Since it was already afternoon by the ti Jax left the Ink Hermit’s ho, he figured that there wouldn’t be many monsters for him to fight in the forest. Maybe the stronger ones would be left alone, but the weaker ones were certainly going to all be taken care of.
The chances that Jax found anything he could kill at this ti were quite low, so he decided to rest for today and just return to the tavern for now.
He wanted to have so food too, as he was growing hungry since breakfast.
He arrived at the tavern in just a few minutes given how small this village was. The owner seed to be sowhere else, so in her place was one of the servers.
As he walked over there, the woman saw him and gave a curious smile. "What can I do for you?" she asked.
"Sorry, I was wondering if you had sothing to eat. I forgot to confirm how many als I was supposed to get, so if it’s not part of my price for the room, I am willing to pay."
"It’s 3 als a day. You’ve only had breakfast, haven’t you?" the woman asked.
Jax nodded.
"You can sit down. I’ll bring the food to you," she said. "Since you’ve worked so hard, you will be needing that energy."
The woman walked away, leaving Jax puzzled. He wondered what she was talking about, but since he didn’t want to ask, he walked over to a seat and waited.
The food ca a few minutes later, brought by the sa server. "Eat up!" she said and placed the food before him. She giggled lightly before walking away.
Jax began getting anxious about what this was all about. The only thing he could think about was last night. ’She couldn’t have told her friends what happened, could she?’ he wondered.
He began getting self-conscious, wondering if his performance had been so bad that they were starting to tease him for it. Just the thought of being teased by each of the servers made him blush uncontrollably.
All he could do was place his head down and chow down on the noodle soup he was given.
Once done, Jax hurriedly went up to his room, where he remained holed up for the rest of the day. He had nothing to do anyway, so he decided to take a nap. Get so rest for what he lacked last night.
He woke up around sunset and debated with himself if he should go down to the tavern hall or not. Would they bring the food to him if he asked? The amount of looks and silent giggles he had gotten had made him think twice about everything.
In fact, he wondered if he should just skip out on the al entirely.
However, after thinking about it for even just a few seconds, he knew he should go eat. It wasn’t just the fact that he was hungry or that he had paid for it, but that tomorrow he would be fighting monsters from early morning to late afternoon, and he would need that energy.
However ridiculed he felt, he couldn’t skip out on the food.
Jax walked down to the tavern hall to find it more or less filled. A few of the people there were drunkards that liked coming to the tavern to drink and eat with their friends, but a lot of them were ones just like Jax.
They stayed in the tavern, and thus they ate there too.
Jax wanted to find a seat in the corner, away from eyes, but the hall was quite filled. The table that was empty was one that was close to the counter.
He didn’t want to sit there, but he had no choice.
The owner was back, so he asked for his food.
He waited at the empty table for so ti before the food ca to him. The owner placed it on the table and leaned in.
"Would you want so company tonight as well?" she asked.
Jax flinched due to the sudden questioning and slowly shook his head. "No, thank you."
"Really?" the woman asked, seemingly surprised. "That’s a sha."
Jax was confused for a few seconds after the woman left, but the sll of the freshly cooked at and flatbread caught his attention, so he dug into it.
Halfway through his food, soone else sat at his table.
"Look at you," the female voice spoke. "Sitting in the middle of the tavern, and yet completely alone."
Jax looked up to find layne sitting opposite him. She appeared disheveled, as though she had just co out of the smithy without bothering to wash at all.
In fact, he feared that was the case. She had only washed her face and her hands, while the rest of her body was filled with the dust and gri of the smithy. Her light brown hair especially looked as if it had seen better days.
It was a good thing Warriors and Sorcerers healed back to normal without any permanent damage relatively quickly, otherwise this woman would have lost her hair a long ti ago.
"I’m here to eat food," Jax replied. "Not make friends."
"The hell you are not. Carriage 9 is all about finding friends. How are you supposed to get into a party if the people aren’t your friends? Surely you’re not planning to go with any group you can find, are you?"
Jax stopped halfway through his chew, failing to co up with any retort. He had in fact been wanting to go with anyone he could, since all he really wanted was to go up a Carriage.
"I have 6 months," he said finally. "I’ll find a party by then."
"Well, if you think so," l said, but it didn’t sound like she believed him. She called for a server to bring her so food.
"How is my armor going? Any progress?" Jax asked.
"Good progress, actually. I finished slting down the Black Lead ore today, so now I finally have the Black Lead. So tomorrow, I can start working on your armor parts."
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