“Hat! Hat!” Bella chanted, ignorant of the fate that awaited her.
“Yes, yes,” said Melissa. “Just try to keep things professional once the guild opens.”
The time had come for the guild to open its doors. The staff greeted the mob of adventurers that came through the door with practiced, formal bows and a “Welcome to the Adventurers’ Guild!”
It was impossible to say which or how many of the adventurers had gotten their hands on the dangerous drug that had started this case, but the sooner they could resolve things, the better.
Melissa had already asked the other branches of the Adventurers’ Guild to let Kanata know Melissa was looking for her if she should ever come in through their doors, but she still had preparations to make in order to accompany her on the request. She pinched her cheeks and slapped her face, waking herself up as best she could as she prepared to handle the morning’s reception work.
† † †
“Curse you!” Fenrir cried as he pulled the wagon along down the plains. The wind was cool and pleasant that day, as the Spirit Wolf railed against his companions. “Curse you curse you curse you! Cuuuuurse yooooou!”
“Bwa ha ha!” Zag’giel laughed evilly as he lounged in Kanata’s lap, enjoying the sensation of the brush running down his back. “Good! Seethe in your miserable envy! After all—Kanata had this brush made for us and us alone!” The brush in question had been made with a generous helping of dragon underscale—a super-high-grade material. Its fine needles gave Zag’giel’s fur coat a luxuriant silky texture, and felt indescribably splendid on his skin. “However,” he continued, “we are no miser. Once Kanata is finished brushing our fur, we shall allow you to have your turn as well.”
“I go second, though!” Fenrir insisted. “Newcomers last!” Kanata’s pets seemed to have arrived at a strict system without any input from Kanata herself, where personal attention from Kanata was to be doled out in order of seniority. “But you know,” Fenrir added with a note of pride, “I have a special item too—Kanata had this wagon upgraded for me, after all!”
The old wagon had originally belonged to the elderly Beast Tamer Albert Molmo, but Kanata had gotten it restored using a shard of a Philosopher’s Stone as a catalyst. Now it was far more comfortable to ride in and much easier to pull than the Royal Capital’s finest carriages.
The two furballs who had been given special items all their own laughed and gloated, lording it over the newest member of the group.
“Bwa ha ha!” laughed Zag’giel.
“Ha ha ha!” laughed Fenrir.
“Ngyaaah!” Elizavett exclaimed, hopping up and down in circles around the driver’s seat. It was the closest she could get to stomping her feet in her current form. “Me too! I want a special item too!” She looked up at Kanata with tears in her big, adorable eyes. “Mistress! Might you please make something for me as well?”
“Hah,” scoffed Zag’giel. “Foolishness. Kindhearted as Kanata may be, the hierarchy of her followers is absolute!”
“It’s at least a decade too early for a newcomer like yourself to be given her own—” Fenrir started to say, but before he could finish, Kanata cut him off.
“Of course!” Kanata agreed readily to the request, much to the astonishment of the two senior furballs. “Let’s do it!”
“Kee hee hee!” Elizavett laughed triumphantly, fluttering up and landing on Kanata’s shoulder to look down on her two companions. “What was that about newcomers?”
“We’ll go visit Lily just as soon as I’m done giving you all a good brushing!” Kanata said.
And so, in just a few minutes, Kanata would plunge straight into the vortex of drama in the heart of the Royal Capital.
† † †
After finishing up her work that morning, Melissa took the afternoon to rest. She decided to pay a visit to a blacksmith she knew from her adventuring days so she could give her a share of the cookies Melissa had brought back as souvenirs of her trip. The meeting with the guildmasters had exhausted her in all kinds of ways, but Melissa had still found time to do some sightseeing before their carriage arrived to take them back to the Royal Capital. It was a talent of hers.
It also gave her a useful tool to deal with the members of the guild staff who might be inclined to grumble about her taking the afternoon off. A souvenir and a pointed “Would you rather go on the next trip instead?” was generally enough to shut them up. Truly, Melissa was full of talents.
The blacksmith she was visiting was named Lily. She was an energetic girl who had inherited her small smithy from her late father. Lily was one of the countless people whom Kanata had helped in their time of need, and she had made a number of items for Kanata in return. There was no predicting what sorts of things Kanata would ask for, but the materials she brought for Lily to work with were always extremely rare items she would never have a chance to use otherwise. To a blacksmith, they were jobs worth taking.
“I don’t suppose there’s any chance Miss Kanata will be there again...” Melissa said to herself.
The last time she had visited Lily, she had come to have her sword repaired and happened to run into Kanata by sheer coincidence. She had been drawn into a whole series of misadventures helping Lily with a dispute over her shop, ending up with her having to fight a former A-Rank adventurer with a bounty on his head. This time, though, it was she who had business with Kanata. Unfortunately, there was nothing she could do right now except wait for word.
The cowbell above the door rang as Melissa stepped into Lily’s smithy, where Lily was sitting behind the counter, her fire-red hair done up in a ponytail.
“Good afternoon, Lily,” Melissa said. “Is now a good time?”
“Oh! Melissa!” Lily greeted her old friend and big-sister figure. “Does your sword need maintenance? It hasn’t been that long since last time, but if you’ve noticed anything off you should tell me first thing.”
“No, no,” said Melissa. “Today I’m only here to bring you some souvenirs from my trip.”
Lily had upgraded Melissa’s sword with the dragon underscale and Philosopher’s Stone Kanata had brought her, reforging it into a powerful magic sword imbued with the element of wind. Without that weapon, she would have never been able to defeat a former A-Rank that easily. It let her create blasts of wind and raised her speed immensely. It was a hard weapon to use, to be sure, but for Melissa, whose Profession of Duelist placed speed above all else, it was the perfect fit.