--

Alex’s tantrums didn’t last long.

The moment Susan spoke, he practically already left it behind him. Instead, he clung to every word she said as if they were coming straight from the Bible instead.

Ren didn’t expect that his cousin would be this much of a simp, and he’s certainly proud of it too. Ren had no idea how she endures his antics, but more power to her, really.

It’s just hard to treat Alex seriously when he’s like this. Ren didn’t want to suffer through second-hand embarrassment, but now he had to endure it because he chose to come here with him.

But despite all the ridiculous antics that Alex does, especially centered around Susan, who seemed to be the party leader, the party wasn’t being overly harsh or cruel to Alex for them to be bullying him.

There’s a tacit understanding between them, something that only those who forged bonds in the face of a great threat would have.

Oliver, the kind man who looked more like a scholar instead of a martial artist, was the one who approached Ren first and took care of him while Alex was busy simping over Susan.

"We couldn’t stand him either when we first started in this party."

"All of us, except your cousin, graduated from the Sacred Grace Prepatory School, and we’ve been friends since we were six."

"Alex graduated from the Blue Sky Preparatory School, which I assumed was the same school you graduated from too. Am I right?"

Ren nodded.

"So, it is." Oliver nodded and continued. "We already planned to form a party even before we graduated. But, as you probably know, a full party is composed of seven members, and there’s only six of us."

"It’s not like we haven’t tried searching for our 7th member. But there’s nobody who could keep up and connect with us from our alma mater. We postponed the search after we graduated since he focused first on training. We rushed to the Bone Forging Realm because that’s when we are finally allowed to do dungeon raids."

"But that’s also when he faced the same trouble as before, finding a suitable 7th member."

"We’ve had trials before. We even tried impromptu tests for compatibility. But we just couldn’t find anybody who fits our team."

"Not until we met your cousin."

Oliver then went on and said how everybody, included Susan herself, hated Alex’s guts when they first met.

Alex was rude, loud, and shameless. He invades personal space as if the concept itself doesn’t exist to him. He’s very straightforward too; he speaks out when he discovers something that makes him uncomfortable. He’s also not afraid of offending others with his words or tone.

Really, he gave them an impression of being reckless and being a liability in dungeon raids.

But Alex forced himself upon the party. He didn’t care about their standards, didn’t care about their ideals, their rules, or any of their ’compatibility’ nonsense. He walked in, chose them as his new party, and stuck to them like unremovable gum on their boot.

And it stayed that way ever since.

Much to their surprise and horror (mostly horror), Alex did work well with them. Despite his goofiness and unrealiability in casual days, he turns into a tireless machine in battle.

They could talk endless trash about how they disliked Alex’s personality, but they could never call him a deadweight in this party simply because he had saved their lives more times than they could count.

The number of times Alex placed himself in between them and danger was too numerous. He hits hard, takes hits harder, and pushes on even if it means dragging the entire party along with him.

He had gotten beaten, bruised, humiliated, thrown off like a ragdoll, whipped, cut, etc. Alex basically experienced all kinds of injuries and torture from monsters ever since, but he’s still standing.

They’re grateful for everything he’s done for the party. It’s just that that gratitude disappears when Alex begins talking.

That said, with how long they’ve been a team since then and how much he greatly contributed to the party, as much as they hated to admit it, Alex had become their true 7th piece, an irreplaceable member.

As for Alex’s affection for Susan, it’s actually an amusing story.

Long story short, Alex once again saved the party from a potential wipe, but at the cost of himself. His injuries were near-fatal, and the healing kits they had weren’t enough to restore him.

Alex told them to leave him behind, but Susan refused. Just like he did in the past, she dragged Alex’s injured body along as they cleared the dungeon, personally taking care of him along the way.

In his delirium, he thought that Susan had dedicated herself to him. She even provided him with direct skin contact to transfer body heat. Alex thought that he had taken advantage of her and was fully prepared to take responsibility, but it turns out that he was simply overthinking it.

Susan did it out of concern and sense of responsibility. It’s what Alex did for them in the past, and she’s just returning the treatment.

Alex thought it was a marriage proposal, and he took it seriously. Since then, he had never stopped simping over her despite her repeated rejections.

Their party is called the ’Blue Rose Party’; it’s something that the six of them decided back then. It’s taken from the venue where they all decided that they were going to form a party after they graduated. They made this promise in a garden of blue roses.

The Blue Rose Party was actually one of the better parties in Central City. They’ve reached Stage 60 in the dungeons.

Their party leader, Susan Bones, is a genuine 2nd transformation inhuman realm expert at 27 years old.

The vice captain, Oliver, is at the 1st Transformation Inhuman Realm at 27 years old too.

Then comes Alex, at the peak of the Pulse Awakening Stage. Then, Alice, Ron, and then the twins, Tim and Tom, at the early Pulse Awakening Stage.

Ren was right; everybody in this party was indeed formidable.

Seeing them also gave him a peek of the peak of this city. Again, the Blue Rose Party was a decent party at most. Despite their total strength average, they could only be called a ’decent party,’ not weak, but not the strongest in this city either.

Ren hadn’t had the chance to see who the real top dog of this city was, but he could tell that they must be really strong and capable.

If the Blue Rose Party, a team of martial artists who could clear stages 60-65 of the dungeons relatively, could only be considered as a decent party, then the best party of this city must be able to clear higher stages than them, which means that they cannot be weak at all.

One had to be at the Bone Forging Stage first to qualify for dungeon raids. Dungeon raids could be taken solo or by a party. The volume and difficulty of each stage depend on the number of participants. Obviously, the drops and rewards when clearing dungeons also adjust depending on the number of participants too.

Ren’s goal hasn’t changed. In fact, meeting the Blue Rose Party just emphasized Ren’s needs and goals even more.

Right now, he could only look up and idolize these people. But after a few years, he’s confident that he’d step on the same pedestal as they are, and he might even be better than them.

That’s a matter for the future, though. Right now, seeing these people is enough.

Ren hung out with the party until noon and got to know them better.

But even with this little time, some of the party members could already confidently say that they liked Ren way better than Alex. It doesn’t take much to do that, really. By simply being respectful and polite, Ren has already left a much better impression on them compared to the first time Alex met them.

As for that useless lump of metal attached to handle that Susan gave to Old Sam, there’s no result for now. Old Sam said that even he wasn’t familiar with the material, but he planned on studying it further just in case he could get some clues.

Susan left it to his care for now, temporarily. She wasn’t a user of greatswords anyway, so she wasn’t too concerned to leave it behind. She just wants to know its value so that she can sell it since nobody claimed it in the lost and found section.

After that, Alex parted with the party and brought Ren back to the clan. They said that they’d resume their raids once the hectic moves of the large organizations calmed down a bit. It hasn’t been long since the dungeon overflow, after all.

Alex was still loud and talkative on their way back. He probably doesn’t even remember that Ren practically revealed his embarrassing past to his party members.

Once they returned to the clan, Alex and Ren parted ways, too.

’Next time, I’d seriously reconsider coming along with Alex on his errands.’