Tier chased for the girl that had long entrapped his heart. He didn’t run, but his pace was getting lighter the more distance he had walked avoiding the crowds of players and NPC. Before he realised it, he already reached the paladin.

“Oh, my, I thought you logged off already,” Manna greeted Tier who was still trying to grasp words.

Tier scratched his head, “W-well, you seemed to not have someone accompanying you play.”

Manna shook her head ever so gracely, “Rather common for me.”

Tier had predicted the answer, but that still gave a heavy jab on his chest. Next, it was his face that got hot when he predicted the words he was about to say.

Though stuttered, Tier forced the words to come out, “M-m-may I ac-accompany yo-u?”

“Sure.”

“Eh?”

Manna nodded without realising how Tier was stunned by her answer. “Dia-nee will be home in 45 minutes, we still have some time to explore a bit of Gur’ash Marsh.”

“S-so we go from the front then pass through Darukun or pay a wizard to open a portal?”

“My, we could just take a small ship from the docks.”

Tier gulped. Deep inside he trembled at the mention of another seafaring journey. Hopefully he won't puke during the sail. That would be unsightly for Manna to see.

As if noticing Tier’s suddenly pale face, Manna asked, “Is something wrong?”

“Uh well… um… it’s…” Tier tried to avoid the topic of ships. He did think that that would be the safest route and inexpensive one as well.

“You know….”

Tier tried to find another topic. His confusion about Manna had surged once again. He steeled himself and asked, “... If I may ask, who are you actually?”

“Amanda Valentia Kirana,” answered Manna lightly.

Tier felt like a fool. His question was definitely not delivered in the right manner. Funnily enough, he was reminded of another confusion regarding the girl.

“That’s not what I meant, but… why did you call yourself Mana? I mean, Eggi called you Manda.”

“Well,” Manna gazed upwards a bit, towards the clouds beyond the heights off the cliffs surrounding Grandar. “When I was still small, I had some problems in saying my own name, it always ended up with Ma-rh-na instead of Manda. So I chose Mana and it has become a habit. But you could call me Manda if you want, diligent deskmate.”

Tier shook his head, “It’s okay, Mana is cuter anyway.”

“Owh.”

The hunter almost tripped on a plain road when he just realised what he had said. “F-forget what I said,” he quickly tried to cancel his own words and changed the topic, “By the way, regarding who you are, that’s not what I meant.”

“Ah… do you mean like my other name? My grandmother gave me the name Miho, and considering my grandfather married into the family, I guess that will make me Hattori Miho.”

Tier shuddered, the answer was definitely what he didn’t ask. But it again gave him another question, “So it wasn’t a rumour? That your… uhh, DNA is a quarter… ninja?”

Manna giggled a bit. She smiled softly. “I cannot say nor deny if one of my ancestors served the Tokugawa clan.”

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Another beat was skipped by Tier’s heart. The similar smile he saw today earlier in class was drawn again at Manna’s face.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to badmouth you.”

“No problem, diligent deskmate, I have had that quite often.”

Tier nodded. Yet he quickly remembered that, again, was not what he asked. “Sorry, again, but actually what I was asking was about your status.”

“My bad, please wait a moment.” Manna raised her index finger and opened her character window. “156 strength, 47 agility,….”

“N-not your stats.”

“Oh, my, you meant relationship status? One of your friends asked? Just say you do not know, I do not want to be distubed. Although I am single, at least I am not as pathetic as Dia-nee. I still have Clashing Realms, my studies, badminton, ….”

She glanced at Tier for a moment, then sighed, “... and a rival whose marks I need to watch carefully.”

Tier didn’t know how to respond properly, the whole information was a mess. Thus, he could only say, “Wow, you are very busy.”

Manna looked with a questioning look at Tier, “And you do not seem so, I never thought you were as diligent as Ega mentioned earlier.”

“Ugh, that boar just exaggerates stuff, I just want to finish it fast so I won’t worry about it later.”

“Strength that came from necessity, a worthy rival indeed.”

Tier didn’t understand the whole rival thingy Mana had just said. Did she have a rival in studies that she strives so hard to stay on top performance? Tier wondered what it would feel if he was the rival.

“Anyway, homework aside,” Tier tried to return the conversation to it’s main topic. “Since you said Clashing Realms, I was actually asking about your, uhh... relation to Clashing Realms.”

“My, my, that was your original question?”

“Uh-huh.”

“You should have said it earlier.” Manna shook her head with a rather smart-ass expression.

Tier’s brain electrons twitched at the sight since Manna was the one kept answering weirdly. But then again, it was also his fault for not being clear. At least he got some nice information about his dear deskmate.

“I played a warrior before, but after quite some time, I felt it was kind of lacking and did not suit me that well. We really had it rough at Clashing Realms, especially after Lyra’s incident. We also lack class diversity and need some reinforcements. I offered to remake my character as a guardian paladin and also to look for potential candidates. Rosdan agreed.”

“So you are the paladin they mentioned,” Tier mumbled to himself. Fate did seem funny to him considering even Bingo was mentioning Manna from the start. And the weird part that Steven mentioned, Tier had to agree he kinda saw why.

“Yes, anything else?”

Tier shook his head. He said, “Nothing, I just wondered whether you saw the others as fit to join Clashing Realms.”

“You guys are in the list of potential candidates based on the list I got from several people. I have yet to see Eggi and Ega’s capabilities, but so far I have to agree that you guys have potential, even Zackhs.”

The answer had relieved Tier. Now he thought what he needed to do was just to make sure his friends and Manna could reach level 80 within the target time and below the death count.

Tier smiled and asked wholeheartedly, “By the way, could you please guide them later in Clashing Realms?”

“Them?” Manna tilted her head in confusion. But Tier didn’t answer and switched the topic.

Both of them travelled through the winding structures of Grandar since the city was built to follow the contour of the cliff’s crevices and passes. Their discussion was changed to each of their planned character builds.

Manna said she was going to focus 100 points on the Safeguard path that focuses on defence and protection from negative effects. The remaining points shall be allocated to Devotion that could help her support her allies.

Manna seemed rather interested with Tier’s planned build. She did mention that most hunters went for pure damage, so it would be interesting to see more ranged utilities on the battlefield. Manna also suggested Tier to later invest on his dexterity and intelligence stats to increase his crit rate instead of taking pure attack power. She did agree that Tier had to have a high critical strike chance to enable [Slither Drag] later on.

After a while, they finally reached the port of Grandar at the westernmost part of the city. The port was built on a secret beach among the cliffs and rocks, giving the vibe of a secret pirate docks. Similar to the other stuff in Grandar, the port was massive and seemed mighty but had the rough edges of the orcs' designs.

Orcish ships were massive and also rough. There are a lot of pointy shapes around the edges of the ship. Ballistas and cannons were on every side. There were also huge paddle boards sprouting on each side as if sails won't be enough to propel the ship forward.

Tier gulped once more when Manna guided him towards a small longboat that was paddled by several stocky orcs. He took his time to take several deep breaths before boarding the ship. Which in turn caused Manna to ask him if he was okay.

The hunter avoided answering again to not mess with everything that went smoothly so far. He won’t dare to ruin her plan anyway. Deep down, he had hoped the sailing would be smooth.

At least there was no Ril’Dil on board this time.