When Claire turned towards the voice, her eyes widened in surprise.
"Chelsea?!" Claire happily yelled out and quickly went over to the table that Chelsea was sitting at.
To top the surprise of encountering Chelsea, Claire also saw Hannah, who turned to look at Claire and was waving her hand.
"Glad to know you aren't waiting in the lobby for me," Claire said to Hannah when she reached the table.
"Sit. Sit." Chelsea motioned to the person sitting next to her to grab a chair for Claire.
As Claire checked out the others at the table, Chelsea and Hannah weren't the only people with a familiar face. Claire recognized two more people at the table.
Chelsea grinned at seeing Claire's reaction. "I figured you'd recognize some of the people here." Pointing at a woman with shoulder-length blonde hair, "You met Heather at the training building before you went missing that night." Chelsea's eyes looked to Heather before turning to Claire. Then Chelsea said, "Which leads us to another person. You recognize Selene, right?" She motioned at a woman with shoulder-length black hair.
"You're the woman that night with the other MPs," Claire exclaimed, remembering the MPs inside of the patrolling vehicle the night they entered the shelter.
Selene laughed, "Glad to know you remembered me." She motioned to the woman next to Chelsea, "Emily is another MP that was patrolling that night in a different vehicle." Laughing, "She helped out a lot when we learned that the two of you had gone missing that night."
Blushing, Claire said, "Sorry about that, we didn't mean to cause any problems for the Fort."
"Yeah," Hannah blushed as she nodded her head in agreement.
"Leave the girl alone, Selene. If I were to stumble upon a place like this, I'd have gone missing, too!" Chelsea chastised her friend as she grinned. Turning to Claire, she said, "Just ignore them. They're just giving you a hard time."
Sitting down at the chair grabbed by the woman named Emily, Claire felt better knowing that Hannah and she didn't cause too many issues.
Nodding her head, Emily agreed. "Though the other MPs and I were worried when we heard that two girls went missing, now that I learned what this place looks like," Her eyes were wide.
Though Claire could sense that they wanted to ask how she and Hannah were able to get into the shelter, they were polite and didn't ask for an explanation. She appreciated not having to be forced to come up with a lie, not wanting to share what Raven had done for the two of them the night they scrambled to the Fort.
"I, myself, still don't completely understand what Raven did for us that night. Though I do understand that we're able to enter shelters that are empty without needing to be invited or have permission. It'll be helpful when I go out into the world to look for Han." Claire thought to herself.
As Claire sat at the table, she listened to them talking about various things, some of them connecting to their social life. Though there were comments related to their surprise and shock about what Star and Moon had built.
"Can you believe that some of the guys had chosen to go with a sword?" Heather shook her head in disbelief.
Hearing her words, Claire's ears perked up with how it sounded as though it were connected to the simulations.
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Chelsea groaned at the thought, dismissive of the image.
"Have you talked to them yet?" Selene asked.
Heather shook her head. "I heard about it from one of the other teams that happened to see it."
"Well, you infantry people were never right in your head," Selene grinned at Heather.
Emily giggled at Selene's comment.
Scowling, Heather slowly nodded her head. "I see how it is," Her eyes looked at the other girls. "I guess I need to head over to where the other infantry people are and not stick with you MPs." She stuck out her tongue.
Chelsea, Selene, and Emily grinned at Heather's comment.
Both Claire and Hannah froze from Heather's words, unsure of what was happening and confused by Chelsea's reaction.
Heather's eyes flickered to look at Claire before she burst out laughing, tears beginning to form as she laughed.
Adventurers near them were checking them out, curious about what was happening before shaking their heads and slowly returning to their matters.
Seeing Heather laughing, Claire wasn't sure what was happening. She felt as though someone hadn't informed her of the joke that occurred.
Selene noticed the confused expression on the two girls. "We weren't actually making fun of her, just casual teasing between groups in the military," She explained to them. Pointing to Heather, "She's part of the infantry, not an MP. They tend to be a little slow, which we tease them about."
"Says the people that always have a stick up their butts about the rules, always telling us what to do," Heather snorted.
"Is this about the time you fired your weapons while under the influence?" Selene rolled her eyes. "In what world would that not be a violation?!" Spreading out her hands in exasperation.
"How about in a Continent that's all about personal freedoms!" Heather became heated as she yelled back at Selene.
This time, Claire understood that they weren't pretending but were actually arguing with one another. She looked at Emily, who shook her head.
"Don't mind them. This is something that's been going on for a while." Pointing a chin towards the two women, Emily explained, "In the past, Selene got Heather in trouble due to Heather violating the rules of a different Fort before they came over to here."
Chelsea joined in on Emily's explanation, saying, "It happened to occur just before Heather was supposed to go on leave, which involved her getting to see her boyfriend."
"Which violating Fort rules caused Heather to lose the leave, making her miss an important event with her boyfriend and caused them to break up." Emily completed the story. "Ever since then, the two will bring up this old thing and start fighting."
Hannah looked to Claire, her eyes wide from everything that was happening at the table.
Nodding slightly, Claire agreed that it was a little childish.
After going on for a time and causing several nearby tables of Adventurers to move away from them, the two women calmed down.
"Sorry about making you miss your leave," Selene apologized, sounding like it wasn't the first time she apologized for the event.
Waving a hand to brush aside the matter, Heather answered, "There's no reason. Sean was hooking up with other women, anyways. Not like it was going to last much longer. You might even have prevented me from tearing into pieces if I had caught him in the act."
Selene grinned, "Do you think Sean is still alive?"
Scowling at the thought, Heather said, "He better hope he's not. If I see him, I'm going to be the last thing he sees before I end his ability to reproduce." Her hand moved to the pistol on her waist.
"So, what were the two of you planning on doing today?" Chelsea asked Hannah and Claire.
Happy to be distracted from the events between Heather and Selene, Claire answered, "We were planning on entering the simulation and getting more experience with combat."
Chelsea raised an eyebrow approvingly at the answer.
"Abby, Claire's oldest sister, said that we need to gain more experience even if we're planning on doing work outside of the simulation," Hannah said. When Chelsea looked at her, Hannah explained, "We're planning on getting trained in making equipment for adventurers and either selling them to the Auction House or Store inside of the Guild."
"It probably provides a better return compared to just taking jobs inside of the simulation," Emily listened in on the conversation and added her two cents.
"That's what we were thinking," Claire nodded.
Blushing, Hannah said, "Though, Claire's the one that came up with the idea. I was hesitant about doing it, though I'm now convinced that it's a good idea."
"I don't think that's something to feel embarrassed about since it'll likely take a lot of work, developing the skills necessary to create quality equipment that'll be valuable inside an auction setting compared to the store." Chelsea encouraged Hannah. "Though Abby's right about the two of you needing to build up skills related to fighting monsters."
"It's not just monsters that you have to worry about," Emily said in an ominous tone.