The first thing I did when I awoke the next morning was to check the back of my left hand.

The blank contract was still there.

Sighing at the confirmation that I hadn’t imagined that part, I proceeded to do the second thing: notice just how hungry I was.

Since I already had various things that were waiting for me to face them, I wasted no time in getting out of bed, which resulted in me springing from under the covers and finding myself standing upright next to it, slightly disoriented.

“Wha-what happened!?” I mentally asked, trying to maintain my balance.

You more than doubled your Stats in your [Body] last night, and have yet to acclimate to them.

“But I spent the latter half of that adventure running, without showing any discomfort from them!”

Just like biological gains, those given by the System are fully implemented only after resting.

And you had a lot to “implement”.

I acknowledged [Buddy]’s wisdom with a grunt while dressing myself.

I must assume that I was walking funnily, given the weird looks and pointed fingers I was getting, but I didn’t really care, it would pass soon enough.

Soon enough, in fact, I got to the cafeteria, because I was not facing anything else while this hungry, since it would only get me angry.

It didn’t seem to be that early, and there weren’t many people actually eating, so I got a plate and found a spot to eat in short order. I then rushed through breakfast, because I couldn’t wait to ease the weight that the ‘Sigil’ was putting on my mind.

That…and the nagging feeling from my [Core] in its regards.

As soon as I was done I sprinted for Merga’s Study, hoping to find her alone in there.

And I did.

“Darwin! How nice of you to find the time to visit me on your own… is everything okay? You look stressed”, she said as soon as I walked into the room, without stopping from working at her cauldron.

I proceeded to close the door first, and only then responded to her: “How sure are you that nobody can listen in to this room?”.

She raised an eyebrow at my briskness, “I’m the one that spies on others, not the opposite. You won’t find a safer place in the entire [Guild]”.

“And how much can I trust you on not rattling out my secrets?” I asked, maybe a tad too rudely.

Suddenly, any traces of amusement melted off her face, and she turned fully to face me, crossing her arms under her chest. “Darwin, what is this about?”

“Can you promise me not to tell anyone about what I’m going to tell you, or not!?” I asked again, definitely in a rude manner.

“If it will impact the safety of the [Guild], or the [Nexus] itself, I can’t promise that. Otherwise, yes, I can maintain a secret”, she finally replied, with a small smirk accentuating the end.

“Good enough, I guess.”

I proceeded to unwrap my hand, shifty looking around the room, which probably ended up with me looking like some sort of ‘drug dealer’.

Finally revealed, I turned the [Mark] her way.

A surprised inhale escape her lips, and her eyes grew to the size of saucers.

“Where did you get that?”, she asked, almost breathless. “Where did you get THAT!?” She asked a second time, more forcefully, now boring holes in me with her steely gaze.

“In a chest in the [Dungeon]!” I immediately replied, surprised by her reaction.

“How!? Explain!”

“I touched a piece of paper inside a chest, and this just latched on to me…”

After staring me right in the eyes for an uncomfortable amount of time, she finally looked away, dropping her shoulders.

“Honey… no…why… This shouldn’t have been possible”, she started mumbling to herself.

She then turns around, and starts digging through the mess above her desk, fishing a fingerless glove out of it, after just a moment.

“Here, put this one, and never show that mark to anyone else”, she said, passing the glove to me.

“…Is it that bad?” I asked, still complying with her request.

“ ’That ba-‘…”, she looked incredulously at me, but then her expression morphed into one of wry amusement, with a bit of worry still hidden behind it, “no, I wouldn’t call it ‘bad’, but it definitely is something that someone at your level shouldn’t be messing with yet”.

“But… it makes references to [Demons], which are like a worse version of [Monsters] that travel through dimensions to wreak havoc upon civilization, right?” I timidly asked.

“Yes and no. That applies to unbound [Demons], since that is what they were created to do; but, after they are defeated, you could use something like what you have there to bound them into your servitude, freeing them from the impulses bestowed upon them from the [Goddess of Destruction].”

“So… what’s the problem? Aside from me not being strong enough to beat a [Demon]?”

“Yet, remember the ‘yet’, since I am sure that you will reach that point. But to respond to your question: People would kill to have what you have there, and they will if they see it on someone so… ‘fresh’, like you.”

“That’s… horrifying. And how would they even take it from me?” I had to ask.

“Well, by dying it would simply detach itself from your body on its own; which is actually preferable to the torturous ritual that would leave you alive, while still separating you from it… at least that’s my opinion”, she replied, with an apologetic smile.

“That’s even more horrifying! Holy fuck!!!” I felt physically repelled by her explanation.

“Yeah… that’s why I’m willing to gift you one of my gloves, capable of blocking any type of analysis”, she explained, pointing at it while doing so, and making me realize that I’d failed to [Inspect] it before donning it.

Name:

Anti-Scrying Glove

Owner:

Darwin Dulcet

Type:

Artifact

Rank:

Epic

Fun fact about [Artifacts]: they don’t count towards the ‘noise’ that [Enchantments] make when close together, since they have a special category of [Magic] in them, with a defined signature that can only be influenced by other [Artifacts], and aren’t technically [Enchanted].

And they can only be made by those that have ‘Artificer’ in their [Status], either as a [Job], [Class] or [Trait].

But, “You can’t just gift me an [Epic Artifact]!?, was the only thing I could think about at the moment.

“I can, and I did, so repay me by not being stupid about it!” Was her reply.

I had hundreds of rebukes ready to be spewed out of my mouth, but my only response was a heartfelt “thank you”.

She then moved deceptively quick, and hugged me to her chest, pushing my head against her breasts.

I let her do it for a while, without knowing for how long this would continue, but when it started feeling uncomfortable she suddenly released me and turned me around.

“Now go, before I decide on which way to eat you”, she whispered next to my ear.

“Going! ‘Bye!” I said while hurrying out of the room.

“Remember that you will be departing right after lunch!” she shouted after me, amidst her laugh.

* * *

‘Milestones’.

To pass the rest of the morning, and further distract me from what had transpired, I finally asked [Buddy] about them: The answer was inconclusive.

Don’t get me wrong! It still told me that it was a point in the growth of anything, where your person was subject to an increase in quality of betterments, like [Lvl-ups] rewards getting ever better, or increasing the benefits from a [Stat] after it reached a certain point.

The problem was that we had no idea where those ‘points’ were, but could only make educated guesses about them. This was another one of those instances where the [System] seemed to be stingy about its [Information].

Maybe every 5 [Lvl] the bonuses from my [Class] would improve, or maybe it worked on multiple of 5, who knew? We certainly didn’t.

Maybe when a [Statistic] reached into the 100s it would make something happen, or maybe not.

We could only guess. At least for now.

And amidst our guessing, someone approached me.

We were in the communal room, and this someone must have decided that the place wasn’t big enough for the two of us.

“How the fuck did you do it?” Seethed Tyrone, while towering over my seated form.

“What did I do this time?” I asked back, barely holding back a sigh, since it would have only further aggravated him.

“The Test! We heard about it, you were the only one to fully pass it, somehow…” he responded, the ‘we’ making me glance at the other [Humans] behind him, shifting uncomfortably, probably unnerved by the situation.

“There was a hidden second part to the [Quest], regarding the-“ I started responding, but was rudely interrupted.

“I already know that! I want to know how you cheated! What manner of bribery did you pull out this time!?” He was now wildly gesticulating in my direction now.

“What the fuck’s this guy’s deal!?”

“Look, I didn’t cheat, I never bribed anyone, and-“

“BULLSHIT! Everyone knows that you somehow tricked the people of this world to care about you!”

“If you have to keep using ‘somehow’, it just means that you have no proofs on which to base your-“

“YOU LY-“

“STOP FUCKING INTERRUPTING ME, YOU ASSHOLE!!!” I exploded, metaphorically speaking, while also getting up from my chair.

My sudden outburst seemed to quieten Tyrone long enough for me to continue uninterrupted: “I’ve had it with you all thinking that it’s my fault that I’m different, that it’s my fault that they have to keep paying closer attention to me, and I’m especially done with how hostile you fucks have been since the [Ratton]’s ambush!”

But before I could say anything else, my [Precognitive Aura] urged me to step away from the volatile [Human].

I was thankful it did, since not even a moment afterward his fist blurred through where I was.

“It seems that I’ll have to make you spill the truth the-“, he started saying, when an oversized green fist slammed the top of his head, making his face crash into the floor.

“Bad youngling. No infighting in the [Guild]”, rumbled the Orc, looking even more surly than usual.

He looked at the other [Humans], and they all lowered their head in shame, then he moved his attention to me.

“What has transpired here?” Grog asked.

“I’m not sure myself: He approached me, proclaiming that I had to tell him how I’d ‘cheated’ on the [Quest], and when I told him I didn’t he quickly became insufferable”, I responded.

“Did you provoke him?”

“Only after he was already berating me with baseless accusations, yes.”

“They were not ‘baseless’!” One of the girls I had forgotten the name of jumped into the discussion

“Explain”, incited the Orc with a single word.

“Since being [Transferred] he has been the center of attention, even during our stay at the [Temple] where we awoke; regardless of the fact that he’s obviously a pathetic specimen of a [Human]!” She screeched, and the other [Humans] took a step away from her, indicating their non-association with her.

I was stunned. I couldn’t believe that their problems were born from thinking of me as inferior to them.

Almost as if I was something else altogether.

“Weird? Sure. Ugly? That too. But inferior!? Who the fuck did this girl think she was-“

“Understood. Then, with the authority bestowed upon me by the [Guild Master], I revoke the [Job] of [Adventurer] from both of you”, boomed the green giant.

“What!?” She screamed again, before collapsing onto the ground in a twitching tangle, where [Eather] seemed to start exiting her, and Tyrone’s, bodies.

A snap from Grog’s fingers later, two members of staff removed the unconscious people from the ground, and carried them elsewhere.

Everyone was stunned into silence, at least until Grog spoke again.

“Are there any other unresolved issues?”

Everyone shook their head, including me.

“Then hurry up and get lunch: not long from now you will all have to depart… including those ‘friends’ of yours, who will be sent back to the [Temple] they came from, for… further ‘teaching’.” With that, he simply stepped away from us, leaving me alone with the others.

We looked at each other, and then I blurted out “You can’t blame me for that, they were asking for it”.

And it was obviously the wrong thing to say at that moment, since it only earned me furious looks.

“I’ll… get going then”, and I hurried out of the room, for the second time in the day.

Great going.

“Fuck. I know, ok!?”

Why did it always end up like this?

* * *

I passed lunch alone, and as far away from the other [Humans] as possible.

The air between us was so charged that even the other people avoided us. That, or they had assisted to the spectacle from before… or maybe had simply heard the rumors about it.

Once we were done, we were approached by two different [Receptionists], so that they could escort us to our destinations; but before they could separate us for the last time, Vanessa, the last [Human] I still remember the name of, made to approach me.

I stood my ground, and waited for her to speak first, since she looked like she had something to say.

“Look… we know that you’re not ‘bad’, and we’re sorry about our attitude from before. We didn’t agree with… them, and we’re sorry that we didn’t do anything to stop them, but they appeared to be otherwise normal when you weren’t around! I mean… I’m here because I didn’t want to part on such bad terms with one of the few [Humans] that seems to be interested in the same line of work as us… so, yeah, sorry for being dicks.”

“…ok”, was my response.

“Ok? What does that mean?” She asked, with a perplexed look.

“It means… I don’t know… that I accept your apology? I’m not really fine with how you were all acting just a minute ago, but I admit that I do have some of the faults in what has happened, even if relatively minor, and that I don’t have the easiest personality to go along with… So I’m okay with accepting the apology, and I’m willing to start over, if it’s alright with you all.”

I fumbled in my explanation, but I still think I got the message across.

“…ok”, was the dubious response I got.

“Ok?” I asked back.

“Ok”, she said, surer of herself.

“Ok”, I said back.

“This is getting silly”, a small giggle escaped her.

“Ahah, yeah…”

Seeing that her approach had positive results, the others decided to also apologize individually.

A round of awkward handshakes later and we said our last goodbyes, letting the [Receptionists] guide us in two opposite directions. They were guided to the front entrance, where the [Guild Master] and our [Teachers] were already waiting for them, seemingly ready for a long-winded speech, which I was glad to avoid, while I was brought to an empty backyard, and told to wait.

I wasn’t left alone for too long before I started earing jet engines from above me, and when I looked up, I was left slack-jawed.

Three, of what looked like flying ships, were heading our way. One for the other [Adventurers], one for those that would get sent back, and one for me.

And, knowing my luck, the ‘beaten-up’ looking one was probably the one I would have to board.

“Freaking flying ships! What’s more fantasy than that!? I thought we would have to join another convoy, but nope, Flying-ships!”

Surprisingly, the ‘ugly’ one stopped in front of the [Guild], next to one of the better ones, both being the size of football fields. The last one, slightly smaller in size, and with flaming motifs all over it, stopped above my head.

The noise that sounded like jets came from hexagonal holes dotted along the outer perimeter of these vehicles, and my [sight] told me that they were heavily [Enchanted].

After a closer look, ‘flying ships’ wasn’t appropriate, since they resembled more something akin to circular yachts, since they were missing the sails and the usual tapered form.

“Som’ beauts, ain’t that righ’?” Skortch said from behind me.

I was so lost in my admiration that I had completely missed the approach, failing to even detect their presence beforehand, and by turning around I saw that they were all there.

Merga, Grog, Eddd, and Abaan; they were all looking at me, probably having already finished their partings with the others.

And I realized that these were to be my last goodbyes.

Hopefully for a while.