fell for it. You're trying to provoke me into throwing the first punch so the staff here intervene and bail you out — clever. Too bad it won't work." He spread his hands with the air of a reasonable man. "Simple enough solution: hand over the hundred thousand falis and the two hundred thousand worth of equipment you stole off my boys, and we'll call this settled."
"They had a hundred thousand falis on them?" Kihara looked genuinely puzzled.
"Looking at the state of them, I find that hard to believe."
"Save the excuses. Your options are pay up — or come with us to the duelling grounds."
Hans crossed his arms, satisfied with the corner he'd constructed. Either way, the money would end up funding his divine wine. Whether the mark caved to avoid a fight or got beaten unconscious in the ring, the outcome was the same.
What Hans had not factored in was that Kihara had been actively trying to think of a pretext to visit the duelling grounds.
His eyes lit up. He was already heading for the door.
"The duelling grounds — perfect. Let's not waste time!"
A puzzled silence followed his exit.
The adventurers who'd been watching exchanged uncertain looks. By the common understanding of Orario, even a brand-new adventurer fresh from receiving their Falna could dismantle an ordinary soldier without breaking a sweat. The gulf between someone with a divine blessing and someone without was not a matter of training or talent — it was categorical.
And yet here was a completely ordinary civilian, with no Familia, no Falna, and no apparent instinct for self-preservation, practically sprinting toward a duel with a veteran Level 1 adventurer from the Soma Familia.
Word spread across half of Orario inside the hour.
Adventurers between dungeon runs, others midway through recovery, curious onlookers with nothing better to do — they converged on the duelling grounds in growing numbers, drawn by the novelty of what was shaping up to be either a very short fight or something considerably more interesting.
The consensus leaned heavily toward the former. The gap between a civilian and an adventurer was common knowledge.
Everyone knew how this ended.
Didn't they?
...
Thank you for reading.