-Welcome to Maria’s Fine Cloth Emporium! I am Maria how may I help you?

Upon entering the clothing shop, a very energetic young women greeted them behind the counter.

She wasn’t ugly nor beautiful, but the clothing she wore indeed made her more exquisite then she actually was, if it wasn’t for her manner of speech she would have looked like a young noble lady, but her behavior quickly gave her away as Avian scanned the shop.

-Not bad.

Avian judged, while he didn’t have much to any knowledge regarding fine tailoring, he did know good cloth when he saw it as he had once dealt with it and wore high class suits on a regular back in his world for business meetings making him experienced in that department.

They came here because Avian needed to buy some proper clothes for his slaves and Gabriella, Cornelia too in fact as most of her clothes were formal then casual or easy to move in.

It was at this time that Avian would normally step forward and take the negotiation on himself, but he waited for a second as he turned his eyes towards Gabriella who immediately took the hint as they had already discussed this before coming in.

-Ahem…our party needs some clothes, our funds are not very plentiful at the moment so we would prefer second hand goods if you have them, most importantly we would like some leather armor if you have any…

Leading the conversation and making herself seen as the leader of the party, Maria the owner and shopkeeper didn’t suspect anything as she intently listened to Gabriella who exuded a Heroic air about her and was full of charisma, the fact that she behaved like a knight even though she still wore the rags she from the slave market may have been jarring, but Maria seemed to be more focused on Gabriella then what she was wearing as she immediately looked at the others before beaming with a wide smile and her eyes glittering.

-Of course! It would be a pleasure for me to show you my wares! Everything second hand is on that side, in fact I can make you some recommendations and even pick out your sizes if you let me measure you! For armor I have some wonderful monster hide breastplate, greaves and braces, just tell me what you prefer and I can immediately get it for you!

Seeing the young women with such enthusiasm as she picked out clothes for Gabriella and the others made Gabriella not sure how to react as she felt like a dress up doll all of a sudden, only Cornelia seemed to be just as enthused as she loved shopping for clothes just as much as any noble lady plus she wanted to get clothes from the very beginning as her wardrobe was very sparse currently one set of which got totally ruined in the bandit raid while the others simply not being suited for traveling, everyone else had mixed reactions as they started to pick out and choose some clothes for themselves to finally get out of the uncomfortable and dreary outfits they were in.

Avian too chose his clothes, but compared to the girls who really put thought into it and discussed with each other, Avian choose the most boring and average looking set of clothes that would easily let him blend into the background with another set of leather armor he found that he thought of as suitable.

-Ah! Ma…I mean Lukas, I advise you not to pick that armor, it’s a bit too restricting on the shoulders which makes it harder to fight in close-quarter, take this one instead, it’s also made from good monster hide and gives more freedom while protecting the same areas.

Gabriella said, momentarily parting herself from Maria who had been treating Gabriella like some mannequin, this entire time Gabriella had been keeping a brief eye on Avian while he was choosing his garments, when he picked up the leather armor she couldn’t help but interfere as she didn’t think his choice was right.

Avian appreciated her advice and took it without a second thought as he thought she knew better then him being a combat veteran, but just as he took the armor something to his mind as he couldn’t help but ask.

-How did you know I fight close-quarter? I don’t believe I ever mentioned my fighting style?

Gabriella smiled at that question, to a person like her to was easy to guess a person’s fighting disposition, one just needed to look at their body and general build which in Avian’s case was his well-trained body and the calluses on both of his hands, Avian currently didn’t have his short spear as it was inside his space ring, but Gabriella didn’t need to see the short spear to know that Avian used a spear in combat.

Which is what she basically explained, impressing Avian a good bit as he could understand her logic since he too could make similar conclusions through his business know how.

Finding themselves in such a conversation, Gabriella momentarily noticed that this may be a good opportunity to continue talking about their blessings, but suddenly Maria came up as she followed Gabriella looking at Avian as she couldn’t help but say.

-Oh! I noticed you earlier, but aren’t you pretty young to be going out being an adventurer? Or are you two perhaps siblings going on a journey together?

Those words made Gabriella immediately more surprised as she couldn’t help but start to try untangle the misunderstanding, but Avian casually spoke up first as he replied in a childlike manner.

-Big sis Gabriella and I aren’t siblings, but she is like a Big sis to me since she took me into her party and always takes care of me, after this big sis said that we would go to register in the adventurer’s guild here in Alimdal, does big sis Maria know what the adventurer’s guild here is like?

Giving Avian who looked extremely adorable in her eyes a pat on his head, Maria then started talking as turned to Gabriella.

-To be honest, the adventurer’s guilds out here in the frontier are far more rowdy and shadier then those inland, most likely because it attracts a lot of shady and questionable individuals, while crime rates here are not particularly high, its only because the governor keeps a tight grip on everything here so everyone can live in peace, which includes those who have blessings on the blacklist, while they are exempt from a lot of official help they can still live here and work even if they don’t have access to things such as the guild or the town hall, as for the adventurers, you certainly shouldn’t expect any quality personalities, when they aren’t doing their work and clearing out monsters, they are usually out drinking the day away or going to the brothel, most of them are less adventurers and more mercenary making them also aggressive and prone to bullying newbies, so be careful, but I don’t your big sis will need much help with the amount of power she seems to have. Oh! Are you perhaps interested in that blouse? I know just the perfect pair of gloves and trousers to along with it let me show you!

Saying as such, Maria got immediately distracted as she noticed Cornelia picking out clothes for herself wanting to go over and help.

Gabriella didn’t even have the chance to thank Maria information before she blitzed away with a sparkle in her eyes, in the end Avian and Gabriella were left standing as Avian momentarily pondered about the new information he just got.

-I wasn’t expecting the adventurer’s guild here to be of high quality, but we may need to be prepared to face some inconvenience’s, huh Gabriella?

Avian called out, noticing how Gabriella had suddenly gone quiet as she seemed dazed about something while looking at Avian, since Avian was shorter then Gabriella who was 190cms tall he needed to look up and strain his neck a little bit, but he didn’t really care as he wasn’t bothered about his height.

Speaking about height, Ogra currently was the tallest among them standing almost 2 meters followed by Gabriella, Cornelia who was 185cms tall, Deborah who was 172cms tall, Avian who was 160cms tall and then rabbit girl who was the smallest being approximately 145cms tall.

Gabriella realizing that Avian was calling for her, immediately woke up from her deep thought as she couldn’t help but get flustered for a second which confused Avian even more.

Before he could ask what the problem was, Gabriella spoke first as she asked.

-Master…if I may ask…how old are you?

-How old am I?

(Over 40 if we are going by mental age, not that I am going to say that).

Avian thought, before replying without much thought put into it.

-I am 16 but close to 17, why are you asking?

-Ah…you’re…16?!

-Again what’s with that look on your face? Do you have a problem with my age?

-N..No! It’s just…I never imagined you were actually that young…even though it should have been obvious through your face and general body statue, for some reason it never occurred to me that you were actually 16 when I talked to you…

It was natural of course, the way Avian acted and talked, the air he exuded was always that of a full-fletched adult, the only reason Gabriella suddenly noticed now was because Avian started acting uncharacteristically to get put Maria’s guard down and get information out of her regarding the adventurer’s guild, when she saw Avian acting the way he naturally looked she almost couldn’t recognize him as he seemed like a completely different person, this disconnect caused an intense confusion inside Gabriella’s mind so much so that she may have even short circuited.

Avian for the most part started to understand what Gabriella was getting at, in fact the whole reason why he made Gabriella speak first as soon as they entered the shop to make herself look like the leader was because of this to a certain extent, in general once they registered themselves into the adventurers guild they would need to reveal their blessings, Gabriella’s [Knight] blessing would certainly make a commotion as [Knights] were rare, while Avian’s [Monster Tamer] blessing would like cause a lot of people to aim their despise towards him.

Since they were also going to make a party together, it certainly would not do them any good if Avian continued to be the leader, or at least looked like he was the leader.

The general consensus of the people in this world was that most [Monster Tamer’s] were untrustworthy, putting a [Monster Tamer] as a leader of a adventurer’s party was asking for trouble to occur when the party had someone like a [Knight] amidst them who was under the [Monster Tamer] and followed his orders, people would start to make all sorts of assumptions seeing this such as the [Monster Tamer] tricking the [Knight] or pulling some under handed methods to force her to follow his orders.

Human nature was sinister in this sense that they could convince themselves of all sorts of vile things when there wasn’t any substantial proof to support any of it, but simply driven by their own negative emotions.

To avoid all that or at least avoid most of it, Avian decided that from now on he would act as an ordinary party member while making Gabriella into the party leader.

She would keep everyone’s attention while Avian kept to the shadows and continued to give her instructions as the real leader.

Of course while all of this sounded very cool and mysterious, it really wasn’t as the whole reason Avian was doing this to begin was because he didn’t want to deal with jealous adventurers trying to pick a fight with them, especially in a place like this where by Maria’s account the adventurers were likely to cause trouble as soon as they stepped inside.

For now, Avian didn’t think it was particularly a problem since they had Gabriella who was a rank 1 [Knight] meaning she was quite strong at the moment, Avian discussed this with Gabriella before entering as well, her opinion on the matter being that Avian shouldn’t hide at all as that was giving into weaklings and close-minded people.

But Avian easily convinced her as she too could understand the reason for it making her accept it under Avian’s orders.

-Are you sure you’re not bothered by my age?

-Ah! No, no, no, no!

Gabriella immediately shook her head while waving her hands around, thinking that she may have offended Avian her master, but Avian wasn’t particularly offended as he merely asked a question, Gabriella herself also started to think more rationally, the fact that Avian was so mature and capable at his age was actually more of a good thing then a bad thing.

It showed that Avian was quite an excellent person and someone worthy of being her master, nothing really changed if you really thought about it, but Gabriella also couldn’t lie and say that she wasn’t completely bothered about his age.

Avian was younger than her deceased lady’s daughter, Gabriella herself was 27 making the age gap between them almost over 10 years apart, she didn’t know how to feel about that as most [Knights] and their lieges were close to similar of age, Gabriella wasn’t getting younger either as she was close to reaching 30 and while she looked extremely great for her age because of her training she also…

(Slap!)

As soon as her thoughts reached that place, Gabriella abruptly slapped herself making Avian and some of the others who were close to witness it dumbfounded and not sure how to react.

Maria came forward to ask if everything was fine with Gabriella replying that everything was fine and that she simply felt a fly which swatted away.

Maria wasn’t completely convinced but decided not to dig any deeper as she started to help the others who soon also continued their own thing.

Only Avian stood in front of Gabriella confused as to what to make of this strange woman.

-Master…I am very sorry please forgive me for my insolence.

Gabriella whispered giving a light before Avian while Maria wasn’t looking, Avian felt that things came back full circle for some reason, but he had no spare energy to care what happened which is why he simply sighed before replying.

-You are forgiven, now let’s finish this quickly.

-Yes! Master!

Going back to normal, Avian and Gabriella returned to talking about their armor and was suitable for them.

In the end everyone other than Ogra managed to pick out the clothes they wanted and the clothes they needed, Ogra had no clue about clothes or armor which is why everyone needed to help her pick something suitable, unfortunately since she was so big, there wasn’t much she could actually get for her size, it was fortunate that they managed to get suitable armor for her, but for casual clothing the ended picking the biggest shirt the shop had which still slightly revealed Ogra’s lower abdomen making her look not as bad when she wore the linen clothes, but still slightly erotic while everything else luckily fit and covered her well.

At the end Ogra made a very bright smile at what everyone picked for her, she seemed so happy in fact that she even chased after Deborah and Cornelia who quickly ran while screaming that they didn’t want to get eaten.

In a sense that smile did invoke fear as that was also the smile she used whenever she saw something she wanted to eat.

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