The Author's POV

A small smile spread across Amanda's face as she sipped her coffee cautiously.

When it came to smiling, she didn't do it very often, but today...she just couldn't stop herself from doing it.

Particularly after what had just happened half an hour earlier.

'On second thought, don't take the flowers.'

Amanda's hand trembled as she recalled what Ren had said when he stopped her from taking the flowers.

Despite accepting the fact that she liked Ren, she didn't expect to feel so delighted when he expressed his jealousy as clearly as he did.

'He was definitely jealous.'

As observant as she was, Amanda could easily tell from a glance what Ren was feeling back then.

His furrowed brows, his firm grasp on her hand, his stern voice...

They were all obvious indications to Amanda, and her heart raced unknowingly.

"Hey, Amanda."

"Uh, ah?!"

Amanda's thoughts were jolted by Ren's voice.

In light of her current state of mind, she could not help but be startled as her hand shook and her coffee spilled resulting in a few coffee stains appearing on the tablecloth.

Leaning forward, Ren asked.

"Did I surprise you?"

"…A little."

Amanda honestly replied as she put the coffee down.

"Fortunately, you didn't seem to have spilled on yourself."

"Yes."

Amanda softly replied as her eyes were drawn to the small stains on the cloth.

There was a twitch in her hand.

'I can endure it.'

Taking her eyes away from the stains, she smiled.

"I was just too deep into my thoughts. It's nothing big."

While she spoke, Amanda tried not to glance at the stains, but her attention kept drifting toward them as she curled her toes.

Putting her arm over the stains, she pursed her lips.

In an instant, her shoulders relaxed and she felt better.

'I can do it.'

Breathing a sigh of relief, she looked at Ren.

"So, what did you want to talk about?"

"Ah, nothing."

With a shrug of his shoulders, Ren leaned back on his chair.

"I just wanted to know if you wanted to eat yet."

"...Eat?"

Rubbing her tummy, Amanda thought for a moment before she nodded her head.

"Sure."

She was indeed feeling a little hungry.

"Great."

Trying to attract the waiter's attention, Ren raised his hand.

In no time at all, the last waiter arrived. They were greeted by a different waiter than the previous one.

This was to be expected.

After what had happened, there was no way that the previous waiter would have the face to serve them again.

"How can I help you?"

With a bright smile on her face, the waiter greeted the two of them.

The first to order was Ren who picked up the menu and pointed his finger toward a certain item.

"Ehm, I would like to order th—"

Perhaps due to his excitement, while pointing at the menu, Ren's elbow came into contact with his cup and it spilled all over the table.

"Ah, crap."

Ren cursed out loud as he pushed his body back and avoided the liquid from falling all over his body.

His actions clearly startled the waitress as her body jerked back a bit.

It was only upon realizing what had happened that her face turned a little red from embarrassment.

With a wry smile on his face, Ren scratched the side of his ear and looked at the waitress.

"...Can we have the cloth changed?"

"Yes. Please wait a moment."

With a nod of her head, the watress turned around and left.

Staring at the departing waitress, Ren leaned back on his chair and grumbled.

"What luck."

"Thank you."

It was at that moment, however, that Amanda spoke. A warm feeling embraced her as she gazed toward Ren.

'You noticed, didn't you?'

Though she didn't say it aloud, she could clearly understand the intent behind his actions.

Turning his head to look at her, Ren shrugged.

"For what?"

As her smile grew brighter, Amanda shook her head.

"...Nothing. Just thank you."

***

"As expected of a feature from the system. It works flawlessly."

It only took Kevin a few seconds to find Ren after he followed the point on the map.

'Since you've been ignoring my calls, I've got no choice but to go to you. The same goes for Amanda.'

Despite being with Ren, she too ignored his calls as she seemed to have ignored his calls and messages. Forcing him to go directly to them.

Honestly speaking, Kevin had no interest in going to Ren directly.

It was quite a distance from where he was, and he wasn't particularly eager to see his face.

However, he was someone who knew his priorities, and his priorities currently urged him to take whatever happened not too long ago very seriously.

The impending sense of doom he felt before was still lingering before him,

"I have a bad feeling about this..."

Kevin rarely had bad feelings, but when he did, they all tended to come true. The feeling he just experienced was the clearest one he had experienced thus far.

As his thoughts paused there, he checked the map one more time. After that, he picked up his pace.

***

"Where is this?"

Scratching the side of his head, Liam looked at a small piece of paper in his hand. Written on it was an address.

[Ashton city Northern District, Phillion Street 097]

"This should be the place."

Liam checked his GPS. Upon confirming that he was indeed in the right place, he crumpled the paper in his hand.

After that, he stared at the enormous warehouse in the distance.

"This place looks kind of sketchy."

It appeared that the warehouse was the only building within a kilometer radius of the site. As an actual matter of fact, it was quite distant from the city, and Liam wouldn't have made the trip if he hadn't found the letter in his pocket telling him to go here.

That being said...

"Where exactly does the letter come from?"

It was on his way around the city that he found the letter in his pocket. If he had to be honest, he had completely forgotten about it and therefore had no clue as to whom had given it to him.

In spite of that, after deliberating over it for a couple of hours, he decided to head toward the location in the letter.

Surely, it must be something important.

"...I'm starting to regret my decision."

Carefully scrutinizing the warehouse in the distance, Liam was starting to feel that perhaps coming here was a mistake.

The warehouse looked rather abandoned, and badly maintained, with crevices on the side of the building, and spiderwebs covering the windows. In other words, it wasn't the most appealing building that one could see.

Lowering his head to once again glance at the crumpled paper in his hand, Liam eventually sighed and put the paper away.

"Whatever, since I'm already here, I might as well just go."

As he stepped forward, he began to walk toward the building. While silently murmuring to himself, he yawned loudly.

"...If it's a trap, I hope they are strong."

It would truly be a pity if the opponents were weak.

***

"Do you want to go here after?"

"This looks nice."

While waiting for our orders to arrive, I presented Amanda with different spots we could go to after eating lunch.

Although it was unbearably hot outside, there were still a lot of fun places to go to. One such example was the ice skating ring in a mall nearby.

Apparently, it was a popular location to go to. Especially with the heat outside.

"Hm, Ren."

It was while we were choosing our next location that I faintly heard Amanda's voice.

Raising my head to look at her, I asked.

"What is it?"

"...About the guy that we've offended."

Upon his mention, my mood soured a bit.

"What about him?"

"Have a look."

Flipping her phone around, Amanda showed me a photo. On it was the image of an individual who closely resembled the guy from before.

"Micheal Liverton, <C> rank Hero, and the rising start of the Starlight guild?"

Reading his description, my face turned strange. The same could be said for Amanda who leaned her body forward to get a better look at the image displayed on her phone.

At the moment, our faces were only a couple of inches apart. Since Amanda's focus was on the image on her phone, she didn't seem to have noticed this.

Pointing at the screen, she spoke.

"He has cleared several <C> ranked dungeons and is predicted to be a ranked Hero in the future? He seems to be as skilled as some of our most promising Heroes."

"...I guess."

The more I read, the more I was left impressed by the guy's resume.

It was pretty good.

That said, it wasn't anything impressive compared to the likes of Jin, Amanda, and the others. He was just a very talented human.

The likes of Kevin and the others had long left the human realm.

Still, for him to be a part of Jin's guild...

"Ren, your face."

"Hm?"

Distracting me out of my thoughts was Amanda as she shook her head when she looked at me.

Raising my hands to touch my face, I wondered.

"Is there something wrong with my face?"

"No."

Amanda shook her head once more before pointing her finger at my face.

"It's your expression."

Before I had a chance to understand what she was trying to say, she turned her phone around and I was finally able to catch a glimpse of myself.

"Ah."

From there I was able to notice the smirk on my face. Covering my mouth with my fist, I coughed.

"Keummm..enough of that"

Placing my hand over her phone, I lowered it and glanced at her from the side of my eye.

"...Pretend that you didn't see that."

"No point. You've done it more times than you can count."

"Eh? Really?"

"Yeah."

This...

How come I was only made aware of this fact now?

'Actually, never mind, Smallsnake has said the same thing multiple times in the past. I guess this is a bad habit of mine.'

"In any case, since he works for Jin, things will be much easier."

In fact, things wouldn't have escalated to this point had he been able to recognize Amanda and I.

Unfortunately, I was wearing black contact lenses at the time.

This, along with my white hair, only made me look like a Ren lookalike. Not the real thing.

The reason for this was because I didn't want to interact with people, and as far as I could tell, it worked like a charm as no one bothered me. the reason why no one was coming at me could also be because I lashed out at everyone during the press conference, but I honestly didn't care.

I hated attention anyways.

The same couldn't be said for Amanda, who was in fact a lot more famous than me.

However, with the individual in question being such a prolific hunter, he probably spent most of his time inside of dungeons and most likely didn't know who the both of us were.

"Excuse me."

In the midst of our discussion, the waiter finally arrived at our table with two plates of food.

Instantly a nice fragrance lingered in the air as Amanda leaned back in her seat.

Similarly leaning back, and catching a whiff of the smell coming from the food, I was forced to smack my lips together to stop myself from salivating.

As I stared at Amanda, her lips were pursed in a similar manner as mine.

My hand reached for the fork next to me.

"Shall we?"

"Mhm."

As she picked up the fork, Amanda nodded.

While we both were about to dig into our food, from the corner of my eye, I spotted a figure bursting into the restaurant.

Opening my mouth, I lowered my fork and smiled.

'Fuck.'