After running around—really flying—all of the previous day, Daisy’s body was sore and tired when she woke up the next morning. And her bed was so, so comfy. She lay there, hoping no one and nothing would bother her from now until the rest of eternity. As Ailing put it the other night, Daisy was in her “I want nobody to remember I exist” mood.
Four million, three hundred and thirty-five thousand, eight hundred and eighty experience points left until she could rest. The monsters she killed yesterday were averaging around a hundred thousand apiece and each took about two hours to fly to, kill, and recover. Doing the math in lieu of crawling out from under the covers, that was about 43 more monsters, each taking two hours for 86 hours of work in total. Today was a Saturday, which gave her exactly eight full days to reach level 90. Dividing those 86 hours into eight days, she calculated 11 hours a day of nothing but experience grinding.
Daisy let out a low moan and slammed a pillow into her face. It was gonna suck, but she could do it. She’d get to level 90 and then have free reign to do whatever she wanted after that.
She didn’t feel like diving off the balcony today, so she trundled downstairs the old fashioned way. Ailing and Boulanger were already gone for the day, but Jouchi was sprawled over a couch with a mug of coffee in hand. The bottle of whiskey and cream liqueur beside the pot of coffee suggested it was more than bean water.
“Mornin’!” he said.
She grunted at him and grabbed a mug from the kitchen to pour herself a cup, sans booze.
“So your trips invented forced dimension-jumping, huh?”
Trips. Triples. Triple-digits. A nickname for a nickname for a slang term. Only frequent use could wear a phrase down to a nub like that.
“They did,” Daisy replied.
There was no sense in hiding it. Jouchi would’ve heard the news about the bounty by now. No unshared secrets, after all.
“No wonder you’re so interested,” Jouchi wormed his way back up to a seated position on the couch. He set his spiked coffee down. “You wouldn’t be trying to get your hands on that technology yourself, eh?”
She shook her head. The question didn’t surprise her so much as the fact that no one had asked about that angle yet. They knew Daisy preferred the path of least resistance, and forced dimension-jumping was a very easy way to remove competition.
“I’d be lyin’ if I said it hadn’t crossed my mind,” she said, voice rough with morning husk. “But it’s more trouble than it’s worth. Look at the pickle the folks who have it are in.”
Folks. As in, Shuixing, Pechorin, Natsuko, and Sofiane. Being back with her old team, she was slipping into the habit of using general terms for specific people. Not everyone deserves a name. Your numbers have to be high enough to warrant it.
“Being hunted by every Hero under the sun. Hmm, yeah, can’t say I envy ‘em. A bunch of trips like that are gonna get popped like a skull under a horse hoof. I’m surprised Boulanger doesn’t wanna go snatch them up himself. Easy free stats for us, since you know where they are, don’t you?” Jouchi asked.
He made a good point, Daisy thought. Free stats seemed exactly the kind of thing Boulanger would pounce on. If he’d asked, Daisy wouldn’t have tried to lie about the location of Natsuko and them. Lying to Boulanger was a bad idea. But he hadn’t asked. In fact, he’d ignored the topic entirely.
Daisy shrugged. “I’m sure he’s got a good reason.”
“I’m sure he does. Wouldn’t mind him sharing it with the class though. He certainly doesn’t let us keep our secrets,” Jouchi said, punctuating with a sip of his boozy coffee. How very Natsuko-like of him, she thought.
Daisy took a sip of her own coffee and was assailed with a legendary bitterness. Bitterness to write ballads about. Bitterness like the tears of a conquered people, salting the earth from which grew the darkest, thorniest coffee beans, harvested by a wizened old crone whose husband had betrayed her and left her for another—
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“Hmm?”
“I said you look rough,” Jouchi said. “Boulanger just wanted to light a fire under your ass. I’m sure he’ll give you an extension on the level-up deadline if you ask.”
She waved her hand. “No, no. I can make it. It’s not a problem. I just need to shake off the cobwebs by getting my hands dirty.”
Daisy tried to take another sip of the coffee and just couldn’t, not even with a dram of cream liqueur. She tossed the coffee out and went outside to summon Peng. Before she could, Zhidao floated up from down the road.
“Howdy, Daisy!”
“Howdy yourself.”
“Why the weariness? You’re not stressed out about Natsuko’s party, are you?” Zhidao asked, circling his tail on the cloud.
Daisy folded her arms. Pengwu playing cute again.
“What is it, Zhidao? You’ve got something to tell me, don’t you?”
The fox laughed. “Not just you! In fact, you’re only getting about a 15-minute head start over everyone else, and that’s only cuz we’re such good friends!”
“And because I did your errand with the pie-baking business,” Daisy said.
“Friendship is about mutual repricoc— reciprico— recip—”
“Reciprocity?”
“Huzzah! My fox tongue does the best it can, but alas. But like a good friend, you—”
“Zhidao, I’m down to 14 minutes now.”
“Oh shoot, right! So, as you know, Natsuko and friends snuck off to Shikijima where they were supposed to hide, but it seems Empress Sadako caught them.”
Daisy bit her lip. This was bad. “And that news is about to go out to everyone…”
“Because the Empress asked the Yishang to trigger a special event for their trial.”
“And everybody is going to know where they are now,” Daisy said, hand going up to her mouth.
The fox leaned back with his spine arched and gave a big stretch and a yawn, paw beans flexing with satisfaction. Licking his lips, Zhidao said, “of course, you all parted ways, but I just thought you might wanna know.”
Daisy’s eyes darted around. Ariunuul was quiet. Even the Non-Heroes weren’t up and about yet.
“Were you planning on telling Boulanger and them?” she asked.
“I was on my way to.”
“From one friend to another, do you mind maybe letting it slip that I’m off fighting monsters, o-or something? Don’t make it a big deal…”
“Oh-ho? Are you trying to make a dishonest fox out of me, Daisy?”
“I’ll kill a goblin on the way.”
Zhidao hummed. “Well… since we’re such good friends. Just don’t be surprised if Boulanger has his own sources of information. I’m not the only Pengwu around, y’know.”
She gave him a scritch under the chin. “Right. But you’re the one who keeps finagling me into your errands, so if you want that to continue, tell my teammates I’m fighting monsters.”
Within the hour Daisy was soaring over the Sibe-Lands, headed for Shikijima in the far south. The decision had been a split-second one, but once she made it, she felt better than she had in days. The fatigue fled her as if she’d pulled an extra eight hours of sleep out of a hat. She wasn’t sure what she planned to do once she got to Shikijima, or what her next moves would be to keep them safe from the Heroes hunting them, or even how she was going to explain all this to her team, but she made the decision and she was happy with it.
So happy, in fact, that she felt like composing a poem, right there on Peng’s back.
“Clouds whizz, face wets,
Steppes, plains, grass.
Stones fly, fur flies
Rushing, rushing, rushing—”
Well, that broke the noun-noun-noun scheme, but heck, this was a Daisy poem.
“Ink trailing…”
The rest of the poem tumbled out of Daisy’s mouth as a pained groan. Behind her, a meteor of roiling black fire was falling out of the ground and into the sky. At its center, hidden by a retina-searing darkness, was Boulanger. The ball of black fire flew over Peng and slowed down. Boulanger stepped out of the fire onto stone and dug his feet into a crevice to stand against the wind. His black hair flailed across his icy face.
“You’re going to meddle in the forced dimension-jumping business again,” he said. Despite not raising his voice, she could still hear him over the buffeting winds.
“I-I— Boulanger, I can do both, alright! I’ll get to 90 and I’ll—”
“Daisy. You can turn around and fly back to Ariunuul, or you can resign from our team. Those are your two choices,” Boulanger said.
Daisy pursed her lips, looked around at the wide blue sky around her, and said, “well, you don’t see Peng turning around, do you?”