She Becomes The Hero In Another World 131 She Returns To The Inn

"I'm uncomfortable with that phrase." Robin chuckled awkwardly. "The only thing that is completely free is your heart and soul, your thoughts and actions. Everything else takes effort, whether it is my own effort, or someone else's."

"Tha's true enough!" Dirk chuckled. "Then, think of et as my thanks fer yer help."

"Gladly~!" Robin smiled.

"Robin, why are you asking for information from him, when I can tell you everything already?" Chelsea asked.

"And what'll it cost me?" Robin asked.

"Two-no three! Three bowls of Ramen!" Chelsea replied greedily.

"That's why." Robin replied. "Who would pay for something when they can acquire it free of charge? That's like selling sea water next to the ocean."

"Wha! Kuuh! Don't forget, you owe me a bowl already for helping you this time!"

"I remember." Robin laughed. They headed back to the inn, but just when they were about to enter, their attention was drawn to a familiar oily voice.

"I'm telling you, my merchandise was ruined on account of you, so you have to pay for it!"

"That's right, if you didn't walk so close, it wouldn't have fallen down. You need to compensate the owner!" Another fox-kin agreed. a group of miscreants had surrounded three figures.

"And I'm telling you, we had done nothing to make it fall, therefore, we don't need to pay a single copper! Who asked the owner to be so careless with his merchandise?" one of them argued.

Robin paused, recognizing the three figures.

"Grey, Raymond, Sir Drake....what are you doing here?" She asked.

"We decided to take a look around, since it Sir Drago wanted to see the sights. But just when we were on our way back, these miscreants are trying to pin the blame for this accident upon us!" Sir Grey informed.

"No, it was definitely not an accident! It's these people's fault that the merchandise fell!" The sleazy fox argued, turning about in anger, before his eyes blazed even redder.

"It's You three!!"

"Oh? What a coincidence." Robin smiled coldly at the sleazy fox they had encountered earlier. "It seems you've upgraded from pimp to scammer in the matter of a few hours." She said, pointedly.

"Oh? Shall I give this fox a greeting?" Chelsea asked, forming three large icicles. The fox gulped under his bad disguise. He shrunk back as he remembered the threat to his limbs.

"Why give a greeting to a complete stranger? People might shamelessly claim that you actually know this wretch." Robin shook her head, stopping him.

"So? What are you going to do?" She asked her companions. "It'a definitely not an accident that the owner decides to tumble his merchandise in order to snag three innocents. How does one 'repay' such scammers?"

"We aren't allowed to kill..." Sir Grey sighed.

"Isn't anything fine, so long as they don't die?" Sir Drago said, his irises narrowing into slits. "To dare try and scam this dragon general, aren't they looking to be beaten?"

"Dragon General!? Hah! No way! Dragons are a proud race. There's no way that a dragon would lower himself to travel with a group of stinking humans! Such a scare tactic, did ya think we were born yesterday!?"

The group of fox-kin collectively laughed.

"You brought this on yourself." Robin shook her head. "Sir Drago, I leave their 'repayment' up to your group. I'll be at the inn. Make sure not to kill anyone."

She brought her group into the inn.

"Ya hear that?" Sir Grey asked. "That's as good an okay to let loose as I'll get. It's been a while since I've encountered any good brawls, after all."

Sir Raymond cracked his knuckles as Sir Drago nodded, scales growing around his eyes, and along his arms as his breath began to smoke, smelling of fire and brimstone.

"Let's begin then. The repayment." Sir Drago agreed. The fox group stopped laughing as they realized that perhaps they had gotten themselves in a great deal of trouble.

The inn walls must have been magically sound insulated, because the screams of the foxkins outside were not heard by anyone within.

-------

When Sir Drago, Sir Gray, and Sir Raymond entered the inn, the company had completely gathered, aside from Quinn. Gerard's face was exceptionally sour when he saw Dirk.

"How refres.h.i.+ng! I haven't routed a brawl like that in six months." Gray stretched. His messy hair the only indication that he had been in a fight.

"Hmmph! So you say, but what if my fiance's present had been broken, huh? I would have taken the damages out of your pocket." Sir Raymond jabbed verbally.

"Come on! We had grand General Sir Drago on our side. But, I had never thought you were so skilled in non-lethal punishment!" Sir Grey turned to Sir Drago, whose appearance was the same as usual.

"Ho? Now I'm curious. How did you manage to punish those furry rats?" Chelsea asked.

"I was genuinely syrprised. I never thought that dragons had such a huge control over fire like that. He burned all the fur off their tails, not a hair more or less. The tail itself was also completely unburned!" Sir Grey laughed.

Chelsea's smile distorted as she imagined those foxes fleeing back home with their rat-like tails. Finally, she could hold back no longer as she burst out in a bout of uncontrollable laughter. The others also smiled and chuckled a bit at the thought of those foxes getting what they deserved.

"I can't-hahahah!" She gasped for breath. "I can't breathe! Hahahahhahah!"

When her laughter had dwindled to a more controlled giggling fit, she showed her appreciation of Sir Drago's deed. "You, Sir-heheh- are the best! Good job!" She said as she saluted mid-giggle.

Sir Drago stared at Chelsea, his eyes widening in open surprise. After a few moments, he recovered to his normal expression, and turned modestly away.

"It was nothing, really." Unbeknownst to anyone, the corner of his mouth had momentarily tugged up into a smile, before returning to normal.

Once Chelsea's fits of laughter were over, she turned to Robin.

"Aren't you forgetting something?" Chelsea asked.

"Hmm? Forgetting what?" Robin blinked as she looked at Chelsea.

"What do you mean 'what?'! You owe me a bowl of Rah-min noodles!" Chelsea pouted. In all other things, Chelsea was highly reliable, but whenever it came to food, she acted like a spoiled child.

"Hahah, okay, fine. I have not forgotten. Why don't you introduce Dirk, while I'm gone, and explain everything." Robin delegated the task to Jasmine.

"In that case, I want a bowl, too!" Jasmine negotiated. Robin only laughed as she headed to the inn's kitchens with Ponzu. Sighing, Jasmine could only explain to the others what she knew about the situation.

"So that's what it was!" Christian realized. "No wonder you looked familiar. Aren't you the leader of that popular gossip chain?"

"Guilty as charged. But now we been given an official post from the king. We're now designated information gatherers." Dirk explained.

"Father did that?" Christian's eyes widened in surprise.

"According to my information, it was all the fault of Hero Robin." Dirk nodded proudly. "If it weren't fer his meddlin', we orphins wouldna been taken seriously."

"When did..." Christian wondered when Robin had had the time to meddle in things. He shook his head. He could ask Robin later. But, still, for Robin to pay attention even to these orphans, he was a truly impressive individual.

After about half an hour, Robin emerged from the kitchen with a large bowl of ramen. Ponzu followed with an unpleasant expression on his face.

"What's wrong, Ponzu? You look like you swallowed a lemon!" Christian teased.

"Prince, the hero..." Ponzu turned sorrowfully towards Christian, his eyes full of grief. "The hero just gave away the ramen recipe!"

"What?" Jasmine raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, knock it off, Ponzu. I just told them that if they can steal my recipe from simply watching, then they have my permission to use it." Robin snorted. "Unfortunately, some of the ingredients are a bit more difficult than usual to acquire. After all, n.o.body realizes the possibilities of konbu for soups!"

Jasmine smiled. "See? You worried for nothing, Ponzu. Robin isn't so easily cheated of things like recipes." Ponzu's expression eased up a bit.

"Smells so good...." Dirk's stomach growled loudly in agreement. As he had been stuck in a warehouse for most of the day, he was very hungry by now.

Chelsea protectively guarded her food. "You can't have it. This is mine!"

Robin nodded. "I knew this would be the case. so I made a second bowl." She brought it out of her storage, and set it before Dirk.

"Go ahead and eat up. Then we can work on finding your relatives."