This was to be our starting point, from here on out we won’t be having any more peaceful days for a while. This thought made me a bit weary, but the more I thought about it, the more I got assured by the other three. According to my estimates, the best case scenario would be that we get things done within a month or so, but that’s probably wishful thinking when I remember just how vast Great Hiana is.

In the southern district of Bilgam was where The Blue Lions were located. Mine and Ed’s task was to instantiate the brawl and get out of there alive, the siblings would then ambush them and stay to keep the onslaught from reaching us. This was surprising, I have no idea why they agreed to such a dangerous role, but wrote it off as a them treating us as rookies.

We knew they’d be fine, but I still don’t like the idea of just leaving them behind. This entire plan has been based on the words trust me so far, and believe me I’d like to, but I can’t help but feel wary at the situation if they leave out the details.

As I pondered these things, we had made it to what appeared to be a run-down depot spot. The siblings went to hide and we went to the doors. In front those doors was a fellow who seemed to be nearing his 20’s. He seemed quite scary, I couldn’t help but quiver as I tried my best to sound intimidating.

“Hey. Let us in.”

“No can do, little man, get out.” He answered as if he was reading a script.

“Fuck off, we need to enter…” Ed spoke up as he tried to shuffle past him.

“Granto?” he asked, “You really want that?”

I have no idea what Granto meant, but felt his deadly glare, so I chose to answer with a fist to his face.

“You bet your sorry ass we want Granto.” We said victoriously.

***

“The fuck’s your problem?! Men, Granto zapoci!”

With these foreign words, almost a hundred men started leaving the depot single-file. They all wore blue gang uniforms with their logo of a giant lion on their backs. Ed and I looked to Carter and Cecily, who simply laid back in the shadows.

“We’re messengers from The Bilgam Brothers Gang. We’ve come to declare war on The Blue Lions.”

Soon as we said that, all the men immediately shared a scary grin and started running towards us. The siblings motioned for us to leave, but we got surrounded in no time flat.

“Now you’re getting cold feet? We can’t have that~!”

Before he could even finish his sentence, a fist flew towards my face, I had barely dodged it, but I ended up stumbling on Ed and we both fell to the ground.

Looking around the area, Carter had jumped out and was busy beating up three men at the same time, while Cecily’s cloak flew in all directions as she practically danced around her attackers. For a moment, I noticed her gaze my way and mutter something with a disgruntled tone. I thought to myself how pathetic I look, and quickly got up to join the fight.

Since we had our exit blocked, we had no other choice but to fight, so why sit on the ground and wait? I pushed myself off the ground with the intent to punch the enemy ahead of me. Of course, he didn’t budge at all, instead simply grabbing my arm and snickering.

“That’s it?” he said as he threw me to the ground.

“NGH-!!” I screamed in pain.

“Lune-!” Cecily looked my way.

Her worry for me cost her plenty, as she soon got restrained by one of the men. Thankfully, the man didn’t notice Carter standing behind him. He tossed the three men at him as if they were pebbles. This freed Cecily, who immediately made her way to me.

“You good? Sorry for this, we didn’t think you’d be this quick to raise Granto.”

“What even is Granto?” I asked as she helped me up.

“So you didn’t even know?” She chuckled, “Granto means Brawl.”

This made me immediately wince at my previous declaration. I had apparently wandered into their gang’s base, punched the bouncer and declared I want to drag them to the street and beat them up. No wonder they retaliated this violently.

With this, I at least finally knew what I was getting myself into. Fighting with newly revived vigor, I managed to beat the nearest person to me. Quickly deciding to switch to the other one next to him, I finally got a smile out of the siblings.

“Now you’re getting into it! Ed, learn from Lune’s example and have some fun!” screamed out Carter.

“I’m trying!” Ed said as he climbed up to a nearby pile of crates. Picking up random tools from the environment, he threw with all his might and actually knocked some people out.

“Hey! We said Granto, not Padane!” a grunt protested.

I looked at Cecily with a “Whuzzat?”, but she didn’t have time to explain, what with all the people she was fending off. The situation was certainly getting chaotic, but we had each other’s backs, so we managed.

This went on for a couple more minutes before we finally manages to find an escape route. Namely, Ed found a little vent on the second floor of the depot. Since he was already at the top, we had him help us up.

It was unanimously decided in the moment that Cecily was the first to climb up, and Carter and I boosted her up. She was quite light, but then again she was a tad shorter than us, so it made sense.

“H-hey! Watch where you’re touching!” she complained about my hand’s position.

Carter ignored her, instead focusing on the men that were running towards us, but I couldn’t help but blush a bit. I really didn’t mean to grab her there…

After her, Carter and I had to fend another wave of enemies off before it was his turn to climb up. We had a bit more trouble with him, but he managed to make it in the end with both Cecily and Ed grabbing his arms.

The problem with this plan was that I no longer had anyone to boost me, so I had to go around and climb the crates like Ed did. Looking around I finally noticed… someone toppled the crates in the scuffle.

“Guys! Leave without me! I’ll take the door and we’ll meet up outside!”

“We can’t do that!” Said Ed, but the siblings grabbed him and nodded to me.

Looks like they finally started respecting me a bit. But I had no time to think about that, I had to get to the door. Running from the horde while dodging the broken glass and tools all over the floor, I was about to open the door when I got T-boned to the ground.

The man who pushed me down immediately restrained me. What’s worse… he had a knife.

“You want Padane? Marco give you Padane!”

Struggling with all my might to avoid the knife entering my chest, I had all but exhausted my strength, leading to the surface of my skin getting pricked. Just then, I noticed something start to smell funny. It was his pants, they had been set on fire.

“What? Huh? AAAARGH!?! FIRE?! But we put out all the torches?!” He screamed out.

Since he was positioned on top of me, we had both got caught on fire, leading to our fight becoming a lot more deadly. With this I asked my attacker for a temporary truce.

“Marco, you said you were? Get off’a me and we can continue this scuffle after this fire’s out!”

“You don’t understand, kid.” He smiled, “TBL follows you to your grave.”

Essentially, he said he won’t get off me even if we both burn alive. This further shocked me, leading to me fumbling under him trying to free myself, but to no avail.

“HAHAHAHAHA! YOU’LL DIE WITH M-”

*bonk*

“Bonk?” I inquired about the sound.

I had barely caught a glimpse of my attacker knocked out on the ground next to me with blood pouring out of his temple.

Looking up at the thin silhouette who did this, I had cold water poured on me the very same moment. The temperature difference from being on fire to having cold water poured on me shocked me to the point of going out cold (no pun intended).

***

Opening my eyes I noticed all four of us were back at our inn room. Everyone greeted me with a smile on their face, but I was still a bit confused.

“What happened?” I asked as I sat up on my bed.

“Well basically,” Ed explained, “after we jumped out of the vent, me and Carter ran back here, but Cecily overheard you struggling, so she went back to pick you up.”

“Oh? Thank you so much, Cecily! I would’ve burned alive if it wasn’t for you.”

They looked at me with a weird expression, signifying they didn’t know what I was talking about.

“It’s okay to hyperbolize our victory, but I doubt you’d burn alive.” Said Ed.

“Yeah,” Carter added on to it, “plus yer’ guys’ escape wasn’t that glorious to begin with. We saw sis’ princess-carryin’ you to the river, then slipping and falling in.”

“It wasn’t my fault!” she barked, “He was all wet for whatever reason when I found him out cold, so it was like carrying a fish on dry land!”

Being compared to a fish wasn’t that nice, but being princess-carried by a girl was even worse. Even still, this means it wasn’t her that put me out, but someone else entirely. Since we managed to escape the situation, we decided to rest up for now and head to the BBG tomorrow. Of course, if anyone from The Blue Lions spots us out in the open, we’re as good as dead, so we need to stick together or go in groups for the time being.