Confront and provoke!

Three of them were her fellow apprentices and the other one was a stranger. He must be a mage since he sat on the same table or a highly esteemed noble.

"Um… hey, it's me." Esdras coughed and called out to her. His voice sounded somewhat familiar, where did she last hear it? …hm?

Celine narrowed her eyes and got closer, "what? Who… Esdras! What happened to you?"Her jaw almost fell to the floor.

"Is it that surprising? That's a little too dramatic." Esdras was slightly embarrassed, he even saw the three bastards beside him nodding approvingly at Celine's reaction.

"It's a sudden growth spurt, I guess." Esdras nonchalantly replied.

"Are you… joking?" Celine asked in shock and disbelief.

'Oh, right.'

The old Esdras was a shy and kept to himself due to his inferiority complex, he spoke very little and kept to himself. This made it a hassle to keep acting like him.

'Ah, screw it!'

Esdras decided to just not pretend to be the old Esdras anyway, he didn't care what other people thought about it anymore.

What troubled him was how he should behave with Celine considering her closeness to him, but he simply decided to be himself.

"Yeah, it's a joke. Come take a seat, have you had breakfast yet?" Esdras gestured to the seat beside him.

Well, he did inherit a life and death grudge from the old Esdras so he might as well inherit the good things too! It's only fair… hehe.

Unfortunately Celine was still shocked and unresponsive, so he took her hand and guided her to sit on the chair.

"Here, you want some bread? If you put some cheese and honey on it tastes really good."

Esdras gave her some instructions and she followed absentmindedly.

"Hey…" he leaned into her ear and whispered, "can you snap out of it? You're embarrassing me. I just trained in some vigor breathing technique, okay."

Celine blushed and dropped the bread slice from her hand. Her lips parted, "you… are you really Esdras?"

"The new and improved version, you could say." Esdras chuckled.

"You're still joking, I am being serious!" Celine clearly had enough, she sent several punches to his forearm. They were just soft punches.

"Jeez, I'm serious too, lightened up will you." Esdras found her frowning face adorable and teasing her was fun.

The other apprentices poured in shortly after that and the place was filled with activity. But not all was well, it looks like six apprentices didn't make it.

Tsk, tsk, this is life.

Esdras continued chatting, laughing and eating with Celine. Suddenly the place became quite around them, he was aware of someone standing behind him and glaring daggers at him.

But Esdras didn't care, he feigned ignorance and smiled at Celine, "hey come on, I can't eat anymore, do you want me to be fat like a pig?!"

"No," Celine held her tummy with one hand, laughing she had a fork of sausage in the other hand and was trying to feed Esdras, "your body grew so much you have to eat more."

"That's enough!" Robert's disgruntled voice roared behind them at this moment.

"Oh, Robert? Is that you?" Esdras turned around, "oh, don't worry about the food, there's still more."

"It's not about the food," Robert said with gritted teeth, "Tara just told me about what you did, can you explain yourself?!"

Esdras was treating him completely differently, he wasn't trembling nor did he look down, in fact he had an air of confidence around him.

"Robert, why are targeting Esdras? He didn't do anything!" Celine tried to defend him, but Esdras motioned for her not to interfere.

"What I did? Oh, I just reported the truth to senior Ron, what of it?" He answered Robert.

"You could have just kept quite about it since you got to live." Robert sneered, Tara, Sam and his goons laughed behind him.

Esdras stood up, from that height he looked down on Robert, although he was just half a head taller it was enough.

"What else did she tell you? Did she tell you how she warmed my bed the last four nights?" Esdras smirked and looked all over Tara's tantalizing body like he knew her in and out.

"W-what?" Robert took a step back like he couldn't believe his ears.

"Did I stutter? She was pretty good, you sure know how to pick them."

"You're a liar!" Tara immediately accused, red faced and aghast at once.

"Hey! She's my fiancé! You can eat shit if you want but think twice about ruining my reputation!" Robert's face swelled like a tomato and his fists shook.

They were engaged? Well, well, well, that makes things very interesting. His eyes gleamed with a mischievous light.

"Hey, just because your boyfriend's here you want to pretend like nothing happened? Oh, well, you always like to act reluctant but when it's time for business, you were a proper whore."

Naturally Esdras said boyfriend on purpose.

"You— do you want to die?! Are you actually tired of living?!" Robert mana started fluctuating and his eyes shined with the swirling mana.

"Oh? You remember this?" Esdras pointe at the bandages on his head and with one tug, he freed his blond hair.

"My head healed just fine." Esdras said with a dark tone, unlike his playful one from a moment ago, "thank you for going easy on me."

Robert's anger vanished at sight of Esdras's healed head, his eyes about to pop out of their sockets.

"What in the—"

"What's wrong Robert? Teach this brat a lesson!" Tara, who didn't understand what was going on looked confused.

"Yeah, if you want to challenge me to a spar I will accept, how about it, Robert? Wanna give it another try?" Esdras eagerly asked.

This is the same tactic Robert used to provoke the old Esdras into challenging him. If Robert really did challenge him then he could cripple Robert in the spar without much consequences.

And not long after this, they were going to be deployed into the forest once again, will Robert really survive in that state?

But unfortunately Robert calmed down and didn't say anything anymore. He was indeed better than the old Esdras.

"Celine, let's get out of here, I don't like chicken for breakfast." Esdras pulled Celine up and walked out, the crowd split and opened a path for them.

But before he left, Esdras turned around and quickly spanked Tara in the ass causing her to yelp.

"Hey, I know your boyfriend is here now but, I know you will come to me at night all the same." He said in mock whisper but made sure everyone could hear him.

"Y-you shameless cur!" Tara roared after him.

Esdras ignored her entirely and along with Celine they walked out.

"Let's go to the smithy, I need a weapon." Esdras said.

"Wait," when the were out in the yard Celine stopped and looked at him, pouting, "did you really sleep with Tara."

Hm?

'This… it seems like I'm in trouble?'