Nea and I had reached the beautiful restaurant, the Blue Danube. In the middle of the city of Sereneia, placed in an area that was lit yellow and blue by many laps and lights making use of different low level magic stones, everything about the Blue Danube screamed posh.

We went to the desk outside the hotel and a promoter greeted us.

"Table for two?"

"Yes, please."

"I am afraid the indoors seating is full."

"That’s rare," I said, turning to Nea. The Blue Danube’s outside seating was structured around a beautiful artificial pond with many fishes, that along with their magical dome technology and the lush choice of plants that they kept for decoration made the outside seating far more popular with guests.

Nea nodded, and the promoter wrote our names down before guiding us to our seats. The vibe here was great, there was live music, bustle in the restaurant, a bunch of wine and cigarettes were flowing all around.

"I’ve never been to a place like this," said Nea.

"It’s great, right?" I beckoned over a waiter, taking a glance at everyone around. This place was truly very crowded. We placed an order of wine, the troll meat, some chicken skewers for starters (Nea preferred it) and also a small serving of fried rice, largely to laugh on her attempt.

"Axel... tell me more about you," said Nea. "What kind of life have you lived?"

"A kind to love the music that’s playing."

The live band in the background was playing a song from the super hit band BRADIO in the empire, their name was interesting as hell. This song in particular was one I loved.

"I fear I’ll lose myself~"

"But to you I’ll lose again~"

Nea sang the next line perfectly, we both smiled. Yours was a beautiful song. We alternated singing together as wine came over. Even the waiters here were very talented and well trained, not interrupting anyone’s experience. He poured the wine for both of us and left.

A few people turned to us as we were singing and smiling wider, then they too started doing their own thing.

Despite being a very high class, posh place, the Blue Danube had no pretenses to keep up.

I liked that.

So did my date for today.

The skewers came first.

"You know... I have been trying my best to be working well, but things are just so hectic. Everyone expects so much, how many things am I supposed to ensure happen smoothly?"

"You seem very important in your job?"

"I am. And I don’t want to be complaining. I think work is meant to be busy, yeah? And expectations too, I like them."

"That’s a strange philosophy."

"Think of it this way, what else are you working for?"

"For fulfillment?" 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

"And this comes with that fulfillment, Axel. But... the frustration does catch on."

"That’s right, that’s why I think it’s okay to complaint."

Nea shook her head.

"I think it is hypocrisy."

"It’s just a feeling, it’s not that deep? You can completely enjoy your work and feel bad about it somedays. I hate my job, I want to leave it, but there are sometimes I like it. Is that so bad?"

"Hah! A literal opposite?"

"Something like that."

"The thing, I don’t want to dislike it, is what. Even for a minute. I can let myself, but I don’t want to."

"That’s... holding yourself very accountable, if I am interpreting it rightly?"

It could be a willful hypocrisy on one hand. On the other hand, she knows she is feeling this way, she is forgiving herself for doing so, but she doesn’t want to ’stay’ that way.

"It is..." Nea sighed and ripped into the skewer wholly. She was eating through the meat, it was honestly nice to see her eat. We both took a sip of the wine as well. "I don’t usually feel so. It’s just, there are some annoying bastards coming into play right now."

Now my ears perked up. Nea didn’t know that I knew, but I knew that she was a knight and I knew that she did not know that I knew and she did not know that I knew that she didn’t know that I knew. Uh...

Anyway.

As a part of the knight order, there was only group in recent times that I could think of which could have been causing her any trouble at all.

And it was... the CEF. She was most definitely annoyed because of the bastards coming into her house, sitting on her table, and treating her like a guest. That was the CEF’s modus operandi.

Things would have likely been easier for her till a while back.

Till the CEF learned that there indeed was someone who was affected by Corduil Corruption, and till they had discovered the dead bodies of three of their members, killed badly, horribly, mauled even.

We had mauled them.

And the CEF would probably think it was because the corrupted being had fully turned into a monster and was now terrorizing the territory and could hurt the people around us at any time.

The Duke’s knight forces being already bothered by the CEF bastards would then end up with even lesser power, as was the case with this stupid unit that consolidated a lot of strenght into the same group of people.

This was a horrible situation all around.

I thought things would have become for the better for Nea and the team, but that was clearly not the case. So all this stress was likely coming from there.

Oh well.

Not like I could help with that.

It’s the CEF and those people, there’s little I can do in that situation, my dea Nea. I am being honest.

"I’ll come back in a second," I said to her, getting up to use the washroom. It was also to put on some perfume and scope out a place where we could go if things were getting better, we were both already in a much better mood.

That’s when my eyes landed.

On a seven foot tall figure wearing a cap and a coat and sitting with a rather pretty lady with a large bosom.

"The fuck... Why was Jake here?"