3.9. Leticia's Party

["Morning Sequencee."]

"Morning Schwii. How are things on your end?"

["Great– if not for the heroes. They broke into our home when Iona and I were eating each other you know?! Those people really don't know what it means to respect privacy."]

'..So that's why Aaron came to meet me yesterday?'

["Iona and I are planning to go stay at an inn somewhere so that we won't get disturbed. I'm not sure when we'll come to visit you, but if you're going to go out of the city, do tell me alright?"]

"Will do. But I'll try to find quests that don't require long travel."

["Then take care. Ro and Lilian also asked me to send you their regards. Be careful out there."]

"Enjoy your day Schwii. Tell them thanks."

["Take care."]

The crystal pendant's light faded.

"..."

Sequencee sat in the silence; the room sliced in streaks of orange from the light leaking through the window.

"Sorry for everything Schwii.. and thank you."

===

The colour of dawn covered the skies, painting the world in pink and orange. The hustle and bustle of the guild remained the same as ever.

He was planning to dally around the city until his payout for the previous quest was approved. Only after that would he set off for the next quest.

He made his way to the quest board to check the items available.

– Goblin subjugation request.

– Escort mission to Wright March.

– Temporary guard for a supply caravan going to the capital.

– Search mission for lost pet.

The ranking requirement for each quest differed depending on whether one was working solo, or in a party. It largely depends on the specifics of the quest.

– Subjugation of griffon at Dona Village.

For example, this B-rank quest isn't an individual mission and would require the formation of a B-rank party of at least 4 people. A soloist with a B-rank assessment would not be able to take on this mission. However, if the soloist has an A-rank profile, perhaps the guild might allow him or her to take it on alone. It's subjective.

"There's nothing here that says killing huh.."

Sequencee thought he lucked out two days ago when he found something which involved cultists. It was rare to find posted quests for unique requests as most of the time, the association facing the problem would go to private guilds to request for assistance instead.

Sequencee thought he should come back and take a look later once the morning update had happened. Most of the items here were leftovers from yesterday.

He made his way to the tavern.

He took his usual seat at the counter and ordered.

"Thank you for your patronage– speaking of which, are you new around here? Or am I mistaking you for someone else?" the waiter who also took his order yesterday asked.

"It's the first time I'm in this branch, so you could say that I'm new."

"Is that so?" The waiter was probably curious as to why a new face like Sequencee was acquitted with the SS-rank Aaron Smite.

Leaving to send the order back to the cashier and kitchen, Sequencee felt his spatial magic reacting to someone approaching him silently from behind.

Spatial magic, in this case allowed Sequencee to sense general movements. However, it wasn't good enough that he could recognize who the person was.

The person stopped right behind him.

Sequencee turned around.

A green haired girl with heterochromic eyes. She wasn't facing him, her body turned towards the table at one end of the tavern where her friends could be seen. She looked like she was trying to get advice through hand signals though, her friends were desperately flailing about, probably to let her know that Sequencee had seen them.

'I'm I blind nowadays?'

"Morning Leticia."

"E-Eh.. m-morning.. Sequencee.." she jolted.

There was a moment of silence as his pair of brilliant blue eyes met her aurete-ruby irises.

"It's alright if you want to join our table?" Leticia asked with a forced smile.

"Sorry, I didn't notice you were here. If I had I probably would've gone over," Sequencee responded with a forced smile of his own.

"Ah.. no, we just arrived. I was wondering if it really was you so I wanted to check.."

"I see.."

It was awkward. Leticia had mustered the courage to approach this person who looked like Sequencee but wasn't sure if he was. Fortunately her guess was on point, otherwise it would've been a big hit to her psyche.

"You're alone? Schwii, Ro and Lilian.."

"Schwii has her own plans. Ro and Lilian are working at the cafeteria– I'm also working, just that I'm doing mercenary work."

Notifying the staff about his seat change, Sequencee joined Leticia's table with her dorm mates now turned mercenary.

Quora the swordswoman.

Daizo the mage.

Nynim the teleporting elf.

And, Dorry the railgun magician.

They greeted each other in their own respective manner.

"I heard you got into an accident?" Leticia asked.

While rumors of the hero getting into yet another incident had spread, most people didn't know much about what exactly it was that happened.

"Kinda," Sequencee replied awkwardly.

"What happened? Is it confidential?" Daizo asked.

"It's not confidential. Well, simply, Shiro found an uncharted area of the dungeon and said we should explore it– of course, it's normally not advised but he has his personal reasons as to why. So we encountered an S-rank creature and were nearly wiped out."

"S-rank?" Dorry was piqued.

"Yeah. S-rank lesser leviathan."

"Never heard of it," Quora said with brows furrowed.

"Is it alright if you gave a detailed account?" Dorry asked.

"Is it alright if I spared the details?" Sequencee responded with a troubled smile. There was no reason to go so far as to say that he broke his spine, right?

"Then I won't force you to tell me about it," Dorry shook his head.

"Have you encountered an S-rank monster before, Dorry?" Daizo asked.

"Once. I was the only two survivors that made it out. It happened when an old party of mine went to investigate the reason behind people going missing in a village. We found nothing in the morning. But when we conducted the search at night when the cases happen most often, we discovered an S-rank grim reaper haunting the graveyard," Dorry reminisced.

"Ah.. so that explains the scar," Nynim said

"The scar was from something else."

"Oh, is that so?"

"How strong was the S-rank anyways? What was the grim reaper like?"

"I ran the moment I saw it so I never really got to see how it killed my party. And, that happened years ago. My memories of the incident are vague."

"Sequencee, how was the S-rank you encountered like then?" Leticia asked.

"How was it like? It's like having to fight against Dorry but his body is the size of the guild building."

"PFFttt–" Nynim bawled out laughing.

"Why me?" Dorry pointed at himself with a dubious expression.

"You have a magic gift that allows you to fire a powerful beam, right? The lesser leviathan could do the same. Not even ten layers of the SOS crystal barrier could defend against it.

"Huh? Ten? Where did ten come from? We only have five at most right?" Quora asked.

"I used the device as a catalyst to create ten."

"What? You can do something like that?"

"That's quite.. extreme."

"You were badly injured, weren't you?" A stern tone came attached to the question, Leticia's expression turned wary.

"I'm fine now though," Sequencee said, presenting himself by raising his hands and twisting his arms.

"..."

"I'm fine Leticia. Thank you."

"Hey, Sequencee, do you want to join our party?" Quora asked, probably sensing the need to change topics.

"Hm.. I'll have to think about it."

"Eh? Why?"

"I want to take quests that involve killing people. I'm pretty sure our objectives don't align," Sequence reasoned.

"In that case, is it alright if I join your party then?" Leticia asked.

"Sure thing. Can't guarantee your safety though," Sequencee said.

"I know that."

"What? Leticia?!" Nynim found Leticia's nonchalance surrounding the topic of killing horrifying.

"It's his system. I've helped him find people to kill in the past so.." Leticia said, trailing off.

"So your system requires you to kill people?" Quora asked.

"Pretty much. So it might be an inconvenience to you guys."

"Then we'll just take on a bandit subjugation quest if any," Daizo quipped.

"Those are rare to find, you know?" Quora retorted.

It was at this moment that their breakfast arrived. Beyond the individual orders, there were shared platters of other food items like milk-bread and jerky.

"Muah– best," Nynim kissed her mug of alcohol.

Dorry sipped quietly on his Nim.

Quora, Daizo and Leticia simply ate as if this were the everyday norm for them.

"Sequencee. Sober me up if I get drunk okay?" Nynim said and chugged.

'Again with this..'

"You eat a lot don't you?" Quora said, looking at Sequencee's plate.

"This much is normal right?"

"I mean, compared to Leticia. She's a small eater."

"Really?"

"But lately she's been eating a lot of snacks," Daizo followed up.

"Don't talk about that!" Leticia was just about to pick up a potato fry.

"You're going to get fat if it continues on, you know?" Quora warned with a teasing smile.

"It's not like I eat it every day.." Leticia sighed.

"Ice cream sandwiches? Or maybe jelly? Or sweet bean mochi–"

Sequencee looked at the table and realized how Leticia had a few pieces of mochi sitting beside her small sample of milk-bread.

"Stop it, stop it," Leticia complained.

'It's been a while but.. she's grown a lot the past three months.'

"You know, it's actually fine to eat this much. We're doing physical work after all.." Sequence said.

"Right?" Leticia tried to secure her excuse.

In silence he evaluated Leticia as he chomped down on his rice.

Leticia dropped a piece of green mochi on Sequencee's plate.

"Have you tried?"

"Hm? I have, not really a fan."

"Really? Then.."

"I'll take it though. It might taste different depending on the place."

"Alright."

"Hehe.. flirting I see.." Nynim's eyes glinted.

"Ah, yeah, you taught me that. So?" Leticia wiggled her eyebrow at her.

"Good, good. My daughter has grown up, I'm so proud–" Nynim wiped a fake tear.

"Sequencee," Dorry called out.

"I got it."

After the hearty breakfast where Sequencee had to sober Nynim up with a detoxify spell three times, the group began discussing their plans.

"I think we all have the same objective here. Gain experience, earn some money, build teamwork, and explore the world. We just need to include killing people into our criteria," Nynim said.

"If that's alright with you, would you join our party? It'll be easier to take on the larger quests that way," Quora said.

"And so you don't take away our precious Leticia," Nynim added with a cough.

"Ugh," Leticia lowered her head.

"That should be alright..? I think we can only take at most two quests over the period of a month with the party our size." Sequencee said.

"How about we go check out the quest board? See if there's anything new first before deciding?" Daizo said.

"No, no. We need some set limitations so we know what we're looking for," Nynim said.

"No quest destination that requires us to travel more than two weeks. If it takes one week then we'll assume that we'll only be taking one quest this month," Quora said.

"As for the commission that's concerned.. let's aim for something at least 5 holy gold in compensation."

"Alright."

"Did everyone just arrive at the guild today?" Sequencee asked.

"No. We came yesterday night to register my guild ID," Leticia said, showing her new guild tag. F-rank.

"Do you think the new items are up? Looks like there's a crowd forming," Daizo observed as more and more people were getting up from the tavern to enter the main hall.

"I think so. Let's check," Quora got up.

Leaving the empty plates, they headed to the guild's main hall. There were at least a dozen quest boards around the perimeter of the room. The number of parties that were currently browsing through created quite a crowd.

"Should we split up?" Leticia asked.

"That's a good idea. You, Sequencee and me in one group. Nynim, Daizo and Dorry in the other," said Quora.

"Fine, fine. Let's go," Daizo said to Dorry and Nynim.

They parted ways. Quora headed towards the least occupied quest board.

"Sequencee, you're at least C-rank right?" She asked.

"Yup."

"Then everyone's C-rank except Leticia who's F-rank."

"Then we'd only be able to accept quests C-rank and below."

Sequencee thought the likelihood of finding a quest that'll have the compensation of 5 holy gold for such a rank would be hard.

"A bounty section.. I don't think we have anyone who can track people," Quora muttered.

"How about this? It's an escort quest. We might stumble upon bandits, right?"

"It's unlikely."