“Strange, isn’t it?” I murmured, eyes trained on the distant trees, their trunks like great brown pillars holding up the very sky. It was a familiar sight, and an oddly comforting one at that.
“Yup,” Ren answered simply.
“Right from the-” I began, but Ren cut me off with an answer before I could finish.
“Yup,” he said again.
“Strange,” I repeated, my mind whirring in confusion. “Why?”
Ren shrugged from beside me. “Who knows? People are strange.”
I chuckled at that. “Well, maybe he was just afraid,” I concluded finally. “It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
Ren shrugged again. “Maybe,” he said. “Disappointing, though, if it is.”
I considered that. “Eh, I suppose. I mean, I guess you can’t expect too much from someone raised as royalty, though, huh?”
–
The rest of the trip was mercifully peaceful, and understandably quiet on the side of the nobles. It seemed as the time passed, the realization of just how close they’d come to being torn to pieces finally began to set in for them. Even when we’d left the forest, and the town walls had appeared on the horizon, the nobles kept their solemn silence, evidently not in the mood to celebrate quite so soon. Most hurried home as quickly as they could, with only a muttered word of thanks thrown my way and only a couple more to Zayr before they rushed off.
Ren and I didn’t want to stick around very long, either. We were exhausted, and we weren’t really in the mood to spend any more time around other people than we needed to. But, just as we made to leave, Zayr walked over to us.
“Good job today guys,” he said with a wide smile as he approached us. “Those nobles may not admit it, but they owe their lives to your bravery. And more than your bravery, your strength. The feat the two of you pulled off is not something just any adventurer can achieve. You should be very proud of yourselves.” There was a strange undercurrent to his words, something that I couldn’t quite name, but I chalked it up to embarrassment.
“Thanks,” I said, “but it was nothing special, really. We just did what we had to. And anyway, that fight really did take a bit out of us, so we’re probably gonna go home now.”
Zayr nodded in understanding. “Of course, you should rest. But, quickly, before you go, I wanted to officially invite you to my birthday banquet. I planned to do it properly after the hunt, but alas, fate had other plans, so I’ll just do it here.”
He presented two cards from his pack then, handing them to me and Ren. They were fancy cards, of a thick stock, embossed with golden letters spelling out Zayr’s entire, extravagant title. Flowery patterns danced on the outline of the card, our names just a little below Zayr’s.
“I would absolutely love it if the two of you could come to the banquet. It’s going to start tomorrow, at dinnertime, but it’ll go for three days, so you guys can drop in whenever you want. And, I really don’t expect a gift, so don’t think you’re obliged to get me one. I probably already have a pair of anything you can find in this city, so I really don’t care for much. Your presence will be a gift enough.”
I smiled at his earnest words. “Of course we’ll be there, Zayr. I look forward to it. And we appreciate the invite.”
Zayr grinned, nodding happily. “Of course. Well, I suppose I’ll let the two of you go then. See you guys soon!”
Two minutes later, as Ren and I were walking back to our house, Ren finally let go of the laughter he’d been holding in. He doubled over as I stopped, giving him a confused look.
It took a moment for the boy to collect himself again enough to explain, but even then, his words were punctuated with bursts of laughter.
“That boy,” he started, “is hopeless.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“And so are you, honestly,” he continued, brushing over my question like it was nothing.
“What are you saying?” I tried again.
Ren heaved a sigh, still smiling. “If you don’t get it, then you don’t get it. Don’t worry, though; I’m betting you’ll find out at the banquet.”
I was silent for a moment, before shrugging and giving up trying to figure the boy’s words out. I was too tired to invest the brain power, and I knew Ren wouldn’t give up anything else.
Shoving that mystery out of my head, I brought out my key and unlocked the front gates for the house – I still couldn’t quite call it my house – and my attention snagged by a white envelope that was stuck to the front door. It was clean, which meant it had been placed there recently, and I’d never seen anything like it before. Mail was usually left at the box next to the front gates.
I tugged it off the door and flipped it over, my eyes travelling over the words on the front of it’s thick paper. “Adventurer Guild Notice,” I read aloud for Ren’s benefit. A second of wrangling with the envelope later, I pulled out the paper within.
My eyes scanned over the paper quickly, nodding to myself as I did. “Looks like it's a notice to let us know that the Synchronization Machine is back up.”
“Ooh, fun,” Ren said. “You wanna go?”
I looked at him, then the paper, then to the house less than a foot away from me, then finally back at Ren. “Welll…the machine isn’t going anywhere, right?”
Ren threw his head back and laughed. “You know what,” he said as he kicked his way through our front door, “that’s a damn good point.”
–
The guild branch hadn’t changed much in the weeks since Ren and I had been there. Few people milled about its grand steps, which looked ancient in the late evening glow. The building itself, lit by the backdrop of a pink sunset, stood proud and magnificent as ever, even with its space almost deserted.
The lobby, as with the steps, was sparsely populated, with more workers than customers present. Ren and I made our way to a free desk and spoke to the aged lady sitting there.
“We’re here to get our chips synchronized,” I began, “because the machine wasn’t working when we got registered.”
I was expecting to have to explain a little more, but the lady’s bored eyes lit up immediately as I spoke.
“Ah yes,” the lady said. “Ruby and Ren, right?” the woman asked, a finger pointing at each of us as she guessed our names.
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At our confused nods, the lady explained, somewhat sheepishly, “Word got around about the two of you – at least, among the people working in this branch.” At our looks, she quickly continued, “Of course, the manager made it clear to us that the news was to stay within this building, so you don’t need to worry about it becoming big news.”
As Ren and I breathed out a sigh of relief, the woman continued. “Although, the two of you aren’t exactly helping with that, though. I hear your names are making rounds in the noble circles. Something about taking on an entire grown pack of Draconic Wolves.” The lady cocked an eyebrow at us as she spoke. “Something about fighting side by side with His Highness, the Young Blood Prince Zayr himself? Y’know, the person who happens to be one of the most popular B-Ranked adventurer’s in the entire country.”
Now it was our turn to be sheepish. “Well, we couldn’t very well leave the kids to die, now could we?” I countered defensively.
The lady grinned and nodded. “Of course. All I’m saying is that if word does somehow make it out and about, just know we aren’t the only ones to blame. But anyway, enough of that; let’s get the two of you synchronized, shall we?” As she spoke, she pushed herself up from her seat and motioned for the two of us to follow her.
The actual process for the synchronization was surprisingly simple – at least, for our part. The machine looked just like a metal table, with a mess of wiring running out of the floor and into its base. The lady pulled out two of the wires from the table and held them up to each of us.
“Here,” she said, “touch the tips of these wires to whatever side of your temple you installed the chip in. A voice should let you know when the synchronization process is completed.”
Ren and I followed her directions, touching the cold metal tip of the wire to the sides of our heads. I felt a sharp shock, light enough that it didn’t hurt, but strange nonetheless. More importantly, though, no voice sounded in my head, even a full minute later.
“Strange,” the lady said when Ren confirmed that he heard nothing either. “Is this machine still broken?” she wondered, mostly to herself, her finger tapping on the metal of the table. After a long moment of silence, a thought suddenly struck her.
“Ah! By any chance, have the two of you made contact with any dungeons before you came to the city?” she asked.
Her words sparked in my head, reminding me of a piece of information I’d completely forgotten to let the lady know. “Ohh! Yeah, we have. And the first time we did, we got the message in our head that said that synchronization was completed.”
The lady seemed surprised at my words, even though it had been her question that prompted my answer in the first place. “Wow, I’m impressed that the two of you are still alive. Going into dungeons without fully synchronized chips is incredibly reckless.” She seemed almost scolding with her words, but I took them as well-meaning concern and smiled at the lady.
“We had friends with us – the first time, at least. They were proper adventurers, so we were pretty safe,” I explained.
The lady cocked an eyebrow. “Really? I’m surprised proper adventurers would be brave enough to take two kids into a dungeon, especially unregistered ones. You guys really must’ve impressed them with your strength, huh?”
Something about the way she asked the question made me think she didn’t really think that we impressed them – or at least, not with our strength anyway. But I didn’t particularly feel the need to prove to the lady that we didn’t pay a group of adventurers to take us into a dungeon, so I didn’t say anything.
“Well, anyway,” the lady continued, “that explains why the two of you didn’t hear anything. If you enter a dungeon with an unsynchronized chip, it’ll trick the chip into thinking that it’s fully synchronized – and to be fair, it will unlock some of the chip’s functionality – but it won’t do it fully. But this machine should have unlocked everything that you guys were missing, so you guys should be good now. It's just that the chip won’t give the notification, because it thinks it’s already been done. If you want to check, pull up your own stat boards. It should show you everything now.”
Curious, I immediately did that, wanting to know what I’d been missing from my own stat board. I’d spent many mornings wondering what the two scrambled lines at the bottom of the board could be, but I’d never been able to come up with any plausible ideas.
With a thought, the now-familiar blue screen flickered to life before my eyes.
********
Name: Ruby Redthorn
Gender: Female
Age: 18
Level: 21
~~~~~~~
Strength: 23
Agility: 19
Toughness: 23
Mental: 20
Reaction Time: 132 ms
Strike Power: 1434 fin
Flux Reserve: 250/250
~~~~~~~
Body Rank: 2
Core Rank: Pure Red
********
I stared at the last two lines for a good moment, my brain working as I tried to figure out what they meant. The best I could manage, though, were general guesses. I figured my Body Rank of 2 was a product of that second Cleanse I’d had after my fight with the first Rock Gorilla. As for Core Rank, I figured that Pure Red was the color of my Core, but unfortunately, I had no idea where that ranked in the scale of Core colors, so it didn’t really tell me much.
Aside from the two new lines, I noticed that there were also tabs now at the top right corner of the screen:
Stats | Arte Store | Library | Chats
I was itching to explore what the tabs held, especially the Arte Store, but I held off on that, mostly because the lady was just awkwardly standing in the small room waiting on us, but also because there was something important I needed to check on before I began my exploration in earnest.
So, with a few words of thanks and parting, the two of us made our way out of the building and hailed a carriage, one of the inner city ones that were drawn by a species of impressively good-natured ox-like animals. As we settled into our seats, I got to work.
Pulling up the stat board, I moved over to the Library tab with a thought, entering the words ‘Draconic Wolves’ into the search field that appeared.
The search engine pulled up a few articles related to the name, with the first being a page from a source called the Border Forest Beast Encyclopedia: Vol 2 [Rank C - B].
I opened the link and perused through the information with skimming eyes, looking for a specific fact about them. As I did, I found that the beasts typically ranged from Mid C to Low B ranks, which made me feel better about myself. After all, I’d dealt with twelve of the wolves, albeit with a party of a few, and I chose to believe they were of the highest rank they could be.
A few seconds later, I found what I was looking for.
Typical habitat: Zone 3. Rare sightings in Zone 2 areas, never sighted in Zone 1 areas.
A sinking feeling tugged on my gut as I read the summarized information. Information that lent credence to what I had been suspecting. Sure, I didn’t really know what the Zones the book was referring to were, but I was confident our party hadn’t ventured past Zone 1, and certain we hadn’t stepped beyond Zone 2.
I looked over to Ren, who rested his head against the window, eyes closed as he rested.
“I was right,” I said simply.
Ren let loose a light sigh in response, content face unfazed.
“Shame.”