Shenanigans in Dentalia

“So? What happened afterwards?” The friendly-looking guy seated opposite of Dezechiel probes further.

Fantastasia keeps munching on something, paying no attention to the conversation.

“After some solid thirty minutes of hack and slash, we managed to reach the villain,” Deze explains.

The man in front of him gulps. “The villain?”

“Yeah, the puppet master! Puppets have to have a puppet master, right? A puppeteer, so to speak. Right. His name was…”

“Hans von Lederkuchen,” Fantastasia finally budges in. “But why does this interest you to begin with, Elmax?”

The orange-haired man named Elmax freezes up. “Hans von Lederkuchen… that’s a familiar name. Forty years ago, he was exiled from this town after one of his experiments killed hundreds…” He clenches his fist, a sorrowful look on his face.

“Ah…” Dezechiel exchanges quick looks with Fan-Fan and she wolfs down the rest of her snack in under two seconds.

“Finally… I’m so glad our town of Dentalia was blessed with adventurers as skilled as you two… for years, children have been going missing and now, finally, all of this ends…”

Fantastasia nudges her comrade under the table.

“Riiiight, actually, we’re supposed to be somewhere in a bit, so if you’ll excuse us…”

Both Deze and Fan-Fan get up and start hastily taking their leave. However, before that happens, Elmax grabs the brown-haired swordsman’s sleeve.

“I understand esteemed travelers like yourselves have a ton of work, but do honor my request as this matter personally involves me…”

Dezechiel looks at Fantastasia, begging with his eyes for her to help him out. The girl gulps and turns around.

“Well, I’m gonna go on ahead, so hope the two of you thoroughly enjoy your chat~” she waves them goodbye and bolts out of the room.

Deze rolls his eyes. ‘That bitch left me alone in this…’

Elmax tightens his grip. “My daughter… Hans took her when she was just four. I’ll never forget the look on his face when I caught a glimpse of him through the window…”

The brown-haired angel begins full-on sweating. He doesn’t have the heart to tell him that they didn’t actually kill Hans. Even more so given the fact they let themselves get bribed and spared him. For some cake, nonetheless.

And worst of all, Fan-Fan ate all of it! That pink-haired devil had the audacity to finish it in front of the guy who had his daughter stolen by that villain.

“So I must ask…” The orange-haired citizen keeps going with a firm expression, “was his end painful enough? Did you put him through all of what he’s been putting us through for all those years?”

Dezechiel nods profusely. “Yeah, something like that.”

Elmax lets go of his sleeve. He looks into the table, then breaks into tears. “Thank you… you have my eternal gratitude… mine… the town’s… and my daughter’s… aaah Rin-Rin!” He blows his nose into the napkin under his beer.

Deze’s eyes nervously dart back, forth, up and down, assessing whether this is the correct time to take his leave.

“Go, my friend… Elmax continues his mucous rant, “go and save other towns too!”

Dezechiel awkwardly nods. “Uhm, yeah… well, see ya.”

\\

When he walks out of the bar, Fan-Fan is already waiting by the exit. He looks in her direction, but ultimately decides to ignore her and keep walking. The girl slowly follows in his step, making it really obvious she wants to be talked to. He powers through her feminine allure and maintains his firm stance and hard head.

“Hey, Dezee~,” she calls after him, “Dez-Dez…”

Dezechiel sighs, but remains true to his choice of ignoring the person who ditched him in a split-second.

“Hey come ooooon, don’t just ignore me like that!”

Deze bites his lip. She’s starting to get on his nerves.

“He-e-ey, what are we going to do about you letting that bad guy go?”

The last straw. Dezechiel instantly draws his sword, pointing it at Fan-Fan within a millisecond. The girl eeps and falls on her butt, presenting a sort of upskirt view with shock filling her face.

“Haa? I let him go? Can you remind me whose idea it was to get bribed by a piece of cake?”

Fantastasia blushes. “Ehehehe, we’re being stared at.”

The swordsman takes a few quick glances around, realizing the town folk are giving him disdainful looks. Especially hurts given the few younger ladies looking at him with disgust in their face. Another place where his chances are ruined, all because of her again.

“Tsk.” He holds off on sheathing his blade, fighting the urge to stab it in Fan-Fan’s smug face. “You literally carry a spear almost twice your size on you, but still proceed to act like the most innocent little thing.”

An evil smile paints her face. “‘Cause it looks like you’re a vagabond troubling a helpless maiden that way. There’s no helping it, it’s just the inborn female advantage,” she whispers, just enough for nobody around them to hear her.

Dezechiel quickly scans the area. “Is that so?” Well, whatever. His reputation here is ruined anyways. Might as well take her down too.

With an elegant flip, he stabs the sword into the pavement and gets down on one knee. Out of his back pocket, he pulls out a golden ring with a gemstone, presenting it to the shocked girl in front of him.

“Fantastasia van Mizeria, I’ve fallen for you the moment I first laid my eyes on you. I’ve loved you sincerely ever since. Will you marry me?”

The audience’s reaction quickly turns to shock and subsequently, all of the gathered crowd begins clapping. Dezechiel smirks. This way, they think that whole sword thing was just for show. And seeing how his partner failed to react, now, she’s on the back foot.

Encouraging shouts and bravos fill the plaza while beet red Fan-Fan fails to conjure up a response.

This is not the first time she’s put him on the spot like this. But now, he’s come prepared. All those times he ate dirt, his reputation sinking to the bottom of the ocean and plummeting right through were not for naught. All that pain and turmoil changed him. Not for the better, but changed nonetheless.

He’s still yet to find out how to swim up from that low. But at the very least, he can show her around there.

“I-I-I…” Fan-Fan finally starts working towards a response.

“Yes, my dear?” Deze follows through with the immersion.

“I’m sorry, I can’t accept this!” she smacks the ring out of his hand and runs off.

The crowd gasps in unison. What a poor young man, opening his heart up like that only for it to be snapped in two.

“Fan-Fan, wait!” he shouts after her, holding his laughter in while he sheathes his blade. That’s 1-0 for him. Well, actually, more like 1-5 if we were to account for all the other instances she’s tried to publicly humiliate him, but the former sounds better.

He gives the surrounding folk one more shocked look, then presses his hand into a fist and gives chase to his partner.

“Darling, waiiiit!”

\\

Dezechiel sprints through the narrow streets, frantically laughing between the breaths. This went far beyond his wildest expectations. Everyone will be gossipping about her for the next few months at best. Truly a victory royale.

“Hey Fan-Fan, wait up, wait up,” he yells after her, chuckling all throughout.

The girl finally stops in an empty street and turns around. Just about when he’s closing in on her, she draws her spear and whacks him across the face with the handle. The brown-haired swordsman stumbles back a little, but remains on his two feet.

“You absolute fucking moron!” she shouts, dropping her spear and hitting him in the stomach with her fist. Dezechiel gasps, but makes an oddly satisfied face.

That’s right. Her venting just proves he won. Spectacularly, at that.

“You buffoon, what the fuck were you thinking,” she keeps venting while smacking him in all sorts of ways, none of which he tries his hand at defending too much. “The absolute state of this pigeon-sized brain of yours!!”

“You can beat me like that anyday,” he pronounces proudly, much to her disgust as she immediately halts her bout of physical violence, “this is the most physical touch I’ve gotten from a girl in months ;).”

“What the fuck is actually wrong with your head,” she backs up, covering her mouth, “this is some peak maidenless behavior.”

Dezechiel smiles and puffs out his chest. “Once you’ve experienced so much failure, you learn to look the void in the face until it smiles back.” The level of confidence he puts into this quote of his proves he’s been down horrendously for a while now.

“I think I’m gonna need a puke bag after this,” she says, looking around while holding both her stomach and her mouth.

“So what, not gonna marry me?” he smirks, adding salt to the injury alongside some tropical spices in the form of his level of self-awareness.

“You know what-” she fumes, her hand flying at his face. He stops the attack by catching her wrist, much to her surprise.

In this very instance, his level of confidence is at least a little astonishing. If not for the fact that he enjoyed getting beaten by a girl, she’d maybe even consider thinking of him as a man.

An explosion going off in the direction they came from interrupts their little moment. Fan-Fan pulls away and they both turn to the source.

“Speaking of which, where’d you get that ring from? I thought you were banned from entering all jewelry stores due to your profound level of ineptness when it comes to women.”

Dezechiel smirks. “That may be true, but I did have one from those quests we did in the Rocky Mountains, so I just used that.”

Fantastasia makes an ‘Aaaah!’ face as she finally gets it, but her expression swiftly changes to worry. “Wait, The Ring of Giants?”

The playboy wannabe nods.

“Not meaning to pry, but you still have it on you, right?” she asks, the corner of her mouth twitching.

“A-” His face of realization is an incredible sight.

From the smoke left after the explosion, a gargantuar figure towering over twenty meters emerges.

“My name is Zahnpaster,” the giant proclaims, his deep voice shaking the very ground they stand on, “and starting today, you will all submit to me!”

“Hmm,” Dezechiel hums.

“We done fucked up, huh?”

“You done fucked up, buddy,” the pink-haired girl quickly shifts blame.

“Listen up, you were the one who knocked the ring-”

Their quarrel is interrupted by the sound of a building being smashed to pieces. The giant has already begun his bout of destruction.

“Alright, let’s just agree we’ll both figure this out later,” Deze tries to neutralize the fight so they can get to extinguishing this burning pile of shit.

“Sure, but you are the one who caused this,” Fan-Fan settles the argument while not settling one bit.

The brown-haired swordsman sighs. Whatever. He’ll get her later. It’s time to even the score, and by evening the score, he means at least salvaging this situation, since this is the second time they’ve unintentionally let a villain have their way in this town.

Zahnpaster, the Giant, roars. It’s wreckin’ time.