After everything had settled down and the group had relocated back to their inn room, Nagami eventually relented on her cursade of healing punches against Zalroth, finally appeased the guy could stand on his own two feet now, even though the guy would have long passed three times the value of his max HP if he had the HP version of Overcreep active on him.

  "Don't you think you've healed him enough?" Kaira asked, with a spring in his step as faint, pale orange swirls popped out of his body. Nagami swivelled her head towards the strangely energetic guy, who had been out cold as a dead body the second he reached Gronoville a few hours ago.

  "I don't need comments from a guy who's moments away from having an energy crash," Nagami uttered jestfully, pointing out the fading amount of particles coming from the guy that signified the potion effect on him was moments from fading away.

  "Oh come on, are you seriously suggesting I'm only awake because of Al's Invigor...," Kaira mumbled, his voice becoming increasingly slurred and his eyes heavy before he slumped forward and passed out on the floor. With a satisfied huff, Nagami crossed her arms at seeing that her timing was just right. But, as she basked in her satisfaction, Nagami noticed the two surviving assassins approaching, based on their footsteps and the tempo of the following door knocking. She rushed to the door, aggressively swinging it open and locking onto the assassin duo to confirm it was them. Turning slightly defensive, Nagami jumped in the way to fully block the door despite her small stature while throwing her arms up possessively.

  "Let it be known that he allowed you to live; don't waste it, if you catch my drift," Nagami announced sternly to the assassin pair before immediately receiving a slap to the back of the head from Zalroth, which dealt a single point of DMG.

  "Knock it off with paraphrasing the shows you've watched, you dork," Zalroth complained as he lowered a hand to his hip.

  "Hey, that one was from a fan animation on Newreels," Nagami murmured meekly, left to rub the back of her head as the single point of DMG stung. Not phased by the scene before them or Nagami's strangely ominous comment, Atella and Kelao bowed down, catching the three conscious people off guard.

  "We humbly give our greatest gratitude to you for sparing our lives, Sir Zalroth," Atella and Kelao announced in unison, their tones extremely professional and devoid of hesitation, leaving Zalroth mildly unsure if he actually deserved such gratitude.

  "Eh... isn't that a bit of an overexagitation? All I did was move you two away from the curse thing so it didn't pull you in," Zalroth muttered as he awkwardly rubbed the back of his head, dismissing any notion he deserved such praise from his prior opponents.

  "Even if that is the case, you saved our lives, so we have no room to be stingy," Kelao said as he reached into his pocket before offering a small artefact to Zalroth. With Nagami watching the artefact like a frenzied cat, Zalroth took the artefact and held it up to his eyes before doing what he always does when finding something new. The artefact is a pale blue stone-like earring connected to a golden metal sun by a silver chain to form an earring.

  [Activated Skill: Appraisal(Level: 3)]

  [Crescent Moon Company Earring][Artefact]

  -An artefact used by the employees of the Crescent Moon Company and those considered "Special Exceptions"-

  [Ranged Private Transmission]

  -Can only communicate with people that share the same Hexa frequency and Code from any range-

  "With this, you'll be able to enlist the help of the Crescent Moon Company's many services should you ever feel the need for it," Kelao explained, whilst Atella listed off some of them; ranging from their service of locating particular items/monsters/people for free, discounts at their stores, and obvious the assassination thing.

  "At least, it didn't go the slave route," Zalroth murmured, grateful that he wasn't put in a position to have to accept people as his slaves. Atella smirked under her mask, finding it amusing that Zalroth's first concern was that she and Kelao were going to pledge themselves as his slaves.

  "Glad we can agree on that, nothing worse than being like that Shoenoda Empire," Atella remarked smugly, before lightly jabbing Kelao in the shoulder and remarking, "Look at that, you're thought was dead on, Kelao. This guy definitely isn't from that empire."

  "Anyway, if you have any questions you'd like to ask, we'll answer them to the best of our knowledge," Kelao stated, trying to avoid any further derailing from the duo's intended conversation with Zalroth. But, before any of the others could ask a question, Atella added to Kelao's statement by saying, "And, before you ask, sir, we can't divulge any personal info on who hired us; the same also applies to you and your allies if others ask about you."

  "But we can tell you what the request was, given you saved us," Kelao stated, before divulging the non-classified info. Kelao went on to explain how the Crescent Moon Company was hired to either capture or kill Reino's granddaughter to send the guy a message for refusing to make them high-grade weapons, adding the client paid up front from what their captain said.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  "And, as you witnessed, our companions were more than eager to do the latter of the two options for some reason," Kelao said with remorseful concern in his tone as he lowered his head.

  "You're making it sound like that wasn't always the case," Nowa remarked half-heartedly, more focused on placing her strangely-shaped hair-curlers to restrain her spikey hair.

  Kelao nodded apologetically before continuing, "Indeed, before we took on this particular mission, they all shared the same morals as the Company, being to only kill those who are a threat to society or the world as a whole. That was, until we went to meet our last client. The captain had a strange feeling about the client. So, he told the two of us to stay behind before he and the rest went to meet the client. After that, nothing seemed out of the ordinary until tonight when he revealed what our mission was."

  "Although their shift in demeanor should've made it obvious something was up. But, to think they'd been turned into cursed puppets without us catching on," Atella added shamefully.

  "Now I feel kind of bad for killing them," Zalroth uttered defeatedly, wondering if he hadn't messed around and restrained the assassins, that Aoina might've been able to dispel the curses on them.

  "Don't be, it comes with this kind of work, so we're always ready to meet our end," Kelao stated calmly before following it up with, "And given how that kind of curse works, they'd probably be grateful you did."

  Having listened to the conversation, Nowa added, "So, that means you never saw what the client sent you after Reino and Fio looked like?"

  The two assassins regretfully nodded, mentioning the client had left before their companions had even left the meeting spot. After talking for a little longer, the assassin duo bidded the group a goodnight; before leaving, the duo got a request from Nagami to do the invisibility thing, which they did, much to the girl's glee.

  The next day, Nagami pushed Zalroth in the chest with all her might. Although the push didn't move him an inch, Zalroth pretended to be pushed back and fell onto the bed behind him, wearing more casual clothing he had received from Nekoura the other night.

  [a purple silk short-sleeved shirt with a black trim around its sleeves, light grey silk trousers with with three golden ring engravings around the bottom of its legs, black combat boots with metal rings around the cuffs[the rings are made of two halves; a steel piece and a silver piece that have been melded together], and a golden and copper bead bracelet that's threaded with a copper string woven from twenty smaller ones that are tied together by a heart-shaped ruby]

  "No... fighting, you say?" Zalroth said, faintly surprised it took Nagami half a night to get around to saying something along those lines.

  "That's right. We're staying an extra day here, so either you have to spend it without fighting something or you have to participate in my hundred-layer attraction idea to recover," Nagami stated sternly, holding onto Zalroth's shoulders as she tried to shake them but only ended up shaking herself.

  "I think he'd unironically have withdralls if he went a day without fighting something," Nowa remarked jokingly as she pulled her strangely shaped hair-curlers out of her head, causing each section of her hair to snap back to its original spikey state.

  "Why do you think she made it one of the options?" Zalroth asked rhetorically, leading the others to realise it was basically a trap to force Zalroth to do the actual thing she wants him to do.

  "Now, just hand over your combat equipment so me and the Craft-Squad can repair them," Nagami ordered with a reserved snicker behind her words, demandingly swiping her fingers up and down as she waited for Zalroth to hand them over.

  "Now try not to go and die by losing all your HP," Nagami added as she stored the clothing in her Inventory. Zalroth let out a loud, obnoxious scoff of amusement at the notion.

  "For the record, when non-monsters or tamed monsters reach zero HP from a non-deadly attack, they're just knocked out," Zalroth uttered swiftly. Hopping to his feet, Zalroth wasted no time peering at the open glass window and Particle Warping outside.

  "Good to know," Nagami uttered with a tinge of sinister glee in her voice, likening it to that of a cat after their owner leaves the treat bag out on the kitchen counter.

  With Metsu vaulting out the window after Zalroth, Nowa defeatedly sighed as she asked, "Can you not be strangely sinister for one day, Nagami?"

  Outside, Zalroth and Metsu couldn't go five steps without being bombarded and inundated with gratitude and pleasantries from the residents of Gronoville for saving them. Being the less verbally sound of the duo, Metsu left the duty of reciprocating the passersby's words.

  "I take it Nagami asked you to follow me before I woke up today?"

  "Make sure Zalroth isn't reckless, what Nagami told me," Metsu stated with determination, determined to ensure Zalroth has a somewhat uneventful day at all costs. But, behind her mask of responsibility, Metsu was secretly gunning for Zalroth to go after the golems he mentioned last night.

  "I don't think dealing with a few golems would count as reckless, don't you think?" Zalroth asked cheekily, to which Metsu nodded, mainly considering all the shadow and light points she'd get by tagging along with Zalroth into the mines.

  "I see you've learn nothing from yesterday, have you, Zalroth?" Kaze remarked as he crossed paths with the talking duo, "And you're no better for silently encouraging him for your own means, Metsu."

  Metsu lightly blushed, embarrassed at being called out for her attempt to get more shadow/light points, and timidly whistled as she rocked back and forth on the spot.

  "And, I see you've changed your equipment," Zalroth remarked, diverting Kaze's attention away from Metsu and onto himself.

  [Kaze is now wearing: pitch-black solidified slime sunglasses, an open green fur hoodie, a plain black shirt, faintly beige and white striped trousers, and black shoes]

  "Trust me, the only part of that last outfit I liked where the glasses," Kaze grumbled as he shifted said solidified slime glasses on his forehead with his hand.

  "And you didn't have the heart to tell Nekoura that to her face?" Zalroth retorted, causing Kaze to shiver slightly as his blush matched that of Metsu.

  "She scary when her fashion sense doesn't match the person's taste," Metsu muttered, recalling the three-day straight bickering match between Nekoura and Nagami when they were designing the costumes for the school play. Averting his eyes and knocking down his sunglasses to cover them, Kaze begrudingly murmured, "I can't deny that."