Maun looked over to Miles angrily, flashing a threatening glare his way. I, on the other hand, raised my brows at him. Miles merely held up both hands and retreated behind Erlan.

My lips twisted with doubt. It was far too early for those kinds of feelings. How old was I? I turned what? Thirteen not so long ago? Maun was a little older, so he'd be fourteen or something. This was far too young to have those kinds of amorous feelings, right? I have only thought about Maun being something like a chick imprinting on a mother.

However, Maun wasn't a chick, and I wasn't his mother.

What more, I knew myself. I could be a numbass little b*tch. I couldn't judge other people's feelings based on my own experience and personality. Maun had always been very expressive and sensitive. However, I did not think that it was appropriate to deal with this now.

Ah, no. Too young. Too young. For my mental age, although we weren't really physically far apart, isn't this kind of like pedophilia in another sense? This really wasn't settling well with me.

"I apologize in advance. Let's talk when we go back. How about it?"

Maun looked at me for a moment. His furious face melted into a puppy dog gaze so quick it scared me a little. "Can I go to your room later to talk?" he signed.

My mind wasn't the cleanest, so some inappropriate scenarios immediately flashed in my mind. On the other hand, Maun was a little too innocent still to know those things, so I pushed them out of my mind.

"Okay. I'll buy some snacks and we can talk."

Maun was immediately happier in an instant. He shot a disdainful glance at the stone-faced Arondite and strutted off with his two companions to register for their performance.

There were far too many people who wanted to take part in the competition. Today, it felt a little crowded.

Thankfully, today wasn't the first day. According to some conversations I overheard from passers-by, this wasn't the first night since the competition had started. Several people had already given it a go, but none so far have really pleased or qualified in the eyes of the judges—whoever was judging the performances here.

I had doubts about the intentions of Kaiser earlier. There may be two scenarios here: either he wanted to get my performance, so he put up this competition or wanted my performance for this competition. But he owned this business, right? It was easy to assume the former if I was a little more narcissistic. Either way, I was a little tired thinking up of possibilities. I wasn't going to perform no matter what, and I was not interested in a death relic at the moment.

Right now, I was only a tag-a-long. Whether Arondite won, that was his problem.

So many people went up and began to perform. However, as I watched on—I found them very bland and severely lacking in creativity.

Simply dancing, singing old folk songs, prancing around, embarrassing themselves. To a certain extent, it was indeed entertaining, but it wasn't anything I hadn't seen before. People around seemed really entertained though, but I hadn't seen anything so far that really interested me.

It was then that I remembered how people of this world were only beginning to explore possibilities of entertainment. The geodevision—their version of a television—was only recently released, but its nature made it so that it was only currently accessible to people of high society. Entertainment-wise, these people lacked exposure and ideas to it.

It wasn't that they were lacking in that area, but it should be nothing against the tricks that humans from Earth should have improved on after globalization of entertainment. Just as how the Olympics and Miss Universe Pageants would change in competitiveness and standards over the years.

No wonder Arondite felt that my suggestion was so novel.

"Are we really obligated to stay here?" I asked. "Can't you just call me when we're about to perform? We still left that table full of dishes."

"I already advised one of the waiters to wrap the food up for us. Why are you so eager to leave? Are you not impressed?" Arondite inquired.

The only performances I have seen in this world worthy of my attention were those made by my mistresses. Whenever they picked up an instrument, started to sing or dance, they would put anyone watching in a trance—immersed deep in the world they built. Having been peppered with such scenes for more than a decade, I was not impressed at all.

"Haven't you seen actual performances? This is mediocre," I said lazily.

"I would think so from someone in possession of an angel's string harp!"

I turned to the enthusiastic exclamation and found the bright eyes of Kaiser looming overhead. His face carried a lot of expectations.

"I heard you signed up!" he told me.

"No. He did," I said, jerking a thumb over to Arondite. "He's just taking me along as an assistant."

The bubbling happiness fizzled dry like a cola left out too long. Kaiser's smile disappeared and the disappointment that replaced it was vivid and sour. For a moment, I was really tempted to ask why he wanted me to play so much, but I clamped my mouth shut to restrain my curiosity. If I ask about his story, it would mean I was considering it. I didn't want to leave a room for the other party to wiggle into my conscience. It must be a clear-cut no!

I turned my eyes forward coldly. Kaiser seemed to want to say a few words, but my attitude was like a hand up on his face. In the end, he rolled away with a hunched back, leaving Arondite and myself to resume waiting for our turn.

I looked at the time on the wall. "We ought to go up soon. The curfew's in just an hour and a half. If the monks lock us outside and we can't go in tomorrow for class, it's going to be horrible."

"It's the weekend tomorrow. We wouldn't be up and about otherwise. At most, just stay out tonight."

"You crazy? Who knows what kind of penalty we'll get for staying outside with no permission?"

"I read. It's two hours of horse stance," he replied.

"Two hours of horse—damn. If we're out too late, I'm leaving ya'll. The only stance I'll be doing on the weekend is a sleeping stance," I whispered. "We only get one day break every week. I'm not spending it on exercise!"

"It should increase your strength."

"Strength, my ass. Have you never heard that equal parts and rest are important? You can't get stronger in a day. Why bother pushing yourself so much? Your body needs a break, too!" I said angrily. "How long is this contest going to go, anyway?"

"That depends."

"You better wish we finish before curfew."

"Alright. Then while we have time, we should discuss what to do. You seem to have a lot of ideas," he said, whole body turning to face mine.

"It's going to cost you," I told him. "My ideas are out of this world."

"Go ahead. Surprise me."

Thankfully, we didn't have to wait long. Having registered before Maun's group, we came up on stage first.

Arondite and I have already extensively discussed what we were going to do. Though this guy looked rather hard to get along with, he was surprisingly easy to talk with when discussing ideas. He gave the impression, but he wasn't actually looking down on you for having a different stance. In fact, he seriously considered it.

I didn't know if it was just me, but he was the type of teammate I would really be glad to have on the team.

The performance was very straightforward. However, since I felt that it was too bland, we decided to add some twists to it. It so happened that Arondite had a lot of trick shots up his sleeve—whether he had to bend over, stand on his head, draw with his teeth, shoot blindfolded—he could handle everything.

All I had to do was stand there with an apple on my head or on my shoulder—or wherever. He would pierce them accurately without causing me a single harm.

I was a little stiff. Although unflinching, I had to bite down on my instincts in order to not move or flail. If I did, I risked getting shot.

At least, I tried to seem unbothered. Fighting against the flight instincts of my body was harder than it looked. Thankfully, I had first class acting skills. They should give me an Oscar's for my dedication.

"That girl didn't even blink!" hollered one man from the room. "Oi! If an axe came hurtling at you, would you even move? Get some reaction here, you boring girl!"

I looked over to the guy yelling, annoyed. He had a huge scar running down from the top left to the lower right of his face. It caused one eye to droop and for his lips to split, giving him a slight lisp.

"You know what'll make me scream? Your face is scarier than an axe on my face," I impatiently replied. "If you look in the mirror, you'll probably see what happened when you last threw that dragonsdamned thing."

The entire room erupted in full-blown laughter as the one who yelled has his face flaring up red in shame. At the same time, Arondite pinned the apple from my head tight onto the wall behind me. Some juices spilled on my head, but it wasn't so messy.

"You're one to talk, your head is redder than my mom's knickers!"

Impatient, I pulled it off the wall and bit into it. The crunch was drowned by the commotion. "Yeah, and how did she push you out? I bet she didn't have much trouble with how shiny that head is."

The bald head seemed to glimmer under the warm light. The whole place was nearly run down by the second wave of laughter.

"On second thought, she probably had a lot of trouble. Having to push out a forty-something-year-old baby should have made her wish she used protection."

At this point, the entire place was roaring with laughter.

Everybody's focus came centered on my insults rather than our actual performance.

"Your whole stage is boring!" someone yelled.

Everybody looked to the back. I followed the line of gaze and saw a girl. Ah. Plain Jane, she was. Not much face.

"Ha. You're one to talk. I bet if you go on a date, you wouldn't even make it past a minute before the other person falls asleep on you." I took another bite out of the apple and, according to routine, threw the core at Arondite.

The girl flushed heavily. "Not true!"

Looking at her body language, I would say the opposite. I merely smiled and then resumed my gaze ahead. "Oh, really."

The core was thin, much harder to target compared with a whole fruit. However, the arrow whizzed overhead and split the core in half.

"Why this little girl—" the other person stood up, sleeves rolling.

"No fights allowed in the bar!" said the bartender.

"You should be more respectful to the ones you're performing for!"

"You're not going to judge whether we win or not. Don't like it? Go. It won't mean much if you stay," I replied coldly.

I looked over. No fights in the bar, but we might be in danger once we leave. Who knew? Insulting a bunch of people might give us a very colorful night. I better look for a way to leave without being seen in advance.

Me and my mouth, really.