Being an adventurer had been Elena’s dream for as long as she could remember. That being said, the number of things she actually knew about anomaly exploration could be counted on one hand. Part of the reason for that was procrastination, self-deprecation over her pitiful soul capacity, and the fact that adventurers were generally a secretive lot.

Getting information from them about the tricks of their trade was like pulling teeth.

Naturally, she’d tried to compensate in other ways. Food, medicine, her private collection of interesting trinkets she had requisitioned over the years from families she had served.

“Elena—”

So when their newly minted adventurer team— Archleone— had set off on their first official mission, seeking out a Class-3 Anomaly in the heart of the dreaded Namzuhuu desert, it had been a dream come true. Her mind had gone into overdrive, conjuring up images of devious traps in the earth, massive crevices and gaping pits filled with burning lava, vicious stalagmites falling from above, monsters and wraiths defying comprehension around every corner.

She was ready for a hero’s journey.

“Elena?”

And then she’d return to Haviskali in triumph, her arms littered with precious metals, rare ingredients, and all sorts of priceless commodities that she’d charge exorbitant prices for in the market. She’d then purchase a mithril necklace, wearing it with her Arachne-silk gown as she finally admitted her feelings for Zuken. They’d go into his bedroom and have long hours of wild and passionate sex and—

“Elena, are you listening?”

“WHAT?” Elena snapped, annoyed at being woken from her blissful dreams. She registered the barely concealed annoyance on Tanya’s face, promptly ignoring it as her gaze settled on Zuken. “What is it?”

“Have a biscuit.”

Scowling, Elena snatched the irksome baked good and bit into it.

“What’s wrong?” Zuken asked, probably noticing her sour expression.

“This!” She gestured to the dimly lit tunnel they were in. “It’s been days since we’ve started exploring this place and all I see is moss, moss, and more moss! And those stupid chipmunks. Seriously, what kind of underground Class-3 anomaly has chipmunks? There’s got to be some rule about consistency, right?”

Her hopes were dashed as she took in Tanya’s condescending smirk.

“...What?”

“Like you said, it’s a Class-3 anomaly. There’s no saying what kind of monsters it has.”

“Those were chipmunks, not monsters.”

“Same thing,” Tanya shrugged. “You kill them, you gain ex-pees. Monsters.”

“But I don’t want to kill them,” Elena whined. “They’re cute and cuddly.”

“Well, no worries there. With your skill level, you couldn’t—”

“Alright that’s enough,” Zuken intervened. “And Tanya, it’s not like Elena has no skills. Her abilities as a sensor are irreplaceable.”

She beamed at him. She could always count on Zuken to take her side.

And yet, she couldn’t find it in herself to deny Tanya’s words. She did, in fact, have a pathetic soul cap, not that it was a big issue. Elves in general didn’t have extreme soul caps— what made their species special was their high Experience Conversion Ratios, or ECRs for short. The higher the ECR, the more one’s gained Experience translated to increased soul capacity. So even though elves started with low soul caps, they reached great heights relatively faster than bremetans on average.

...For some reason, this didn’t seem to apply to her.

Elena had a high ECR value— 36%. Compared to the average bremetan, who was somewhere in the ballpark of 11-17%, her ECR was unbelievably higher. And yet, whenever she leveled up, her schema would behave as if her ECR wasn’t 36%, but a mere 4%.

She had no idea where the remaining 32% ran off to.

Stuck between her initially low soul capacity and her even slower ECR and growth rate, her development as a potential adventurer had sunk down to the point of hilarity. Not only did this stupid glitch stunt her own growth, it somehow impaired her familiar as well.

Elena couldn’t help but feel bad for Joey. As if it needed any worse luck, what with Zuken going full-on irrational whenever Joey was mentioned.

As if the poor baby were to blame.

She sighed, shaking her head. “So, what’s the game plan?” she asked, turning towards the other two.

Zuken nodded at their blonde compatriot.

“I….” Tanya looked a little taken aback, before refocusing. “Class-3 anomalies are ever-changing in shape. There are no proper routes in or out.”

“Then how do we decide which way to go?” Elena asked, smoothing out her skirt.

“It’s the monsters’ job to eliminate anything that walks in. So whichever direction has more monsters, that’s the way to the core. Whichever way has less, that’s the way out.”

“I guess that means I have my job cut out for me, don’t I?” she asked, fidgeting a little.

Zuken grinned. “After you.”

Olfric woke up with a start.

He could feel his heart pounding in his ribcage, like it wanted to finish its lifetime of beats in just the next hour. Immediately, he pushed himself off of his back and looked around, his mania-driven, starkly wide eyes drinking in every inch of his surroundings with growing hysteria.

It was dark. But he searched around anyway.

His gauntlet was gone. His knife was gone. His clothes seemed ruffled, but all the important bits were still on. He could still sense Meciel’s presence deep within him, but she felt strangely distant.

Meciel, he summoned.

Nothing answered him, prompting an impending sense of helplessness.

Of doom.

Even his hands and legs were beginning to feel heavy.

…

…

No, wait. That wasn’t right.

He peered down at his limbs, squinting as his eyes cut through the darkness. His limbs didn’t feel heavy— they were heavy. Something thick and metallic was fastened around his wrists and ankles, binding him down like some common cur. If he weren’t so terrified out of his wits, he’d have frothed at the mouth from such a disregard for courtesy.

He was a noble. An Asukan noble. To be greeted and offered anything less than the highest of comforts was practically a perversion of the natural order. Yet here he was, bound by manacles like a slave.

Just what sort of degenerates was he dealing with?

“Maude?” he barked. “Maude?!”

Again, no one answered.

“Zephyr? Alamir?”

The silence began to grate against his nerves.

“What is going on?” He stood up, taking several steps forward—

And bumped his nose against a thick metallic rod.

Grunting in annoyance, he tried to feel around with his hands. But no matter which way he felt, which direction he approached, sooner or later he ran into long, thick bars of crisscrossing metal. That and firm, rocky earth beneath his feet.

This wasn’t the desert. This was—

“A prison,” he croaked, coughing out loud.

“Who’s there? Get me out of here right now if you want to live!” he yelled.

Luckily, his yells were answered by a sudden glow in the darkness. A Continual Light lantern— he realized, albeit an old-fashioned one. Lanterns went out of fashion decades ago, now replaced by thin cylindrical poles with sigils engraved upon them. Sigils that drew in energy from nature itself to emit bright light in the darkness.

These older versions? They were large, shabby, and by the looks of it, powered by spells.

A sneer automatically floated to his lips. Not only were his captors a bunch of degenerates, but they were also urchins. Was that what this was all about? Had he and his mighty team been captured by some nomadic urchins for gold?

Had such vile trickery played upon his senses earlier?

Pathetic. This was a disgrace! He’d kill them all for this transgression.

“Sow,” a gruff voice rumbled in the dark, the rasp surprisingly feminine. “Ya’r awake!”

“I am,” Olfric grunted. At least these urchins were capable of speaking the state-language. He didn’t know what he’d do if he had to suffer through language barriers of all things here. “And what of it?” he continued without fear. “Why have you brought me here?”

The sound of steel scraping against steel made his ears perk up. In the dim glow of the lantern, he could make out two figures approaching from the distance. Their faces were covered by their hoods, though their adventurer attire indicated they had at least some sense of decorum.

The last thing he needed right now was to deal with half-naked tribal idiots.

Though, Banksi would probably fit right in with them.

As the two figures came closer, the one on the left lifted her hood, revealing glittering green eyes and a weathered but rosy face— half-shrouded in a shawl, with several front teeth missing. The second figure’s face was still completely obscured by the shadows.

Not that he really cared who they were.

“Who the hell are you? Let me go right now or I’ll—”

“Let me deal with this.”

It wasn’t the words or the demeanor that did it. It was the voice— soft, melodious, sensual. The second captor removed her hood and—

“You’re beautiful,” he couldn’t help but whisper, shuffling forward as he tried to squeeze his face through the prison bars.

It was the only word that could come to mind, and yet Olfric felt it didn’t even begin to describe the beauty in front of him. She had a little Cupid’s bow of a mouth, framed by small dimples on either side that contrasted the rather squared-off chin that stopped half an eyelash shy of masculinity. Her dark eyes flashed with amusement as her lustrous jet-black hair came free of its hood. It was clear she took meticulous care of her appearance, but there was too much strength in her expression for her to be any conventional beauty.

Before he knew it, he could literally feel his blood start to flow downstream as he found his focus wavering. Something about this girl— no, this woman —made him excited. Aroused, even. His eyes dilated as he gaped at her. All his anger, his resentment, and his disgust vanished without a trace, leaving behind nothing but a deep-seated longing to be in this woman’s presence. To touch her, to hold her, to—

Said beauty smiled, and his heart soared. She strode ahead and reached through the metal bars, resting a warm palm on the side of his cheek. Before Olfric could lean his face against it, the hand drifted, caressing the side of his face as it moved downwards, gently wrapping around his neck. And with a single motion, she lifted him up until his feet swung freely in the air, his throat croaking without reprieve under her solid grip.

“Who are you?” she questioned in her melodious, incredibly distracting voice.

Olfric looked at her face, then at her hands that reminded him of porcelain, then at her fingers that were gripped around his throat. A tinge of horror took seed in his heart, before it was utterly wiped out by the charm in her gaze.

A rose with thorns, but still a rose…

Her fingers tightened, and the sudden lack of oxygen caused him to cough vehemently, breaking him out of his delusions.

“What,” the girl repeated, her voice now carrying an edge, “are you doing here in the desert?”

Despite everything, Olfric hadn’t gotten to where he was by being a simpleton. It was obvious these two weren’t natives of Haviskali and he was too far from Cyffnar territory. And nobody in their right mind would ever choose to live underneath a desert, which meant he was captured by a third party.

He felt the grip tighten.

Antagonistic third party, he mentally corrected.

The grip tightened even further.

“Adventurer!” he squeaked, hoping for a reprieve. He didn’t get one.

“And what, adventurer, are you doing here?”

“I— I was trying to find an anomaly. In the desert. Got attacked by a pair of avian monsteeeqrrqrrrr—” Olfric began to croak, feeling light-headed as the girl’s vice grip tightened around his throat.

“Y'all kill him if ya keep doin’ tat, lass,” the older woman chimed in.

The beauty tilted her head, a confused expression flitting across her face. “And that would be… bad?”

If Olfric wasn’t currently dying from suffocation, he’d have called her expression cute.

Just who was this innocent, alluring murder-hobo? What was she doing in the desert? And why, for all that was good in the world, was she a fan of death by suffocation?

“I— arggu— I’ll— erggg—”

She promptly threw him to the floor.

After a brief session of coughing madly and frantically rubbing his neck, Olfric rose to his feet, doing his best to appear composed despite the humiliation he’d been put through thus far.

It was easier said than done.

“An anomaly? Here?” the black-haired beauty asked, tilting her head.

“Yes. A Class-3.”

His captors exchanged a long glance with one another.

“Sow,” the other one mused loudly, her grin wide and nasty, “are tere moar adventur’rs like ya?”

“Yes,” Olfric coughed out. He had the sneaking suspicion he wasn’t going to like the reason behind her grin. “Five teams, all to investigate the anomaly. You want in?”

“Want in?” the black-haired beauty asked.

“To take part in the mission,” Olfric offered. Everyone had a price. It was simply a matter of finding out what it was. “Living in a shabby place like this means you could use some money. Join my team, and you can acquire the riches from the anomaly.”

“Riches,” she parroted.

“Yes.” Olfric struggled to keep the infectious grin on his face contained. “My travelling partners perished during the journey. But fear not, I’m an accomplished spiritist. An Asukan noble.”

That attracted their attention. As it should.

“Asukan,” the uglier one repeated.

“Noble,” the beauty voiced.

“Indeed I am,” Olfric went on with flair. “I like to think I’m a fair hand at recognizing talent when I see it. And I’d like to hire you both as a replacement for my sadly incapacitated team.”

“Hmm, let’s just kill him, lass,” the uglier one commented, and it took him everything he had not to outright sneer in disgust at her.

The heart-pounding beauty, on the other hand, seemed to be giving it a fair amount of thought. Finally, she raised her chin and met his gaze. “We have you here. Why give you away?”

“Because selling mineral deposits from the anomaly will net you a lot of money?”

The beauty arched her eyebrows. Whether that was awe or disbelief, he couldn’t tell.

“I’m Olfric, of the Noble Clan of Bergott. My family controls a lot of business in Haviskali. I can get you proper houses, jobs, luxury. Make your lives easier.”

The woman seemed to consider that for a moment.

“So,” he grinned, mustering his confidence, “do we have an accord?”

It took several seconds before she made any movements. But finally, she met his eyes and smiled.

A bright smile.

Of course she’d say yes. There’s absolutely nothing to—

“No.”

—do for someone in her position— WHAT?

“Ex-excuse me?” Olfric asked, his eyes wide.

In response, she flashed him that smile again. At close range, it was devastating. Her irises looked even darker than before, so alluring it was as if it had a gravity of its own, one his own gaze could not hope to escape.

Mesmerizing.

“You see,” she began flippantly, as if she was discussing the weather, “I like your offer. All good things. But here’s the thing.”

Her smile twisted into a grin.

“I don’t care.”

The grin deepened, and— were those fangs?

Olfric gulped.