Legion of Light (Part 6)

I noticed Elaina was silently staring at Sylvie, with a wishful look in her eyes. I opened up my own satchel and offered her some candy. Ren and I bought some last night after dinner. "Want some?"

Her eyes shined seeing the candies, but she forced herself to turn her gaze away. "Candies are for kids. I don't need them." She said pridefully.

Jeez, what a silly thing to get prideful over.

"Come on... you know you want it. Orange, strawberry, or lime?" I said, waving the candies in front of her, teasing her.

She sneaked a sideways glance at the candies with a longing look, failing to turn away her gaze this time. "Hmph, w... why would I ever want a candy?.... Mmm!... Orange... please..."

I smiled and gave her the orange-flavored candy. She quickly unwrapped it and popped it into her mouth gleefully.

"So where do we go for dinner? To the legion or the adventurers?" Elaina asked, now all happy and pleased.

"Legion."

"Adventurers."

Ren and Luca said at the same time.

Realizing they were at an impasse, Ren wasted no time to start convincing us. "We are already spending the entire night with the Legion. At least for dinner let's join up with the adventurers."

"What's the point of camping with the Legion if we don't get the full experience? If we can join them for dinner, we definitely should." Luca wasted no time in countering as well.

Ren threw up his hands. "The Legion is boring! The adventurers are fun..."

A couple of legionnaires passing by looked over at us hearing that comment.

The girls were pleased with their candies, so they had no comment to make on this topic.

I pulled Luca and Ren closer and gave my argument to end all arguments. "Legion food tastes bad."

And thus no one said anything and it was decided.

On our way, Luca asked. "How did you become a Vice Commander if you have no combat mission experience?"

"That..." I sighed. "The 10th Arsenal is not like the usual divisions of the Legion. Its requirements... are different."

Just then we reached the Adventurer's area and Ren approached them with a big smile and his arms open as if he was back home.

There were five adventurer parties other than ours. In this shared dinner arrangement, each party would contribute something to the meal. Since we were late, the cooking was already over, so we offered to serve food to all.

As we returned to sit after serving, a burly but friendly adventurer pointed his spoon at Ren. "Hey Ren, you are almost gold rank, right? Didn't you say you always solo? If you were finally teaming up, why didn't you join up with us?"

Ren grinned wide. "Have you even seen my team?" He then came over behind us and started introducing us one by one...

"We have a grumpy knife boy, Luca Adaleigh."

"Ren, I'll kill you."

"See? Nice and grumpy. Next, we have the esteemed Descendant of Light, Liam Everhart"

"Heya." I greeted with a smile.

"BUT! Most importantly... We have a super cute healer girl, Sylvie Bransford! And a rare wind affinity archer, with beauty gifted by the muses of the gods themselves... lovely, calm, cool and collected, Elaina Evreux!"

"Hi hi, I'm Sylvie!" Sylvie waved enthusiastically, while Elaina just shook her head with a smile and acknowledged the others with a small nod, and went back to her dinner.

Ren pointed back to the burly adventurer in a challenging manner. "What am I supposed to do in your team full of men? Where are your pretty girls?"

A female leader of another adventurer party, about the same age as Ren, pouted her lips and asked. "Well if you wanted pretty girls, why didn't you accept our offer? We reeeally would have loved to have you."

Mia Alta, a well-known platinum-rank adventurer among Wintergrace students and graduates, especially the guys. She is the poster girl of Wintergrace and more than half the reason why Wintergrace has always been a popular preference for aspiring male adventurers. Ever since her brother split to make a party of his own, she has only ever recruited and trained girls to join her party. And each of those girls are well... 'attractive' to say the least. The craziness that would ensue during her group's concerts in Wintergrace... oof. She was the crush of almost every guy back in my class. Not me though, definitely not me, just saying. I totally respect her as my senior. That's all.

Having broken the hearts of many suitors and party applicants alike, she claims she will only ever be interested in strong and truly capable men, though that's hard to match considering she is basically diamond rank at this point. To think Miya herself would try to recruit Ren. I am kinda impressed.

Ren feigned a sad face. "Aww, but Miss Mia, my heart cannot handle being surrounded by such gorgeous ladies all day and all night."

The girls of Miya's party laughed at the mention of night. Miya herself just sighed.

"You just gotta man up Ren. Well if you ever find it too difficult, join us and we'll teach you how to be a man." She said, ending with a playful wink.

Luca spit out his drink and Sylvie's face got red as a cherry.

Even Ren blushed and hid his face behind his white scarf. "Jeez Mia, people might take it the wrong way. Control yourself."

Mia's laugh was so lovely my heart almost skipped a beat. Almost. Just saying. I have only respect for her. A lot. A lot of respect.

"Seriously though, no offense to anyone, but Ren, are you really fine with being in a silver-ranked team?" Mia asked.

Ren waved it off. "When have I ever cared about such stuff? I think my team's pretty good. Besides, it doesn't matter what their rank is or how strong they are..."

A smirk crept on Ren's face. "They have me after all."