73: No Means No

No Means No

"Good morning, Meridel!" I greeted the woman standing in front of the tavern, a bucket of fresh fruit held in her arms.

Medium-length black hair with doe-like brown eyes, followed up by the regular female attire given to those who are employees of The Parched Hound. While the bottom half might have covered everything, the top half displayed quite a bit of cleavage from the woman, and that was most likely for the purpose of attracting more customers.

However, if a woman was uncomfortable with wearing something like that, they could also go for something else that covered more skin. It seemed like she didn't really mind it all that much though.

As I got closer to the bustling building, I could've sworn that Meridel actually pushed her breasts out a little bit more, which nearly brought a smile to my face.

"Oh! Hey, Dante... it's good to see you again." Meridel said, trying her best not to fidget while standing in front of me.

It was entertaining to see how a woman that was twice my age could still become somewhat nervous around me. Obviously, I already knew that she's had a crush on me for a few months, which is around the time that we both met each other.

That was because Meridel was actually Shalu's childhood best friend.

(For reference.)

Maybe it was due to the fact that I probably didn't act how my current biological age made it seem. I mean, I started making business deals and changing people's lives at the age of seven years old in this world. Not to mention, the worlds that I travel to are obviously going to have different standards and laws.

For example, Helena told me that it wasn't uncommon for wealthy men to marry girls that were under the age of eighteen. There's even been some cases where an unborn daughter has been put into an arranged marriage contract, which is basically the equivalent to giving her away for monetary gain.

As a result, those girls are usually put into the role of a sex slave that's sole purpose is to push out babies for most of their life.

Honestly, it was depressing to think about.

"It's good to see you too. Also, you might want to fix your top soon... it's about to slip." I told the woman, approaching the entrance as I did so.

Meridel's eyes widened before she looked down in order to check for herself, noticing that I was telling the truth. However, that caused her to glance back at me with a blush on her face. "W-Why were you looking at them in the first place?"

"I like your breasts."

The straightforward reply made the woman's face turn a rosy pink color as she licked her lips, bashfully turning away to continue doing her job with a small smile.

'Duh.'

Stepping into the tavern, I was greeted with a business packed full of customers.

Honestly, it was really uplifting just to see how much all of these new changes that I had been making recently was beginning to affect the people around me.

I went and sat down at a random booth in a corner of the spacious room, quietly going around a couple of people that happened to be standing in my way, which they politely apologized for. However, I didn't really mind it all that much, so long as they weren't directly trying to aggravate other people in order to get a reaction out of them.

Not long after I had gotten comfortable in my seat, a man that I didn't recognize came over with a menu in his hand, which he placed down onto the table. "I'll come back in a bit to get your order. Take all the time that you need, sir." He respectfully bowed, quickly leaving to continue fulfilling his exhausting tasks.

He must've been a new employee.

I barely even glanced at the menu, which was due to the fact that I usually got the same thing whenever I came here.

While it most likely would've seemed odd for such a young child to be alone in a place like this, nearly all of the residents living in the village already knew about my close relationship with Drist Clover, the long-time owner of the tavern.

However, not many people knew that I had also become a co-owner of this place after it underwent a dramatic change. It was something that he quickly agreed to when I laid out my plan to him, which was understandable given the particular situation that the man was in.

There wasn't really any other way to put it...

If it wasn't for me, Drist and his daughter would have most likely lost the tavern, as well as the roof that they had over their head.

I completely changed both of their lives for the better.

There's been a few times where all of it has made me feel unsure about myself, sometimes even apprehensive to a certain degree.

For example, when I try to do things with the purpose of helping other people, I've noticed that I still find a way to somehow benefit myself. It doesn't happen all the time but there are rare moments when I'll notice my actions during or after the occurrence.

Sometimes it makes me second-guess about the kind of person that I am.

As I was stuck in my thoughts, there was an entirely different conversation going on at the other side of the room, which actually caught my attention once it slowly began to escalate in volume.

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~Nobody's POV~

Shalu wasn't having a very good day.

Wearing an outfit similar to the one that Meridel had on, the purple-eyed girl traversed the packed tables with a practiced ease.

(For reference.)

A man that reeked of smoke and tobacco had been leering at her for two hours straight, never taking a hint when it was given that she didn't have any interest in hanging out with him, all the while drinking himself into a stupor.

That only served to worsen all of his attempts at flirting with her.

As she walked by his table with a tray full of empty glasses and plates, the man smacked her on the ass with a hard swat, which startled her so much that she actually lost balance and unintentionally dropped everything as a result.

While most of it stayed intact, one of the glasses shattered onto the floor, which practically sucked all of the sound out of the room as everyone turned their heads in the direction of the loud noise.

Shalu whirled around after that, face scrunched up with red-hot anger running through her veins as she proceeded to incessantly wail insults at the man.

Eventually, it got to the point where he actually started getting upset at her for not complying with his requests, which caused him to stand up with the intention of putting the woman in her place.

Raising a hand above his head, the sleazy lecher made sure to put all of the strength possible into the upcoming strike. However, as it was mere inches away from making contact with the woman's face, a large empty beer mug slammed into his chin before the glass also shattered as a result.

A decently-sized fragment of broken glass painfully embedded itself into the man's left cheekbone area, right under his eye, and three other smaller versions of the same thing quickly found their way in the sides of his neck. None of them were actually life-threatening, but the power that had been used to swing the large beer mug into his face was enough to send the man a few feet back onto the floor.

He laid there motionless, obviously knocked out and truly unaware of what had actually hit him in the first place.

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~Dante's POV~

"...Thank you."

I let out an exasperated sigh, taking one last bite out of my delicious sandwich before placing it back down on the table.

"This is the fourth time that you've said that, Shalu. Like I said before, you're welcome. There's no need for you to keep telling me the same thing over and over again."

She grabbed my hand from across the table, squeezing it with a firm grip as she released a huff of frustration. "I'm being serious, Dante... it really means a lot to me what you did back there."

This damn woman...

"Yes, I'm aware of that. It's not like I did all of it for you though. His stupid drunken antics were beginning to piss me off as well. He just really didn't know when to take a fucking hint." I shook my head, retracting my hand before picking up the sandwich once again. "Hopefully, the guy has learned his lesson by now."

Shalu leaned back in her chair, simply deciding to dig into her own plate of food as we spent the rest of our time together conversing about my pending quests.

In simpler terms, the two of us were going back and forth on which one I should do next.

Eventually, Shalu pulled out a letter before handing it over to me that went into detail about a job that she thought wouldn't be too much of a problem to take care of.

Due to the fact that Drist wasn't working today because of personal reasons, I made sure to say goodbye to Shalu and Meridel before leaving the establishment on a full stomach.

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Running across the field with a pounding heart, I dodged the onslaught of daggers thrown my way, courtesy of the white haired maid that was standing at the other side of our backyard with an emotionless mask covering her face.

I was wearing nothing but a loose-fitting pair of black pants, which was issued by Helena for me to put on because it supposedly allowed for a lot more in the context of mobility.0

The last dagger was able to nick me in the side of my torso, causing me to stumble and fall to the ground with a messy landing. I groaned as the pain quickly faded and I pushed myself to get back up in order to start moving around again.

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~Norvella's POV~

"Stay on your feet, Dante! In a real life situation like this, you need to make sure that they don't hinder your movement. That fall might've costed your life just then if it was an actual enemy..." Norvella trailed off, making it sound ominous at the end on purpose.

Dante quickly ducked under another blade that continued to fly over his head with a dangerous intent, the young man shimmering with a thin layer of sweat covering his body as he tried his best to keep up with her blurred movements.

"Yeah, yeah... I got it already!" He yelled as the next wave of throwing knives caused his muscles to strain with an onset of fatigue.

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~Dante's POV~

With a firm grip on the handle, I threw my only knife directly at a target that was placed about thirty feet away from my position. The blade sunk into the target with ease, which sent a feeling of relief through my body.

I had built up a bit of a sweat from being out here for six hours, which was more so due to the fact that I have been really trying to apply myself to the things that I'm currently attempting to learn.

There have always been a couple days out of every week now that has felt a little more taxing on my mind than others, but I think that's because of my unusual circumstances to be fair.

Wiping the sweat off of my forehead, I sat down on the grass with a labored sigh, simply allowing myself to catch a quick break until I was put through my paces once again.

During the past three months, I've gone through the very difficult process of training with Norvella for six hours a day, four times a week in both swordsmanship and knife throwing. Individually, they got two days so that I would be able to learn them both with about the same amount of time between them.

That usually left me with three days to rest my body for the next week that I would repeat all of it over again. However, that didn't account for my other daily activities, like the quests that I took from the tavern in order to increase my positive reputation around the village.

Some of those required more of a hands-on approach. For example, I helped an old man out last week that wasn't able to load a few cargo boxes onto a wagon, and I did all of that for him as a result. They were quite heavy as well.

It was only until just recently that I had started getting used to certain aspects of my new life.

However, that didn't mean I had to like it...

It wasn't as if I had much of a choice to begin with.

It was either I got off my ass and got stronger a different way, or I simply wallowed in my own body's incompetence to produce enough mana for magic that I would've ended up as another weakling to those who stood in higher positions of power.

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