“So you’re telling me that this little girl, who has barely been a hunter for a few months, is the longest-range scout you have?”

“She’s the longest-range scout we have available, yes. As I’m sure you know, most of our teams are scouting the other Hiverock egg sites. What she lacks in experience, however, I assure you she makes up for in raw talent.”

“Oh yeah? What’s your range, kiddo?”

I glower up at Mateo, the thermomancer that’s part of the team who rescued Fulvia. Just as Penelope predicted, the branch leader put my name forward as the scout to go after the spooky monster that got away. If that wasn’t bad enough, I’m now being berated over it by people who don’t even know me. Assholes.

“I can sense relative danger level at four-hundred and fifty yards,” I say. “At least if I focus. Passively, I’m confident in my ability to pick up anything noteworthy in two-hundred and fifty.”

Mateo raises his eyebrows at that, letting out a low whistle.

“She’s got a fuckin’ zero on you, Netta,” he says, turning to his companion. “You might have to step up your game.”

The glowering archer snorts.

“But can you fight?” she asks.

“Um… my talent allows me to kill anything near me with a low enough magic resistance,” I admit. “So I excel against swarms. I’m a middling combatant against larger or more powerful opponents, though.”

She nods thoughtfully.

“...We did get rid of most of the big stuff already. I still don’t think a rookie team should be going anywhere near the hiverock drops, though. Especially for a potential rescue mission.”

The hunters and the branch leader continue to argue, while I go back to standing silently nearby. The conversation is apparently about who should be sent where; the branch leader wants Alen, Netta, and Mateo to head for a different hiverock drop site where yet more hunters have failed to return. The three of them want to go back and finish the job on the monster that got away… along with a longer-range scout to accompany them. Either way, I’d be going towards the soul-eating monster, so I have a hard time caring whether it’s with the experts I don’t know or the rookies I do.

Yes, I do get the irony of being afraid of a soul-eating monster.

Eventually, the argument ends in the branch leader’s favor. The three that returned with Fulvia will be going on a different mission. My team, plus a senior hunter to be determined, will be going after the Hiverock monster… possibly within the next few hours, meaning that I can’t even go home to say goodbye. Typical. I hope I don’t piss off Sky by missing that follow-up meeting with him, since that’s supposed to be… tomorrow, I think?

“Can you gather your team for me, Vita?” the branch leader asks.

I nod wordlessly and set off to do exactly that. Easy enough, since I can feel where all of them are: the training yard. All of them except Penelope, of course, so I go to grab her first. I find her where I left her in the medical ward, reading a book with a bored expression on her face while she sits next to Fulvia’s unconscious body.

“Hey, Penny,” I greet her.

“Don’t call me Penny,” she shoots back automatically, turning a page. “Well? Was I right or was I right?”

“You were right,” I smirk. “But you’re coming too.”

She snorts, snapping her book shut.

“Well, they are desperate for hunters, aren’t they? Poor Jeremy. He’s going to be the only biomancer left in the damn building.”

I don’t know who ‘Jeremy’ is, so I instantly forget him.

“Well, anyway, the boss man wants me to gather our team up.”

Penelope nods.

“I’ll join you shortly. Policy is to have someone on duty in here at all times, and Jeremy is out eating lunch.”

I shrug, heading for the training yard. It feels like Norah and Bently are going ham with their talents, and I’m curious to see what they’re up to. Orville, meanwhile, is sitting around and channeling a fuckton of mana. Hah.

I walk onto the grass, watching Norah and Bently beating the shit out of each other in full armor. Well, it’s probably more accurate to say they’re beating the shit out of each other’s weapons. Bently swings as hard as he can with Norah swinging her own blade at his to intercept it. I’m pretty sure that’s terrible form, though. Won’t she break her weapon that w— oh, right. Reinforce. Still, talent or no, she’s going to break Bently’s weapon.

I don’t interrupt them while they’re sweating it out, though, heading over to bother Orville instead. He’s sitting with his eyes closed, sweat beading on his forehead as he pulls in more and more mana. I plant a smarmy grin on my face and nudge him with a boot. He keeps his focus, to his credit.

“I thought you said channeling mana nonstop was insane,” I taunt at him.

“It is,” he grumbles, eyes still closed. “But the more I think about it, the more I get why she does it anyway. I’m obviously not going to be doing this in a fight or something, but— guh!”

Orville’s soul does the spiritual equivalent of a sneeze and he grimaces, fingers quickly flashing out a cancel spell to let the energy dissipate. He coughs, drops of red splattering onto the back of his hand. Oh shit, did I break his concentration and accidentally fuck him up?

“Woah! Sorry, um… let’s get you to Penelope? We’ve got a mission coming up, I’m supposed to gather you all.”

“Yeah… ugh. That figures. I should be fine, I don’t think I got hit by anything a biomancer can’t treat. Is she in the medical ward?”

“Yeah,” I confirm, watching him stagger away. I’ll have to make sure to keep track of him until he makes it there okay.

I agree with his assessment, at least. I didn’t feel like much more than a hiccup, but Orville’s soul, like most males, floats around his chest area. Considering he coughed up blood, that hiccup may have been at a lung. Penelope has healed much worse than minor lung trauma, but without a biomancer on hand? If a wound like that went untreated? I’ve seen people die from much less.

Note to self: don’t start training mana channeling without Penelope. I guess I could just move my own soul out into my hand or something, but I don’t really want to lose a hand either.

A loud clang rings out through the yard, signifying the end of Norah and Bently’s fight as he knocks her sword clean out of her hand.

“Yes!” he cheers, pumping his axe triumphantly up and down.

“This… means nothing…” Norah gasps, falling to the ground to rest.

“A win is a win!” Bently insists. “But Norah, your talent is awesome! My axe isn’t even chipped!”

“I thought Norah could only reinforce things she’s touching,” I say, approaching the both of them.

“Yeah, that’s… how it fucking used to be…” Norah pants proudly, taking off her helmet to flash a grin. “I finally figured it out! It’s hard as balls and I can’t keep it up for long, but I figure… fuck, if you can do it, why can’t I? Reinforce at range, baby! I’m gonna make us into invincible kings and queens!”

“Yes! Norah is going to be the best!” Bently agrees happily, offering her a hand to get up. “You just need more stamina!”

“You shut up about that!” Norah laughs, accepting his arm and pulling herself to her feet. “I’ve never seen you sweat in your life!”

“We’ve got a new assignment,” I tell them both, smiling a little at their banter. “The branch head wants to see everybody.”

“Damn, no rest for the wicked,” Norah complains. “You go on ahead, Bently, I’ll catch up.”

“All right!” the big lug agrees happily. “See you there, Norah! See you there, Vita!”

He bounds off. As usual, the dude reminds me of a huge, happy dog. Norah watches him go, grinning appreciatively.

“Damn, but that is one dumb hunk,” she says, stretching out her back.

“You like him or something?” I ask.

“Watcher’s eyes, do I,” Norah answers immediately. “I wanna fuck him so bad. Shame he’s head over heels for Orville.”

“Huh,” I comment. “Really? Well, sucks for you I guess.”

She laughs and claps me on the back.

“Brutal, girl, brutal! Learn to let a girl down easy, would you? You’re not wrong, though. It sucks for Orville too. Dude could not be less interested.”

“Sounds complicated,” I complain. “How can you even tell this kind of stuff?”

She glances down at me, shrugging.

“Well… I care, I guess. Have you not noticed how much of a puppy Bently is around the guy?”

I huff out a breath, not really wanting to think about it.

“Bently is always a puppy. Just warn me if you’re going to indulge your carnal urges in our room, okay?”

“I’ll hang a sock on the doorknob. Promise.”

“I… okay. I don’t know how that’s going to help if I’m four hundred yards away, but it’s certainly a thing you can do, I guess.”

Norah blinks in confusion for a moment as I start to return to the branch leader’s office, though she quickly catches up with me.

“Wait, so, you mean like… avoid it avoid it? Like waaay avoid it? So can you like, feel…?”

I let out an exasperated sigh. Are we really talking about this?

“Yes. I don’t get any details or anything, thankfully, but… yes. It’s pretty easy to tell when two people are going at it in my range. Why else would two people be bouncing around on top of each other or in… other positions?”

It’s doubly easy and doubly disgusting when it’s someone I know and I can interpret the soul patterns. Norah, however, to my mounting irritation, absolutely lights up at this knowledge.

“Oh my god, Vita, you have got to give me the dirt!”

“I, in fact, do not. And I’m also not going to.”

“Vita, come on! You could take like, one lap around the rich district and blackmail half the government!”

I halt in my tracks. Oh shit, I probably could.

“...How much do I have to pay you to never, ever tell Penelope that?” I ask seriously.

That gets Norah cackling so hard that she actually bends over to slap her knee. I don’t see the humor, personally. The only thing of value I’ve gotten out of the constant background annoyance is a question: I’m pretty sure souls don’t enter the body at conception, so where do they come from and when?

My best guess is that it happens at some point during pregnancy. Women with big ‘ol bellies often have an extra soul inside them. The first time I felt someone like that I thought I’d found a damn Nawra! Unborn baby souls are almost always tiny and pure black; raw, flavorless soulstuff, yet to be given a unique form. Every so often I’ll see dots of color or texture inside; perhaps that indicates the child will have a talent, or perhaps it’s something else entirely. As of now, I have no way to know.

Norah and I join Bently in the branch leader’s office, with Penelope and Orville arriving soon afterwards. He starts giving the overview of what our mission will be, where we’ll be going, and so forth. It’s a job that Remus used to do for us, but I haven’t seen him since we got back to Skyhope. The job is pretty simple: our primary goal is search and rescue, and our secondary goal is killing every Hiverock monster we come across. We memorize as much terrain information as we can, taking in the reports from the previous team and forming our strategy around them. There’s just one element that’s unaccounted for.

“You said you’ll be sending a senior hunter with us, right?” I ask the branch leader. “Who is it?”

“Ah, yes. Well, um, they should be here shortly…”

I frown, searching around my range for strong souls nearby that I recognize. Sure enough, someone is on their way.

“...I thought Seong was retired,” I comment.

Penelope raises an eyebrow while the rest of my team just doesn’t recognize the name. The branch leader chuckles, though his apparent mirth is all fake, not reflected in his soul in the slightest. I can hardly blame him. The portly, middle-aged man is in charge of putting hunters in the right places, after all, and the number of teams failing to return from their missions has been rapidly rising since the Hiverock egg drops. The poor guy is doubtlessly stressed out of his mind.

“They un-retired, and frankly they couldn’t have picked a better time,” he answers. “I doubt Seong has gotten rusty in the interim. Your team should be in good hands.”

I have to agree. A poison expert could be exactly what we need to deal with the magic-resistant or huge targets that our team struggles with. We’d otherwise rely on Bently to take on bigger threats, but despite the fact that he’s the second-biggest soul on the team, he’s still somehow our worst fighter. Although, after this mission, I’ll probably be second-biggest. Everyone on my team is growing and becoming stronger, but I’m growing faster than everyone else by a mile. I smile a little at the thought, stretching my tentacles in anticipation.

All I have to do is not get eaten. Simple enough, right?