Typical drinking experience

Our food and drinks arrived soon after. The stew looked magnificent and the smell it exuded was divine. The taste matched its smell and appearance. Pieces of beef almost melted on my tongue. Nobility looks down on this kind of food, calling it not sophisticated. I would say they couldn’t tell a good food from the bad if it looked them right in the eyes. Accompanied by the stew came two big mugs of ale. It was my first time trying it. I drank wine before and liked it, so I was looking to try more types of ****, especially ale since it was so widespread and popular.

“The ale here is actually the thing that the tavern is most famous for. They work with the local brewery and make their own ale. Try it, I promise you won’t be disappointed,” Elora says.

I take a sip and am hit by a slight bitterness mixed with the sweetness of honey. Honestly, it was hard to imagine a better combination for an ale. I drank a quarter of my mug in one go.

“Slow down, we have a long evening ahead,” Elora laughs and drinks her ale.

We kept drinking and eating until both our dishes and mugs were empty. Sayuri came to collect the dishes.

“So, Zandor, what did you think?” she grins knowing full well what I thought.

“I think that if your husband makes such a spectacular stew, I would feel guilty sleeping with his wife even if he asked me to,” I reply with a chuckle.

Sayuri picks up the dishes and laughs heartily. “Well, since I am the owner here to make sure that the tavern stays afloat, I would say that keeping me satisfied would directly influence my husband's ability to keep making stew like his.”

“I am starting to think that you are not joking about sleeping with someone other than your husband,” Elora giggles.

“Perhaps I am,” Sayuri chuckles and winks at me. “Another two rounds of ale?”

“Yes, please,” I say.

Sayuri nods and brings two more mugs of ale a few minutes later accompanied by several small bowls of snacks, including nuts, potato chips, and breadsticks.

“These are on the house,” she says with a smile and leaves.

“I think she might really be serious about sleeping behind her husband’s back,” Elora says while sipping her ale and munching on the snacks. “I’ve seen her husband and he does seem pretty meek. From what Sayuri told me, he used to be an adventurer in the guild but had to retire pretty early from an injury. He found his passion in making food and that’s how he met Sayuri. He is human, if you are wondering and they have a daughter together. I think she is around 21 or 22. She doesn’t seem to be working here tonight.”

“How does that work? Is she a human or a cat person?” I ask. “The interspecies families are a bit confusing. From what I understood, there is no explanation behind what kind of species of child they would have between them.”

“You are correct. Generally, people of two different species will have a 50/50 chance of having a child of either one of their species. In the case of Sayuri and her husband, their daughter is human,” Elora explains.

We continue drinking. The tavern starts filling out with people. When Elora and I were halfway down our second mug, a group of four men walked in. They were laughing obnoxiously loud and were clearly already drunk. They were all in their late 20s. They were quite big and from the burns and callouses on their hands, I would assume they worked in the production district. Their clothes looked a little worn. As luck would have it, they sat at the table right beside us. Another waitress came to take their orders and they started lamely flirting with her. She dodged their attempts at flirting with a professional smile and managed to finally take their orders. She turned to walk away towards the bar but not before one of the guys closest to her slapped her hard on the butt.

That rubbed me the wrong way. I almost crushed the mug in my grip. As I was starting to stand up, Elora put a hand on my forearm and shook her head. I sit down, but I know that it is inevitable before these guys try something similar to someone else. Sayuri comes with their mugs of ale and slams them into their table.

“If you do anything like that to my staff again, I will kick you out,” she threatens and walks away. The guys laughed and cooed after her.

Elora and I kept drinking in silence feeling irritated by the presence of these boors. It was a matter of time, I thought, that they would turn their attention to Elora, who was the closest woman sitting at their table. It took about five minutes for my prediction to come true.

“Lads, look at the beauty sitting there. Think I have a chance with her?” the one who slapped the waitress drunkenly slurs.

“Go show her who is the man,” his friends reply.

The guys stand up and walk with a little wobble to our table. As he approaches, I prepare to spring into action if something happens. Elora shakes her head, letting me know that she will deal with this. The guy stops in front of our table and slams his palms on the table, making our half-full mugs shake.

“Hey there, beautiful. Care to join me and my lads at our table? I promise you a much better time than you can have with this twerp,” he says with a smirk, gesturing at me.

“Thank you for the invitation but I am fine where I am. Me and my boyfriend are enjoying an anniversary, you see,” Elora says with a fake smile.

“Forget about that loser. I will show you the pleasure that he could never show you,” the guy says and reaches with his hand to grab Elora by the chin. Before he can do that, my hand shoots forward and grabs him by the wrist. The tavern becomes quiet almost instantly. Everyone’s attention is on our table.

“You better not touch her,” I say with a calm voice.

“What are you going to do about it, loser?” the man smirks and tries to get his hand away from my grasp, but my grip is too strong.

“How about we take a step outside and deal with this like ‘real men’ do,” I say, making quotations with my spare hand. “You can even invite your little friends. That way it would be almost fair to you.”

“Let’s go. When we are done with you, we will take your woman and take turns fucking her all night,” he growls and steps away when I finally let go of his arms. He and his buddies stand up and make their way towards the exit to the street. I start walking after them but am stopped by Elora’s hand on my forearm again.

“You don’t have to do this,” she says, imploring me to not go through with this.

“What, you don’t think I can deal with these guys?” I chuckle.

“I mean, there are four of them and only one of you,” she says with a worried expression.

I smile confidently. “How about a bet? I will beat them up without using magic and receiving a single hit. If I do that, the next round is on you.”

“You are that confident you can defeat them?” Elora asks surprised.

“Come and see for yourself,” I tell her and go towards the exit.

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