I sat in front of a man at a desk in an opulent room. He was older, dressed in nice clothes that matched the decorations filling his office. There were a good few guards in the room with us, which, while I understood the use of caution in this scenario, I still wasn’t comfortable being surrounded by all of these Classers. Especially when Erani had been outright refused entry because of her “destructive magic capabilities,” plus the fact that she wasn’t technically necessary for negotiations. She’d offered to go and talk things over with Sylvie, Entismo, and Boy using her identity of Eita, which we hadn’t been able to do since the battle a few hours ago.

I, too, was using my non-fugitive identity right now, dressed in Dark Plate and speaking as Annor. Mainly because the man in front of me was the mayor of Salvation. Arlan was still very much a man with a bounty on his head, after all, and even if I’d used some social capital and raw power to buy myself negotiating power with the guards, that was only temporary. After that conversation, I’d gone and found a secluded spot as quickly as possible so I could swap back to Annor, whose only connection to all of this was that he was a man who knew Arlan and could speak with him.

So it was with that much less hunted personality that I was doing my more formal negotiations with the mayor now, as the sun rose around the city at a time that was technically early morning, but as I’d yet to sleep, felt like it was still late night.

The mayor raised a hand to his chin, rubbing the patch of smooth skin that was flanked by graying mutton chops as I situated myself in my seat.

“My name is Annor,” I said, deciding to go ahead and kick things off, “but you probably already know me. If you haven’t been informed, I’m one of a few people who have direct contact with Arlan Nota and Erani Wos, who are the two that led the defense against the foreign terrorists that attacked your town last night. I helped him arrange his hired forces, by the way. Defending you cost us quite a lot of money. Anyway, I’m mainly here to negotiate the dropping of any charges that might be thrown against us—I assume that’s a given, considering what we did—and also any additional reward you could spare.”

He shifted his lips around on his face, whiskers twitching along with the movement. Then he cleared his throat and spoke in a rusty voice. “Right, right. Well, I can absolutely and positively say for the sake of me and my estate and my citizenry that you are, indeed, a hero and a saint, one which has graciously given your help in a time during which it was needed, and for that I can offer my profuse thanks and salutations and give you all the graciousness in my heart and mind and soul, and I can indeed tell that you are such an individual that would appreciate such a thank-you, that you are here today and in this hour to seek such a thing from me, and so I can surely offer such a thing as that in order to satisfy your desires and keep you from feeling that we have taken without giving or anything of that sort of set of concepts, my good sir.”

I squinted behind my helmet’s visor. “...So?”

“So I, as well as the organizations and governing bodies that I run, would be pleased and eager to offer you some amount of reward or compensation for you in return for the help you have given in this day, of course under the conditions that you simply agree to not make any direct moves or actions against our town and surrounding bodies, as well as to do some small amount of work to assist us with further problems that may or may not appear in consequence of the tragic and unfortunate events that transpired today and in the preceding hours, in the sense of—”

“Woah, woah,” I held out my hands to stop him in his spiel. Even with my small movement, a couple of the guards in my peripheral vision reached their hands to their weapons. “I don’t think I’ll be able to help with shit that goes down after this, just FYI. This may have been mentioned, but my group is planning on teleporting out of here—that’s why we’re requesting for a discount on that teleportation service. So if you want us to fight off stuff in the future—”

“That will most certainly not be in any way necessary, ideally,” the mayor sputtered. “We were more thinking that, in the case that such a thing as an attack from a foreign company of soldiers occuring on the grounds of this town were to be revealed to the public—either the public of this great town of Salvation or the larger public of the Barinruth Empire—it could and likely would cause issues for me and my ability to govern and keep the peace in this town, as well as cause issues for the town’s economy and general ability to keep population, as the public would interpret such an event as one which would come with the risk of carrying with it events similar to it that could happen in sequence afterward, whether they come sooner or later, even though both you and I and everyone present during the event spoken of know that such a thing would be unlikely to transpire, of course.”

I blinked. “Sorry, uh, let me make sure I understand what you’re saying. So, if I talk about this attack, you’re saying it’d cause a mass panic, right? People wouldn’t want to come here to do trade and stuff, since they’d think there’d be a possibility of more attacks happening. And I assume it’d also cause issues between you and the emperor—or, whatever higher governmental power you answer to, I guess. And so the help you’re asking for is just that I keep all this under wraps?”

“Effectively, yes, in the sense that you would both not intentionally inform anyone of such a thing, and that you would not contradict any information we may or may not release regarding it.”

“...Right. So, you’re gonna cover it up, maybe sugarcoat things to your superiors, and you want me to corroborate everything. That might cause some issues for me, I’m gonna be honest, since I was planning on speaking really publicly about all of this, but I might be able to work with you depending on how much you can compensate me.” The whole ‘I was planning on telling everyone’ thing was pretty much a complete lie, but upselling how much trouble doing so would cause me would, in turn, upsell how much hush money he’d feel the need to give me. “So, I have a few things I’d like to ask for, but to begin with, how about—”

“If you’d allow me to begin,” the mayor interrupted, “I would like to start off with an apology and an explanation that we may be slightly underfunded in terms of liquid coin in the current moment, as we are currently spending quite a bit of the money we would normally reserve for savings or emergencies or other projects that may come up throughout the year on repairing the collateral damages caused during your fight, both by your side and the enemy’s, though I would of course never accuse you of something like causing unnecessary damages, but regardless we are somewhat limited on the amount of raw currency we might be capable of rewarding you with, which is something I am, I hope you understand, extremely sorry to tell you, however we will still be eager to compensate you in any other way you might be willing to suggest in lieu of direct coin.”

“...Okay,” I said. Good gods, this guy was long-winded. “Well, I have a list for you, with a few things I’d like. But the main thing is Spell Crystals. I want as many as you can provide of the Spell Types I’ve got written on this paper. Additionally, rather than directly giving us coin, any discount you can provide on your teleportation service would work just fine.”

“Ah, well, Spell Crystals are unfortunately something we may have in somewhat short supply, as the recent international conflict has caused—”

“Don’t worry, I understand,” I said. “I’ll be comfortable with you just giving us everything you have on-hand.”

“R-right, we can offer you one or two Spell Crystals from our supplies, but we may need to hold some number of them back with us, as the recent events will likely cause need for increased spending on our guards and increased attempts to keep them in top shape, which would involve both Leveling and the Ranking of Spells, and so as such we would—”

“Listen,” I said. “I could threaten you. I could. I could say that I’ll go and personally tell everyone who’ll listen that the town of Salvation did nothing to stop foreign soldiers from infiltrating their borders, and then when those foreign soldiers attacked, started killing people and destroying property, the town guard did absolutely nothing to stop it, instead relying on the sole efforts of yet another foreign man to keep the soldiers at bay. But I’m not going to threaten you. It’s not how I’d like to go about this conversation, and quite honestly, I don’t think it’s necessary. Because I think you want to be on my good side regardless of how much I’ll hurt you. You want to be on my good side because of how much I’ll help you. Think of giving me those Spell Crystals as more of an, let’s say, investment in a very powerful ally. Because I promise you, in the coming days, teams are going to be chosen, and if the results of last night’s battle were anything to go off of, the people on my side are going to be much happier than the people on the side of the Demons.”

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I walked into Boy’s house once I was finished negotiating with the mayor, loot in tow. I hadn’t gotten what I’d asked for—a dozen Spell Crystals of every single Spell Type that Erani and I had—but I hadn’t expected to get that, anyway. What I did get was what I’d been actually planning on; a few select Crystals of the types that the town had on hand. And of those were some very important Types that we’d been in sore need of.

Sitting around the living room table was everyone I’d expected to see: Erani, wearing Distortion Strike so as to disguise herself as Eita, as well as Boy, Entismo, and Sylvie were all talking when I walked in. Though there was still a noticeable lack of Aliss.

Their eyes all went on the burlap sack in my hands as I entered, which clearly contained a good number of crystal-shaped objects.

I sat down in an open seat, the bag sitting in my lap. “So, what’s up?”

“W-we were just—” Entismo started, but Sylvie immediately interrupted him.

“What’s in the bag?” she asked.

“Nothing you’re concerned with,” I replied. “It’s something for Arlan.”

She rolled her eyes. “You don’t get to tell me what I’m concerned with. And I’m telling you right now, I am concerned with what’s in the bag. They look like Spell Crystals. Did you extort Spell Crystals out of the mayor?”

“‘Extortion’ would definitely not be an accurate—” Erani started to answer, but Sylvie interrupted once again.

“Ohh, you totally did extort the mayor! That’s awesome. Though, Eita, you weren’t there. I think. Annor, you gotta tell me, were you all like,” Sylvie deepened her voice in a terrible impersonation of me, “‘I’m gonna use my cool-ass magic to kill all the people in this room unless you give me all the money in your vaults. And also you have to bow before me. And also you should totally give this really cool girl I know named Sylvie access to free liquor whenever she wants. And also—’”

“I’m gonna go ahead and tell you I didn’t say any of that,” I replied. “It was just basic negotiations. Pretty much, the thing was that—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Sylvie rolled her eyes and waved her hand dismissively. “It’d cause economic problems if the truth were to get out about the foreign attack, especially considering the press and rumor mill would obviously spin the wording into something closer to ‘Salvation allowed a terrorist attack to happen,’ which would lead to population flight, lack of trade, and probably a move by the higher government to replace the mayor with someone more militaristically oriented to save face, which would lead to both the loss of the current mayor’s job, obviously, as well as a border town suddenly being led by someone focused on combat and conquest, which would almost certainly lead to international incidents caused by the new mayor’s aggressive mindset, which would only cause more death and destruction, yadda yadda, blah blah politics. Who cares? I just want you to get me free booze, and I also want to let you know how disappointed I am that you didn’t do that.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Uh, yeah, I guess your analysis is spot-on. Actually, the mayor didn’t even mention the second part.”

“Yeah, he probably didn’t wanna let you know how much he was in deep shit because of all this, since it would give you so much more bargaining power. But you seemed to do well enough. Or, at least, I could give you an assessment on how well you did in negotiations if you just told me what’s in the bag…?”

I stared at her. “Did you seriously just flex your political knowledge just to try and convince me to tell you what I got? You have a high Dexterity, your hearing is probably enhanced enough for you to tell what’s in it just from the sound.”

“Yeah, I have a fine enough idea of the fact that it’s Spell Crystals, but I don’t know the exact number or type. So…?”

“That’s all you need to know. I hope you understand why I’ve been so secretive in the past now, considering the secret’s out about my involvement with Arlan Nota and the Demons and all that. But just because the fact I’m involved is known now, doesn’t mean I get to tell you everything about everything. It just means I get to tell you why I’m telling you nothing.”

She flopped back in her chair in an exaggerated motion. “That’s so boring though.”

“Yeah, well. Anyway, Entismo, Boy, sorry that the two of you were kept in the dark during that whole fight. We would’ve told you, if we had managed to find you. Regardless, you’re all caught up now?”

Boy nodded. Entismo tentatively raised a hand, as though waiting for me to call on him. When I looked at him for a couple seconds, he just put his hand down and spoke. “S-so, if I understand the current situation befittingly…The two of you are currently allied with individuals who are being pursued by Demons. And we are allied with you. In that case, are we vulnerable to assault?”

“Not unless people think you have some sort of unique information on us,” I said. “Which I’ve been taking care to ensure you don’t have. We’ll be teleporting out of here sometime soon, anyway, so you won’t even know where we are. In that case, there wouldn’t be any reason for anyone to come hunting you down.”

Boy nodded, then stood and turned to the front door.

“You’re leaving?” I asked.

He nodded.

“If you see Aliss, do you mind telling her all of this for us? I assume we won’t be seeing her later.”

He nodded again.

“W-will I be able to accompany her sometime?” Entismo asked. “She isn’t gone…forever, correct?”

Boy just shrugged at that, then walked out of the building.

“Flamin’ weird…” Sylvie muttered.

“I do pray she is in good condition,” Entismo said.

“You two have no clue what’s up with her, either?” I asked.

“We haven’t known her and Boy for much longer than you have,” Sylvie said. “If she disappears like this often, we haven’t seen it happen yet. But honestly, she seems like the type to just run off randomly sometimes. In the noble world they call people like that ‘eccentric,’ but in my opinion, they’re just nuts. Sometimes my uncle would get an idea for an ‘invention’ and then go disappear into his underground ‘research facility’ for a weekend doing what was probably copious amounts of drugs, only to emerge later smelling like shit and leaving a bunch of garbage nailed together for his maids to clean up. So maybe that’s what’s going on with her, only with less money involved. And probably less drugs.”

“I’m sure she’s fine,” I said, mainly for Entismo’s sake. He honestly seemed really worried for her.

“Y-yes, well…” he took a deep breath. “I believe it would be best if I went home, myself. So, goodbye.”

With that, he stood and hurried out of the building before I could even say anything.

“That was weird,” I said after the door had shut behind him. I turned to Sylvie. “Do you know what he—”

“So you’re Arlan, right?” she asked suddenly.

I blinked. “What?”

“You’re Arlan Nota in a different set of armor. And Eita is just Erani with an appearance-changing Spell active. C’mon, you have literally the exact same Spells and fighting styles. It’s pretty obvious.”

Sylvie was sitting between Erani and I, and was currently looking at me, meaning she couldn’t see Erani. And Erani was using that fact to stare at me with wide eyes and frantically signaling to me with her hand a bunch of shit that I didn’t understand but seemed to vaguely translate to “This isn’t my fault! I didn’t say anything!”

Sylvie was still staring at me expectantly.

“So,” I said, trying to figure out how to word this, “as I said before, there are a lot of very good reasons to keep you in the dark about as much as I possibly can. This is one of those things. You’re free to make whatever observations you want to make, but currently, if you’re questioned under a Truth Stone about me and my associates, you can truthfully say ‘I wasn’t told anything, I don’t know anything for sure,’ and so on. If I answer a question like that, you’re not only putting us in danger, but also yourself. So sure, interesting observation, but whether that’s the case because we’re the same people, or because we’re clones of each other, or it’s just coincidence, or whatever, I can’t tell you.”

“Okay, okay, just…” Sylvie paused and gave me a very serious look, continuing in a grave tone. “Please, for my sake, if you’re actually clones, then…you have to promise me you’ll do weird sex stuff.”

I rolled my eyes. “Sure.”

“No, I’m serious. You need to do all the weird clone-related sex stuff you possibly can. Everything you can think of.”

I stood and made my way to the door. “Will do, Sylvie.”

“And then you need to report back to me! You gotta tell me how it all went, what was worth trying, and then tell me how I can make clones of myself to do weird sex stuff with! This is all very important.”

I opened the door and Erani and I stepped out. “Bye, Sylvie! See you later.”

“You still owe me for helping you out! This is me cashing in on that favor! You can’t just get my hopes up by mentioning clones and then not talk about weird clone sex!”

I shut the door behind us, then turned to Erani. “I can’t tell if I’m eager to leave this place, or if I’ll miss it once I’m gone.”

“Either way, we’re still going to be working alongside Sylvie more after today, since you made that deal with her,” Erani responded.

“Yeah, I guess that source of chaos won’t be leaving anytime soon.” I took a breath. “Anyway, wanna see all the Spell Crystals I got?”