Beginning of a Change

"Oi, Dia! Can I have some tea please?"

I said to Dia, a maid in the palace, also the one who was assigned to look after me.

"As you wish, lord"

She respectfully bowed and walked out of the room.

I was still not used to the extremely formal tones of all the people whom I have met, but it's still going fine.

As of all the people from the Academy, they are given luxurious places to stay inside the palace itself, but I don't meet them much, as the teachers are training the students the past few days.

To fulfil my boredom, I usually take walks around the city, which is quite beautiful, honestly. If we ignore all the crimes that happen on a daily basis, such as stealing, kidnapping or molestation.

They have maintained the natural beauty of a few places quite well, even though they are in a worldwide disaster.

There is one shop I am enthusiastic to go to, one of my classmates said that it sells something having close relation with coffee.

As I walked to the store, people automatically made way for me, it was not that hard to deduce that I was the 'Hero', as I was wearing quite distinctive clothes.

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The shop was a well made one, it was almost fully made of wood, with a name that I dare not pronounce, as I walked into the store, I got a few gasps, which I ignored, and went up to the counter.

The guards sent with me stood outside the door, while two of them followed me in.

"My friend said that you have something similar to coffee?"

I said to the man with a little smile.

"Coffee . . . ? Ah, yes! A person came here and told me that one of our drinks taste similar to this 'coffee' you speak of, I'll serve it to you right away."

The man seemed to be in a hurry.

That guy was quite old, 65, I would assume, with a little white mustache that really suited his look.

He was dressed in I don't even know what that is, which was basically clothes of the medieval times, like basically everyone in this world.

He brought me the drink very quickly and I have to say, it bears quite a striking resemblance to coffee.

The smell, the appearance, all hint towards it, but the taste is a little different, I cannot point out what it exactly is though, anyhow, it is not a bad difference in taste.

I was very happy with my findings today, I will probably be visiting this store often.

I took out a bundle, which was given to me by the king, and it contained money for me to freely spend.

As I was going to take some coins from it, the man stopped me, saying:

"Oh, sir, you need not pay for this, it is my humble shop's honor to serve the Hero himself."

Half-expected, honestly.

"Are you sure?"

"Definitely, sir, it would be my pleasure to serve you anytime"

The man said with a big smile.

"Well then, don't mind if I do!"

I said as I abruptly turned around and walked out with a satisfied expression on my face.

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"Dia, can you bring me some tea?"

"It will be here in a moment, lord"

She said, as she bowed respectfully and walked out of the room.

I found out some stuff about Dia.

Apparently she had a brother named Dio, who was training to serve under the king himself.

As per what she told me, he was one of the best of his age, and would reach great heights one day.

Well, he is her brother, so her opinions might be a bit biased.

Anyhow, when you think about it, Dia is quite young to be the maid assigned to me, she is at most 25, which is quite young to be in such a position.

But she does her work quite well, and she seems to be loyal as well.

Well, that's not something I'm curious about, so I'll leave that topic be, anyways, when should I visit the shop?

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"Another one of those, please."

I said to the man behind the counter, and he quickly made another 'coffee' and handed it over to me.

I pointed to my bundle of money, and he just shook his head, indicating the he did not need money, again.

So, I just shrugged and walked out of the store.

The people from the Academy have been coming in gradually, but they are less than what we wanted, and more than what we expected.

Let's see how it goes . . .

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"Dia, bring me tea"

"Just a moment, lord"

Dia said, as she bowed respectfully and walked out of the room quickly.

The king is actually a good person, but only problem is, he's trying to get me married to his daughter, the princess.

That is all well and good, we all know that I will be leaving this world soon, they just want me to marry her for politics.

But, I do not gain anything from it, so why should I? Out of the kindness of my heart? What's a kindness? Sounds like an airplane company.

Well, I flatly refused, so that whole situation is over now, I could see Eva was relieved.

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I went to the counter and put up two fingers.

The man behind the counter understood what I wanted and hastily prepared two coffees for me.

I had given him some changes he should do to the drink and he seems to have applied them, as the drink is now much more similar to coffee.

I had a satisfied face, as I walked out of the shop, sipping the coffee.

As I was walking, my way was blocked by some delinquent-looking teens, and at that time, I knew what this situation was.

"Look at you, you look weak"

"You haven't even done anything the past month except enjoy your life using the money we pay as taxes."

"Yeah, I bet even I could beat you"

It's like people trash talking in games after they get wiped on the floor, completely obliterated by someone.

It just looks like a normal face-slapping event, where I am scripted to kill these kids, or cripple them, and everyone starts fearing me.

But why should I? Why should I respond to provocation of mere peasants?

So I just sipped my coffee and walked past them, ignoring them like I ignore the tutorial to games.

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"I want some tea"

"As you command, lord"

Dia said as she walked out of the room a little hurriedly.

I think all this formal and respectful speech is rubbing off on me, recently I haven't been able to converse with people without feeling self-conscious about the words I use.

There are not even too many people I talk to who are actually equal in status to me, so the chats are always short and to-the-point.

My mind is melting~

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I held up two fingers to the man behind the counter while I closed my eyes and leaned onto my hand, with my elbow rested on the counter.

The man prepared two coffees and placed them on the table.

I picked one up and walked away without looking at him, it had become an everyday thing.

My guard picked up the other cup and followed me out.

This is the last day of peace, tomorrow, we are going to the ruins to finally fight the monsters.

As for the students, about 40% of them have arrived, which is more than what I expected, honestly.

Almost every monster that I have seen, there was not even one lower than C-Rank, which is a very high difficulty for students.

The 40% students are mostly upperclassmen, which makes sense.

Only the important first-years are alive.

Some weak fodders are also there, but only because they were protected by the stronger ones.

This kingdom doesn't even have a map or something for the ruins, so we're going in blind.

This is so irritating.

"It's the weak kid"

And obviously, the boys are back, some more even joined in with them.

"Oh, look at how he's staring at us, I'm sooooo scared~"

Two of them walked up to me.

I could see the guards starting to come closer.

"Look, he can't even do anything without his guards, nehehehe~"

What is that laugh dude.

Anyhow, I motioned the guards to stop, and the two guys came up to me and did something . . . unforgivable.

"How's the drink . . . chicken?"

They slapped the cup out of my hand, I tried to reach for it but the other kid slapped my hand. Which caused the trajectory of it to change just a little bit, which resulted in me not being able to grab the cup.

The cup fell onto the floor, and the coffee spilled on the dry sand that sat there.

The guards retreated, waiting for the boys' heads to fall off.

I looked up at them and . . .

"Domain Expansion"

I'm kidding.

====================

About 2 minutes later, the bodies (corpses) of a few boys were laid on top of each other.

It could be seen that all of their faces were caved in, and a few of the boys' limbs were missing, as if they were cleanly cut . . . very professionally.

Sukuna was walking back to the palace sipping his other cup of coffee, and he had told one of the guards to get another one from the shop.

'I just followed the face-slapping script huh?'

'I guess I can't escape the main character events'

I do feel better though, anyhow, tomorrow is the raid, I hope nothing unexpected happens.