Karin

Seeing this, Mai said, "What have you done?"

Rohan said, "Nothing much. I just took all the value out of the runes you've taken so far."

Hearing this, the four men and Mai looked at their runes, and after some time in silence, Mai asked Uson, "He's lying, isn't he? There's no way he could have destroyed our runes, right?"

Everyone looked in Uson's direction, and he said, "Unfortunately for you, he told the truth. Runes without light are worthless."

Upon hearing this, everyone was shocked, and the four men and Mai, who had lost their runes, seemed desolate as they looked at them.

After a while, the men looked in Rohan's direction. They were about to complain to him when suddenly Mai looked in his direction and said, "You're dead!" and went towards him, quickly arriving in front of him.

Rohan was surprised by this but calmed down, thinking, 'It doesn't matter how angry you are. You can't hit me. After all, it's against the rules.' But just then, his eyes widened when he saw that Mai had set up a punch that was coming at him fast, and he thought, 'Is she really going to punch me?!'

Rohan raised his hands as fast as he could to defend himself, but he clearly wasn't going to make it since he wasn't expecting Mai actually to hit him.

He saw her punch rapidly approaching his face and was about to close his eyes to take the impact, but just then, a hand appeared in front of his face, holding Mai's punch.

It was Uson who had stopped her punch. 

Mai then said, "Get out of my way! Stay out of this!"

Uson said, "Unfortunately, I can't. Fighting is forbidden."

"I don't care! You saw what he did with my runes! He has to pay!"

"Well, find another way to make him pay. I can't let you hit him for his sake and yours, too. After all, people who break the rules are disqualified from the test."

"... All right, I won't hit him. Now get out of my way."

"Okay."

Uson moved to the side, leaving Mai and Rohan face to face.

Mai then said, "You shouldn't have done that."

Rohan said, "Oh yeah? Why not? Do you intend to put more people behind me? Isn't four enough? How about eight or ten? That way, I won't even be able to take a step properly."

"You know you deserved that. You provoked me on purpose, and you even made me lose a green rune."

"I won't deny it. I really am guilty, and that's why I didn't do anything against you after you set the first group of men on me. Still, it seems that the time I lost because of them wasn't punishment enough for you."

"Of course not! Do you think a few days is enough to make up for the green rune I lost?"

"I don't know if it's enough or not. I just know that I'm not going to put up with your interference in my day any longer. That's why I destroyed your runes as a warning."

"A warning?! If you think that's going to stop me, you couldn't be more wrong! You'll regret destroying my runes!"

"No, it's you who will regret it if you don't stop. You can do whatever you want to hinder me, preventing me from getting any runes, but I can do worse for you. You'll waste your time looking for runes only to arrive at the city gate and have them destroyed by my black rune."

"Pfft, do you really think you'll make it? You won't get the chance. I'll never show my runes in front of you again."

"Unfortunately, you will. After all, you don't have a choice."

"What are you talking about? Have you gone mad?"

"To pay for room and board at the shelter, you need to show your runes to the town guard first. All I have to do is stand next to him, and you'll never be able to hand over any runes again."

"... Are you serious? You really plan to do this?!"

"That only depends on you. If you leave me alone, there's no reason for me to waste my time doing this."

"... Okay. You've won. I'll leave you alone, but I need compensation for the runes that you destroyed. Give me your black rune, or at least explain how you got it."

"It's not going to happen. You lost your runes because you crossed the line with your revenge. I won't compensate you for anything."

"I can pay for the information."

"Money is worthless here."

"I know that. Obviously, I'm not talking about money. I'm talking about runes. How many runes do you want for the information?"

"Hm, I don't know. I wasn't expecting you to say that."

"Well, think about it and give me an answer."

"Hm, I'll need some time. At the moment, you're out of runes, so even if I gave you a value, it wouldn't change anything."

"Fine, take your time, but if someone else finds a black rune, I won't buy the information from you."

"No problem."

Immediately afterward, Mai headed back towards the group that had come out of the forest with her and borrowed some runes to enter the shelter.

Her group then passed through Rohan and headed towards the shelter. At that moment, the four men who had been following him walked past, glaring at him, and Rohan said, "The same thing I said to her applies to you. I can always stand at the gate waiting for you to come back and destroy your runes."

Hearing this, they looked away and then headed for the shelter.

Soon after they entered, Rohan sat on the ground, sighing as he looked at his pile of runes that had lost their light. He thought, 'There's no problem. I'll be able to recover these runes easily since the place where I found the black rune has a lot of them, but they won't. Especially Mai, with the green and blue runes she had.'

After a while, Rohan stood up and handed Uson the black rune.

Uson then said, "That was quite an amusing situation. It's a shame it won't happen again any time soon."

Rohan said, "I'm glad it was fun for you. It was horrible for me. Apart from losing all my runes, I made even more enemies."

"Don't worry, from the look on their faces, they clearly won't mess with you again."

"I hope so."

"Well, what do you plan to do now? I wish I could let you into the shelter for free, but rules are rules. You have to pay the fee if you want to get in."

"I know. I'm going into the forest again to look for some runes. If I'm lucky, I'll get some before dawn."

"You'd better run then. You don't have much time."

"I know."

Rohan started towards the forest, but before he could take more than a step, Karin said, "Wait, you don't have to go into the forest now. I will cover your entrance fee to the shelter."

Rohan turned in Karin's direction and was surprised. He had seen Karin standing next to Uson during his argument with Mai, but he didn't know why she was there.

He then asked, "Why are you going to do this? I don't remember us being close enough for you to do that."

Karin said, "We're really not. I'm just paying for the show I just saw."

"Show? You mean my argument with Mai?"

"Yes. I love watching that sort of thing, but since it's forbidden to fight, people seem to be avoiding arguing too, which has made me a bit bored recently."

"I see. Well, since you intend to pay my entrance fee, I won't refuse. My name is Rohan. What's yours?"

"Karin."

"Okay. I'll return the favor, Karin."

"You don't have to. I'm not doing this to be your friend or anything. As I said, I'm just paying for the show I've just seen. If you want to make it up to me, just let me know the next time you do something like this."

"... Okay, it's up to you. If something like this happens again, I'll let you know."

"Perfect."

After that, Karin paid for the two of them to enter the shelter, and they walked there in silence without exchanging a word.

When they got there, Karin said goodbye briefly, and Rohan went straight to his room to sleep. 

The next day, he met Welli and told him what had happened.

Welli then said, "You did well, Rohan. I bet Mai won't bother you anymore after that."

Rohan said, "I hope so. I can't keep losing runes anymore."