The Hero's Party

The sun was bright and the wind blew in, bringing in the scent of the garden out back. Birds greeted each other with melodious morning songs, and without opening one's eyes, one would think they were in the middle of an open field.

Royce immediately knew he was in an unfamiliar room. His accommodations were nice, nicer than he had ever had on Earth, but they didn't feel like sleeping on a cloud in the middle of the meadows of a peaceful countryside.

He slowly opened his eyes and sat up, immediately regretting it. One, he was in pain. And two, some very angry pairs of eyes were giving him death glares right about now.

"What. The. Hell. Man!" shouted a young man, tall with glasses perched on his bridge, giving his slim but fit frame a more elegant look. He didn't need them by now, but old habits died hard.

"You could have died! We've been worried sick for the past three days. Three days, Royce! That's how long you were unconscious for. We managed to repair your mana circuits, but that's only because me and Sera were there. The other healers are still trying to wrap their minds around cellular biology. You're very lucky to make it."

"Damn, so the assassin failed? I mean, almost dying sorta comes with assassination attempts, but the guy looked desperate. Felt bad for him. Poor dude. What happened to him?" chuckled Royce before speaking, totally treating the golden-haired handsome young man as air.

The faces of everyone in the room changed, except for a confused-looking Royce and an enraged beauty.

"For Lunar's sake, you answer the Hero when he speaks to you! He deserves respect!" exclaimed the golden-haired man, the Hero.

"Lysandria...." he began, but he was interrupted.

"Your Royal High-horsiness, I grew up with Dave there. I've caught him doing things, and I know things. I can never respect him, even if he singlehandedly tops the Earth contribution ranks. He'll always be silly..." Royce sneered at the princess.

"Whoa, whoa, TMI, my guy. Too much information, it wasn't necessary," rushed Brian before he could expose his dark past. Seriously, how the guy could be reliable and a ticking time bomb at the same time, he had no idea.

"Lysa, please be lenient with him. I prefer it this way, really. My friends are my quiet place to wind down. I want it to be a safe place where I can relax and not worry about respect and stuff and just be Dave. I want this with all my friends. We are friends, right?"

Dave asked with a blinding smile. Lysa immediately blushed up to the tips of her pointy ears. The half-elf forgot whatever was making her angry. She was obviously smitten with the young Hero.

She shifted in her seat uncomfortably and didn't even know where to place her hands. In a mosquito-like voice, she said, "O-of course, Hero. Whatever you want."

The atmosphere was turning weird as there were mixed reactions to this across the room. Dave, however, could barely be bothered to care and decided to strike while the elf was still hot—er, while the iron was still hot and the elf flustered.

She couldn't help but imagine how they must look like an elegant and refined couple from afar.

"Now, now, Lysa. Didn't I tell you not to call me that? It's so distant, like we aren't close at all. How will we be closer if you can't call me by my name?" Dave brought her to look into his now golden eyes. The blessing of the moon had changed him physically. He was now a certified Chad.

"O-okay, Hero." The eyes of the flustered princess were all over the place as her usual confident demeanor was nowhere to be seen.

"Okay who?" asked Dave with a slight smile.

"Okay, D-Dave, I'll try to call you by your name... B-but only in private."

Dave chuckled when he heard that. "Well, that means I'll just have to increase the amount of time I have in private, won't I?"

The half-elf was just eating it all up. Her blush became even deeper, and her breath quickened.

Royce's eyes were almost aching from all the eye-rolling. He finally couldn't take it anymore, especially since he knew that this was simply torture for their remaining companions. He knew it better than anyone.

"Could you two please get a room? Preferably in another city 'cuz I want to be nowhere near any of that," he said in a clearly disgusted tone.

The princess' head swiveled towards him so fast he almost feared for the beauty. Almost. She was fuming. This dreg of an outsider just had to ruin her pink world with Dave. They should have let him die! However, she quickly changed her face before Dave could notice her hate for him. She was a royal, after all. She had to be a good actress.

With a deadpan voice, Dave answered Royce. "You're already in my room... I already got one... You all are the ones who don't belong here..."

"Should we leave?" Brian asked jokingly.

"Yes, please," answered a totally serious Dave.

"But I can barely move, feeling like my body was possessed and did some things only demons can allow it to do."

"Oh, I almost forgot. How are you feeling? Mana burst is very dangerous, you know. It should only be used in the worst-case scenario. You shouldn't overdo your spells like that. Frostbound Chill is still beyond your capabilities to cast. You all aren't Apprentices like me yet, and you attempted a Novice spell. That's skipping two stages!"

"Better than dying, right?" asked Brian cheekily.

Before Dave could answer, a soft, soothing voice interrupted. "Let him be, Dave. You know he won't repent. And it was kinda necessary in this case. He would have died if he had let the assassin just do as he pleased."

David sighed. "You're too soft, Sera. The only way to deal with a guy like this is to give him no positive reinforcement at all. Besides, you're the one who almost overexerted yourself to heal him. You know him, if you so much as smile at him, he'll fall for you."

"What the hell, my guy?!" asked a shocked and deeply offended Royce. Especially since Dave knew that Royce had always been into Sera, even on Earth.

Seraphina Shadowdove. She had raven black hair and a body like a seductress. However, her face was just cute and naive. She looked so innocent. The contradiction made her so attractive. It made the blood pump in all kinds of areas. Her features were so soft and motherly. Her body was also soft, just in a way that made you want to call her mama in another sense.

She could be soft, but Royce knew that she also had a side that could deal emotional damage on a nuclear level... She was just well-behaved, that's all.

"Don't worry about that. I can deal with a simple baby like Royce."

Royce immediately lost half of his remaining HP, almost falling back into unconsciousness. A baby?

There were some things a man should never hear from his crush. That was one of them.

"Besides, he's a bit too short and weak for me."

Royce almost coughed up blood. Why was the healer so dangerous? She was being honest, but it was too much for him.

To be honest, Royce already knew that Sera was head over heels for Dave. All the girls around them were. It must be some kind of hero effect, he guessed. It had always been like that, and Royce didn't mind, but seeing his crush go googly-eyed for a guy who treated her like trash was hard to bear. Good thing he was already broken, then.

"Ignore them," said the last person in the room.

"Are you okay?" she continued.

"Thanks, Sama. I'm fine. I don't feel the shadow of death coming over me, but I definitely have a grudge."

The last girl to speak was Samantha Everwood. Unlike the other two, she wasn't an earth-shaking beauty. She was actually quite average and unassuming, but Royce reckoned that Dave had a secret crush on her.

Why wouldn't he? She was a wonderful woman. She was the smartest among them and the most responsible. Obviously, she could go crazy like them, but she had an actual, functioning sense of propriety.

She was the brain of the group and the much-needed bucket of cold water. In fact, Royce thought it made more sense for her to be the hero instead of Dave, if not for Dave's insane magical talent. Well, Royce was already a novice mage, a stage above the apprentice that Dave was, but no one had to know that.

"Are you sure you're okay?" she insisted, continuing. "After, you know, killing a man?"

The room froze. It was the elephant in the room. Royce's eyes widened. His face paled, and his breathing quickened. his face paled when what he had been avoiding was thrust into his face like that.

"I... I..." He seemed unable to complete the sentence. It was like he didn't know the assassin was dead up until that point. He was hyperventilating. His vision turned blurry.

Inside, he couldn't help but smile. The stuck-up half-elf wasn't the only actor around.