"Why are they here?"

Ron followed Aive’s gaze. Sure enough, four burly figures clad in animal hides—three men and one woman—were devouring meat in a corner.

But perhaps because no one else in the tavern did—or dared—point at them, Aive’s gesture was quite conspicuous and was immediately noticed by the group.

"You, Elf! Eat your food!"

A bald man with a scar on his head shouted, rapping a leg bone against the table.

"It’s Half-Elf, you idiot," Aive scoffed. She was perfectly healthy now; there was no reason to take this abuse.

"You!"

The bald man shot to his feet, rolled up his sleeves, and stomped over. "You little wench, how dare you talk back to me—AH!"

Everything happened in a blur. When Ron focused his eyes again, Aive was no longer in her seat.

The Half-Elf had vaulted over with swift, elegant grace. She pressed one hand onto the bald man’s shoulder, and with a tight squeeze of her five fingers, his cry of pain was accompanied by the sound of a dislocation.

Aive followed up with a leg sweep, forcing the man—a full head taller and twice her size—to the ground.

’She was always boasting about what she could do at her peak, and I just assumed it was tough talk,’ Ron thought. ’I never expected she actually had the skills to back it up!’

The entire exchange took less than ten seconds. In that time, not a single thing in the tavern was broken. Not even a drop of wine had spilled from the bowl in Delaford’s hands!

"You fucker—AAAAAHHH!"

The bald man tried to keep up his tough act, but Aive gave his shoulder a twist, and his curses were immediately replaced by agonized screams.

"Bastard! Go help him!" The other two men stood up, one after the other. Aive, however, was completely unafraid. She kicked the bald man back to the floor, looking ready to take on all three of them.

"Wait!" The female Barbarian held out a hand to stop her two companions. She looked at Aive, her expression composed. "My Half-Elf friend, I admit that Olaf was rude to you just now, but don’t you think this is going a bit too far?!"

This woman was a completely different type from Aive. Aive had almost no visible muscle definition, but this woman looked incredibly strong—even Ron’s friends from his past life who loved lifting weights didn’t have muscles like that!

’And what’s that on her stomach? Is that an eight-pack?’

"Too far?" Aive sneered. "Isn’t robbing other refugees outside the city even worse? Didn’t that guy, Harlek, tell you he ran into a tough opponent today?"

"How dare you show your faces in town? Are you planning to start robbing the townspeople too?"

"How could we? We paid for our things—wait, did you say Harlek?"

The woman was about to argue further, but her expression shifted to one of disgust upon hearing the name. "You’re mistaken. We’re from the Ocher Tribe. We’re not with them!"

"We’re also a tribe forced south by the severe cold, but we’ve always been at odds with the Horror Wolf Tribe—we’ve been clashing with them ever since we started our journey!"

"If we were from the same tribe, how could we leave them outside? And for that matter, how could they let us enter the town while they stay out?"

"Is that so?" Now it was Aive’s turn to be embarrassed. A large part of why she had been so aggressive was her frustration at not being able to properly teach Harlek a lesson earlier.

’Well, this is just great. I taught someone a lesson, all right—but it was the wrong person!’

"So it was a misunderstanding."

The other patrons around them breathed a collective sigh of relief. They had been on edge. The Half-Elf Maiden aside, these big guys were clearly not to be trifled with. If a brawl had broken out, their dinner would have been ruined.

These weren’t the old days. Food was scarce now, and wasting it was out of the question.

"Um... I’m sorry," Aive said, helping the bald Olaf up from the floor with an apologetic smile. "I was too rash just now."

"No, no, it’s my bad temper—HISS—" Olaf grabbed his other arm with his good one and shoved it upward, forcefully resetting his dislocated shoulder.

After getting beaten so thoroughly he couldn’t even fight back, the hot-tempered fellow’s eyes seemed much clearer.

It just goes to show that politeness doesn’t necessarily come from a good upbringing. He’d become self-taught, hadn’t he?

"So, you’re saying many tribes have migrated south?" Ron ordered another ale and walked over to clink glasses with the woman who was clearly the leader.

"That’s right. We’ve seen about ten so far," the woman said, downing the ale in her cup in one gulp. "My name is Sera, current Chieftain of the Ocher Tribe."

"It’s laughable, really. This so-called ’tribe’ of ours... you’re looking at all of it."

Ron couldn’t help but feel curious. "How did that happen? Was your homeland too far north?"

"Exactly," Sera nodded. "According to our tribe’s legends, we followed the hunt northward during a very warm period. The weather started getting colder after that, but life was still manageable, so we never thought of returning south."

"Until now. Last July, during the warmest part of the year, it was still snowing heavily. That’s when we realized something was wrong and prepared to migrate."

"But we’re not good at farming, and we don’t know how to domesticate animals like the people here, so we had no surplus food. We paid a terrible price for that."

Sera snatched Olaf’s cup and took another swig of ale. "But we are exceptionally good at hunting. Even the mighty mammoths of the north were our prey. That’s why the Inspector at the gate let us in. These days, we’re just scraping by on hunting and exploration quests from the Adventurer’s Guild."

"I see," Ron nodded, then abruptly changed the subject. "Have you heard that the mayor here is recruiting people to develop the Delusional Land?"

"I know. Do you have a proposal?"

"There’s strength in numbers. Perhaps we could cooperate?"

"No, thanks," Sera said with a wave of her hand. "I know what ’cooperation’ means to people like you: we do the hard labor, and you take the credit. We’ve already turned down one group. We’re planning to go it alone."

"Alright," Ron didn’t press the issue. Since she wasn’t interested, and he couldn’t think of any bargaining chips for now, he simply said, "Well, good luck to you."

"Thanks. Good luck to you, too," Sera smiled, raising her now-empty cup. "Oh, and by the way, quite a few people have their eyes on this Delusional Land development recently. It wouldn’t hurt for you to be careful."

"Thanks for the warning. We’ll be careful," Ron said, giving her a grateful nod.