The four Classers stood in front of me, waiting for an answer.
My breath caught in my throat. Had they seriously caught onto my identity already? Maybe I was wrong to trust Bon. I thought I’d cleared things up with him—and left behind a nice intimidating impression even if they still didn’t believe me—but maybe that thought was incorrect.
Either way, I wasn’t sure if lying here would be the best plan. Right now, it was at least my word against theirs, and maybe I could convince them that Bon was just lying to get back at me or something. My armor was way too distinctive for me to try and pass myself off as someone else, anyway. “...Yes. That’s me. Is something wrong?”
The woman frowned. “Hm? No, no, we just wanted to accept your job request. The, uh, mystery job?”
I blinked. “Oh.”
That was much better news than I was expecting.
“Yes,” the Swordsman nodded and stepped up. Now that I got a closer look at him, he was actually less geared for combat and more geared for a noble’s ball. With a rapier on his side, he wore a frilled white shirt and his pants were a deep burgundy, the material looking soft and expensive. Even his shoes were perfectly clean. Compared to the others wearing leather gear with old muddy combat boots, he certainly stood out. He continued, “Pray thee, we do wish that our forces shall prove abundant in this endeavor. I wist not of your Class and Level, but mayhaps you could enlighten us so we may be, er…enlightened?”
I frowned. “Uh, sorry, what did you just say? Maybe I was asleep earlier without realizing it and I’m still waking up, but I don’t…know what any of that means.”
The Ranged-type with the short blonde hair giggled, putting a hand on the man’s shoulder. He visibly froze up at her gesture. “Entismo’s trying to impress you, is all. He’s a bit of a fancypants.”
“Let’s take this conversation back down to the bar, how about?” the Magic-Type said, backing away to let me into the hallway. “We can get to introductions then.”We all found seats around a table in the main lobby. The hum of a dozen conversations filled the room, and the scent of decent food filled my nose. A public area like this wouldn’t be good for discussing the more confidential parts of the job—we’d have to do that somewhere else—but I definitely felt more comfortable in a public area right now, when I was outnumbered by these strangers.
“So, I’m Annor,” I said, sitting down, “what are your names?”
“I am Entismo,” the man in fancy clothing said, standing so he could take a regal bow. “I hope I make thy acquaintance well, mister Annin—er, Annor, I mean.”
I nodded slowly. “...Right. Uh, you don’t have to talk like…that. It’s fine, really.”
The blonde woman with the bow barked out a laugh. “Good luck getting him to do that. I’ve only gotten Entismo to curse once. Once! He’s just a big baby. Anyway, I’m Sylvie-Ann, but don’t call me Sylvie-Ann. If you call me that, I’ll punch you. Call me Sylvie.”
“Why would you even tell me your full name if you don’t want me to call you it?” I asked. “Also, do not punch me. Please do understand that if you start a fight with me, I’ll be the one to finish it. Seriously.”
She raised her eyebrows and put her hands up in an exaggerated expression. “Fine, fine.”
I nodded. I hated being so antagonistic with them off the bat, but I absolutely couldn’t risk any of these people hitting me—even playfully—and getting a notification with my Class attached.
The other woman nodded to me. “My name’s Aliss. I actually came here recently to look into the Demon attack on Koinkar. So, I mean, when I saw your request saying you were a native Koinkarian, I just had to ask you about—”
“C’mon, Aliss. He doesn’t want to be interrogated by some crazy summoning girl off the bat,” Sylvie said with a roll of her eyes. Then she looked over at me. “He wants to talk about money, right? So, that reward. That was real? Sixteen thousand?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Sixteen thousand for your group. As long as you’re high enough Level, and you’re okay with taking on a dangerous job, we should be okay.”
Entismo grunted. “Forsooth, we shall verily be, um, okay with, uh, taking a dangerous…mission.” His voice grew quieter and less confident as he stumbled his way through the sentence. Could he just not think of a high-class way to word what he wanted to say? Though, really, the way he was talking was less actually high-class and more like what a five-year-old would think nobles spoke like.
“Yeah, shouldn’t be a problem,” Sylvie said, leaning back and picking at one of her fingernails. “We’re all low silver—well, all but one of us. Entismo’s still working on grabbing those last few Levels. Can’t get any flamin’ XP to save his life.”
He opened his mouth to respond, but glanced around at everyone at the table and seemed to decide against it, shutting his mouth and staying silent.
“Anyway,” Allis said, “I think we fit the Level requirements on your quest, so it shouldn’t be a problem. Oh, as for Classes, I’m a Wizard, Entismo is a Swordsman, Sylvie is an Archer, and Boy here is a Berserker.”
She said the last part while gesturing to the fourth and final member of the group, and the only one who had yet to speak. The Berserker—’Boy’ was his name, apparently—was a massive, hulking man, standing taller and wider than me by a huge margin. He had a chipped battleaxe on his back that was otherwise covered by a cheap cloth shirt.
“Mm,” I said. “Boy, huh? Nice to meet you.”
He simply nodded to me.
“He’s mute,” Aliss explained. “Can’t talk. But he can hear just fine. Anyway, the request you put up said we’d be working with one other person, right?”
I nodded. “Yeah, yeah. My partner, Eita. She’s coming by soon, actually, so you can introduce yourselves to her when she arrives. Then we can discuss specifics. Oh, and you’ll actually be working with someone else, too. But you’ll meet her later. She’s nice once you get to know her, really.”
“Sure,” Aliss nodded.
Sylvie leaned forward. “So, what’s your Class? Got a build you think will fit into our party? We really need a healer. Or, like, anyone who doesn’t focus on dealing damage.”
“Uh…” I stopped to think for a moment. This was the issue with working alongside another party, of course. They’d obviously want to know my Class, and even if I gave a copout answer like ‘I don’t want to tell you,’ they would still end up seeing me fight. And they’d still see that I was using Spells they weren’t familiar with. Even if they didn’t make the leap from that to me being the fugitive with the unique Class, it’d still obviously draw unwanted scrutiny. But I felt like I had at least a partial solution to this problem. “My build actually relies on Enchanted items a lot more than it does on my actual Class. I use a bunch of rare wands and stuff. My armor’s Enchanted, too, though maybe you’ve already heard of that. I know some people talk about me occasionally.”
“Oh, yeah, you’re that guy with the magic armor that’s stuck on you, right?” Sylvie said. She took a drink from a mug—when had she found the time to order a beer?—and looked back at me. “So you can never take it off? Ever?”
“Yeah,” I nodded. “Kinda sucks, but, y’know. Whatever. It damages you if you touch it, too, so be careful with that.”
“Woah, that’s crazy,” she said. “How do you fuck?”
I coughed for a moment, not expecting the up-front question. “Uh, what?”
“Like, you can never take it off, right? Not even parts? So how do you fuck? Do you have, like, a dickplate you can move out of the way? And if it damages anyone who touches it, then—”
“I imagine the more pressing issue would be finding a way to eat with something like that?” Allis interrupted.
“Oh, the armor’s pass-through,” I said, lifting my hand to demonstrate. I poked my palm with my finger, and just like I said, it phased right through the steel. “So I can just put the food and drink right through my faceplate.”
“So if you’re fucking someone, you actually just keep the armor on?” Sylvie asked with wide eyes. “You probably attract those total freaks that wanna fuck monsters, or something. I love it! Oh, and I’m sure the damaging component only makes it better. How many people have you fucked that, like, loved the pain from that? Was it weird?”
I just stared at her, unsure of how to answer.
“That feels wildly inappropriate,” Aliss said in a disapproving manner to Sylvie. Then she turned back to me. “How long have you been in the empire?”
“Not long,” I said. “We fled here once the Demon invasion started. So we’re still trying to get our bearings with everything. Get situated in the new place and everything, you know how it is.”
“I do,” she nodded. “I only moved here after the invasion, too. Well, I still grew up in the empire, of course. But I moved to this town after the invasion. Boy and I came here once we heard of it—we’ve known each other for a long time—and then only somewhat recently met Sylvie and Entismo. So what’s the invasion like? I’ve only heard stories, so I can’t imagine what it must be like seeing a Demon up-close. You know, before the invasion, there were only four hundred and eighty-three living Demons that were known to be left in the Overworld from the summoning days? To think that the number would grow by such a huge amount in a single day—it’s absolutely historic! We haven’t even seen any new Demons for centuries!”
“Four hundred and eighty-three?” I asked. “How do you even know that statistic?”
“I’ve done some research on the Demons. I mean, they can just do so much, right? And we still have no idea why the Demonic Pact Spell and the furthers on its branches stopped working. Personally, I’m thinking of going down the path to take it with my next couple Level-ups. I mean, what if it only stopped working temporarily, but now it would start working again if someone just went and tried? Nobody takes the Spell anymore, right? So how would we even know? Especially now that Demons are coming to the Overworld on their own, it seems likely.”
“Uhh.” I frowned. “I’m not sure if summoning more Demons is a good idea.”
“Oh, don’t worry, the Spell pacts you with them. So on the off-chance it does work, they’ll be bound to my command. Just think of it! We could bring back an extinct way of magic! It’s amazing just to think about.”
“Aliss, don’t be insensitive,” Sylvie said. “Poor guy’s probably traumatized from the Demon invasion already, you don’t need to go adding onto that with your boring magic talk.”
I waved my hand. “It’s fine. But, uh, I’m probably not the best person to talk to about all that. My partner is, though. She’d probably love to talk with you about all that magic theory stuff. But the invasion…it’s bad. I don’t know if you want to get mixed up with the Demons. I mean, really, I’d advise against it. Even with pacts and all that stuff, please, just take it from me. Getting on their bad side is not good news.”
“What’s the worst thing you’ve seen during the invasion?” Sylvie said suddenly, leaning forward. “Got any war stories?”
I raised an eyebrow. “War stories?”
“Yeah, like, what do the Demons do? I know they took over and stuff, but do they, like, spit lava? Can any of them fly? Do they blow up?”
“Ugh,” Aliss scoffed. “I tell you about the rumors we have about the Rupturai being spoken about in a couple texts, and suddenly all you can talk about are exploding Demons.”
“Hey, I came down here to help my friend Entismo find some glory and kill some Demons, so of course I’m gonna be interested in what I’ll be facing!”
Entismo laughed. “Ah, my fair ladies, please do not, er…scuffle.”
Sylvie rolled her eyes. “I am not a fair lady.”
“But it is rude, prithee, to argue with one another.”
“Ugh, I know your little crush is around, but can you please stop with the—”
Entismo quickly elbowed her in the ribs and she stopped speaking, instead just sighing and taking another sip, then slamming the mug down next to another empty mug of hers. How fucking fast could she drink?
“A-anway,” Entismo said to me, “I appreciate a fellow user of thy, uh, Enchantments! I am perchance a tad reliant on them, myself, you see.”
“Uh huh,” I said with a nod. “So are you, like…a noble? Or something?”
“I am the grandnephew of the venerated duke of East Westershire!” he said proudly.
I nodded once again, unsure of how to continue the conversation from there.
“Anyway,” Sylvie said, “so what’s up with your build? What do the Enchantments do? Got anything cool?”
The time passed as we discussed the specifics of our builds and the different ways we might be able to mesh them together. I worked to speak as vaguely as I could about my own abilities, of course, but they didn’t seem to mind too much. Plenty of adventurers were secretive about their build, especially when they were specced down an irregular path. One of the main strengths of taking unpopular abilities was the surprise factor, after all, so most who relied on that were hesitant to give it away.
After about half an hour, I saw the doors at the front of the lobby open, and Erani stepped through. I’d silently told Ainash to inform her of what was going on, so she knew who I was speaking to and where we were, walking straight over after entering.
“Oh, hey,” I said with a wave to her as she approached. I stood and gestured to the group of four. “Eita, meet Entismo, Sylvia, Aliss, and Boy. They’re the adventurers who wanted to take the job.”
She nodded to them, but before she could say anything, Sylvia stood from her seat, spilling one of the half-dozen empty mugs that’d piled up in front of her.
“Woah…” Sylvia muttered. “You really are missing an arm! I didn’t think those people were telling the truth about it! That’s so cool! How’d you lose it? Did you, like, blow yourself up or something?”
Erani blinked. After a moment, she quietly answered, “Um, no. No, just a battle.”
“And your voice! What Spell is that?!”
“We should probably get to a more private place,” Aliss interrupted. “And preferably somewhere without access to more alcohol. Now that everyone’s here, we can talk about the specifics of the job, right?”
“Indubitably,” Entismo said with a nod. “We heretofore shall transport ourselves to a new milieu!”
Erani leaned back, as though physically pushed away by his barrage of nonsense. “What?”
“It’s just…” I shook my head, leaning in to speak with her. “Listen, I don’t know if we have much of a choice when it comes to who we go with. It’s basically them or bust, here. So. Y’know. Eccentricities.”
Sylvia hopped out of her seat. “Man, I am so excited to hear about what we’ll be doing! I bet it’ll be, like, building a secret lair! Or hunting down an artifact hidden deep in the ruins of an ancient buried civilization!”
“Not quite,” I said as we walked out of the bar. I honestly wasn’t sure whether she’d be excited or disappointed by the news that they’d be slaying a Young Dragon with us. “Where are we headed? You guys know a place?”
“Boy actually owns a house in the northern residential area,” Aliss said. “We can talk there, if you want.”
“Wait, I thought you guys said you only just came here.”
“Well, when I came here with Boy, it was my first time in the town, but we chose this place specifically instead of any other random town near the mountains because Boy grew up here. Some old estranged relative of his died a while back and left him a nice place, but he was already living in another city when that happened, so it was just kinda sitting around until we came back. It’s been neat meeting all of his old friends since we came in.”
I noticed Entismo giving Aliss and Boy a strange glance when she said that, but wasn’t totally sure what that was about.
“Uh, sure,” I said. “That sounds fine. We can talk there. Lead the way.”