78 Chapter 78 - This is a romantic hug

After having shown his gentlemanly side, and to start the conversation again, Marc asked Esdea "So where are you going?"

After having controlled her frowning expression from witnessing how weak her subordinate seemed, she replied "We are going to buy the essentials before we leave for the Cold Region tomorrow morning to hunt a specific Magic Beast." She ended her sentence while having a little crazed look— like a psychopathic hunter.

"Cold Region? Where's that and what's special about it?" asked Marc and kind of regretted his stupid question. Doesn't the word: "Cold" say enough about the place?

But his question wasn't as stupid as he thought after hearing her. "The Cold Region is the most dangerous place in the Country of Iceberg for many reasons. It's the home of many strong Magic Beasts that only the best mages can stand against. Ordinary ones would die by a simple sneeze from them. The most dangerous thing about the place though is that as soon as you enter the region, your Magic Power will slowly freeze— and will feel like it's being clocked up inside your body. If it's fully frozen, you will just be an ordinary human inside the home of countless strong Magic Beasts that will then be able to kill you with a simple look. Even my Ice Spirit Slaying Magic can't stop this effect from happening."

When she finished her explanation, they looked at Marc. Esdea though was getting disappointed by the sight though as she could see Marc looking down and shaking. She thought he was getting scared.

With a sudden jump, Marc yelled with imaginary stars in his eyes "Awesome!! This place sounds so exciting. Then what kind of Magic Beast are you hunting? How does it look? What kind of abilities does it have?" His question continued as he fired them with excitement.

Seeing the excitement relieved Esdea a whole lot more than she could even realize. She showed a rare smile to Marc. "I haven't seen the Magic Beast before and only heard that it looks like a blue wolf with a purple mane. It has slaughtered a battalion of my soldiers I stationed outside the Cold Region together with a lot of other Magic Beasts. A subordinate of mine saw it all. He told me that the wolf looked like it commanded the other Magic Beasts, which is very irregular with their different species taken into consideration."

His mood was getting more stirred the more he heard and if he could, he would like to join in on the hunt as it sounded way too exciting to miss. "I will for sure visit this Cold Region you are speaking of after Rofta has dealt with his problem with your father."

Seeing how excited Marc was to visit the dangerous region without getting scared and was instead eager to go there— actually made Esdea sexually excited and her cheeks flushed a little. Liking this feeling and imagining slaughtering Magic Beasts together only heightened her excitement further. Riding on her aroused feelings she invited Marc to join the hunt they were going on tomorrow morning. "How about going on this hunt together?"

Showing a wry smile with his excitement dyeing a little, Marc shook his head and answered "I can't leave this village without causing my friends problems right now. I will just go there later."

When Esdea saw Marc shaking his head in rejection almost made her decide to chain him up and teach him not to refuse her anymore— but she refrained and controlled her sadistic outburst after hearing his worry. "You don't have to worry about them. I have the authority to take you outside the village without complications. So what do you say? Want to join now?" Esdea asked with a bright smile and reached out with her hand. Her actions stunned the people around. Even her two female subordinates after managing to only catch a glimpse of the smile— that just how rare it is.

"Heck yea!! I'm in. Thank you!" Marc instantly jumped on the wagon— or rather he took hold of Esdea's hand and gave her a friendly bro-hug that was often used in his previous world. But to others, a hug between a man and woman is no simple thing and only has one implication— the person is intending to pursue the other romantically.

Hugging her, Marc found the atmosphere around him a little weird. "Why is suddenly so silent?" Marc thought and looked to the side while still hugging Esdea. A sound of a pot being dropped and broken reverberated in the silence.

The cold heart warmed and her cheeks turned cute cherry red after feeling Marc's muscled shoulder crushing her boob strongly.

Finishing his bro-hug, Marc asked the gaping women staring baffled at him. "What?"

In the meantime, he thought nervously "Did the excitement make me release a fart without knowing?"

Shaking her head to set her head straight, the light-green-haired subordinate answered after placing her hands behind her head "You really are a bold one… You never told us your name?"

"Bold? But all I did was give a friendly hug?—" asked Marc, confused, making Esdea a little bitter as she thought Marc was being bold and just showed his intent to pursue her. Though the bitter feeling quickly disappeared as she suddenly got determined about something. Her determination was quickly broken as she heard an interesting question from her pink-haired subordinate wearing a cowboy hat.

"—And I'm Marc."

Instead of answering, she asked, "Then how would you perform a romantic hug?"

All three girls looked very interested in Marc's answer and waited with anticipation.

Marc couldn't help looking at the girls like something was wrong with them, totally greying out the option if he was the one with the problem here. Nevertheless, he intended to tell these three girls how a true romantic hug is performed. "Look, this is how it's done. First, you hug your partner from the front normally and place your hands on your partner's back. Then you slowly slide the hands down from the back and place them on the person's backside. Give a few squeezes and you are ready to rumble— though, don't squeeze if your partner is a man as he might not be into it if he's… I don't know. Homophobic or something? Maybe he's simply not into it." Marc said while demonstrating by hugging the air.

The result of Marc's demonstration was a blushing blue fairy, a contemplating cowboy girl, and a laughing skimpy dryad.

"How would it feel if he did that to me-? No, I'm Esdea! How about doing it to him?.. Can two people do it simultaneously?" Esdea's thoughts were running wild and sometimes she would think of maybe letting Marc be the dominant person.

A grunt from her soon awakening subordinate, Balto, broke her out of her imagination. "What am I thinking? I will never allow something like that to happen to me."

Turning and looking at her subordinates, she ordered "Take him and go back. I will get the rest we need for the hunt myself."

The cowboy girl just nodded and stared at her fellow subordinate with a hidden meaning.

"Why do I have to carry him?"

She didn't get a reply. Instead, she was being stared at by Esdea too now.

"Okay, Okay!! Fine. I will take him." She surrendered under the pressure— mostly from Esdea who was getting impatient. The green-haired girl was getting a smile too like Marc, but a completely different one that would spell pain if she didn't hurry up this instant.

She grabbed Balto by the collar of his coat and walked hurriedly together with the cowboy girl in a bikini and a coat half-covering it, leaving Marc and Esdea behind.

"So where are you going?" asked Esdea.

"The market. Ihwach sent me on an errand to buy the ingredients for dinner."

"But you were walking in the opposite direction of the market?"

"…I was trying out a shortcut and I can now see it isn't one.." That was the only reason Marc could come up with on the spot.

"Then what do you have to buy?"

"Lynx Meet and…and…and…" Marc suddenly found himself in a new dilemma— he had forgotten the rest he was supposed to buy.

"You forgot it?" Asked Esdea and giggled a little as his expression looked hilarious.

But of course, being honest and saying "Yes in the matter of fact, I did," would be impossible. Marc answered with his arms crossed and pumped himself up to look bigger "Of course not. It's just that I never got the name of the rest of the ingredients and only know what they look like."

Esdea believed in Marc's lie as she didn't see any meaning in an equally strong and talented mage like herself lying— oh, boy her anger will boil over when she gets to know what a lying cute bastard he is. A new hunt will soon arise for her.

"Then let me show you the best shops where you might be able to buy them."

After looking through the first few shops, Marc realized something. The food in this world was simply beyond weird. Fruits that looked like eggs, blue meat, giant spider legs, small vegetables that looked like small elves.

In the end, Marc began picking the food that looked similar to his previous world and returned to Ihwach's home after saying goodbye to Esdea.

.

.

.

"Here," said Marc before leaving a bag made out of intestines from a normal weak animal containing the things he should have bought.

Ihwach only had to take a glimpse into it to know Marc had another problem somewhere in his head. "Only the Lynx Meat is here. What about the rest you were supposed to buy?"

With a straight face, Marc told nothing other than the truth "It's not my fault. The rest of the things you wanted were sold out."

"Weird. But then you are excused… but why in the world of Earthland would you buy these ingredients then? No matter how great a cook, he won't be able to combine these ingredients into something edible. Heck, this fruit is even poisonous." Ihwach was getting suspicious here— even a fool would be.

Marc complained internally "Stop nagging here old man! I just got distracted by three beauties— one of them is your granddaughter. It's not my fault man!!"

In the end, Rofta was tasked to buy the ingredients and clean up his mess after his lie was exposed by Ihwach and the others. No money was wasted in the end as Rofta used the 'return policy' after talking a little rough with the shop owners that sold the things Marc bought— especially the owner that cheated Marc and even Esdea with a poisonous fruit that looked very similar to the edible one. He will be found dead with burns from ice and with various torture methods having been performed on his body until his last breath.

***

(A/N: Think Esdea(th) is the type to share a man? The answer is simply NO!!)

(Words: 1854)