“Oh, thank the Gods.”

“You’re welcome, but there’s no need for flattery,” the girl said, smirking at her own joke. “Call me Sera. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Lena.”

“You know my name,” I said, a bit lamely.

“The messenger from your village told me. Or not me, but someone who told my director, who told me. But you get the point.”

“Are you a Mediator?” I asked. I hadn’t expected to run into someone from the international peace-keeping group, but the eye tattoo on her forearm was a dead giveaway. The punishment for impersonating a Mediator was harsh, often ending up in execution, so I didn’t think she would’ve strolled into a prison cell if she was afraid of being outed as a fraud.

I would admit that Sera didn’t exactly fit the image I would’ve thought a Mediator would look like, but somehow, I could feel a sense of utter confidence exuding from her. It was out of place from someone who looked to be my age.

“Yup!” Sera said, popping the p. “And I’m here to help you out with your little Otherworlder problem. You mind having a quick chat here? Or do you want to head over to the post office, first? I wasn’t lying when I said it’s nicer there. If we’re gonna have a chat, I’d rather do it over snacks.”

I hardly felt like eating anything, but the thought of getting out of the dank prison cell and getting a seat with actual cushioning was nice.

I nodded.

“Then let’s get out of here,” Sera said, offering me a hand.

When I took it, the amount of strength that Sera had in her tiny body surprised me, being strong enough to easily pull me off of my seat. She smirked at me, as if knowing exactly how surprised I was, but didn’t say anything.

The guard hadn’t locked the door behind him when he left us, so we could just walk out if we wanted to. So that’s what we did.

It was only when we left the building that I realized something.

“Hey, shouldn’t we get Ryuji?”

“Hmm?” Sera said. “Is that your boyfriend’s name? The messenger didn’t mention it.”

I frowned. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

“I know, I know,” Sera said, with a laugh. “But I can hardly talk about what he really is in public, can I?”

I looked around at people around us. Even if I doubted that any of them were really paying attention to us closely, we weren’t talking quietly enough that I was confident that they wouldn’t hear us. While telling everyone in the village about Ryuji, might have been the right move, I could see how it probably wouldn’t be a good idea here. The population difference between Plainswood and Redstone was incomparable. If the people panicked here, there would be a stampede.

“Fine. But could you stop saying he’s my boyfriend?” I asked, the idea making me shiver.

Sera’s smirk fell off her face as she grimaced to herself. “Shit, sorry,” she said. “The guard who took you in told me that you were a couple, so I thought that’s the cover story you were using. Not used to dealing with amateurs.”

I was surprised by the admission and surprisingly grateful. It had been too long since someone took me seriously so quickly. A ghost of a smile fluttered on my face. “It’s fine.”

“It’s okay to admit it’s not,” Sera said with a shrug, her smirk slowly coming back to life. “But we’ll have someone more qualified for you to talk to about that later. And to answer your original question, no, we shouldn’t bring him. After all, it would be pretty rude to gossip about him to his face. Better to do it behind his back.”

I wasn’t sure whether the casual way she was talking put me at ease or made me nervous. Was she being confident or just blasé about the fact that we were talking about someone who could easily level the city to the ground?

“But won’t it be dangerous to leave him in the prison on his own?” I asked.

“Maybe,” Sera admitted. “But there really isn’t a better way to do this, Lena. I need to talk to you alone and he’s been sitting alone in a cell for a while now. I’m sure a few more minutes won’t make a huge difference. And I do have people watching over him too, y’know.”

“Not that anyone can stop Ryuji if he wants to leave,” I said.

“True,” Sera said, with an easy laugh that didn’t match up with what she just admitted to. “Which is why we should hurry up, shouldn’t we?”

The post office wasn’t too far from the Guard station, so it didn’t take us too long to walk there. Inside the building, there was a small queue to the receptionist’s desk, but rather than wait, Sera took my arm and guided me towards the side of the main lobby and into a door. More than a few people gave us odd stares, but nobody tried to stop us.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

We passed by a few offices until Sera stopped at a door that looked identical to most of the ones we’d passed by already. Without knocking, she pushed it open and beckoned me inside.

The room was sparsely decorated, not looking too much different from the prison cell, aside from the difference in furniture. Everything was coloured in a drab grey or brown colour, except for the large mountain of colourful snacks that sat on the table at the center of the room. Most of the snacks were of a variety that I’d never seen before, and from the overly fanciful boxes, I could tell they were probably expensive.

“The perks of being important enough for people to want to impress you,” Sera said, closing the door behind me. “We don’t have all day, so we might as well get to it.”

The room looked like it seated about twelve, so I just chose the seat closest to me. I heard a click behind me, and saw Sera locking the door before she walked over to the opposite side of the table before sitting down.

Somehow, the fact that her shoulders barely seemed to reach the table didn’t seem bother to her in the slightest, even when she had to lean over to grab a cookie from the center of the table. The action looked so childlike that it would’ve probably been funny, though I wasn’t in any mood to laugh.

“Cookie?” she asked, offering me the one she’d just picked up.

“No thanks,” I said. “Could we just talk about Ryuji, now?”

“You sure?” she asked, before tossing the cookie into her mouth. I think I saw her chew maybe three times before she swallowed and reached for another. “These are seriously good.”

“Positive.”

She shrugged before she swallowed her second cookie and reached for a pastry. “I can appreciate a girl who gets down and dirty, as fast as possible,” she said. “So, you want to be a Follower?”

I paled at the thought. “No,” I said, the image of Medric’s corpse still fresh in my mind. “No way.”

“Really?” Sera asked. “Then why did you tag along with him, if you don’t mind my asking? Normally, folks just send Otherworlders along their merry way when they find them. Not too many go above and beyond like you did.”

Unless they wanted to be Followers. I heard the unspoken suggestion loudly, but still shook my head.

“I just wanted to make sure he got to where he needed to be, and I didn’t trust anyone else to do it properly.”

Sera gave me an analytical stare.

“So, just to be clear, you don’t want to continue being his Follower? Are you aware that if you choose to remain as a Follower to an Otherworlder, you will be paid out a minimum of 8 gold on a monthly basis, potentially rising up to ten times that amount depending on how dangerous the Otherworlder proves to be?”

I hadn’t known that. I was technically aware that Followers were paid out a generous sum for their services, the exact amount was mind-boggling to me. My parents made maybe the equivalent of two gold coins per year, so the fact that I could potentially earn eighty in a month just put the whole Follower thing into a completely new perspective.

Even so, I shook my head.

“No way,” I said. “Not for all the money in the world.”

Sera stared at me for a few more seconds before she smiled. Unlike the smug smirks she’d been giving me so far, this one seemed a little more genuine. It was still a little smug, and from the little time I’d known her, I could already tell that it would never completely go away.

“Good, I assumed as much, but I had to make sure,” she said. “That makes my job a lot easier. You mind if I ask you a few questions?”

“Umm. I thought that’s what we were here for,” I said, a little confused.

“Nah. We were originally here so I could interrogate you. Now I’m just asking a few questions. Huge difference. First question,” she continued before I could ask what the hell she meant by that. “What do you think is the Otherworlder’s dream?”

“What?” I asked. Though the question seemed to be random and nonsensical, it somehow seemed familiar at the same time.

“It’s a popular theory that an Otherworlder’s powers are shaped by their deepest desires. It’s not a trick question or anything. We’re just trying to understand what the nuances of his powers are, outside of the whole, ‘skilled at everything’ package that all Otherworlders seem to come with,” Sera said. The theory seemed familiar, and it took me a moment to figure out why.

“Isn’t the theory that it’s shaped by their goals?” I asked.

Sera shrugged. “Dreams, goals. What’s the difference. Maybe I’m just more romantic than I look,” she said, giving me a smug smirk. The effect was somewhat ruined by the cream filling that stained her cheek, from the last pastry that she’d shoved in her mouth. I had already lost count by now, more focused on the conversation than her voracious eating, but I think she’d shoved seven snacks down her throat by now. “So? What do you think the Otherworlder’s dreams are?”

“Well, it’s obvious that he wants to become an adventurer, whatever that means,” I said. “But if you want to hear about Ryuji’s powers, then I can just tell you about that.”

For the first time since she’d sat down, Sera’s mouth snapped close over the cookie instead of swallowing it whole. Half a cookie remained dangling in her hand.

“Oh?” she asked. “What do you mean by that?”

She was still smiling, but her eyes were narrowing, rapidly losing their playful edge. I couldn’t help but think I’d made a mistake.

“Umm,” I said, suddenly a lot less confident in what I was going to say. “I’m not sure.”

“Do you see things that other people can’t see?” My eyes widened when she set the half-eaten cookie on the counter, discarded and forgotten. She was getting serious. “Things that the Otherworlder can obviously see as well? Panels floating in the air? Glowing labels floating above people’s heads? Random music playing in the air that nobody else seems to hear?”

“Yes?” I said cautiously. “Not all of those things, though. Just the panels.”

Sera stared at me for a few more seconds before gently placing her head in her hands, and letting out a heavy sigh.

“Why? What’s wrong?” I asked, a little afraid of her reaction.

Sera shook her head and hopped off her chair. At first, I wondered if that meant if I should get up too, but she walked over to me too fast for me to actually decide whether I wanted to stand or not.

The look in Sera’s eyes scared me. She should’ve been barely taller than I was standing while I was sitting, but when I was forced to crane my neck to look up at her, I vaguely realized I was curled up in fear, my arms wrapped around my knee as if I could somehow escape Sera’s apologetic, pitying expression if I made myself small enough.

“I’m sorry, Lena,” Sera said, wrapping me up in a hug. “You’re a Chosen Follower.”

I didn’t know what that meant exactly, but I could tell it wasn’t good. I let out a low whine in protest as Sera pulled my head towards her chest. I let her do it, finding comfort in her support.