“Do you remember the day when Maki got so frustrated about losing to a kid in archery?” Arisa brings up another embarrassing topic about me, they’ve been talking about every time I did something inappropriate or weird for almost an hour now, and the worst part is that I’m barely included in the conversation, I’m just a listener to my own life.

  “I remember it, he asked for a rematch and lost again. I had never seen him so sad and shocked.” Marga nudges my shoulder with her right arm to remind me even more of that feeling.

  “Thinking about it, he has a lot of moments where he behaves like a normal kid.” Sol laughs in a more controlled way.

  Brendu has also shared some embarrassing experiences from our daily life, all I can do is laugh along with them to lighten the mood.

  “I’ll be back in a bit, I’m going with Matt and Ridon.” They appear right in my field of vision, both looking at me while raising their beers.

  “Are you having a hard time?” Matt greets me with a question.

  “Not really.” I let out a sigh, it used to be something like this before, I’m already quite used to it.

  “Dealing with women is complicated, I’d rather fight monsters, it’s easier.” Ridon looks over my shoulder. “I already have trouble dealing with one, I can’t imagine four.” He puts his hand on my shoulder.

  “Don’t forget their status, that must make it twice as complicated.” Matt seems to be enjoying my situation a little.

  “It’s not that bad, usually it’s all peace and love, sometimes there’s just chaos. That’s the nice part of relationships.” I look both of them in the eyes. “But you’re right, sometimes I’d rather fight several monsters at the same time than deal with them when they’re angry.” Hundreds of times they’ve tried to hit me, the one who succeeds the most is Brendu.

  Matt’s girlfriend went back to her town around this time to visit her family, she’s the daughter of a baronet, and Ridon’s girlfriend didn’t want to come because she’s not used to this kind of situation, she’s the daughter of a wealthy merchant.

  The next hour I spent jumping from group to group greeting everyone. I’m happy to know the entire Owl group is doing well, all of them hold quite high positions within the city guard, they’re a group for hunting matters, but they’re separated in different towns most of the time.

  Being at the edge of the Sapphire rank has placed them pretty high. It’s very likely some of them could move up to the next rank, others would need external help from doctors or powerful elixirs to repair the damage to their cubes if they want to ascend in the future. I’m sure my family could help them if they see it necessary, gaining a Ruby rank is worth much more.

  The night kept moving forward, some people start to leave because they have responsibilities tomorrow, little by little the guests are leaving the party and even I’m about to go. Tomorrow there will be many plans with my family, the girls want to rest and wake up early.

  “What a big bed!” Arisa shouts as soon as she enters the room. She jumps onto the bed, the rest follow more calmly. We’re all clean and ready to sleep, we hadn’t felt sleepy during the party, but as soon as we got home we all started yawning.

  When I wake up I feel my arms a bit numb, I turn my head in both directions and see the four of them sleeping peacefully. My body wakes up early out of habit, it’s something I can’t change, I close my eyes and decide to sleep at least one more hour.

  We’re all changed and ready for the first action of the day after breakfast, I’m going to train against Cokue. We both have plans for the rest of the day and there’s nothing better than a good morning training session to wake up both mind and body.

  They’re all wearing the same type of dress, only the color changes. From what I heard while I was almost falling asleep waiting for them, the dresses are from the same designer and from the latest collection. I’m sure they all wear the same size or something very similar, the differences are subtle, wider hips, others have a larger bust, and the main difference is height, where there is a difference, but not more than 10 cm between the shortest and the tallest.

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  “Why is it that every time there’s some kind of event you end up finding someone to fight or train with?” Sol asks me, I can hear genuine curiosity in her words.

  “I’m almost never the one who comes up with the idea… I just accept the invitations out of courtesy.” I shrug as I answer.

  “Don’t lie, you love fighting people of a higher rank or much stronger.” Arisa pokes my shoulder with her finger.

  “Yes, I like testing myself, but usually they want to train with me because they’ve heard about my strength from other people. Being famous, talented, and strong isn’t easy.” I joke at the end, I fail to make them laugh.

  “Be more humble, you should show yourself as simple and natural to the people of your territory.” Marga twists the topic.

  “Stop picking on him, he already had enough yesterday.” Brendu helps me, I look at her with eyes full of hope, finally I can have an ally in this relationship. “Let’s save the attacks for tonight, it’s more fun when everyone watches him with pity because of us.” This is worse than it seems, all I can do is laugh at this situation.

  We arrive at a training field built on the outskirts of the town, it’s the new training place for the territory’s guards. The place is quite large and looks highly specialized, I can see some runes on the walls. I greet everyone we pass along the way until we finally reach the space we had agreed on.

  Cokue is already waiting together with Ridon, I can’t see his wife or daughter-in-law anywhere. The girls sit in a special stand with a defensive field.

  “It’s time to loosen up a bit.” I do some light warm-up movements as I greet them.

  “I feel a bit jealous seeing you with them, my wife has never been a fan of watching me fight, if she has a good excuse not to come she’ll use it.” Cokue looks a bit down as he speaks.

  “My girlfriend wanted to come, but my mom convinced her to go with her instead.” Ridon doesn’t seem to care much about the topic.

  “They’re also very interested in getting stronger, ever since I’ve known them they’ve liked watching me fight.” Especially Arisa, she could come to all my training sessions if she could. “Let’s put on a good show for the guests.” I wink at Cokue. Ridon will be in charge of activating the enchantments and controlling the arena panel.

  I stop my sword a centimeter from his neck and feel two wind blades stop a few meters from my body. “I think I’m the winner.” I sheath my sword, all my constructions and Cokue’s disappear, the terrain around us has been destroyed by our spells.

  “That was very fun, if we have time let’s train again.” Cokue offers me a handshake. We both walk back, he with his son and I head toward where the girls are, we exceeded the planned time and now we’re all a bit late for the next plans.

  Cokue is a very powerful wind mage, it’s not his only affinity, he also controls time and space very well. His teleportation is much better than mine and his constructions seemed to alter space and time around them. His attacks are extremely fast, I had a lot of trouble evading them at first.

  In the first minutes I wanted to play his game, only making medium and long-range attacks based on fast and powerful constructions. I was outmatched by a small margin, I kept moving like a rabbit from side to side to avoid losing a limb or getting injured. We both decided not to use the protection collars to make it more real.

  I managed to gain a bit of advantage when I stopped trying to use quality and started using quantity, I could overcome his speed with the number of constructions, but I couldn’t break that powerful wind defense around him. When I added more death mana I began draining his mana reserves and he was also forced to move.

  In close combat I had a lot of advantage over him, although Cokue isn’t bad fighting with his fists he’s far from being at my level. He teleported at that moment and many times after, his control over the space affinity surpasses mine, each time it became more complicated to follow him.

  The training was very fruitful for both of us, it had been a long time since I felt this sensation of fighting someone in the same league as me. His movements were precise, his attacks powerful, his control over timing perfect and a cold mind to apply all his power flawlessly.

  I can say with certainty, he’s among the strongest people in the Ruby rank on the entire continent. I don’t know how long it will take him to reach the Diamond rank, but I’m sure he’ll achieve it sooner or later if he keeps on the same path.

  “You had it pretty hard.” Brendu tosses me a bottle of water and speaks when I’m close.

  “I didn’t think Mr. Cokue was that strong, my dad had already told me a bit about him.” Sol looks quite thoughtful.

  “He’s a real headache, if he focuses on escaping I can’t do anything until I drain his mana.” I had a hard time trying to catch him earlier, although I didn’t give it my all, he didn’t either. I see them raising their hands from a distance in farewell, we all respond the same way. We also start moving to begin a long day.