Chapter 24

Coffee

"HOO-AY!"

The shout goes up the moment the first person catches sight of the bronze badge on my collar, and before I know it, the lot of them are corralling me right to the center of the bar. I'm not even sure if the stool reached up to catch me or if someone pushed me down on it.

"Alright, back it up, back it up, you baboons!" The red bartender from before wastes no time trying to settle them down, but it's like beating back an incoming tide. "If you suffocate her to death, she's not gonna be around long, is she?!"

Enough shouting of threats of cutoffs manages the feat, anyway. It takes a minute, but soon, there's only a handful of gossipers within arm's reach and she's grinning down at me while she dries her hands off.

"Well, that was a fast exam," she notes first off. "And without a mark on you, you went and jumped right past Wood and Iron. How many pieces did you leave that hunk Kaido in to pull that off?"

I give an embarrassed smile and try to ignore the gossipers leaning in as I scratch at my cheek. "Ah, he's fine ... I used a status effect so I wouldn't cause any actual damage."

From the chattering that gets going in the other adventurers, I get the impression that wasn't as harmless to say as I thought it would be, but Lady Red just gives a casual grin.

"You don't see many adventurers picking up status magic," she explains. "At least, nothing where the effect isn't just a bonus. Too much need for actual damage output when we're on our own. If you can consistently deliver on that, you'll have your pick of squads as a support caster."

At her words, I glance down to her chest and see a badge the color of white gold, and her grin's a little wider when my eyes snap back up.

"Retired," she answers my unspoken question, and pulls her leg up onto the counter. Or, well, what's left of it. She has only half a thigh, and after that, it's some sort of runed construct. Steel and wood, if I had to guess. A prosthetic limb. "Word of advice, kid, basilisks have a lousy sense of humor."

"... Noted."

She nods and pulls the limb back behind the counter again. "Now I hang around to keep these chucklefucks in line."

I blink, surprised the Essence actually translated that, and I can't help but wonder what the original word is.

Obviously, the bartender just thinks her crass language shocked me, and she gives a bark of laughter. "Yeah, had you figured for upper crust, Yellow. Get used to it, you're going to hear a lot worse in this line of work. Now, I believe I promised you your first drink! Know what you want?"

I ignore the raucous shouts of, "Juice," and, "Give her milk," from the crowd, but then my nose catches a whiff of a nutty, bitter aroma I never expected to smell again.

"... You have coffee?!"

Red's eyes widen and she lets out a long, dramatic whistle. "New girl's got tastes! Or are you just from out west? Sure, I'll pour you a cup."

She gets me a cylindrical tea mug and starts pouring the steaming brown-amber fluid in. "Fair warning, if you want it on the regular, it's a lot pricier than tea. You'll need to put in the work."

I take a long, deep inhale of the steam, already barely able to resist indulging. "Oh, I plan on it. I'm aiming to raise enough to get a new house built, after all!"

"Uh-huh? What kind of house?"

I give a bit of a shrug before carefully lifting the mug. "I haven't decided a lot of the details. A couple floors, big kitchen, entertainment room, space for company."

Red belts out another laugh. "Yellow, that's no house! You're saving up for a manor!"

"Yeah, well, now you know why I plan on putting in the work."

"So I do." She watches me take a long sip of the coffee. "So how is your raw damage output?"

I have to force myself not to spit the coffee back out and I end up swallowing the still-too-hot liquid instead, much to her amusement as I cough.

The bartender grins like that's some kind of answer. "That good, huh? I was worried you'd turned yourself into a one-trick pony. It's all well and good to make sure you fill a niche people will want, but you don't want to find yourself the last one standing with an empty quiver, either."

Why are all these figures of speech getting translated NOW?

I clear my throat and look over at her like she might be dangerous, peg leg or no. "I didn't say anything," I insist.

"You didn't have to, kid," she just grins back. "I've been doing this for far too long not to be able to tell the difference between someone who's weak and timid about it and someone who found a god's balls and is too used to being normal to own it."

I have to shake my head at that. "Who are you?"

"Zeiya," she pops back like she doesn't know that wasn't what I meant. "Once upon a time, I was a Platinum rank adventurer. Traveled all over, and not just Furinshao, either. Saw lots of things, met lots of people. Kicked a whole lot of monster ass."

She turns her gaze from me and looks over the tables of adventurers loudly talking over their food. "Now, I'm just a bartender, worried about which of these idiots isn't going to be back for dinner tonight." The redhead turns her attention back to me. "Somewhere along the way, I got really good at reading people."

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"You do that a lot?"

Zeiya just rolls her eyes with a chuckle. "Eh, you're a brighter story than most, kid. Take my word for it and don't become a bartender if you've got a bleeding heart. Not an occupation in the world that sees more sadness come through their door."

I arch an eyebrow at that claim. "Not even an undertaker?"

She looks me over like she's trying to decide if I actually said that, but grins. "Clever girl, Yellow, but who do you think the undertaker goes to?"

I concede her point with another sip of coffee, only to nearly spit it out again when a half-naked man comes charging out of the back offices, bellowing at the top of his lungs.

"YOU CHEATING LITTLE YELLOW BRAT!!! I SAID BEST TWO OUT OF--"

The casualness with which Zeiya flicks the cup she's cleaning without even looking over at Kaido makes it seem like it should just topple over onto the counter next to her. I and everyone else can only just stare as it slams right into the bridge of his nose from halfway across the open space from here to reception.

The retired Platinum rank adventurer one-shots the monk in front of everyone without even making an effort, and his unconscious form topples back with all the grace of a felled oak.

The gossipers take that as a sign to clear out, and even I find myself taking my next couple sips trying to hide between my shoulders. The whole time, she just keeps wiping things down like nothing noteworthy happened at all.

"That's actually a pretty good status duration, kid," is all she says.

And yeah, she's probably right, the way he came out here full of fury, the paralysis had probably only just worn off. Considering she no doubt knows where the test took place, that would give her a pretty solid idea of how long it lasted.

But I can't get my mind off of the stunt she just pulled like it was nothing. If Zeiya wasn't retired and she'd been my examiner, I don't think I could have won. There's only one other person I can think of that has given me such an overwhelming impression of power.

It's not long before I can no longer resist asking.

"... Have you ever fought the empress?"

Zeiya pauses in her work for a protracted moment before she looks over at me again like she didn't hear me clearly. Just when I'm considering repeating myself, though, she throws her head back and full-belly laughs like Abbot and Costello just rolled into town.

"Met our fair lady in the flesh, have you, kid?!" she responds when she finally finds her words. "You really do have some connections! Guess I should be flattered if the first thing that little display makes you think of is her! But she'd already left this corner of the empire by the time I got here, and we never really moved in the same circles, anyway."

She gets a distant look in her eyes as she goes back to her work. "No, pretty sure we've stood in the same room once or twice, but we never threw hands. Kinda glad, honestly. I probably could've given her a good showing when I still had full use of my leg, but it would have meant tangling with her friend, too."

"Her friend?"

Zeiya nods. "Every time I ever saw her, before she married I mean, back when we were both active, she was always traveling with this elf. Never looked like much, but shadowed that girl everywhere she went. By the time she started hanging out with the prince, everyone just assumed the elf was some sort of servant girl, but she had this way of smiling, like whatever you were up to, she was just indulging you."

I witness the platinum rank adventurer shiver. "You couldn't have paid me to pick a fight with her if you were offering me a kingdom."

I ... have a sneaking suspicion I know of that particular elf, too, and decide that's a dangerous line of conversation that I'd rather avoid, so I shift the topic back.

"But with just the empress, you said you think you could've had a decent chance?"

But she scoffs. "I said I think I could've given a good showing. Hells, if she stuck to her sword, I might've had a chance at coming out on top. Not a big one, but it'd exist."

"She's an Iaidoka, isn't she?" I ask. "What else would she have besides her sword? It's kind of in the name."

She gives me another look similar to when I asked in the first place, and she sets her dishes down again before leaning over the counter so our faces are only a foot or so apart. "You are very well-informed, Yellow. Don't suppose you know her stats, too?"

My face flushes and I break her gaze before I can stop myself. "Isn't that rude to ask?!"

But this just triggers another round of laughter. "You do! You fucking do! Oh, Yellow, what in the eleven Hells brought you all the way out here?!"

I force myself to frown, humiliated that she keeps pulling answers out of nowhere like that. "I told you, I'm going to build a house."

"Right, right, the multi-story house with a moat and walls."

"I am not putting in a moat," I argue. "A pond, maybe, but that's not a moat! And why does it get bigger every time you tease me for it?!"

"Because that's the part that's so funny," she chuckles in reply, but settles down again. "But I suppose I can make it up to you by answering your question."

I'm listening attentively as she gets comfortable leaning on the bar again.

"You're right, Yellow, if she fought like any other Iaidoka, the empress wouldn't have much besides her sword to fight with, not that that's any mark against her. Her skill with a blade is plenty to be proud of all by itself. But I guess that wasn't enough for her, because she went and studied magic on top of it."

Zeiya shrugs dismissively. "Of course, she already had her class, so she was never going to be as good at it as an actual caster. She could still learn it like any classless person, but she'd always have less mana and raw power in her casting than the real deal. That's why a lot of martials don't bother with anything beyond the basic utilitarian stuff.

"They're idiots, of course, and anyone that gets past silver understands that having the right spell can turn a lot more battles than just knowing a whole bunch of them. Body enhancers, elemental infusions, at least some basic sort of self-healing, that's what most martials will go for. They make you better at what you're already good at, they're relatively easy to learn, and if you only use them when you need them, they don't take a lot of mana."

But the barkeep sighs and flicks a lock of magma-red hair out of one eye. "That's not the route our empress went, though. No, she learned spells. Turned herself into a proper Witchblade, classes be damned."

My mind goes back to Xuhitana's traits. One of them actually used that same term. "What's a Witchblade?"

"It's a rare class said to be the best of both worlds," Zeiya explains easily. "Able to stand their ground against a martial, able to stay back and support with magic, but really excelling when they mix and match. It's not the only class that pulls double duty, and they're all rare, but Witchblade is unique in that, supposedly, you can't get it just on draw through the temple. You've gotta have an actual witch teach it to you."

I remember how Genstai mentioned that only the temple can grant classes. Of course, I'm living proof that's not entirely correct, but Xuhitana's class didn't actually change to Witchblade, either. "Is it even really a class, then?"

"Dunno," she admits. "I suppose you could call it a style, but stories always talk about it as a class. Point being, she does it, and it apparently makes her utterly frustrating to actually fight. She's never where she looks like she is, can suddenly be somewhere else, has a full elemental blade suite, and even if you are stronger than her, you won't be for long as she wears you down with status and hexes."

I blink. "That sounds absurd."

But the veteran just scoffs and gives me a sideways glance. "About as absurd as a level three martial dropping a chi-do martial artist seven times her level with an hour-long status spell, I'd reckon. You and the pretty princess have more than a little in common, you know?"

I give her the flattest frown I can muster. "Do your bosses know how much snooping you do?"

But rather than looking guilty, she just beams a wide grin. "Yellow, if they don't, they're really bad at their jobs."