Dinner Resumes

It's ghastly silent.

"I understand that my companions might attract your unwanted attention," I declare to the room, "So I, humbly, ask you to stay away from us. You have seen what happened, and I am not afraid to go further than this. The next one to talk to my friends without being talked to might not be as lucky to still have their head intact. Understood?"

The room nods.

"Oh, by the way, this doesn't apply to Lohikaarmi. Do what you want with her." I turn to the dragon girl and say, "And I hereby grant you permission to burn anyone that deliberately touches you without permission to anything less than ashes."

"Yes, Master."

"Now, sorry for the interruption. Carry on with your dinner."

"Logan!" Mia's voice calls out from behind as she rushes to the guy bleeding from his head on the floor.

She looks with a wide mouth at me standing over two other guys on their knees and asks, "What did you do?"

"My friends called for help, that's all."

"You can't be-"

Mia puts her hands together and prays above the passed-out guy named Logan. Her palms glow but nothing happens.

"What?" She mumbles and tries again. Nothing.

"I-Is he dead?" One of Logan's friends beneath me asks.

"No, he is still alive," Mia says after feeling his pulse.

Astra chuckles and jumps off her chair.

"Krissy might have done a little bit more damage than you can handle," she says as she walks to Mia.

Krissy? Since when did that become a thing?

"What?" Mia asks.

"Here, let me help." Astra crouches down beside Logan and hovers her right hand over his head.

With no clasped palms or closed eyes, Astra's hand glows and Logan slowly opens his eyes back up.

"A-Astra can pray?" Faye says out of surprise.

"Of course." She turns around with a thumbs up.

Logan sits up and rubs his head, dazed out of his mind. He looks like he forgot what his own name is.

"What did you do this time to warrant a beating like this?" Mia asks.

Logan mumbles something unintelligible.

"He might need a few hours to completely recover," Astra says and goes back to her seat.

Mia sighs. "Is that so?" She says and looks to Logan's friends who are still kneeling beside me.

"Can you two bring him to your room?"

The two look up to me for approval.

"Kris, let them go, please," Mia says.

I turn to them. "You two got lucky, alright?" I say. "If you really pissed off Lohikaarmi, she would have leveled this building in an instant. Now go."

They scramble onto their feet and run to Logan, then they pull him up by his shoulders and legs and carry him out into the hall, where Cecilia is standing with Abigail and Melody.

The bishop watches the confused Logan get brought out and looks at us.

"Can someone tell me what happened?" Cecilia asks with a stern face.

Mia turns to me.

"These guys were harassing my friends, so I took care of them," I say.

The bishop facepalms. "Already?" She says with a sigh.

"Did you know that this was going to happen?" I ask.

"Sooner or later, yeah. I mean, look at your servants. What did you expect?" she says.

"How can you let something like this happen in your convent and treat it like normal?"

"Kris, you have to understand that the people here aren't from nobility like you and your sister. They are poor and uneducated. Please, give them some leeway."

"I will never, not if they are going to treat my friends like this."

"Well, it looks like that won't happen anytime soon after today," Abigail says while looking around the table of scared guests.

"It'd better not."

"And no more talk about leveling the convent, alright?" Cecilia says.

"Yes, I admit I might have gone a little too far there. I should have ended with leveling their heads."

"Uh." Cecilia scratches the back of her head. "Yeah, okay. Let's get back to dinner."

Just like that? No repercussions whatsoever? Well, I am not complaining, but aren't the rules a bit too loose around here?

Quiet chattering slowly comes back to life in the room, along with the sound of clicking silverware. Melanie slow-jogs across the hall to Abigail with a concerned face and whispers, "I was so scared, Sister Abigail. The whole time I was thinking it could have been you."

Abigail chuckles and says, "No, he is not the kind of person who would do that."

"How do you know? You've known him for like twenty minutes."

"A woman's intuition, Sister Melanie. You will know what I mean soon," she says and glances over to me with a mystical smile.

She's not wrong. I ignore her and go sit back down in my chair. Owen scooches back out of the way.

"T-Thank you, Kris," Faye says, "Once again, I couldn't do anything for myself…" Her eyes droop onto the table.

"Faye, you need to learn how to stand up for yourself in situations like this. I can't always be there to help," I say.

"I-I know. I'm sorry…"

Quite a long road ahead of her.

"Why did you guys not do anything?" I ask Astra and Lohikaarmi.

"I told her not to," Astra says.

"What? Why?"

"Because I wanted to watch the show, and you truly delivered, Krissy." Astra grins.

Of course she did.

"Don't get mad, okay?" Astra continues, "If I told Lohikaarmi to do something, we might not have a dining hall to sit in right now."

"I am not mad. I am actually glad that you left the chance for me to take care of it myself. I had some stress I wanted to release," I say and crack my knuckles.

I hear Owen audibly gulp from beside me.

"You guys are scary…" he mutters.

"Better learn that now than through the hard way like poor Logan, right?" Astra says.

"Y-Yeah."

One of the nuns, Melody, walks over from the kitchen and sits beside Lohikaarmi and across from Owen, joining us as if she was a part of our group. She puts down her plate on the table and leans in toward me.

"Sister Melanie told me what happened. That was badass, bro," she says with her eyes sparkling.

"Bro?"

"Yeah. You call me sister, right? So it'd only make sense if call you bro."

That… not… what?

"Hey! Krissy is my bro! Go find your own!" Astra exclaims.

"Can't we share your bro?"

"Well, that depends. What do you think about the Goddess?"

"Our Goddess?"

"Yeah."

"Random question, but okay. Let's see… She is beautiful… kind… and everyone loves her with all their hearts."

Astra chuckles childishly. "You pass. We can share Krissy now."

"Nice."

I am speechless.

Melody turns back to me and says, "You really put that chap back in line, bro. Logan has always been the troublemaker, and now he will probably think twice before taking a piss."

What religion is this nun practicing?