Layla continued to man the crude earth stand entirely on her own, patiently waiting for her partner to return. She truly had no idea exactly how long the two of them had been standing there trying to make a quick credit from the passing crowd, nor did she know just how long she had been left completely alone waiting for Quinn to make his way back to the stall.

Glancing over toward the local clock mounted on the wall of the bustling traveler’s hall, she saw that it had already been about forty minutes or so since Quinn had suddenly run off to investigate his surroundings.

"Geez, has it really been that long?" Layla sighed heavily to herself, leaning against the stone structure.

Just then, a young kid walking alongside his mother passed directly by the front of their stand.

"Why is that girl standing all alone over there?" the boy asked quite loudly, pointing his finger right at Layla.

"Don’t say things like that!" the mother quickly scolded her son in a hushed tone. She then looked over at Layla with a deeply apologetic expression. "I’m so incredibly sorry about him. He just casually says whatever happens to be on his mind sometimes without thinking."

Layla forced a polite smile onto her face, trying her best to break the tension with a lighthearted joke. "Well, you can easily apologize by buying one of my art pieces here."

The mother glanced at her briefly, and then her eyes drifted over to look at the assorted sculptures resting on the side of Layla’s stand.

"Um..." the mother muttered, looking a bit worried and visibly hesitant as she examined the shapes. "They look a little... Well, art is highly subjective and all, so uh..."

Layla’s forced smile stretched even wider across her face, and small beads of nervous sweat began to form on her forehead from undergoing such an incredibly awkward social moment. Her rigid expression was practically unnerving the poor woman.

"... You know what, I’ll happily support a... small business out, yeah..." the mother said quickly, desperate to escape the situation. She hastily handed over some credits, purchased their absolute tiniest sculpture, and immediately ran off into the crowd with her son.

The very moment the woman was finally gone, Layla visibly tensed up, cringing hard at her own behavior.

"Eugh, why on earth did I act that way?" she spoke bitterly between her teeth, kicking the ground in embarrassment.

As she continued to wait, a trio consisting of two boys and a single girl sauntered confidently into the traveler’s hall, walking with an arrogant posture as if they completely owned the entire place. They walked up to several of the local stalls, carelessly examining each unique item on display before making a dramatic show of rejecting them loudly because "the price was far too high."

"Oh my god, are they seriously trying to sell this garbage?" Stella, who was clearly the main leader of the trio, spoke up loudly as she picked up a beautifully decorated glass plate. "Who in their right mind wants to buy one of these? Look at this!"

She casually handed the glass plate over to her fellow teammate, who took one brief look at it and completely tossed it behind himself without a care. The plate crashed violently onto the floor, shattering into countless pieces. The trio collectively laughed out loud at the absolute mess they had just made.

"Hey! You have to pay for that broken item!" the shopkeeper yelled furiously from behind his counter.

Stella rolled her eyes in complete boredom and flashed a sleek, golden-colored card right in the shopkeeper’s face. "Just put the total on the bill."

A forehead vein visibly throbbed on the shopkeeper’s brow, but he begrudgingly took the card and processed the payment for the broken plate without further argument.

Hearing the distinct sound of glass shattering across the hall, Layla instinctively turned her head toward the noise. She immediately spotted her fellow classmate with done-up hair actively harassing the local shopkeepers. The girl would brazenly walk right up to a stall, mess with their items alongside her buddies, and cause a massive scene. Strangely, the girl would still fully pay for the things she broke, but she still left a chaotic mess for the stall owners to clean up.

"What exactly is she doing?" Layla whispered quietly to herself, watching the display in disbelief. "Was she seriously not taught any basic manners at all?"

It did not take long for Stella and her posse to inevitably stumble upon Layla’s stone stall and begin to meddle with her things. As they approached, Layla kept a very close eye on their movements.

"Wow, look at how incredibly ugly this thing is," Stella teased with a smirk as she held up the lamp-looking sculpture of a person. "What an absolute waste of time!"

One of the boys standing by Stella’s side suddenly grabbed the sculpture out of her hands, holding it firmly like a baseball bat.

"Batter up!" he called out.

Stella, taking the obvious hint, grabbed a smaller sculpture from the stand and tossed it directly at him. He swung the large sculpture like a bat, but instead of hitting a home run, the smaller sculpture stopped dead in its tracks. It remained completely suspended in mid-air, entirely unmoving.

"What?" the second boy exclaimed in shock, and they all turned around to stare right at Layla.

Layla’s hands were held high in the air, focusing her mental energy entirely on the small object suspended before them.

"If you’re just going to come here to flaunt your wealth, then get out!" Layla threatened, her voice sharp.

Stella’s face burned bright red with anger, and she stomped fiercely toward the brunette girl. "You’re being mean! You won’t let us play! Let go of the sculpture right now, or else!" she practically screamed.

Lifting the suspended object directly above Stella’s head, Layla nodded calmly. "Sure, if you say so." She instantly released her telekinetic grip and dropped it.

The object struck true, causing Stella to cry out in sudden pain. She ran off into the crowd, holding the spot where she was hurt, yelling, "I’m telling daddy about this!"

The two boys who had remained by the girl’s side glared intensely at Layla.

"How dare you hurt our dear, precious Stella!" the taller of the two boys stated angrily.

"Yeah! How dare you do that!" the shorter one chimed in.

Layla bit her tongue in frustration. Even with the troublesome girl out of the way, her two loyal lackeys were incredibly quick to jump to her defense.

"I was only trying to do exactly what she told me to do," Layla quickly retorted, standing her ground.

"Grr, you’ll pay for tarnishing our beautiful Stella!" the taller boy stated before his hands suddenly shifted into large, terrifying tiger claws. He swiped them violently right at Layla.

She quickly ducked beneath his heavy paws, and then rolled out of the way across the floor as he slammed his heavy fists down where she had been standing.

Taking an arrow out from her gear, Layla used her ability to shoot it directly into the leg of the tiger transformation user. But as she did, the shorter boy flung a wet wad of mud right at Layla’s face.

Wiping the messy mud off her nose, Layla managed to get brief glimpses of the ability levels of the two boys attacking her. The tiger ability user was sitting at level 2, and the earth ability user was a level 1.5.

’Without my actual bow, I have to completely rely on my ability to make raw attacks,’ Layla thought to herself as she narrowly jumped out of the way of another clump of mud shot in her direction. ’But I really don’t want to waste my specialized arrows on these two!’

Just then, the shorter boy used his earth power to create a solid pole, while the tiger ability user quickly charged up behind Layla, preparing to attack her all at once from both sides. She braced herself for the impending pain when two massive earth walls suddenly formed right between Layla and the boys.

"What?!" all three of them questioned at the exact same time, completely startled.

Quinn had finally come back, carrying a medium-sized box filled with scrap metals, and had arrived just in time to see Layla caught in a dangerous scuffle with the two boys. Not wasting another second, he shifted his foot against the floor, causing the ground directly beneath the two boys to soften instantly. They sank halfway into the earth, trapped securely.

"What has Layla ever done to you?" Quinn spat out in complete disgust, glaring at them.

For good measure, Layla floated two sharp arrows right by her side, keeping them ready just in case either of them tried to do anything funny.

Just then, a tall, muscular girl came running into the area, accompanied by a traveler who possessed short, purple spiky hair and wore advanced-tier armor.

"There! You gotta help her, those two guys were—" the tall girl said, her voice trailing off as she looked at the scene.

"It appears that the situation has already resolved itself," the purple-haired man stated calmly.

"What’s going on here?" Quinn asked, looking around.

Upon seeing the two boys stuck firmly in the ground, the tall girl walked right up to Quinn and Layla, looking quite surprised herself.

"I saw Stella come by the traveler’s hall and immediately left to go get someone to help," the tall girl explained. "She’s been a real pain to everyone these days, but because her dad holds an important position in the military, no one can do much about her."

"We can certainly do something about these two," the traveler stated firmly.

Quinn used his power to free them from the ground, and the traveler picked them up effortlessly, like a mother cat holding its young. He didn’t appear to be straining at all while holding two teenage boys, as his advanced armor gave him more than enough physical strength to do so.

"Seriously, you two need to cut it out," the traveler scolded them as he walked away.

With that issue resolved, the taller girl was about to leave when she caught sight of Quinn’s box of metals.

"Huh, is that galathrium?" the girl asked, pointing directly at the container. "I’ll give you some credits if you give me some."