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Avan awoke the following morning in a comfortable bed with sunlight tickling his face. He stretched with pleasure and put his hands crossed under the back of his head while staring at the ceiling which was decorated with mosaic stones and letting the past day pass in his mind.

They had found evidence in Adrian´s cellar that he was indeed also the culprit behind the goblins and had used them for some sick breeding experiments.

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After Helio successfully eliminated the mastermind behind the monster attack and Yue's planned kidnapping, the fighters in the marketplace erupted in cheers and hugged each other. Others, however, let their tears run free and finally, after the adrenaline had worn off, lamented their loved ones and teammates who had lost their lives that day.

Sometime later, Commander Larin came running with a squad of soldiers in tow, but found only the celebrating and mourning townspeople and adventurers in the square. According to the conversations of various groups near him, about eighty of the hundred participating adventurers had survived, at least those who had fought with them in the center of town.

It soon became clear that monsters had also appeared sporadically in other parts of the city and had kept the city guards and fighters busy there. One of the groups fighting elsewhere had been Eve and her team, who had found two city guards in distress.

Milan the talkative had immediately spotted Avan, Elisa and Yue as soon as the group arrived in the center of town and told them everything in detail. Only with the help of a blow from the healer Seff with the palm of his hand on the back of Milan's head did he stop talking at all.

In the late afternoon, when the situation had calmed down to some extent and the victims and injured had been counted accurately, Commander Larin, the mayor of Cyntha and the guildmaster met in his office in the guildhouse.

In the meantime, the good-humored citizens and fighters had gathered in the entrance hall of the guild and there was an abundance of alcohol, drinks of all kinds and food, which the residents provided for them out of gratitude. Some merchants, who had survived in the marketplace only thanks to the quick intervention of some adventurers, even brought exotic fruits, meat, and other nibbles to the celebration.

The people of Cyntha were a sturdy and hardy community, who had often stuck together in the face of a major disaster. As a border town to less habitable areas, this was not the first time.

Avan had also asked Elisa and Yue a bit more about Cyntha, learning how the city was structured and that the current population was estimated at three thousand. The mayor, a certain Mr. Nemar, had resisted the successful immigration of most of the nobility, and the resident nobles were of lowly origin and handpicked. Nemar did not want to have corrupt and lowly power games in his city, so he had a lot of trouble with some of the higher born people from the Kingdom of Haipu, but rumor had it that he didn't care. Adrian, the downed local underground boss, had belonged to the slave ring from said kingdom. It was not yet known whether there were any connections, but the mayor's officials and soldiers were already investigating the situation, and couriers had left the city on horseback a short time before to contact specific trusted people in other cities and inform them about the situation in Cyntha.

---

Avan stretched a second time and then lay down on his side, pushing the bedspread aside. The view out the window of the rising sun was breathtaking, and all he really needed now was a cup of coffee and a little breakfast.

But he couldn't really complain about the current situation. He turned around and looked at the second person lying next to him in bed. To be precise, in her own bed.

Elisa's brown hair was spread around her head, creating a perfect frame around her freckled face. She made a sweet impression, sleeping blissfully next to him and looking so carefree.

The situation the night before had just happened, and a mutual interest, a little music, drinking and laughing together had then led from one to the other. Avan had only known her for two days, but something had sparked between them from the first moment. He was simply excited and attracted by this independent and knowledge-hungry woman.

He just hoped that he had judged her correctly and that both of them were grown up enough not to let a permanent relationship blossom out of it now. Avan still had too much to discover and he wanted to explore the world, while Elisa was more interested in her research and her books.

Avan smiled as she wrinkled her nose slightly at that very moment and scratched the tip of her nose with one hand, but didn't wake up.

With a happy grin on his face, he carefully wriggled out of the sheets and stood up. The previous thought of coffee and breakfast had now given him an appetite for more. With a plan in mind, he slipped into his underpants, put on his linen pants and linen shirt, and carefully crept on tripping toes to the door. Fortunately, the door opened without a squeak, and he slipped out of Elisa's room. She had luckily added his magical signature to her door last night, which would allow him to re-enter later.

With another short stretch of his upper body to the left and right, as if he were doing aerobics, he moved through the upper floor, which was just waking up. As he walked, he stroked his long, translucent hair and redid his braid. The black scrunchie that he had worn when he woke up in Eos continued to serve him well.

With brisk steps and a clear goal in mind, he ran down the stairs into the entrance hall and headed directly for the barmaid from the day before, who was probably doing her morning cleaning duties as usual.

He rapped on the counter with his right knuckles and sat down on one of the bar stools when the brawny woman turned to him.

"Aha! the man of the hour honors us. And so early in the morning!" She grinned mischievously at him.

"I beg your pardon?" He looked at her in confusion, his hand already raised to scratch the back of his head.

"Yep! Last night eventually dragged to the point where the stories of the fights were told, and your description probably fell more often. And since no one knew your name, towards the end they just called you the crusher." She laughed in a deeper voice than anyone would have guessed. "So Mister Crusher, what can I do for you?" She smirked and swung her stained, wet cloth over her right shoulder.

Avan tried his best to somehow process the new information and put it to the back of his mind for now. "Ahm, yes. I'm looking for a special breakfast. And I'd like to bring it to my companion's room..." He started to tell. "Where I come from, we make a batter out of beaten eggs, some milk, flour, and salt and sugar, which you can fry on both sides in a pan.... Called pancakes. These can then be eaten with delicious syrup, fruits or other sweets. Or even savory with cheese, if you want. You don't happen to have any of those on sale, do you?" He asked her cautiously, careful not to make a mockery of himself with his perhaps obvious question. Avan hadn't seen any pancakes at the food stalls in the market and didn't yet know if this dish was even available here.

Fortunately for him, the woman looked at him with furrowed brows and then chewed thoughtfully on the inside of her cheeks. "Hmm... There is a similar dish that fries a dough in a ball shape on skewers in oil, but this... pancakes... I actually don't know." She continued to speak to him thoughtfully.

With an abrupt clap of her hands, she startled Avan, who almost slid off his chair in surprise. "But! You seem to know the recipe. If you want, and it sounds like a best seller, you can show me how to make these in the back of the kitchen. What do you think?" She enthusiastically suggested to him, the cash coin gleaming in her eyes.

He chuckled at her obvious monetary interest, nodded, and stood up to follow her hand gesture around the counter into the kitchen behind her.

The door to the kitchen was simple and plain, made of wood, with a round thirty-centimeter hole at head height, probably to be able to shout something to the cook when the kitchen was in full operation, without having to open the door every time.

The kitchen itself, where Avan found himself, was equally plain and simple, but sparkled with cleanliness. There was a stove, an oven, a larger bronze sink at the side and a large worktable in the middle that dominated the room. On the walls hung all kinds of pans, pots, kitchen utensils with row upon row of spices, oils, and dried ingredients. Another door led to a back room, probably the storage.

The woman turned to him and pointed to a shelf full of flour and spices. "There you will find flour, oil and spices, and in the back left corner the pans. The eggs are always delivered fresh to the back of the warehouse, where there should still be some left from yesterday morning."

"My name is Beth, by the way." She completed her brief explanation and extended her right hand, which had just been cleaned on her apron, to him.

Avan shook her hand. "Avan, thanks for letting me use the kitchen, Beth." And smiled kindly at her.

"No problem, kid. I'll just get your eggs from the back. You can get started and then explain to me how the recipe works." She told him, while he wondered again how the older people kept calling him boy.

Shaking his head and taking the peculiarities for granted, he set about filling a medium-sized pan with oil and placing it on the stove. When he looked for the wood under the stove and found none, he looked around, somewhat perplexed. Just then, Beth returned with an armful of eggs in a bowl and caught sight of the young man searching around.

"Ahaha, are you looking for the wood to light the fire?" She laughed loudly as she placed the bowl of fragile eggs on the table. With a few steps she was with him and pointed with a deep giggle to the small runes at the edge of the stove plates, which had escaped Avan before. "Silly, haha. You're here in the adventurers' guild, not in a farmhouse. Here, everything runs on runes, enchantments and magic. Or have you not even looked at the bathroom in your room yet?" She theatrically raised her nose and looked in his direction, while a cheeky grin slowly spread on her face.

With slightly red cheeks, he grinned apologetically at her and pressed on the fire rune, which was provided with a circle and several lines leading to the stove plate belonging to it. As soon as he touched the rune, it glowed blue, which then turned into red lines and drew a fascinating pattern of spirals on the iron plate. The iron plate began to glow and within seconds emanated a heat that would have been unparalleled even on earth with its electric stoves.

He pressed the rune again to turn off the stove for the time being, when the runes did not disappear but simply glowed less strongly. "Oh, awesome. Even different heat levels?" He muttered to himself, which earned him a proud look from the owner. With two more touches, the runes were no longer visible and the iron plate quickly lost its glow.

Avan then showed her how he opened the eggs in one bowl in a practiced motion, pouring in only the egg whites and lightly creaming them with a whisk-like spoon. In another bowl, he then mixed the egg yolks with flour, milk, sugar and a pinch of salt until smooth and then added the egg foam, stirring gently.

He then placed the pan on the stove, waited for the oil to boil, and poured some of the dough into the pan until it was evenly filled to the edges in a perfect circle.

With a flat wooden spoon, he flipped the pancake after a while and a few minutes later presented her with the first pancake, perfectly burnt golden brown, on a large, flat plate.

He poured some of the syrup onto the fluffy pancake from a glass he had spotted on one of the shelves. He had already tried the syrup on one of the pastries at the market and knew that it was very similar to maple syrup, even if the taste was more nutty.

With the smell of freshly made pancakes and a hint of sweet nuttiness in the air, he held the now finished pancake under Beth's nose.

"Oh you sweet goddess!" The barmaid exclaimed enthusiastically as she smelled the pancake with her eyes closed and moved her head up to the right in a sideways motion, as if trying to catch the scent with her nose.

"That smells like heaven, Avan!" She looked at him in delight and with a hint of a new business idea. She set the plate down on the table, grabbed a fork and a sharpened knife, and cut herself a large, dripping piece of the pancake, which immediately disappeared into her mouth with a moan of pleasure.

"Ohhhh...Doesh that tashte aweshome!" She said with her mouth full and stuffed more pieces into it one by one until the plate was empty.

Avan, who had almost expected a similar reaction, smiled happily and clasped his hands behind his back. "Yep!" He replied to her.

Half an hour later, leaving behind a visibly euphoric barmaid, he was standing in front of the door to Elisa's quarters. In one hand a tray with two large plates of pancakes and a carafe of syrup, in the other hand two glasses full of the puffing golden drink Cela.

With the touch of his elbow, he let some mana flow into the runes of the door, as Elisa had shown him the day before, which then unlocked for him with a soft but audible click. He pushed the door open with his right foot and stepped into her apartment.

Avan found the young woman, who last night had also found out to be twenty-five years old, in a ball of sheets and blankets.

With a grin of anticipation, he balanced the tray and drinks forward and placed a plate of still fresh and warm pancakes and a glass of Cela next to Elisa on the nightstand.

He quietly placed his own plate and glass on a round table that stood against the wall at the other end of the room.

Avan poured some syrup over the stack of pancakes and then, armed with a fork and knife, went over her plate of pancakes and cut off a large dripping piece, which he speared onto the fork. Carefully, holding his left hand underneath so that the syrup didn't drip down, he moved the fork with the piece of pancake and held it under her nose.

Elisa, again with a sweet twitch of her nose, opened her eyes and stared at him, confused at first, until she noticed the piece of deliciously smelling dough in front of her face. With a delighted squeal and a broad grin on her face, she snatched the fork from his hand and the pancake was gone.

With a groan that reminded him a bit of last night, she tasted the piece of fluffy something and you could see how she let it wander over her tongue.

"Avan, this tastes GREAT! WHAT IS THAT?" She exploded with delight, noticing the stack of pancakes on her nightstand next to the bed. Without waiting much for a response from him, she pounced on the breakfast.

Avan chuckled and sat down in one of the comfortable wooden chairs at the round table and began to eat his breakfast as well, watching her devour her plate with amusement.

After some more moaning and squealing, and calls of "Ahh!" and "Ohh!", they had both finished their breakfast and their glass of Cela. Reaching for the edge of the bed, Elisa grabbed her reading glasses, put them over her nose and jumped out of bed to give him a heartfelt hug. "Thank you! That was delicious!" She spoke to him a little muffled as her face was buried in his linen shirt. She laid her head back on her neck as her brown and wavy hair flowed over her shoulders, and looked up into his eyes with a warm gaze. "That was actually the nicest thing anyone had done for me yet! Thank you, Avan!" And gave him another heartfelt hug.

With slightly redder cheeks and a clearing of her throat because she had only now noticed her nakedness, she took an almost dancing step back and whirled around to disappear into the quick bathroom.

"Happy to do it!" He called after her, chuckling, and pulled on the rest of his leather armor.

Today, as agreed the day before, he and Eve would fight a round in the backyard of the guild building. There was a training ground and dummies of all kinds, Avan had been told.

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