Shuixing set her scientific instruments down. “One of the new Heroes summoned was an effeminate, androgynous boy with a similar combat role, I presume?”
“You understand my position perfectly, Ms. He. Something similar happened to you, I imagine?”
“There are a few shy, soft-spoken, intellectually-inclined Medico-Mages running around with better stats than me, yes,” Shuixing said. She folded her arms into the sleeves of her robe. “And please call me Shuixing.”
Natsuko laughed. “In other words, there’s a new femboy on the block, he’s got better stats, and your Use-Number went to shit?"
Sofiane frowned. “Not "went," so much as, "is going." Though I suspect it is still far superior to yours, Ms. Nobody.”
Natsuko stomped towards the wine bottle resting on Shuixing’s rack and slung it over her shoulder. “You wanna find out who’s a nobody?”
“Natsuko stop,” Shuixing said, putting herself between the two. “We don’t know what your bottle will do against other heroes.”
Sofiane smirked. “What, do you plan to turn me into a lazy alcoholic like yourself?”
Shuixing pressed her hand to Natsuko’s chest. “Easy, Natsuko.”
Natsuko rolled her jaw then gingerly set the bottle back down on the rack with the kill-spot facing up. Once she was done, she explained that she was now calm, which made Shuixing let her go, which meant she could walk over to Sofiane and punch him in his smug little face. Which she did.
“Ow! You shrew!” Sofiane said, rubbing his chin with one hand and reaching for a rapier with the other.
“Please stop, both of you!” Shuixing said.
The outburst startled Natsuko more than Sofiane. Her friend’s voice was usually competing with butterfly wings for volume. Rarely did it get above this level other than times such as when Natsuko broke her lab equipment while drunk. Once Shuixing was satisfied, she lowered her voice back down to a fluffy half-whisper. “What did you come here looking for, Sofiane?”
He folded his puffy, silk-sleeved arms. “If I want to retain my status as the most useful Hero of my archetype, I need an edge.”
Natsuko raised an eyebrow. “An edge, huh? You wanna pay by the hour, or…?”
Shuixing’s face turned crimson.
“I have a lead. We would split the treasure,” Sofiane said.
“Oooh! That’s a whole different story, Sofi!” Natsuko said, slapping him on the back.
Sofi scowled. “Don’t call me Sofi.”
While the two of them went at it again, Shuixing tried to recall which of the dungeons around Vermögenburgh hadn’t been picked clean yet. As the first region of the world to be revealed by the all-powerful Yishang, Heroes had dissected it for every ounce of experience, Ying, or equipment it had. Any leveling or loot-clearing was done nowadays in whichever the most recent region to be cleared of the Mist was. At present, that was the Sibe-lands, a thousand miles away. No one went looking for dungeons in Vermögenburgh.
“Where were you planning to explore? And why do you need us?” Shuixing asked.
Sofiane flicked his eyes at Natsuko. “Not “us,” just you."
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Natsuko gave a wide fake grin and hooked her arm around Sofiane’s shoulder, pulling him into a headlock and mussing up his purple hair. “Hey now, me and Shuixing are besties. We go everywhere together. A combo deal, got it?”
Sofiane flailed and slapped at her arms. “Fine! Fine! There should be enough spoils for all of us!”
Natsuko let him go. She was now curious what could possibly be such a tasty morsel of a dungeon this close to the most irrelevant town in Po-Lin.
“What’d’ya got, Sofi?”
He growled. “Stop calling me Sofi! And if you must know, I have received secret knowledge of a dungeon left entirely untouched by Heroes.”
Natsuko leaned against one of the lab tables. “How’d that happen? And how come you need a couple of first-gen nobodies to go loot it?”
“The answer is the same to both questions,” Sofiane said. “You cannot physically get to this dungeon, hence why it remains virgin territory. And why I need you t— why I need her,” he said, pointing at Shuixing, “is because we must dimension-jump to get there.”
Natsuko grinned. Maybe this boy wasn’t such an annoying little weenie after all. Dimension-jumping was an incredibly esoteric field of knowledge that no one paid much attention to anymore. Early on, when Natsuko and Shuixing were still serious competitors in the Use-Number competition, dimension-jumping research was all the rage. Heroes jealously guarded any secrets they learned about how to do it with the hopes of getting exactly the kind of competitive edge Sofiane was talking about.
What it involved was floating through walls and floors by exploiting some universal law that limited how many and what kind of geometric surfaces could interact with each other. There was a lot of math involved that Shuixing understood and Natsuko definitely did not. Moreover, research in the area had long been out of style for two reasons:
Reason #1: The places and objects that could initiate a dimension-jump were vanishingly small and didn’t confer much of an advantage anyway. Hours spent figuring out how to dimension-jump through a locked door meant hours not spent clearing dungeons or completing quests. Most heroes gave up once they realized this. But, if that wasn't enough,
Reason #2: Despite the near total lack of usefulness, it was also suicidally dangerous. Heroes that died in battle would be resurrected, albeit at a stacking 10% penalty to their stats until the next time they completed a mainline quest. But Heroes that unsuccessfully dimension-jumped were not resummoned. If the Use-Rankings counted every Hero that had ever lived, the total should've been out of 196. Instead it was 190. This was also why their teammate Hemiola no longer existed.
Natsuko’s wine bottle operated off of the same principle of dimension-jumping. The only difference was that it was portable. She carried around the ability to forcefully inflict dimension-jumping on Heroes, Non-Heroes, monsters, and even inanimate objects. For moral reasons, Natsuko avoided doing it to people, though she got pleasure out of making Shuixing stop her from doing it.
With that in mind, Natsuko understood now why Sofiane had gone looking for Shuixing specifically. Out of all Heroes, Shui was the only one who still researched dimension-jumping. Even then, it was for personal edification rather than for competition.
“I don’t believe that is a good idea…” Shuixing said.
Natsuko had expected Sofiane to give Shui lip too, but instead, he threw himself on the floor in front of her and grasped her delicate hand in his.
“Please, madame, I have no other recourse! I daren’t hope to outpace my rival by conventional means. This hidden dungeon is my only chance. Please! I cannot live out my days in pitiful obscurity, I simply cannot!” Sofiane said, punctuating his point by planting a kiss on Shuixing’s hand. She yanked it away, blushing.
“Please stop,” she said softly. “Sofi... I lost a good friend in a dimension-jumping accident. I don’t want to subject myself, or anyone else, to that possibility.”
“How cruel of you to blow upon the irons of my hope, only to douse it in the next!” Sofiane said.
Natsuko nudged Sofiane’s side with her foot. “Hey! How come you got no problem with her calling you Sofi?”
Sofiane wrinkled his nose. “I have no problem when it comes from the mouth of a true lady.”
Natsuko marched back towards the wine bottle. “You wanna dimension-jump so bad? I’d be happy to oblige!”
Shuixing cleared her throat. “L-Let me sleep on it…”
Sofiane’s eyes filled with the fakest tears Natsuko had ever seen.
“Oh! Thou goddess, thou paragon of patience and prudence!”
“Please stand up,” Shuixing replied.
Dusting off his pantaloons and waistcoat, Sofiane stood up and gave a deep bow to Shuixing and lightly nodded in Natsuko’s direction.
“I shall retire now, I think. To the inn with me. I shall seek your answer at breakfast-time,” Sofiane said before shutting the door to the laboratory behind him.
“The inn!?” Natsuko scoffed. “That filthy rich show-off. Ugh. What are you thinking, Shui? You gonna take him up on it?”
Shuixing stabilized herself against a laboratory table, staring deep into its black granite surface and then with complete and total conviction and strength of character, she said, “Absolutely not."