"Let's work together."
When that statement came out of Leisha's mouth, Shien fell silent.
Immediately after, Shien silently stood up, turned about, and moved to leave without delay.
"Wait wait wait! Just who the heck would end up turning about and leaving without any hesitation the moment they heard about working together!?"
Leisha instantly flashed to right behind Shien and grabbed onto him while shouting. Her expression was instantly filled with disbelieving shock.
"Let me go!" Shien was obstinate though, "I could tell from just that that this is going to be something unbelievable troublesome. If I keep on listening, things will very likely end up at ta point where I have no choice but to deal with it. In that case, the best way to deal with that is to not listen in the first place, so let me go already!"
As he said that, Shien moved to throw off Leisha's ahnd.
Surprisingly though, Leisha seemed to have known that her strength wouldn't be able to match that of Shien's, so she just glomped on and wrapped her whole body around him.
With that, Shien ended up experiencing Leisha's full bodied hug. No only did he feel certain very soft and comfortable sensations from the places that were touching, but he even smell a certain alluring scent from the close proximity.
"You…"
This time, it was Shein's turn to be shocked.
"What about me?" Leisha spoke angrily, "I'm not letting you go! Turning around and leaving while the other person is still speaking? This is the first time that I'm met someone like you!"
No, it if was someone else, Shien wouldn't have actually gone this far either.
No matter what, at the very least, Shien did understand basic maners.
Only, given that Leisha was obviously an existence filled with a ton of troubles, Shien really wanted to keep away from her. Thus, if his rudeness could piss her off enough to get her to leave, then that would have been great.
Even now, having received such an intimate embrace from such a beautiful girl and being in an interesting position in various sort of ways, Shien still never changed his mind about running away.
"I just wanted to help Vivian get some useful information, not diving headlong into your schemes. That's why, let go already."
Shien grabbed Leisha's head and tried to push her away.
Leisha forcibly fought back stubbornly though.
"I'm not letting go! Unless you literally twist my head off! Otherwise, I'd definitely never… Ow ow ow! Stop! It's going to break! You really are twisting!? This isn't even an issue of whether or not you're a Hero but whether or not you're a man! Why you!"
The once stubborn Leisha screamed out pitifully. Her head that Shien was grabbing received completely merciless force and was almost twisted off. That was something Leisha couldn't believe, and she was nearly reduced to tears.
"Just because you look a bit cute and you're a girl, you'd end up receiving gentle and accommodating treatment from men. I'm already tired of that kind of cliché." Shien gave a cold laugh, "If you don't let go, I'll be really twisting with my serious strengh next you know?"
That threatening tone made Leisha's face turn pale.
Then, Leisha hurriedly and let go before glaring at Shien with anger and hate.
On Shien's side though, he was acting very refreshed, as if he had awakened some kind of unbelievable fetish. It was seriously terrifying.
Leisha's chest heaved up and down. She gave the impression that she seriously wanted to take a pound or two of flesh from Shien with her bare teeth.
After a moment, Leisha finally managed calm her grievances and took a few deep breaths.
"I was being serious."
Leisha could only say that.
"I was being serious too."
Shien unhesitatingly replied with those words.
Leisha could admit it. She seriously wanted to tear that man to pieces with her bare teeth.
However, Leisha still ended up letting all of that go with a sigh.
"I wasn't joking around with you." Leisha got serious and looked at Shien, "That thing absolutely mustn't fall into the Old Demon Faction's hands. Otherwise, never mind Lamdrion, even this country or even the world itself would be in serious trouble."
Shien's eyes twitched at that.
… So it was that kind of development after all, huh?
No matter what kind of story it was, the moment something major was going to happen involving the "town", "country", or "world", what follows was definitely going to be a series of events that were both cliched and campy.
The most frustrating thing about it though was the fact that if something like that actually did happen, then just like as Shien said earlier, it would end up a situation where he'd have to get involved.
And yet, there are critics who would criticize such developments in stories as a "Saint"*. That kind of stuff made Shien back before want to call them out on not knowing just what the term meant.
Shein himself didn't want to be a saint. Or rather, no one really wanted to be that.
However, now that this really did happen, Shien could at least admit to himself that he really couldn't just sit back and watch it all happen without doing anything about it.
Now…
"Sigh…"
Shien sighed once again.
"I'll at least hear it out." Shien narrowed his eyes and so spoke, "At the very least, I'll decide after listening first."
"That's more like it." Leisha instantly let out a breath in obvious relief. She even went as far as wiping the sweat off her forehead, "I was seriously worried that you would really just up and leave."
"If anything seems wrong, I still will." Shien gave her a warning, "Right now, all I'm planning on is to hear you out first. As for your proposal to work together, that will have to wait until afterwards."
"That's good enough for now." Leisha gave a smile, "Well then, you can sit down now right?"
Shien muttered to himself a bit before sighing once again. Only then did he finally approach and sit down again at his previous seat.
At that moment, Lasha who had been waiting at the side came forward again.
"Please, have some tea."
As if what had just happened was just some playing around, even though Lasha had personally witnessed all that had transpired between Shien and Leisha, she didn't mind at all and continued without emotions to pour steaming hot tea into the two's cups.
Shien could only think that the maid might be even more amazing than he had thought.
Leisha on the other hand seemed to be used to Lasha's calmness and just brought up her own teacup like nothing's the matter.
And then…
"Not long from now, people from the Old Demon Faction will probably be coming to Lamdrion to rescue Jillian."
Leisha got straight into the heart of the matter.
"Rescue?"
Shien glanced up at that.
"That's right." Leisha finally seemed to have calmed down, "No matter what, Jillian is one of the Old Demon Faction's important talents. His level is as high as 77, so there's no way that the Old Demon Faction would just sit by and watch as someone with his battle power get done away with by humans."
Given that, it was only natural for there to be a rescue attempt.
"Plus, given the fact that I appeared here, the one to come then will probably not be some minor minion. There's even the likelihood that one of the major groups within the Old Demon Faction appear, and that they would be willing to go as far as storm this town in order to try to take what I have."
Leisha so explained.
"If it was before, then I'd definitely just leave and not try to take them head on."
"But this time, since there's a major unexpected factor in you, I want to take this opportunity to teach them a lesson."
"Basically, I want to work with you to destroy a major group of the Old Demon Faction."
*TN: "Saint" (direct literal translation being "Holy Mother") is a colloquial Chinese internet slang describing a goody-two-shoes type character who would go far out of their way to help and/or save anyone and everyone no matter the personal costs.
