Having found the Legendary Sword of Bonds, then allowed it to join their party, The Survivors spend volume 4 of Apparently, Disillusioned Adventurers Will Save the World dealing with Nick's old relationship drama.
While at dinner with Karan and Bond (the sword in its disguise as young person), Nick spies his ex-girlfriend Claudine scamming a young noble in much the same way she did Nick. Nick calls her on it publicly and she withdraws, which seems to end it. Until she shows up at the inn and dumps a mug of beer on Nick's head.
She's got her boyfriend and party leader, a tiger beastman named Leon, backing her up, but when he and Nick take it outside, Leon changes his tune. He offers Claudine to Nick, even suggesting Nick could sell her to a brothel if she's too much trouble. Nick finds the whole thing offensive and throws a punch, but the fight's interrupted before it gets too far by the head of the Adventurers Guild.
Vilma wants this dispute settled with rules, and in a way that isn't strictly brawn. Thus, a combination fistfight/math bowl. Nick and Leon will fight, but another member of each party takes a math quiz between each round. The winner's fighter gets to throw a free hit before the next round begins. And Karan, who just started learning math from Nick, draws the short straw.
Rather than spend a lot of panels showing Karan working hard on math, most of the remainder of the volume focuses on Nick training to fight a much larger, stronger opponent bare-handed. Since Tiana's accompanies him to the labyrinth where he's training, it's also used as an opportunity to delve into her past a bit. Not so much the broken engagement that damaged her ability to trust, but what came after that. It's nice to see a character other than Nick or Karan get a little focus, even if the plot itself remains firmly tied to those two.
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