"If... if you don't mind, could you tell me more about your world, Charlie?" Mahiru asked hesitantly, yet the glimmer of curiosity in her eyes could not be hidden.
Charlie was not surprised by the girl's inquisitiveness. After all, no normal person could reject the existence of a genuinely real alternative world after witnessing the proof with their own eyes.
"Of course, I don't mind." He replied casually, swirling his boba tea glass around. He then began to explain the World of Danmachi in depth.
"Over there, the gods descended to the lower world because they were bored with eternity in heaven. To live alongside humans, they sealed away all of their divine powers. In return, they established factions called Familias and bestowed a blessing called Falna upon their followers."
"This Falna is a kind of grace engraved on the back, allowing a person to become stronger, increasing physical status, and even leveling up just like a character inside a video game. Those who receive this Falna are known as adventurers."
Mahiru listened intently, her eyes sparkling brightly. Every time Charlie paused his sentence, she would occasionally ask small questions because she felt unfamiliar with those terms.
Charlie then continued his explanation regarding the world order over there.
"The primary threat in our world originates from a place called the Dungeon—a living, subterranean giant labyrinth that births monsters without limit."
"And what makes that world unique isn't just its monsters, but also the diversity of its races. Aside from humans, there is the Dwarf race, who are known to be highly fond of drinking and expert in forging weapons. There are the Amazoness, a race of female warriors with an extremely open mindset who can only give birth to daughters."
"Then there are the Elf." Charlie continued with a faint smile. "Their features are extraordinarily beautiful and handsome, but most of them are highly arrogant, guard their personal purity to an extreme degree, and possess xenophobic tendencies toward other races."
"There are also Demi-Humans, who physically resemble humans but possess unique characteristics such as animal ears and tails, as well as the Pallum, a midget-bodied race whose adults still look cute like children."
To a third party who happened to pass by the vicinity of their bench, the conversation between Charlie and Mahiru sounded just like a pair of teenagers suffering from chuunibyou syndrome.
In Japan, it was nothing new to see the younger generation raving about magic, gods, and fantasy labyrinths in public places, so not a single mall visitor took their words seriously.
However, quite a few pedestrians passing them by couldn't help but look over, then shook their heads with gazes full of regret.
They lamented how a man as cool as Charlie and a girl as elegant as Mahiru turned out to be otakus drowned in chuunibyou delusions.
After all, even though the anime industry is massive, otaku culture in Japan is still frequently viewed with negative stereotypes and judged as unrealistic by the general public, an ironic contrast considering how highly popular this pop culture is overseas.
Yet, neither Charlie nor Mahiru cared in the slightest about the bad opinions of the people around them.
◆━⊰✿✧✿⊱━◆
The conversation concerning the intricacies of the World of Danmachi continued on until, without realizing it, half an hour had slipped away just like that.
When Mahiru glanced at the digital clock on her phone and realized how long they had delayed their initial objective, she instantly startled.
"Ah, it's already this time..." Mahiru immediately stood up from the long bench where they sat, smoothing down her school skirt hurriedly while staring with an urgent look. "Charlie-kun, we've already spent too much time chatting. Let's go quickly to the supermarket and finish shopping for groceries before it gets any darker."
However, Charlie did not immediately respond to the girl's words. Right at that exact second, an intuition equivalent to a sixth sense suddenly activated, sending a danger signal.
With alertness, he observed every human movement in that shopping center.
Sure enough, his suspicion was not mistaken.
Among the crowd of visitors, Charlie caught the figure of a mysterious man wearing a cap pulled down low, a cloth mask covering half his face, and pitch-black sunglasses, walking rapidly toward the two of them.
Perhaps realizing that his disguise had been blown and he was being intensely watched, the suspicious-looking man no longer bothered to hide his malicious intent.
With a rough movement, he ripped the paper shopping bag he was carrying, drew a kitchen knife that gleamed sharply, and then began to run fast breaking through the crowd straight in Mahiru's direction.
"Aaahh! Someone has a knife!"
"Run! Somebody call the police!"
The shopping center visitors who saw the flash of that sharp weapon instantly screamed hysterically.
Mass panic broke out in an instant; people ran scattering in all directions to save themselves, knocking down several store billboards and creating total chaos on that floor.
Meanwhile, Mahiru, who was the primary target of the attack, suddenly froze in place.
Her pair of eyes widened staring at the knife blade pointing at her, her body stiff unable to be moved, and her entire mind suddenly went blank from shock.
It was true, Mahiru was an incredibly resilient girl.
She was born from a loveless political marriage. Both of her parents regarded her presence as nothing more than a burden that disrupted their lives, ignoring her since childhood, and letting her grow up in solitude.
However, instead of growing up into a rebellious, naughty, or broken child due to the lack of affection, Mahiru chose a difficult path instead; she learned to cook, clean the house, and proved her worth by becoming the most accomplished child in every academic and non-academic field.
Her resilience was clearly visible from her ability to keep smiling and act flawlessly elegant in front of others, even though she harbored a deeply profound loneliness inside her heart.
Yet, behind all that extraordinary resilience, in the end she was still a normal teenage girl who was highly fragile.
The "Angel" status at school was merely a mask she created to hide her fear, loneliness, and past trauma from her parents' rejection.
Thus, when faced with a horrifying, real murder threat right before her own eyes, that mask shattered. Mahiru reacted exactly like a normal girl her age in general—paralyzed by overwhelming fear and only able to wait for death to claim her.
However, that attacker was gravely mistaken for underestimating the man standing near the target.
When the masked man's distance was only a few meters remaining from Mahiru, with the tip of the knife nearly touching the girl's clothes, Charlie moved with a speed that could not be caught by normal human eyes.
*TAP!*
He lunged forward a step, cutting off the enemy's attack path. His right hand moved as accurately as an eagle snatching prey, directly clamping down on the man's wrist that was holding the knife with a grip as strong as iron pincers, stopping the weapon's momentum instantly in midair.
Before the attacker could realize what happened or feel the pain in his wrist, Charlie twisted his body, utilizing the enemy's speed momentum, and then executed a perfect shoulder throw. He pulled the man's arm downward with an explosive jerk, then slammed the masked man's entire body onto the marble floor with extreme force.
*BRAAAKKK!*
The sound of the body's impact hitting the floor echoed loudly, followed by the clinking of the kitchen knife slipping from his grasp and getting thrown far into the corner of the corridor.
"Argh!"
The mysterious man immediately lay flat helpless, groaning in pain with ragged breath as a result of that direct hit.
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