5 – Offer

The woman who intercepted Vivi had green hair, which wasn’t all that unusual in the world of Seven Cataclysms. Brown and black were the most common, but there were brighter colors added to the mix beyond blonde and red. She was tall, skinny, and wore light leather armor suggesting a rogue class.

She smiled in apology for interrupting. “Sorry. Don’t mean to bother, but I caught the tail end of your conversation. You’re new in town? Didn’t mean to eavesdrop, just couldn’t help it—I was sitting right there.” She gestured at a table where a broad-shouldered man with a scar across his eye was sitting; they were only a dozen feet from the receptionist’s desk. On Vivi’s attention turning his way, the man raised a hand in acknowledgment. She nodded in return.

“Yes,” Vivi said slowly. “I just arrived.”

“And you’re not registered with the Guild. That’s not rare, you know. The Guild is where almost all of the edge cases turn up.”

Vivi wasn’t sure how to reply to that, so she said nothing.

The green-haired girl laughed. “Sorry, I’ll get to the point. We’re trying to fill out a party. We’re here for the festival—like you are, maybe?—but of our group, only me and Dom wanted to head this far north. Even though Prismarche’s festival is supposed to be the best in the kingdoms, being the final destination of the Party of Heroes and all that. Rest of our team was too lazy. Can you believe them?”

Vivi had never done well with the social butterflies. “Right,” she said, not intending to sound cold and reserved, but the single word probably came off that way.

The woman cleared her throat. “So, just wondering if you wanted to join us for an expedition,” she said, her smile wiping away, but not in an unfriendly manner. “Just for today. You don’t have an official rank, but what level are you, if you don’t mind sharing? Or roughly where do you stand? We’re both mid silver.”

Vivi mulled over her options, eventually deciding to lie. “The same. A little higher, perhaps, I’m not certain. Still new to this.”

“Of course,” the green-haired girl said smoothly. “Oh. Lailah, by the way. Good to meet you.”

“You as well.”

“So, silver-ish, but what?” She ran her eyes up and down Vivi. “Caster for sure. Mage or healer?”

“Mage. But—no, thank you. I’m not looking for a party.”

She was somewhat interested in interacting with locals, but not right now. She wanted to make some coin and settle her situation down, not to mention experiment with her magic. This was a complication she didn’t need.

Lailah deflated. “You sure? We’re not planning anything crazy. An easy trip, something to pass the time till festivities get going.”

If it was that easy to make Vivi reject her anti-social ways, she wouldn’t have ended up in this situation in the first place. “I’m certain.” She wasn’t trying to be rude, so she added, “I have my own plans. Thank you for the offer.”

“Ah, well. Let me know if you change your mind. See you around?”

Vivi nodded, and that was the end of the quicktime event.

She approached the quest board and scanned the various listings, reading the tasks with interest. Each came with a title, description, rank requirement, and rewards of various types: primarily coin and ‘rank points’.

Was that really how the world’s rank system worked? Would someone like her, a level twenty-one-hundred-plus, be considered a genuine silver-ranker because she didn’t have enough ‘rank points’? Was there no way to jump forward through sheer power?

It did make sense to some degree. Like Danny had said, it didn’t matter if she killed the rampaging monster if the whole town died in the process. It wasn’t fully irrational—she’d seen worse systems in her previous life. And for all she knew, there were exceptions for jumping through rank. The receptionist just might not have mentioned them.

Her musings were cut off by a second person walking up.

“Hey,” came a single, somewhat curt word to her side.

This time, Vivi turned to see a red-haired girl, dressed in adventuring gear, clutching a stack of papers to her chest.

She had cat ears.

Beastkin were a common race in Seven Cataclysms. They had been her runner-up choice when making her character, losing only because at that point in her life, she had leaned more toward edgy, stylistically speaking, than cute. But it had been a close call.

Vivi tried not to stare. A pair of tall red cat ears twitched, as if sensing attention on them. Vivi tore her eyes down to meet the girl’s.

“You were talking with Lailah, right?” she demanded, her tone the exact opposite of the previous woman’s—not hostile, but not making any attempt at friendliness.

“Yes,” Vivi said slowly. “Why do you ask?”

The other girl frowned. She glanced at the green-haired woman, who had taken her seat at the table near the receptionist’s desk. She looked back at Vivi and studied her.

“What did you think of her?”

Vivi hesitated. “She was…friendly.”

The catgirl nodded viciously. “Too much so, right?” It was an enthusiastic response, as if she had assumed Vivi had made the same deduction as her. But she hadn’t. Vivi didn’t even really understand the implication.

“Perhaps?”

She eyed Vivi, the enthusiasm fading. A frown tugged her lips downward. “Hm. You didn’t notice. For some reason, I thought…” She clutched the stack of papers against her chest tighter. “She offered you a place on her team, didn’t she?”

Stolen novel; please report.

“She did.”

“Don’t accept it. Something’s off about her. That man too. She’s only been giving invitations to people who aren’t established in town. Newcomers for the festival.”

“She didn’t seem suspicious to me.”

The catgirl gave her the most dubious look yet. “Dangerous people wouldn’t be dangerous if it was easy to tell. Predators hide, that’s what they do. Mask themselves in the environment. Notice how she’s at the closest table to the receptionist’s desk so she can swoop in on anyone she marks as a target? And she’s only going for newcomers. How’s she even know who’s who? I haven’t seen her around.”

Vivi couldn’t answer that second part, but the first had an easy explanation. “She might be assuming newcomers are more likely to accept. People established in town are probably already on a team, or otherwise busy.”

The girl grimaced; she knew it was a good point. “Yeah, fair. I shouldn’t make accusations without evidence, I just—she doesn’t seem right. It’s so obvious.” She squinted at Vivi. “How old are you?” she asked, the first person to cast doubt in the opposite direction, as if initially thinking Vivi was older and thus wiser than she appeared, but was now revising her opinion.

Was this girl just paranoid? Vivi had thought Lailah seemed friendly. She hadn’t sensed the slightest bit of deceit. It had seemed like a normal interaction, an adventurer offering to party up out of convenience. But now she was doubting herself.

“Well, never mind,” the girl said. “Did you say yes or no?”

“I declined.”

“Good.” She seemed genuinely relieved. “Uh, anyway,” she said, looking down at the stack of papers she was clutching. She pulled one out and thrust it at her. “Keep an eye out, okay?” It was less of a request and more a demand.

Vivi took the poster and looked at it. A simple illustration of a dignified-looking cat with a black fur eye patch was printed—magically printed?—on the paper, along with some text. This was what she’d been carrying around? She looked at the girl in a new light, of course finding it amusing that the cat beastkin was passing out missing cat posters.