With a look on his face that was quite obviously planning something Shishou told me I could take a break for a few hours. When I asked him what he had in mind he simply snickered and insisted I leave, so at the moment I’m currently taking a stroll through the city.

Bam! Crash!

My stroll is suddenly interpreted, however, when a young girl is tossed into boxes feet in front of me. She hits the boxes hard enough to break them and is currently laying in the remains.

“You think it’s that easy to pull one over on us? Huh?” A hooligan says menacingly to the young girl

His friend stands nearby with a large club to make sure there is no easy escape route.

Did I accidently wander into the slums? That’s worrying. If I’m not mistaken the market is that way, I should head over there.

“Stop right there!” I hear in a loud voice from behind me

I try to pretend it’s a voice I don’t recognize, but unfortunately, I don’t find anybody’s voice to be as annoying as his.

“I, Hark, the Yuusha am here to stop your evil acts!” He says like a child pretending to be a superhero

Sigh

Maybe he won’t notice me. He seems pretty focused on the incident so perhaps-

“Ah! It’s the swordswoman! Excellent, you should help me defeat these evil-doers!” He calls out while waving in my direction

“Tch! I’m busy. You look like you can handle it anyways.” I say without looking back towards him

If I can just get out of his sight I’m sure he will forget about me. I can’t imagine his brain is much bigger than a goldfish so I only need to stay out of sight for about 5 seconds and he should forget about me.

“Huh, you’re just going to let these guys rob this young girl?” He ask slightly angrily grabbing my arm

Just how dumb can you be? If you’re the Yuusha then I obviously don’t need to help you, and by the time you went through this effort to get me to you could have already resolved things. See look, even the people in question are all looking at you like you’re a moron.

“When did anybody say anything about robbing?” I ask back in an annoyed tone

“eh?” He lets out caught off guard by the question

“You two mentioned something about 'pulling one over' before. You two had some sort of agreement right?” I ask the hooligans while activating “Intimidate” as low as I could make it go

“Y-ya! We even drew up a contract and everything! This person didn’t pay us what we were owed!” One answered with a defensive tone, obviously afraid, but not scared to fight

“See? If you step in now it’s you that is breaking the law. I have no intention of becoming a criminal.” I say pulling his arm off of mine and turning to walk away again

“But that’s not right! Even if she broke the agreement, she doesn’t deserve this kind of treatment!” He argues back desperately as he jumps in front of me and block my path

If it’s so important to you then do something about it already. Why must you drag me into this?

“Hey, you! I’m sure you had a good reason right?!” He ask the young girl who is now just looking puzzled on the ground

“Um, well… I suppose. I borrowed money to enter the magic academy confident that I would pass their exam… but I failed. The amount I borrowed was too much and I couldn’t pay it back in time.” She meekly answered

The thing I found odd about her answer though, was that it didn’t sound at all as if she wanted help. She was obviously sorrowful about it, but she seemed to accept that it was simply how things were.

Sigh

“You two. I’m on my way to a meeting with Juire, so could you wrap this up already?” I ask looking over my shoulder and kicking up “Intimidate” a bit more

“J-J-Juire?! Screw this! Small change aint worth pissing him off!” The hooligan yells out in fear as they both drop their weapons and run away

A moment of silence hits the streets after they are gone, as everybody looks at me in astonishment. Maybe throwing around a crime-lords name to get out of having to interact with the Yuusha was a bit childish, but I would really like to enjoy the time off I have today. I don’t know when I’ll next get to relax with Shishou’s spartan training after all.

“Man, you really had them quaking in their boots! You’ll make for a good companion of mine yet!” The Yuusha says with an annoying smile as he pats my back

“Um… thank you. I don’t have anything to repay you with, but if you need a mage then I could-” The young girl starts as she gets up

“I don’t need a mage, I don’t need payment, and you don’t need to thank me. As I said before I have a meeting to attend to and would really just like to be allowed to leave.” I say dismissively

I don’t really need any more companions at this stage, and honestly, I don’t like the flags that are going off with the Yuusha around. Before I somehow get roped into something else like this I’m leaving!

Below my breath I activate haste and briskly walk away without warning.

“Hey- wait!” The Yuusha yells as he notices me leaving and begins to give chase

I raise my pace until I’m at a full sprint, but he keeps up all the same. After passing several streets and alleys without him relenting I decide to cheat. I bump into a set of stacked boxes as I go around a corner into an alley, knocking them down into the street.

“You won’t get rid of me that easily!” The Yuusha yells out far too loudly as he jumps over said boxes and screeches around the corner himself

“Huh?” He lets out when he doesn’t see me

After I turned the corner I activated “Clear” to hide myself in the dark. I’m not perfectly invisible, but hopefully, this plus the dark will work in my favor.

“Tch, guess she got away. Well… whatever. Let’s go get some grub!” he says with a shrug walking away

Sigh

With a sigh I release clear.

Geez, if you’re going to go to such lengths to do something then at least show some concern when you fail. It’s annoying when you trouble someone so much and show it means nothing to you right afterwards. Well, at least now I can enjoy my bre-

“Ah, there you are. I got what I needed, so let’s go back to training!” Sishou says with a smile after catching a glimpse of me from the street

I would love to be annoyed at the poor timing, but the object in his hand sends a chill down my spine.

“Why do you have a slime?” I ask with a cold sweat making its way down my back

“Hehehe!” He lets out with a telling grin in response