"Oh my knight, Thou hath finally returned! Slay the evildoer, my knight! And punish them accordingly!"

"Stop talking like that, kid. You're giving me the creeps"

Arthur is currently facing off against three bandits that were chasing me and Elena in the narrow alley. Looking at his clothes, Arthur is not ready for a fight, considering he's wearing civilian clothing with no weapon visible. While the bandits are equipped with both leather armor and a sword on each of their scabbards. Fighting three weaponed bandits with his bare hand would definitely be difficult, at least, that's what I thought.

Two of the bandits rushed in, one slashed towards Arthur's neck, and the other slashed towards his legs. Arthur, showing off his wicked ass gymnastics, did a jump spin right in the middle of the two blades and used his spinning legs to kick the face of one of the bandits, making the bandit zoom off outside the alley, presumably unconscious. After landing with a 10 out of 10 heroic pose, Arthur proceeded to throw a punch at the other bandit that tried to slash him. But before the punch connected, the third bandit, the one who kicked Elena to the ground, used her fast speed to sneak an attack and try to cut off Arthur's extended arm. Of course, the chad-like Arthur with the reflexes of a sweaty pro gamer god did not let it happen; he tucked his arm as the blade was about to cut it, making her miss by a hair's breadth. Then he proceeded to elbow her face, shattering her glass chin metaphorically. The last bandit, in a desperate attempt, did a vertical slash. The blade was then caught by Arthur before shattering in his hands.

"Wh- Who are you?" Said the bandit before being grabbed in the neck by Arthur.

"Does it matter who I am? Just sleep for now, I'll see you again later." Arthur put his palm on her face as it glows purple. He then lets go of her; her body goes limp as it falls to the ground. "Now that that's over, why don't you go and fetch the guard, Lloyd."

"Damn, Arthur! I thought the most redeeming feature about you is that glow-in-the-dark head of yours. I didn't know you were strong."

"Shut it, and go fetch the guards quick-"

I thought the problem was over, but I forgot that it was a four-woman group, and the biggest of them all had not shown her face yet. The boss, I presume to be the woman with a scar on her face who catcalled me, landed on top of Arthur's face from the rooftops, planting his head deep in the ground.

"Holy shit…"

"Hey, little boy. Your friends here have been giving my colleagues a hard time. Don't you think it'd be fair if you give me some 'compensation'?"

This disgusting piece of shit! Is sex the only thing that's on her mind?! And to add insult to injury, she's demanding it from a child too! This is the epiphany of a top-tier scum.

"So, how about it? I might think about sparing your friend if I'm satisfied."

"You're making me sick to my stomach, you freakish sexual harassing pedophile…"

"Then why don't I make your stomach feel something else?"

She walked toward me. As her hand was reaching out, about to grab me, my hand was already holding onto the small mana geode in my pocket. However, the turn have tabled, Elena had regained consciousness at the perfect time. She then used my shoulder as a step to jump and reach the face of the scarred bandit. A punch enveloped in golden mana coming from Elena hit the bandit right square in the face, which sent the bandit hurtling away to a wall. That was not enough to bring her down though; she got back up right away with a bloody nose and a much angrier face.

"You'll pay for this, brat!"

"Now that Elena is here, I'm not scared of you and your cliched threatening dialogues!"

"Lloyd, I hate to burst your bubble, but I'm all out of mana..."

"Now that Elena is nothing but dead weight, I'm absolutely scared of you and your unique threatening dialogues!"

"I swear… If we get out of this alive, you're dead you moldy freak!"

"Hey, brats! Let this adventurer give you a lesson. Lesson number one: never take your focus off of the enemy!"

The bandit, or apparently, the adventurer, dashed towards Elena that's standing in front of me. Due to them not being that close, Elena moved out of the way with ease, but she was not the adventurer's target. The adventurer dashed past Elena and kneed my stomach with all of her body weight, launching me high up.

"Lloyd!" Elena rushed back and caught me.

"Lesson number two: don't turn your back to an enemy!"

She punched Elena that was still holding on to me, sending us towards a wall. Both of us can only take in gasps of breath after being kneed and punched by her. The air that was going into our lungs was piercing us as if they were molecular swords, torturing us from the inside.

"Elena…" I said weakly as I grasped her hand. "You know what to do."

"..."

"Lesson number 3: don't mess with someone who's clearly much stronger than you!" She said as she pulled out the sword from her scabbard, brandishing it in front of us. "You see this? I didn't even need to pull out my sword when I was fighting you-"

Elena threw the mana geode that I gave her when I grasped her hand. It flew to the adventurer's face, broke, and blew up, exactly as planned. Thankfully that was enough to defeat her, and I was finally able to rest. Of course, after giving her a cheeky one-liner.

"Lesson number 4: don't underestimate the protagonist," I said as everything turned black.

+++++

The explosion was heard through a portion of the capital, making the guards head towards the noise relatively quickly. Seeing seven unconscious people would probably be more confusing than anything, but luckily Arthur got his head out of the ground at the right time and was able to disclose what happened. That and the fact that the knight that was escorting us came by and testified for us, making it clear that the four adventurers are the ones who are in the wrong.

Right now, I'm sitting on my bed at an inn that our escort Knight has booked for us, waiting for Elena to wake up. Bearing in mind that her mana was depleted and she was rendered unconscious twice on the same day, her being in a coma-like state is a given. If only I could feel mana and use it, maybe I could perform some kind of miracle that could wake her up right away like the protagonist in those light novels. Alas, the only thing I could do is hold her hand and wait for her to open her eyes once more.

But the calmness cannot last forever. A knock on the window to our room jolted me up and made me hold Elena's hand even tighter. I was scared to death since this is happening right after the whole bandit/adventurer incident, what if her gang tracked us down and is planning for revenge. Also, our room is on the second floor of the inn, I’m pretty sure no normal burglar would go out of their way to climb an inn and knock on their victim's window.

The knocking continues on and on, seemingly begging for me to open up the window. With my heart palpitating, and my hands as sweaty as they can be, I approached the window to peek and see who it is that was disturbing my peace. As I was about to peek through the slit between the curtains, the perpetrator of the knockings opened his mouth.

"Lloyd, this is Arthur, open the window."

"there's a better way to go in a person's room. Like the front door, for example." I said after I opened the window harshly, hoping it would hit Arthur's face before expressing my frustrations.

"Due to some circumstances, I can’t reveal that I’m a knight. Hence why I’m doing this in the middle of the night, on your window, and being very much discreet.”

“Oh… Is that why you left so soon back when the knights were questioning you? I thought you were just embarrassed after that lady made you cosplay as an ostrich, which now that I think about it, really suits you well with your clean-shaven head.”

“I have no idea what ‘cosplay’ and ‘ostrich’ are, but I feel offended.”

“As you should.”

We caught up a bit on what happened in the castle for the last month when he was away. Starting from when I found my first breakthrough with the 'mana lamp', until when I was being chased around by a skeleton that resembles the past tyrannical empress. As I was telling him about the abandoned mansion, Arthur's expression turned somber for a split second. But since he continued on listening like nothing happened, I'm not going to pry and let him tell me when he's ready.

"As much as I like to talk about myself all day, why are you even here, Arthur?"

"Right, I'm here to tell you to stay away from one of the adventurer's guilds. The one with the snake emblem to be precise."

"What do you mean 'one of the adventurer's guild'? Is the adventurer's guild not a single entity that manages every adventurer in the empire?"

"Of course not, that'd be impractical, not to mention if the power of a single entity gets too big then it would endanger the empire."

"I guess you do have a point."

"You don't need to worry about that though, just stay away from the adventurers that wear a snake emblem on their person."

"Okay… I'm assuming you can't tell me why I need to stay away from them."

"Correct."

"Alright. Anything else I should worry about?"

"Nope, just tend to your lady friend there for the time being."

I was so engrossed with my conversation that I didn't notice a piercing gaze behind me, belonging to none other than the lady friend that saved my life over and over again. I ran to Elena and jumped on her bed, giving her the tightest hug ever known to man.

"Elena! I’m sorry for saying that your breath stinks, it doesn’t really smell; I just needed a comeback every time you insult my moldy past!” I said as I squeezed my eyes, trying to get a drop of tear so my apology would be believable.

“Ugh, get off of me!” She tried to pry me away from her but gave up due to not having that much energy right after waking up. She then continued while pointing at Arthur, “what’s up with that old man? Why is he here and why is he so close to you? Is he your grandpa?”

“Right, you haven’t met Arthur,” I said as I wiped my non-existent snot. “Elena, he is Arthur, my friend who is a knight. Arthur, this is Elena, my friend who is a trainee maid.”

“Nice to meet you, Elena. I pray he’s not giving you too much trouble.”

“Nice to meet you too, and thanks for your prayers. But It’s too late for that, he had already given me one trouble too many. Also, respectfully, can you please leave?”

“What?! Why should he leave? He just got here and it’s been so long since I’ve met him, there are lots of things I want to talk about.”

“Look, after what happened today, I think it would be wise for us if we don’t associate with strangers.”

“But he’s not a stranger-”

“It’s fine, Lloyd. She’s right, and I need to go do business elsewhere anyways.”

After arguing a bit with Elena, I gave in and said goodbye to Arthur. But as he was about to leave, I remembered something very crucial. So, I grabbed onto his leg when he jumped down the window. It was stupid of me to think that I would be able to stop him; I ended up being dragged away outside the window along with him. Fortunately, Arthur noticed me and caught me before I fell from the second floor. He then berated me for my idiocy after putting me back in my room.

“I know it’s been a long time, but it’s not like this is going to be the last time we’ll see each other.”

“It’s not about that, I just wanted to ask: Are there some kind of snake emblemed adventurers hideout or a place where they hung out a lot in this city?”

“Yeah, there is, Why do you ask?”

“Just keep an eye out for those places. I have a feeling that trouble is coming.”

“Hmm… I don’t see the point of going along with your feelings, but I guess since this aligns with what I’m doing, I guess I’ll see to it.”

“Alrighty! Thanks, Arthur. Also, don’t say stuff like ‘it’s not like this is the last time we’ll meet' if you don’t want to die.”

“Sure, sure, I’ll be going now,” he said as he patted my head. But before he jumped out of the window again, he turned his head and waved his hand “Lady Elena, I hope the next time we meet you wouldn't label me as a stranger anymore.”

“I- yes… I hope so too, Arthur,” she said as she waved back to the sight of him jumping off the window and disappearing in the dead of night.

“Addressing you as a ‘lady’ does not suit you at all. I’d say ‘shitty’ would be more appropriate.”

“Shut up.”

We went back to sleep after Arthur was gone. And of course, just as I predicted, trouble was brewing the very next day.