"Where’s the lamb sauce?"

"Right here. There you go."

"Mmm~ This is really good. Mor-- Ahem... Qing? Try some of this."

Leena offered a spoonful of the soup that she was drinking to me and I opened my mouth to receive it, letting the centauress push the spoon into my mouth.

Mmm... Pretty good, not gonna lie.

"Master~ You can have some of mine too!"

I turned and let Kris push his fork into my mouth, enjoying the taste of the lamb coated with the lamb sauce filling my mouth.

"Mor... Qing! Here! Try this too!"

"Mine too!"

I couldn’t even eat my own food as I was stuck tasting all the food that my Guardians were trying to share with me.

Well... Everything tasted good so I wasn’t complaining and my Guardians also seem to be sharing the food amongst each other as well so the plan to get everyone to know each other better was proceeding along nicely.

We were still on our little tour through the city and for now, we decided to stop at one of the various restaurants that were in the area.

"Are you sure it’s a good idea to be drinking this early, Sergei?"

"Da. There is no rule against what time someone can drink, is there? You are being too uptight, Leena."

"Oh! That dress looks really cute, Jia Lian! Where did you get it?"

"It’s a small store at Bugis. If you want to, I can take you there next time. There’s a lot of small shops selling clothes there. I have a friend who also does pedi and medicure there if you want to get your nails done."

"Oh! I would love that!"

"Ara, ara? I did meet up with my Darling when we were in Thailand~"

"You did not do anything untowards my... My Dear, did you?"

"You worry too much Olivia. Ufufufu~ I understand decorum at the very least~"

"Qing!! Try this one too!"

I tuned out the conversations my Guardians were having amongst themselves in favour of eating the spoonful of meat that Maylene had shoved inside my mouth.

I was still in the midst of swallowing the meat that was in my mouth when I noticed that someone had approached us and was standing at the edge of the table.

A few of us turned to look in that direction and I realised that it was some bespectacled middle aged man in a suit who was smiling down at us.

"Hello there~ I couldn’t help but notice your group here," He greeted, addressing Olivia whom he must have assumed was the leader of the group. "I run a talent agency and I’m wondering if you might already belong to one yourself?"

He pulled out his name card which he tried to present to Olivia but the red Oni showed no signs of wanting to take the card.

I managed to peek at the card and though his fingers were covering the name of the company, I could see the words ’Talent Recruiter’ at the bottom of the card.

Either this guy was scouting them to be models or to online personalities... Maybe even both.

He didn’t seem too bothered by Olivia’s obvious refusal and merely pulled back, still maintaining his smile.

"If none of you are in a talent agency, would you all like to join one? We offer quite a lot of benefits for our talents. Maybe you might want to consider it?"

I cleared my throat, "Ahem... I apologise but we are not interested."

He turned to me and his face immediately changed as he scowled at me, "I was not talking to you, idiot."

Wow, geez, did he really have to--

Everyone around the table immediately rose to their feet with most of them easily towering over him and all of them were now glaring at him.

That reaction from them was so unexpected he shrunk back in fear from the pressure that all of my Guardians were exuding from just their presence alone.

Despite how they might act, it is still important not to forget that these people are the ones who are able to stand against monsters that could take down buildings all on their own. So what would happen if such people were to point their killing intent on a normal person?

I could tell the recruiter was just about to pass out from the pressure so I quickly cleared my throat to get everyone’s attention.

"Ahem... It’s alright everyone... It’s just a passing comment, right? Anyway, we’re still eating so let’s not make a scene, ok?"

The pressure around the room immediately lifted and they turned away from the middle aged guy like he was no longer important and sat back down instead, completely ignoring the recruiter and treating him like he no longer exist.

The recruiter was still standing there looking stunned before I nodded at him, "I think you should leave now. You’ve overstayed your welcome."

He was smart enough to keep his mouth shut this time and he quickly ran off without even looking back.

Everyone waited for the guy to disappear before the atmosphere went back to normal and they started eating and talking like nothing happened.

"Oh this one’s pretty good as well, Qing. You want to try this?"

"Right, I’m telling you there’s a difference between sleeping in this form and with my horse form out."

"Fufufu~ Don’t worry Olivia, I did not step out of line on the nights that I’m not supposed to~"

I opened my mouth to let Jia Lian feed the spoonful of food into my mouth, marvelling at how quickly these people were able to just change their tone so quickly.

Thankfully, nothing else happened for the rest of the meal and we managed to get through it without any other interruptions.

I felt even more full than usual since I not only had my own food to eat, I was also eating all the food that my Guardians were letting me taste.

I was half sure that they were making it into a game at one point where they tried to see how much of their food they could feed me...

"Mmm~ I’m so full~" Kris moaned, stretching his arms over his head like a cat. "What’s next on our plan for today?"

As though on cue, someone else approached us, this time being a young man who looked like he was unsure about approaching us to begin with.

All of us turned our attention to him and he was fiddling with his fingers as he approached us.

With everyone looking at him, he faltered for a moment but decided to press forward and approached us to stand directly in front of us.

"Umm... For... Forgive me but... All of you... You’re Guardians of the Mortal God, aren’t you?"

Ava immediately giggled, "Ufufufu~ What are you talking about? We are just an ordinary group of friends that have decided to come out on a Wednesday to have some fun together on our day off~"

As though catching the hint, the young man bowed his head slightly, "It’s... It’s alright... I just... I just want to thank all of you... My... My brother died in one of the rifts... He had followed a past expedition into one of the rifts and lost his life inside it... It is thanks to you all that the rift was cleared and I was able to retrieve my brother’s remains from inside the rift to give him a proper burial..."

Hmm... I’m pretty sure he did not mean that he got his brother’s body from the rift because anyone who dies inside the rift gets transformed into an Anomaly so his brother should have turned into one of those creatures after he died and there’s no body to retrieve.

What I believe he meant was that he managed to get the equipment and mementos of his brother from the rift and buried those instead.

It’s not uncommon for people here to treat those like the actual person and bury items like that in place of the actual person nowadays, especially since most of the time, we would just resort to cremating the people on the spot if they had died to Anomalies.

The young man straightened himself, his eyes full of gratitude, "I... I don’t have much... But I really just wanted to thank all of you for what you do for us."

Without waiting for a response, he bowed again before he turned and walked away, stopping a few times to turn back and bow again before finally disappearing around the corner.

All of us just watched him go with mixed emotions.

I’m sure some of us here never really thought about this before we started working here together but... I suppose we also had an impact on people outside of the rift like that guy...

And we not only fight for ourselves, but also for the people who were unable to fight on their own too.

Well... That was certainly an unexpected encounter for us on our day off...