A Gentle Noble's Vacation Recommendation

Lizel sat in a certain café, a book open in front of him as he compared it with several sheets of paper.

The calm scene on the open terrace—an elegant young man either reading or looking over documents—drew the eyes of passersby and soothed them at the same time.

From the shop’s point of view, having Lizel there improved the atmosphere and made people think “maybe I’ll stop by,” so there were a few more customers than usual. It was just past the normal breakfast time, when they rarely had any customers, but the seats were slowly filling one by one. That was without a doubt thanks to Lizel.

They even ended up giving him a little extra baked sweets along with his tea order.

It was a fairly wide street, but not crowded with stalls like the main street. The bustle was just enough to feel pleasant.

Whenever the faint clatter of passing carriages drifted by and he looked up at the sky, he could see advertising flags fluttering and cutting across the blue, just as expected.

After spending the previous day surrounded by Malcaid’s famous noisy crowds and the thunderous voices of hawkers, it was the perfect place for Lizel to catch his breath.

Although, “catching his breath” was only half true; he was really waiting for someone.

Among adventurers, Gill’s face and name were well-known. Because of his strength, he drew not only admiration but also envy and resentment.

Despite being rank b, rumors said he could go toe-to-toe all by himself with rank s parties. There were no small number of rank a to rank s adventurers above him who did not find that amusing.

You’d think people would become more thoughtful the higher their rank, but at heart they were all the same rough adventurer type. It couldn’t be helped; this was a business that attracted people who intended to use brute strength to make money.

Today, Lizel had dropped by the Commerce Nation guild out of curiosity—he wanted to see what guilds in other countries were like—and to take care of some incidental business. While he was there, Gill apparently got picked into a fight by what seemed to be a rank a party.

You might think Lizel could have just gone to the guild alone, but when he’d first suggested that, Gill had grimaced. He had warned Lizel that he’d “definitely get dragged into something.” Either way, it seemed he was fated to get involved.

In that case, it was better if he himself didn’t take any damage, so Lizel was grateful that Gill had come along with him.

If someone picked a fight with Gill, it didn’t have anything to do with him, so he could sit here calmly and wait for Gill to finish his “business” (the fight).

“I’ll go have some tea at that café over there and wait for you then.”

“Yeah.”

When Lizel walked off like that, the rank a party who had started the fight had stared in astonishment.

Depending on how you looked at it, it seemed like Lizel had abandoned his companion and walked away, but he didn’t think for a moment that Gill could lose. To call it abandonment was absurd.

If possible, he would have liked to ignore them even when they picked a fight, but if someone came slashing at you one-sidedly, you couldn’t just let it go.

What he’d said a moment ago was spoken with a smile to Gill as Gill caught their sword with a put-upon expression.

Even here, a little ways from the guild, faint murmurs could be heard.

Judging from that, it seemed the fight was over. Lizel gathered up the papers he had spread out and poured the last of the tea from the pot.

It had gotten quite lukewarm, but that was fine. Before long, he spotted Gill walking over.

Lizel flicked the pages he was holding like a flag, and Gill came closer and dropped heavily into the chair opposite him.

“Good work.”

“If you’re gonna pick a fight, do it after you’ve got the strength for it, idiots.”

“Who would you actually struggle against, Gill?”

“I’d like to know that myself.”

Lizel chuckled at Gill, who drained the freshly poured tea in one gulp, and pushed over the plate with the mildly sweet baked sweets he’d deliberately left alone out of the two that had come.