Coffee Shop
From the training grounds, two weapons could be heard crashing into each other, the sound of metal hitting metal echoing throughout a second empty training ground nearby. Suddenly, it became clear that one of the two knights had run out of breath and was exhausted. However, he seemed to be getting up and shaking it off, impressing his opponent, but a look of concern appeared on the knight's face.
"Alto," spoke the knight. His bulky armor kept the blows of Alto's sword from damaging him too much; a stark contrast to his fellow knight. "If you are to keep up with me, you must have more than brute strength. Stamina is also an important factor when it comes to combat, yet it is clearly something you lack."
Alto shook his head as he took heavy breaths and started to strike at Archibald once again. 'Clank!' The sword fell out of Alto's hand the moment he hit Archie's armor. Falling onto the ground, Alto regained his breath as he looked at Archie.
"I guess if I keep forcing it then I won't get any better."
Nodding, the better of the two smiled.
"That is correct. One can not push themselves too far, or else they will end up damaging themselves more than their opponent. You must learn to be more relaxed." After walking over to Alto and helping him up, Archibald looked Alto in the eyes. "You may be the conductor, but that does not mean you must force yourself through training. If anything, it means you must know when to relax and stop overworking yourself."
"Yeah, I know." Alto, now on two feet, started to walk away from the training grounds, with Archibald following behind him. "I can't seem to take a note out of my own book, huh? When Sakuya was overworking herself, I told her it was bad for her, yet here I am now."
Archibald shook his head as if to say Alto was incorrect, causing Alto to get a rather curious look on his face. "The difference here is that you see yourself as someone the witches can come to in their time of need. This leads to you pushing yourself without even realizing it. Each time you tune one of them, it's still you doing the tuning. Perhaps spending time with the witches to just relax is what you need."
Alto put his fingers to his chin and started to think. Remembering that Lisette received an amazing book from Rusty that mentioned some of the greatest places to eat around Regnant, he said, "I guess Lisette could show me around some coffee shops."
Grinning, Archibald finally agreed with Alto. "Yes, take time to relax. The more stress you cause yourself, the more likely you are to fall on the battlefield. Now go, I must teach Rusty another lesson about why the Royal Knights are not to flirt with random women." At that, Alto went to Lisette to see if she could help him.
"Oh?" Lisette was quite confused at this whole thing. Alto wanted to come with her to try the Coffee shops from the new Mr. X's Super Secret Coffee Deluxe book? "I really wasn't expecting you to ask to come with me."
Alto slightly chuckled as he scratched the back of his head. "Well, Archibald told me I need to relax, and I knew you were planning on going out today. Thought I may as well ask if I could tag along."
"Hm…" Lisette considered this, and thinking about it, she did notice Alto was working himself a lot harder than normal. Did it have to do with the fact that she still couldn't sing and he found himself responsible for it? Or maybe, because the Anthem was nearly done, he needed a little vacation. "Well, seeing as we only need the Earth Witch, I suppose the stress has been getting to you. So yeah, you can tag along, but we've got to hurry up. Popo and Sakuya already went ahead of us! We don't want them hogging all the coffee, now do we?" Suddenly Lisette grabbed Alto's hand causing Alto to let out a small yell in surprise, Lisette then started to drag him off to one of the many shops they were bound to enter.
*A few hours later*
"Lisette, I don't think this is a great way to spend the knights money," Alto spoke, somewhat concerned as he and Lisette walked into the ninth coffee shop of the day. "I mean, come on! Don't you think nine coffee shops is a bit much?"
"Nah, you said you wanted to tag along, so we've got to visit every single coffee shop in this book. Besides, who says we're spending the knights money?" Lisette had a devious smile on her face as she took some gold out of her pocket and paid the cashier but this also caused Alto to tilt his head.. "Two of your best cups of coffee, please!"
Taking the money, the cashier turned to the people behind the counter and yelled something about Royal Moka Coffee.
"Wait, if you're not spending the knight's money… Please don't tell me you're spending mine!" Alto didn't know what he would even do if Lisette was spending his money. After all, this was supposed to be something to help him relax.
"Of course not," Lisette reassured Alto before grabbing two cups and leading him to a little table made for four. "This is Rusty's money. He gave me the book but didn't realize he dropped his wallet. This should keep him in check and stop him from trying to pick up girls at the Tavern for a bit."
Sighing, Alto looked Lisette in the eyes. He was confused, although he did find \ it funny thinking of Rusty trying to buy something at the Tavern only to find out he has no wallet. "Well, just don't get too carried away. It is Rusty's money, and you don't want to drive him to bankruptcy."
Lisette nodded in agreement. "Don't worry, I've actually been using a lot of my money for this and only used Rusty's twice, one was to pay off some cash he owed to Kayja, and the other was for a drink I'm going to give to him later to make it up to him. Haven't really used his money all that much."
"Then why take the wallet?" Alto questioned Lisette as they awaited the coffee to finally be ready. Lisette then explained how because Archie can't really keep track of them both when suddenly he and Lisette heard two voices laughing. Looking around, they realized it was Sakuya and Popo.
"Personally, I think that is a great idea to keep his wallet from him. The pervert had it coming to him anyway." Sakuya declared, sitting down as she took a sip of the coffee she had ordered. Popo, however, was munching on a little brownie. "So, how'd you two get here before us?" Sakuya inquired, pointing out the fact that she and Popo were typically ahead of Alto and Lisette. In fact, they left the last shop before the two of them.
"Well, Alto and I just took a few shortcuts," Lisette answered, smiling as she took a sip of her coffee, and breathed somewhat calmly, making sure to take in the taste of it. "Hey, did you notice how they spell it Moka and not Mocha?"
"Shortcuts… More like we ran. Also, yeah, why is it spelled Moka?" Looking at his Coffee he really didn't know what to think. He wasn't really that much of a coffee person, but then again, he was sure most people wouldn't be if they went to eight coffee shops in a row.
"Apparently, it's named after some fictional character from a book made in Amastu. I never really looked into it because I was so busy, but it has a rather large following." Sakuya replied, doing her best to answer the question as the spelling did sound somewhat familiar to her, though she couldn't quite remember every detail about it.
"Popo loves the brownies here. They're so soft and squishy, and they melt in your mouth!" Popo announced, now moving on to her second brownie as the group turned to her. "Popo found this coffee contest where the one who makes the best coffee gets a prize!" Popo's eyes sparkled as she went on to explain all about the contest and how the winner gets to meet Mr. X, the legendary reviewer himself! This got Lisette and Sakuya interested, though Alto seemed quite confused at why people would be so excited to meet someone who just writes about food.
"Did you enter, Popo?" Alto asked, caused Popo to shake her head as she went on to explain she was a bit too late to sign up for it. Lisette then tried to cheer her up by talking about how meeting Mr. X would ruin the mystery behind him.
Alto thought about this but decided to ask a fun question: "What do you all think Mr. X looks like?" This got the girls thinking, what does the great Mr. X truly look like?
The first one up to answer was Lisette. "Well, I think he's some royalty on vacation from a faraway place. My guess would be blue hair, really tall, great body! Stuff like that." Next up was Popo.
"Popo thinks he is really, really handsome with long brown hair and really good-looking clothes too!" After speaking, Popo started to eat her second brownie, leaving only Sakuya.
"It's obvious he's not royalty, but he's not some random joe. I have my money on him being some sort of high-ranking soldier or something along those lines. It's rare that royalty will just go out and spend money on random things in another kingdom, let alone make and publish many books about it." Once she said this, Sakuya decided to finish her coffee. Then, for some reason, the owner of the shop came over to them. They had to leave apparently, which of course caused a bit of confusion. The four of them were simply chatting and trying to relax, and they had done nothing wrong so far. Then, the owner brought mention to the fact that the commander of the 9th regiment was outside looking for them. Sakuya rolled her eyes, Lisette sighed in sadness, Popo looked completely lost, and Alto nodded his head. Leaving the store, the group found Rusty and Klaus outside.
"What the hell! You can't just take my wallet and use it for some coffee!" It seems Rusty had realized his wallet was gone and that one of the four was behind it. He continued, "I gotta use it for booze and stuff! Plus, I owe Kayja some cash anyway." Rusty looked at the four, clearly pissed off.
Commander Klaus then said, "I want the four of you at the meeting hall later. For now, go back to the castle while I try and calm Rusty down." Klaus, as always, was calm in this situation, managing to cool Rusty down while having a somewhat disappointed tone with the other four. Klaus, finally getting the four to go back to the castle after a bit of back and forth, mainly from Sakuya, looked Rusty dead in the eyes. "So what's this about you owing Kayja some money?"
"Ah… Awe crap- Listen, I got a bit carried away gambling - nothing too big, though! I can pay it off-"
"Rusty, once I deal with those four, I want to speak with you. I could have sworn I asked Archibald to deal with this gambling problem of yours."
"Well, it didn't work. Anyway, I have to…" He stopped, patting his pockets. "They still have my wallet, don't they?"
Klaus couldn't help but smile just a tiny bit, seeing Rusty contemplating running after those four or just going to the tavern. "Do not worry, Rusty. I will speak with them, and you will get your wallet back. However because of this money you apparently owe, it's going to come out of your paycheck." Rusty's face darkened as he just turned away from the commander and walked away. Klaus then looked at the coffee shop, closing his eyes and nodding. "Though I must admit this place was a great choice. At least Rusty can know his money was well spent. Though I can not let this slide from either party. Well it will not matter in the long run."