I don't like boats. I never really saw a real one before, but ever since I was little, I found them boring. I prefer planes, even though only a few were in circulation nowadays, due to regulation and stuff – maybe also because almost all the modern world as been destroyed after the last global war of 2.

Anyway, I am in a port right now. A typical merchant middle age port, with lots a big boat sailed and huge crate everywhere. Lots of busy people going left and right.

In the midst of all that agitation, I appeared in the middle of what seemed to be a calm area, but looking around me, I realised it was more tense than calm. Two group were facing each other, one wearing blue robes, and the other... well, same but in red.

They were frowning and yelling at each other, apparantly they had a desagreement about the red group going on one of the ship.

“We found it first! We already signed the contract!”

“The Fire Union is not permitted to use our ships!”

“Why?! Those are not your boats!”

Holy shit, I might leave the place before they realize I’m here, I wonder how they didn’t saw me yet though…

“It's our territory, we do what we want with OUR ship!”

“Your pathetic group have no such authority!”

"Did you say our Faction is pathetic?"

"Yes! As is your magic!"

Oh shit, I jumped to dodge two magic attacks, that collided into a burst of steam.

In seconds, it escalated into a full-fledged war. Everyone started running away, and as I was about to do the same, one of the water spell got deviated towards me.

I easily evaporated it with a small fire wall coming out of my palm.

“Another one!”

“Gimme a break…”

I won’t get too much into details as for what happened after that.

Just… me getting mad again, and burning everything. I avoided people running away of course, but as both of the water and fire party seemingly had a grudge about me -for the first I can see why but the others I have no clue- I more or less incinerated them to the last one.

After that, I ran away because the guards came and mistook me for the troublemaker. Despite the fact that I was clearly a victim here. I mean, all I did was defend myself.

By killing them all...

And I also burned all the boats.

I really don’t like boats.

Hundreds of years had passed since the first session of Quester appeared in the 1st world. Since then, countless have died due to the ever-growing unfairness and lack of guidance offered by this forced adventure. However, some extraordinary individuals had managed to complete their Quest, and have reached the 5th and last known world.

The official statement they received and accepted is that they are bound to lead the newcomers to their destination, and this task has been harder than expected. Each one of these 7 so-called guides are in charge of one person. It's been decades since the 7th guide arrived, and now they act as if it always has been one guide for each newcomer.

However, this time it's different, Alice is the 8th person in the session, she's a first, a bug, a hack. It took a time to remark the presence of this anomaly, as the 8th book was off the radar for a time.

But now, as the whole surveillance room was in an emergency state, one person was surprisingly calm, Jules.

In fact, he was rarely seen agitated, and that's telling something knowing what he has seen since he got to the surveillance room. He is the perfect image of a calm and reflective guy, short grey hair, grey eyes, and this never changing frowning forehead.

As the first person to have completed his Quest, he has seen more than any of the other, with the arguable exception of Valentine, the Champion of Kindness.

It wasn’t the first time a session had a severe bug of the kind, but the second. It happened at a time when he was the only guide. Only two years after is arrival, as he was starting to think nobody else would finish their quest, he witnessed the Champion's session.

Both situations are a bit different, but in his mind, there was no doubt. Once again, this session will bring a revolution.

Whether it will save or doom the worlds, nobody knows, and that's why they had to find the 8th quester before she meet with the other. If she comes across the wrong person, it could be disastrous, the reason being that it was highly probable she only get along with Samsy, Val's protégé.

Thinking about Valentine, even though the other were focused on their screen watching for Alice whereabouts, she was spacing out.

“Val?”

…

“Val?!”

“Oh yeah… sorry, I was thinking about... something else. What do you want?”

“About the eight…”

“I found her.”

“““What?!”””

Everyone in the room turned to her.

“She just arrived in the 10th struggle, she’s chatting with Samsy.”

Everyone was speechless.

“Sigh… that’s a bit underwhelming. But I guess everything turned out fine.”

“Well… actually…”

Valentine started looking at something she was holding in her hand, it looked like some kind of cosmetic product.

“…we might have a change of plan.”