First thing Noah did once he got back to town was hit the bath. Only once he soaked thoroughly did he feel like a human again. After that he went to the adventurers guild to report back after the mission.
There were just a few people inside as it was almost lunch time and adventurers went to the town to find a place to eat.
"Mr. Lewended, hello." Said Miss Louriat with a weary voice. Her usual cheerfulness was gone, showing just how much trouble she had to deal with in the aftermath of this night's event.
"I just came to report on my return from a guild order mission."
"Ye, thank you. We are a bit busy now. So the price that would be paid is going to be calculated at a later day. Also I heard you made quite a contribution? This will need further investigation and calculation of achievements."
"Alright. I wish you good luck."
"Thank you."
"Umm, may I ask for some advice?"
"Yes?"
"Do you perhaps know a nice place to have lunch? I usually spent my day on hunts and came back only to have dinner at the inn, but as I have a free day I would like to try the best cuisines this town has to offer."
"Yeah…places for lunch huh?"
"Oh, I feel untactful. Please forget it. I see that Miss Louriat is very busy it was stupid of me to bother you with this when you have so much to deal with." Said Noah hurriedly seeing her bothered face.
"No, no, Mr.Lewenred, I was just thinking that I have not had a bite to eat today yet. Lunch sounds like a good idea. Would it be too unladylike of me if I'd ask to join you for lunch?"
"Lunch? With me?" Asked Noah surprised.
"Umm, yeah. I will of course recommend a few nice places if you are against…" Said Miss Louriat a bit reserved.
"No, I would be very delighted to have lunch with Miss Louriat. Do you want me to wait for you?"
"Oh. That's good then." Said Miss Louriat with a shy smile. "I will call my colleague to replace me and we can go. Just a minute alright?"
"Please don't hurry Miss Louriat." Said Noah reassuringly.
Miss Louriat turned and went to the back room behind the guild counter with the words "Stuff Only" written on the door, but stopped in the next moment peering somewhere into the depth of the hall.
Noah noticed her strange action and turned to look where she was looking to. However he saw nothing there. Only a wall and shadows of the hall. Did she see a ghost?
Lina Louriat looked into the shadows with a strange look on her face. She could swear she just saw something peculiar from that empty space in the hall, however when she turned to look at it, the strange feeling she had has disappeared.
She shook head and saw Noah looking at her questioningly, so she smiled at him and went into the back room.
"Marry, can you take my place? I am going to lunch." Said Miss Louriat just opening the door to say the phrase and turn away to walk toward Noah.
"What? Now? Lina!"
"Yes. Now! I worked the whole night and I am tired. If the guild manager has problems with it he can bring a complaint to me later. See ya." Said Miss Louriat to the girl running out of the back room after her. Girl looked at Noah that walked out of the guild with Lina and was surprised. Soon her gossip spirit was ignited.
"Where did Miss Louriat go?" Asked the guild manager thirty minutes later, coming out to the hall.
"On a date." Said the girl behind the counter, without turning up her eyes from the documents she was writing on.
"I see…" Said guild manager and a dead silence spread in the hall.
""DATE?"" Screamed adventurers that just came from lunch not long ago.
A few men rushed to the counter like mad.
"Miss Louriat? On the date? With who?" They asked, pushing away the guild manager that wanted to ask further questions.
"A nice looking young man." Said girl.finally looking up from her documents. "Oh and she looked so happy. You all should have seen her smile. Who would have known our unconquerable guild secretary would have a man she would smile at like that." Said Marry sinking men around her into despair.
"That bastard! Who is he?" Screamed people in the hall.
"Hey what's going on?" Asked a few more men that just came into the guild."
"Our miss beautiful secretary went on a date with some bastard!"
"WHAT?" Screamed the shocked men.
Soon rumors of the unconquerable miss secretary being taken down spread in town.
******
"So…" Said Noah looking with a strange look at how the woman in front of him attacked the food as if a horde of hungry wolves.
"You've been working all night, Miss Louriat?"
"Lina." Said the woman. "Call me Lina please when we are outside the guild , Mr.Lewen…no, Noah. Let's talk casually Noah. The guild rules can be a bit tiresome sometimes, so at least outside the guild let's forget the rules please."
"Alright, Lina." Said Noah. "Well I heard these rules of strictly official talking within the guild were done for a reason." Said Noah.
"Well, yes. Many nobles that come to the guild tend to think they can disrespect everyone or they can do whatever the want. Like for example harass with their annoying pestering guild attendant girls that they took a liking to. Guild rules prevent that. Strictly official discussions and work related talk only rules, allows us girls to send off annoying admirers without them being able to use their noble power to pressure us. If they go out of bound, the guild will find a way to punish them. Not many would like to risk getting to the black list of the guild."
"I hope I won't get in trouble for bringing you out for lunch then." Smiled Noah
"No, not from the guild at least…."
"There is something scary in the words you have left unsaid, there Miss….Lina." Said Noah, a bit worried.
"Thank you, for getting me on the lunch though, Noah. If I stayed a moment longer there, I would have gotten sick leave or something."
"So much work?"
"Much is a weak word to explain. Preparations for funerals, counting reparations to the families of the diseased, making reports to the guilds main office. Also we have to search for suitable teams among the D-classes to raise so that we could close up the gap of C-class teams' loss. They will be undoubtedly subpar in capability, so we have to filter out C-class missions to give them the easiest until they grow in experience. We have to reassign experienced C-class teams to the most important places in Labyrinth. We have to be in contact with the Dryad family as they also feel agitated from these events. We also await the arrival of Royal investigators and prepare a report of all kinds of evidence to not be made a scapegoat by the local nobles. Villagers now feel agitated. We get reports of suspicions of gangs in their region almost from villages in the region right now…" Said Lina starting to rub her temple feeling that she is starting to have a headache.
"Yeah, that's….much." Said Noah looking with pity at her.
"Sorry. I am blabbering. I did not come with you to pour out my agitation at you." Said Lina noticing his gaze.
"No, I don't mind. Everyone needs to talk it out some time. Feel free if you need to."
"You are really strange you know Noah?"
"How so?"
"Well you are unlike the other adventurers in many ways. You are always polite and sympathetic. You behave very refined as if you are well educated in etiquette like a noble. However, you don't have the usual haughtiness and arrogance of a noble. Also you always talk very respectfully even to ordinary people. It makes me wonder where you come from and why are you here?"
"You make me red, Miss Louriat." Said Noah smiling. "Well I was raised to be a decent person. I respected my father a lot. He was my idol. The respect and love of the people he carried was very telling."
"I knew it. So you are a noble." Said Lina looking at Noah while absentmindedly smudging food all over the plate with a fork.
"I was…you could say. Not anymore I guess."
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"Ho? So there would not be any scandal because of a noble son having lunch with a girl from the street?"
"No." Said Noah with a smile. "Not anymore."
"Is it too inappropriate to ask what happened?"
"I was loved by my father but not by any other family. When he died…my family tried to get rid of me."
"Get rid of it?" Asked Lina with a serious face placing down her fork.
"In the worst way, I guess. Now I don't have a family. So I am here to start anew. New life of a new person." Said Noah
"I see. I am sorry to hear that."
"Don't be. I am quite content with my new life. Maybe this even turned out to be the best thing that happened to me." Said Noah with a smile.
Lina Louriat watched him carefully while he talked.
*****
"I see." Said guild manager sitting behind his office table with his elbows on the table top and hands in hold at his chin. "That's what happened to him. That explains his attempt to hide identity. You believe him?"
"I did not feel any falsehood in him." Said Miss Louriat.
"Still there are circumstances we do not understand, so I suggest we continue the investigation."
"I understand." Said Lina
"Also look at this." Said guild manager handing her a report.
"This is?"
"Margarets report on the events."
Lina Louriat read it carefully while.standing and her eyebrows creased upward.
"This is…" Said Lina slowly as if searching for the right words
"Very interesting. And motivating to investigate him even more in depth. However we must be as secretive as we can. This information soon will spread through the whole kingdom."
"I see how that could be the case. This will also be troublesome. We did not report to the main office about his…fraud. They will ask for an investigation. What are we going to do?"
"I am still thinking about this. What worries me more though is royal investigators. You can't lie to them. They are very sensitive to that. If they sense something strange they will make an in depth investigation and uncover what we hide. We must be clear yet not open too much."
"I understand."
"So how was the date?"
"Huh? Why should I answer that?"
"Well everyone is interested so I just wanted to use an opportunity to get some insider info"
"Who are these everyone?" Asked Lina with a serious voice.
"Everyone….is…"
"Is?"
"Whole town….I guess."
"How the hell….? MARRY! That little gossiping….I'll kill her!" Said Lina with anger and stormed out of the office.
"Oops." Muttered Guild manager when his office door slammed shut.
*****
"Auuu. Lina you did not have to be so hard." Said Marry with tears in her eyes, while other girls in room laughed at her.
"Don't squeeze me those fake tears, you gossipy woman!" Said angry Lina.
"I didn't mean to. Really. They just misunderstood me. I am innocent, Lina believes me!"
"As if I'd ever believe you." Said lina scribbling on the papers.
"But anyway. How'd the date go?"
"It wasn't a date. Just lunch. We just talked."
"That's what people on dates do too right?"
Loud sound of a pencil snap spread in the room
"Sorry, sorry." Quickly said Marry apologetically. "I was just curious. You never spoke with anyone more than hello and a few phrases. What's so different about him?"
"Nothing. I just wanted to eat and he searched for a nice spot to eat."
"I see. So it really wasn't a date."
"Yeah this time it wasn't."
"This time?" Asked Marry sensing some good gossip scoop.
"Well I did think it might turn out this way, so I thought what the hell, why not and agreed to a dinner with him."
"You what?" Asked Marry and all the other girls in the room.
"Tell us everything!" Screamed the girls.
******
/Date huh?/ Thought Noah. /That's a date right, system?/
*My logical calculation shows a high probability of that being the case.*
/I know right? I mean she did say we should repeat it some time again as if in passing. But I replied so seriously like an idiot, saying that I would be only available in the evening after hunts. Maybe she just was too awkward to refute my misunderstanding? So she agreed to not make me look like an idiot./
*System analysis showed that these gestures that she made after you mentioned evening dinner together, * Said system showing a screen with the repeat of what Noah saw at lunch. On the repeat Lina shyly removes a hair strand behind her ear with a tint of red on her cheeks. *Suggest that she was looking forward to it.*
/So it's a date./
*Yes.*
Noah lay on his bed full of smiles.