Chapter 445: An Evening Without Trouble

For once, nobody was trying to close the Guild, inspect it, compete over Adventurer Rank, kill a monster, or drag Sage into another problem. He intended to enjoy that miracle for as long as it lasted.

The evening had begun with Mina declaring that everyone had been too busy lately and somehow ended with two tables being pushed together in a private dining room, enough food ordered for twice their number, and Sage surrounded by people who normally had little reason to sit together.

Boren occupied the seat nearest the roasted pork, Mina had claimed the chair beside Sage, Iris arrived carrying a notebook despite being specifically told not to bring one, Rowan sat quietly near the end, Leon had abandoned his usual formal appearance for a plain dark shirt, and Lucan arrived last wearing a sapphire brooch large enough to finance a small village.

Mina noticed the jewel immediately. Leaning across the table, she pointed at Lucan’s chest and asked, "Why are you wearing that to dinner? You’re eating with us, not meeting the King."

Lucan looked down at the sapphire as though he had forgotten it existed. With perfect seriousness, he replied, "Mina, this is casual."

Leon nearly choked on his drink.

Sage stared at Lucan’s brooch. "How much did that thing cost?"

Lucan’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Why does everyone ask that whenever I wear something nice?"

Boren tore a piece from a loaf and answered with a grin, "Because your definition of nice could feed a street for a month."

Lucan placed one offended hand against his chest. "This brooch has been in my family for twelve years."

Sage nodded slowly. "That wasn’t the question."

Before Lucan could defend himself, the door opened hard enough to strike the wall, and Garen Holtweiss entered with both arms spread wide. "Brother Boren! You started eating without me!"

Boren froze with pork halfway to his mouth. His expression changed from contentment to despair so quickly that Mina burst out laughing.

"Why are you here?" Boren demanded, lowering his food while Garen waddled toward him in a purple robe embroidered with enough gold to compete with Lucan.

Garen’s face collapsed into theatrical hurt. "Brother Boren, must there always be a reason for family to share a meal?"

Boren pointed at him with the piece of pork. "We are not family."

Garen pulled out the chair beside him anyway. "Our hearts disagree."

"My heart wants you to sit somewhere else," Boren replied, immediately dragging his chair several inches away.

Garen dragged his own chair after him.

Mina laughed so hard that Sage had to move her cup before she knocked it over. Even Rowan’s expression shifted slightly, which Sage was beginning to recognize as the Half-Elf equivalent of open amusement. Garen finally settled down, stole a piece of pork directly from Boren’s plate, and declared it excellent before Boren could stop him.

Leon watched the exchange with fascination. "How did you two actually meet?"

Boren opened his mouth, but Garen slapped the table and announced, "Destiny!"

Boren turned toward Leon with a pained expression. "He tried to overcharge us for a warehouse in Riverdale."

Garen raised one finger defensively. "Brother Boren, I offered you an opportunity to support local commerce."

"You wanted twice the normal rate," Boren replied.

Garen smiled proudly. "And you negotiated magnificently. That was when I knew our friendship would endure."

Boren looked toward Sage. "Can you ban merchants from the Guild?"

Sage shook his head, smiling. "Not for liking you."

"Then make a new rule."

While everyone laughed, Iris had barely touched her food. Her attention had remained fixed on Sage for several minutes, which he eventually noticed. He pointed his fork toward her notebook and warned, "Whatever question you’re preparing, the answer is probably that I don’t know."

Iris frowned at him. "You don’t even know what I’m going to ask."

Sage took another bite. "I’ve learned."

Iris ignored the warning and opened her notebook. "When mana enters the body during cultivation, do you believe the difference between a Knight and Mage begins with how the body receives mana, or with how the individual consciously directs it afterward?"

Sage stopped chewing.

Lucan looked delighted. "He predicted this perfectly."

Iris turned sharply toward Lucan and informed him, "This is a serious question."

Lucan lifted his cup and replied with an innocent smile, "I didn’t say it wasn’t. I’m simply enjoying Guildmaster Alistair’s suffering."

Sage swallowed and considered the question properly. "Both, probably. A Knight trains the body to contain, circulate and use mana physically. A Mage develops control differently because we’re shaping mana into spells. But if you’re asking whether the difference begins before conscious training, I don’t know."

Iris immediately leaned forward. "Then what about natural affinity? If two children with similar mana capacity receive identical foundational training before choosing a path, would their bodies already respond differently?"

Sage stared at her. "Iris, we’re eating."

Iris looked down at his plate. "You can think while eating."

Boren nodded toward Lucan. "Apparently being handsome doesn’t prevent it either."

Lucan placed his cup down and looked genuinely pleased. "Finally, someone listens when I speak."

Rowan quietly continued eating until Iris turned toward him. "Half-Elves generally possess stronger natural mana sensitivity than humans. Did you notice any difference before becoming a Knight?"

Rowan finished chewing before answering, his expression thoughtful rather than irritated. "I noticed mana earlier than most children around me, but I wouldn’t use myself as evidence for every Half-Elf. My mother was sensitive to mana, and my father wasn’t. I inherited things from both."

Iris immediately reached for her pen.

Rowan pointed at the notebook. "Don’t write my childhood into a study."

Iris paused, then reluctantly closed it. "Fine."

Mina leaned toward Rowan with a grin. "You finally found something scarier than a Thornback."

Rowan glanced at Iris before telling Mina, "I’ve survived worse."

Iris’s eyes narrowed. "I heard that."

Across the table, Leon laughed, and Sage found himself noticing how different the Knight Captain seemed outside official business. Without his coat, sword belt and Ardent Sun responsibilities surrounding him, Leon was surprisingly ordinary. He ate quickly, laughed easily, and had already entered an argument with Lucan about whether expensive wine genuinely tasted better.

Lucan held up his cup and insisted, "Anyone who says price doesn’t matter has never tasted properly aged Auremont wine."

Leon shook his head. "I’ve had Auremont wine. It was good."

Lucan waited for more before asking, "That’s all?"

Leon nodded. "It was good."

Lucan looked personally insulted. "Do you describe swords this badly too?"

Leon smiled. "A sword either cuts or it doesn’t."

Rowan finally joined them, remarking, "That’s something only a Knight with expensive swords says."

Leon turned toward him, visibly amused. "You disagree?"

Rowan rested an elbow against the table. "I’ve spent weeks outside the Capital. If your sword breaks three days from the nearest smith, you suddenly develop very detailed opinions about steel."

That led Leon into asking about Rowan’s worst journey, and the Half-Elf told them about a hunt several years earlier when he had tracked a wounded beast into unfamiliar woodland, lost his supplies crossing a flooded river, and spent four days surviving on roots, two rabbits and what he described as the worst mushrooms he had ever eaten.

Mina stared at him. "Were they poisonous?"

Rowan shook his head and answered with complete seriousness, "Unfortunately, no. If they’d killed me, I wouldn’t have needed to taste them twice."

Leon laughed loudly, while Mina stared for a second before joining him. Sage had initially mistaken Rowan’s quietness for humorlessness. He was beginning to understand that Rowan simply delivered jokes with the same expression he used when discussing monsters.

The stories continued as plates emptied. Leon described being thrown from a horse during his first year training with Ardent Sun and spending months claiming he had deliberately dismounted. Lucan immediately promised to remember that forever.

Garen told a story about Boren negotiating over grain prices in Riverdale so aggressively that three merchants had started calling him the Round Devil, which Boren furiously denied while everyone else demanded details. Mina retaliated with stories from Greyvale, including several Sage would have preferred remain forgotten.

Eventually Sage stopped trying to control the conversation.

He leaned back and listened.

Iris was arguing with Leon about whether Knights understood their own mana circulation. Lucan was attempting to convince Rowan that carrying one good bottle of wine into the wilderness improved morale.

Rowan was explaining that glass bottles were heavy and breakable, while Lucan looked horrified by such practical thinking.

Garen had somehow placed an arm around Boren’s shoulders again, and Boren was threatening to stab his hand with a fork. Mina moved between conversations whenever something interested her.

None of them had known one another long.

Some weren’t even people Sage would have expected to share a table. A Great Noble’s son, a Grandmaster Knight Captain, a Half-Elven monster hunter, a Mage researcher, an absurdly wealthy merchant, Boren, Mina and Sage himself had little connecting them before the Guild.

Now they were arguing over food.

Sage smiled as another round of laughter spread around the table.

For one evening, there were no enemies and no problems demanding immediate answers.

There were simply people.

And Sage found that he liked having them around.