"Big Brother!" Colette was no longer able to hold back her overflowing feelings and threw herself to the chubby young man, who readily caught her with open arms.
"It's nice to see you again, Colette," Lux said as he gave the adorable little Dwarf a hug. "Did you miss me?"
Instead of answering, Colette lightly pounded Lux's stomach with her clenched fist, making the Half-Elf smile.
Clearly, the adorable dwarf still hadn't forgiven him completely for keeping them in the dark about his plan to fake his death.
A few seconds later, Helen also joined her best friend and went to hug Lux as well. As soon as she felt his warmth, the tears in her eyes poured like rain.
Although the other three tried to hold back their tears, Matty, Andy, and Axel still teared up as they gazed at the Half-Elf whom they looked up to like a Big Brother.
If not for the fact that they were in a public area, they might have also joined Colette and Helen in hugging the Half-Elf, who had disguised himself as a chubby young man.
Lux felt extremely guilty after seeing the young Dwarves' expressions, so he simply stood his ground and allowed Colette and Helen to use his clothes to wipe away their snot and tears.
Eiko, who felt out of place, jumped off from the table and landed on Colette's head. She then pressed her head against Lux's stomach, joining the group hug.
The Dwarves in the tavern looked at this scene with amused expressions on their faces. It was very easy to see at a glance that the humans and the little Dwarves knew each other and that their relationship looked quite close.
"Let's go back to your table first," Lux said. A few minutes had passed, and the two dwarf girls were still hugging him. "I'm also feeling hungry, so let's all have lunch together."
Colette and Helen nodded before grabbing Lux's hands and pulling him toward their table. Naturally, the two girls sat beside Lux, with Eiko perched on top of his head like always.
Matty and the others had no complaints about this and simply stared at him as if they were afraid that he would disappear again without saying goodbye.
"Relax. I'm not going anywhere," Lux replied.
"How long will you be staying with us, Big Brother?" Colette asked.
"Two weeks," Lux answered. "There are places I need to go, and I only came here to see you guys and apologize for what happened in the past. However, this is not the place to do that. Let's talk after we've finished having our lunch."
Lux then gave Robin a side-long glance. He didn't expect to see the low-profile Prince of the Kingdom of Gweliven with Colette and the others.
The timing was also good because he needed to talk to Robin about a few things and ask the latter to pass a message to his sister, Princess Anastasia, telling her that he would like to talk to her before he left the Kingdom of Gweliven in two weeks' time.
Robin, who received Lux's stare, arched an eyebrow as if sensing that the Half-Elf needed him for something. But since this was not the right time and place to talk, he simply remained silent and observed the scene in front of him like a bystander.
"Waitress, can I take an order?" Lux asked.
"Coming," the waitress replied as she returned to Colette's table to take the chubby young man's order.
"I'd like to order two servings of the Chef's signature dish, Porkchop Surprise," Lux said.
"I want, too!" Eiko spoke in order to let her Papa know that she wanted the dish as well.
"Three Porkchop Surprise then." Lux smiled at the waitress, who smiled back at him before going to the kitchen to inform the Chef of their orders.
Sid briefly glanced at the waitress' back before shifting his gaze back to the table, where several dishes were already served.
Amir had already told them that the most popular inn inside the town was part of Twilight Rain's undercover intelligence network in Wisp Tree Town.
Usually, the most common establishments served as the Dark Guild's base of operation, which meant that they were in enemy territory the moment they set foot inside the inn.
Aside from the Maid and the Tavern owner, there was also a Merchant, a Stall Keeper, and a Butcher, who were all under Twilight Rain's employ.
These people were the Agents that had been planted in the Dungeon Town, which served as one of the important hubs of the Kingdom of Gweliven.
Agents that were ready to act when their superiors gave them an order.
After thinking long and hard, Lux decided to let the Order of the Griffin handle this case because his Blood Contracts were limited.
If possible, he wanted to use them to bind an Elder of Twilight Rain or someone who had great influence in the Dark Guild, utilizing them as his eyes, ears, and mouths inside the nefarious organization that wanted to take over the Dwarven Kingdom by any means necessary.
'One step at a time,' Lux thought. 'There's no need to hurry since I can't stay in the Kingdom of Gweliven for a long time. However, I still need to deal with the people that are targeting Colette and Aina before I go.'
Actually, after making Amir one of his double agents, an idea had already formed inside Lux's head.
Since Scarlet and Amir had relatives who happened to be Elders of the Dark Guild, he planned to use them to make these high-ranking people go to certain places, where he and his Undead Legion would be waiting for them.
Of course, although Scarlet and Amir were working for him now, that didn't mean that they would betray their relatives. Even Scarlet, who was loyal to him only because she was revived by Lux using the coffin, would think twice before letting her Grandpa become one of Lux's pawns.
In order to find an effective way to deal with the current situation, Lux asked his Guild Members for advice in the chat.
"Just kill every Assassin that comes," Cethus replied. "As long as everyone they send keeps on dying, they will think twice about sending more."
"That will not always work, Cethus," the Commander of the Stronghold of Norria, Thoram, commented. "While it may help solve the problem in the short term, Twilight Rain will certainly learn from their mistake and send a force that will be enough to decimate an entire city.
"We're talking about High-Rankers moving in groups here. Maybe you can deal with a few low-rankers, but when those Heavy Weights start to put their foot down, you will be unable to do anything about it."
Keelan, who was busy laying out the foundation of their Branch Guild, Ars Goetia, gave his opinion about the matter.
"Usually, the Main Guild Headquarters of the Adventurer's Guild in the Kingdom of Gweliven would issue us missions when things started to get out of control," Keelan explained. "However, there are occasions when even our strongest adventurers feel helpless and that is if 'many things' are happening at the same time.
"To give you some idea, we may be ordered to help repair a broken bridge or dam in a territory within the kingdom. That is all fine and good, but when another problem arises, let's say a plague, famine, or even war, we are forced to divert our attention to much more important things, instead of dealing with the smaller ones."
Cai, who had just finished her lunch also joined the conversation, and the words she said made Lux realize that the answer to his problem was really simple.
"Just like Guildmaster Keelan said, how about you just create trouble for Twilight Rain and divert their attention to you?" Cai proposed. "That Amir fellow said that there is a Merchant in that town that is part of Twilight Rain's umbrella, right? Why don't you start with him? As a Merchant, he will certainly know the other Merchants belonging to the Dark Guild.
"If all of their Merchants are being attacked, killed, or kidnapped, they would certainly focus all their attention on finding the culprit. Also, it will be best if you don't ask the Royal Family for help. I'm pretty sure that there are also spies working for the Royal Family. As long as the King is kept in the dark, the spies will also be kept in the dark.
"This will then make Twilight Rain think that someone was purposely targeting their information network and uprooting it from the ground up. As long as you are smart and make these attacks at regular intervals, the focus of those bastards will no longer fall on Aina and Colette."
Lux thought that this proposal was sound, so he decided to capture the Merchant in Wisp Tree Town and give him a tickle session to make him spill the beans.
Unlike the Assassins who were trained to commit suicide when captured, Merchants were different. They had more to lose, and they certainly didn't want to die.
As long as Lux could get some names from that person, he would task Sid and Shax to launch a covert operation that would make the Dark Guild feel as if another organization was trying to challenge their rule.
