The Meat Banquet

"You looked proper, now," Sumia said as she helped me to put the buttons into my black shirt, or should I say, black tunic?

The idea was to give me something to wear from that era so I could blend in more easily. Of course, she also recommended we carry a sword around so we could easily pass as an adventurer, but I digress.

"What? What's wrong with my pistol?" I asked as I strapped down the holster on my thigh.

"Don't you think it's a little bit out of place?" Sumia pointed at the black pistol holster that I strapped. Well, yeah, it looked a little bit out of place for this world, but I felt that it would be good enough.

Without my pistol, I lost more than half of my effective combat ability, it was simply unacceptable for me unless I was exclusively under disguise. Right now, I only needed to dress similarly to the locals temporarily.

The guild office happened to have spare clothing that we could "borrow" for the time being. I wouldn't pass on this opportunity, of course. I just wanted to know whether I could do it or not. The banquet would be a great opportunity to test it out whether I could blend in or not.

Truth be told, I might wear this kind of clothing more often than a regular combat uniform simply because the combat uniform sometimes stood out more than I preferably liked. Sawyer also had dug into the spare clothing that the guild had.

"Hmm, what's this painting, or picture?" Sawyer suddenly asked as he grabbed a picture from a table. A weird picture, to be honest, of a group of people.

Hmm, a picture of a group of knights. Female knights. All of them were wearing armors, and the background seemed a little bit too eerie, judging from the red sky and the black trees.

One of the women was Sumia, which was kinda expected, otherwise, why would she keep this kind of picture? I put the picture back in the place where Sawyer found it to prevent suspicion.

"Hmm, anything in mind?" Sumia noticed the sudden weird behavior coming from both of us.

"Nothing, how's the meat?" I asked.

"Well, they had finished cooking it, we only need to eat. The villagers thanked you a lot for helping John," Sumia said.

"I'm just doing my job," I answered, referring to the quest that Sumia gave to me.

But to be honest, I was sure that there was no hunting quest on the board. So, this might be an honest attempt to help the village instead of the mercenary type of work that I always did with Sawyer.

Truth be told, this progressed way more smoothly than I initially thought. It only took us two days to gain a little bit of favor with the village. For now, I would think that they had a little bit of a positive connection with us.

We headed downstairs. No need to dress well, but we just needed to attend and that was it. Perhaps, we could eat their meat, but I wouldn't do that unless offered, to be honest. First, I didn't want to participate, but I had to. Second, I really didn't want to be poisoned if this turned out to be an ambush.

Still, I had a shitton of medicine to handle basic poisoning. The bottom line is they wouldn't be successful in killing me if they really wanted to. I had my countermeasure, I still had my pistol in my holster.

The banquet was right in the middle of the village street. People were grilling their meats on the grill, and some of them even had smokers. Truth be told, I hadn't tasted bison's meat in my life. Well, there would always be first time for something, right?

"Hey, you are the stranger, right? Thanks for helping us," one of the villagers thanked us.

"Oh, so you are the hunter, you look better than what I am expecting," another woman complimented me.

What? Complimenting my look? For what purpose that it would serve, though? Still, thanks. Better compliment Sawyer though, I just didn't want to get the spotlight here. I approached the grill. The smell of meat had entered my nostrils.

"What's cooking?" I asked.

"The best part of the meat, hey, want me to save you a piece, Alfie?" John asked as he was the grillmaster.

"Sure, count me in. How's your arm?" I asked.

"C'mon, you don't need to keep asking that. My arm is fine. So, are you going to stay here, Alfie?" John asked me.

"Yeah, I think I'll stay," I said.

In the middle of the grill party, suddenly, Lobus joined in. I didn't know what he was carrying. He was carrying a bunch of logs, but it looked more like a container from the outside, to be honest. Truthfully, I didn't think he would come.

Most of the villagers weren't exactly welcoming to him either. They looked at him with hostile eyes, as if he was responsible for everything bad that had been happening to this village. Of course, in that regard, I'd agree with the other villagers.

Without anything to say, he suddenly threw those logs into the grill without saying anything. He then walked away immediately. I was confused about what his real intention was. However, it got answered immediately.

Thick smoke came out of the grill. The smoke stung our eyes. I closed my eyes and my nose. It was like tear gas, but way worse. What the hell was going on?