At 4am Sunday morning, money automatically filled Natsuko’s coin purse, just like it did every Sunday. The full equation of how money was distributed relative to all the various Use-Number statistics had been worked out years ago, but Natsuko didn’t really care. The amount was pitiful whether she did the math or not. For the next week she would have to subsist on 106 Ying after having spent all of her cut of the money Koyon had given them for the stupid demon orb. She liked money, but she wasn’t so greedy that she would screw everyone out of their fair share. Even Pechorin. Her 250 had gone to paying off her bar tab and then accruing another, equally large one.

Moaning, Natsuko opened the door of her private closet. The sun streamed in through the open windows. Shuixing was already hard at work writing down geometric formulas for the corners of Natsuko’s bottle. Unlike her friend, Shuixing seemed downright peppy, humming softly as she jotted down arcane numbers and graphs on parchment.

“You’re up early,” Natsuko mumbled. Having opened the door while still lying across the ground, Natsuko looked like a puddle spilling out of the closet.

Shuixing adjusted her glasses. “It’s already 10:30.”

“That early? Ugh...”

Natsuko’s arms stretched forward into the lab before flopping to the floor. She listened for a moment to the light scritching of Shuixing’s pencil, the shuffling of her scholar’s robes, and the tapping of her nails on the glass bottom of Natsuko’s wine bottle.

“What’s got you in such a productive mood?” Natsuko asked.

“I suppose it’s nice having Pech back in town. Moods are a fickle thing,” Shuixing replied.

“Uh-huh. Must be nice.”

“It helps to not wake up hungover every day.”

“Yeah, but that means I’m not drunk the night before, so it all evens out,” Natsuko said. “Like an equilibrium.”

“Maybe you need to disrupt your equilibrium then?”

“How? We’re stuck in Nowheresville."

“Oh! Isn’t there a monthly pie-baking contest event?” Shuixing asked.

“Yeah? So what?” Natsuko said.

“You’re a great chef, Natsuko! You could probably clean that one up without breaking a sweat.”

“Pie-baking… I used to be a Knight of Innocentus, Shui,” she said.

Natsuko was referring to the guild of knights who ruled Vermögenburgh as a quasi-Theocratic city-state whose political structure was vague and amorphous and seemed to be a mishmash of different political organs that did mostly nothing of consequence. Several of the 1st- and 2nd-gen heroes had a backstory with the Knights of Innocentus to explain why they were in Vermögenburgh, Natsuko among them.

She was also the only knight from Shikijima, having been summoned a year before the archipelago had been drained of its Mist by the Yishang. Finally going there had been a disorienting experience, since despite her supposed origin, she couldn’t recall anything about the islands unlike the Shikijiman Heroes summoned afterwards. Thinking too hard about it gave her a headache, and the more time she spent around the Knights of Innocentus, the more she found herself thinking about it. That was why she quit.

“It was just a suggestion,” Shuixing said.

With a grunt, Natsuko hopped up from the floor. “Any chance you wanna come bake a pie with me?”

Shui gave an apologetic smile. “Sorry, I’m on a roll with my research right now. Maybe Sofiane or Pechorin would be interested?”

Natsuko’s mind filled with the image of Sofiane angrily snipping at her for putting the ingredients in in the wrong order and Pechorin putting in bitter herbs as a reminder of his bitter search for the killers of his clan or some stupid thing like that. Plus, pies and baking weren’t really her area of expertise.

“I’ll see if there’s an empty seat on the judges’ panel,” Natsuko said.

Natsuko felt crumby as she walked along the avenue of half-timbered shops and townhouses. The Non-Heroes were going about their business without a care in the world, carrying boxes, selling fruit, smithing swords, and so on. She envied their ease. None of them had to worry about Use-Numbers or base stats or anything like that. Some days she even felt like becoming a Non-Hero herself, but she didn’t know if that was something you could do. And what the hell would she even do, open a fruit stand? Become a blacksmith’s apprentice? Be a waitress?

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“—bake pies?”

“Huh? What?” Natsuko asked.

“Oh, I was just askin’ if you knew how to bake pies,” replied the chipper voice.

Standing in front of her was a woman in white riding breeches, boots, scarf and a pink blouse with blonde ringlets falling halfway down her front and back. Natsuko clocked her as a Hero even before seeing the pocket watch chain dangling from her pocket that was very obviously a weapon.

“Not really,” Natsuko said.

“Oh dear…” the woman said. “This is a conundrum! I’ve been trying to fit my archetype better and that includes being able to bake a pie. But I’m simply an atrocious cook!”

Natsuko raised an eyebrow. “Archetype, huh. Ditzy and vaguely-aristocratic girl? Probably a magic-wielder? And from…” she looked the outfit up and down. “Deco Imperia?”

The woman snapped her fingers and pointed a finger gun at Natsuko. “Bang! Bullseye on every shot. Oh! I haven’t introduced myself.” She snatched Natsuko’s hand and started vigorously shaking it. “I’m Daisy! Daisy Corduroy.”

Daisy said this so cheerfully and casually that it took Natsuko a second to realize it was that Daisy Corduroy, Rank #4 on the Use-Numbers chart. Close to half of all celestials summoned her emanation to fight for them and here she was asking Natsuko to help her bake a pie. Having never met her in person, Natsuko expected Daisy to be more imposing.

“Uh-huh. Great,” Natsuko yanked her hand out of the shake. “I gotta get going.”

“But you haven’t even introduced yourself yet!”

“Why do you care?”

Daisy blinked. “Cuz I like meetin’ people, why else?”

Natsuko narrowed her eyes. “I haven’t met any heroes playing the Use-Number game that aren’t selfish mercenaries. What’s in all this for you, other than a pie?”

Daisy blinked. “Well, I dunno about anyone else, but I sure don’t care about it all that much. I’d rather write a poem or go shopping than clear out a dungeon, but that’s just how it goes! And I’ll tell ya,” she leaned in conspiratorially, “the folks at the top sure ain’t readin' any poems.”

Finding her own statement hilarious, Daisy put her hands on her hips and laughed, complete with loud snorts. Natsuko wasn’t sure why it was so funny, but at least Daisy didn’t seem as punchable as that brat Koyon. Her hangover felt a little lighter too.

“Well, I’m not much of a baker, but I know someone we could ask. He might be able to help,” Natsuko said.

“Plum!” Daisy said.

With that they started walking towards the Foxtrot Inn where Sofiane was staying. As they walked, Natsuko’s curiosity overcame her animosity towards higher-ranked Heroes.

“So, uh, I’m Natsuko,” she said.

“Oh my Gosh! I completely forgot I asked you! I am so sorry Natsu! Y’alright with Natsu?”

“My friends call me that.”

“Natsu it is! Well, it’s a pleasure. D’ya have a full name?”

Not according to her backstory, but Natsuko had given herself one.

“Fireball. Natsuko Fireball," she said, feeling as dumb as when Pechorin was giving his own names to his abilities.

“On account a’ you’re a Fire Hero?”

“Err, I am,” Natsuko said. “But it’s actually cuz there’s this drink I like to make that's cinnamon, sugar, and whiskey.”

“Well how about that! I oughta start callin’ myself Daisy Mint Julep then!” Daisy said, throwing herself into another snorting fit. “‘Cept that’d mess up my archetype and all. The drinks are supposed to be my lil’ lady’s secret.”

“Right,” Natsuko said, putting her arms behind her head as she walked. “I stopped caring about my archetype years ago, so now I’m an alcoholic who isn’t appealing enough to summon.”

“That sounds nice! Real relaxin’. Wish I could do that,” Daisy said.

“Nothing’s stopping you.”

“Well, there’s just an itty-bitty, tiny lil’ problem about that.”

“Yeah?”

“I like money too much!”

And again, the gut-splitting guffaw. Natsuko smirked. At least she wasn’t doing the thing a lot of Heroes did where they gave a sanctimonious rant about the Hero’s duty to save the universe from the evil forces of the Entropic Axis.

“What do you do with all that money?” Natsuko asked.

“S’far as I can tell there are three things most people fill themselves up with,” Daisy said. “One: Good food and drink. Two: Clothes. And three: Poetry, and money lets me do all three! All I gotta do is clear a few dungeons now and again, maybe hang out at special events, wear some fancy seasonal outfits, yada yada. But I’m caught up right now, so until the Yishang push the Mist back a bit more, I got nothin’ to do but keep up my image.”

The thought depressed Natsuko a little. The only thing she really wanted to do was go on adventures, and that was the one thing she was locked out of by virtue of being a 1st-gen hero with terrible base stats and the worst class a Hero could have. It wasn’t up to Natsuko about whether or not she could aid in the fight against the Entropic Axis, it was up to the Celestials to pick, and they didn’t pick her. She'd hit that vicious downward spiral of not being strong enough for Celestials to use, which meant she didn’t have money to get any better equipment to progress and grind for experience to be worth summoning.

“Aren’t you worried what will happen if newer Heroes come along and replace you?” Natsuko asked.

“Hmm…” Daisy said, finger to her chin as though deep in thought. “Nah!”