The day was nearing its end, and Nobina’s mind was elsewhere. She was excited to start her training with Mimiki. After finishing the Ledger project, all she could think about was her writing and her training. As she thought about it, something occurred to her. She had told everyone about being attacked by a goblin, but she didn’t actually tell them of her concerns. That goblin should have been even near that river, and she was worried that it could be a sign of a potential problem.

Heading to Lare’s office with her Gaze bag, Nobina appeared and saw Sarah relaxing at the front. When Sarah’s gaze caught Nobina, she called her over.

“What’s wrong again Nobina?” she asked, keeping an upbeat tone. “Worried about earlier.”

“Kind of?” Nobina replied. “Remember how I told you there was a goblin incident close to the river? The problem is that the data we have indicates that they shouldn’t have been that close at that time of day. I wanted to bring it up with Lare and hear his thoughts.”

Nobina saw Sarah’s expression reflect her worries as they continued to talk.

“That is a problem. Actually, I don’t even know why you’re working today,” said Sarah, her worried voice making Nobina consider the severity of the incident.

“I’m fine. There was another F rank adventurer there that helped, remember? I just was the one who ultimately took it down as he distracted.”

Sarah looked a bit more relieved, but she then said something Nobina didn’t expect.

“If only Mimiki had taught you properly…”

“Sarah,” spoke Nobina in a bit of a harsh tone.

“Eek. Sorry Nobina,” said Sarah.

Nobina wanted to apologize for her tone, but she decided to make her feelings known.

“Sarah… I know you still have a lot of misgivings for what Mimiki has done, but please don’t let them prevent you from seeing the good she is doing.”

Sarah looked unconvinced, but she eventually surrendered and nodded.

“Fine… but I’ll be very strict on my criteria for forgiving her. I won’t let that past stuff… Dilute my judgement, but anything from here on out will be judged harshly.”

“That’s fine,” nodded Nobina.

She began wondering if Lare would display a similar stance. For now, she put that thought aside.

Nobina made her way to Lare’s office, giving a knock when she reached it.

“Yes?” called Lare.

Nobina stepped in, taking a seat in front of Lare. She began telling him about her concerns regarding yesterday’s incident. Lare, in response, seemed to be in deep thought.

“I see,” he said with a serious look. “I’ll have a few scout quests posted to get a better sense of the situation. So far, I have seen no other reports of increased monster activity today, so best case scenario is this is an isolated incident. Do you have anything else to report?” he asked.

“No sir,” replied Nobina.

“Then please take a few days off starting tomorrow.”

His response caught Nobina off guard.

“Guild policy dictates when a guild officer has experience anything traumatic, involving…”

The strong scent of eggs started filling the room as Nobina turned to her bag. Going into it, she saw five nicely made packages with a strong egg smell coming from them. Opening it up, she saw a nicely plated fried egg with a fork and spoon in it.

“These… smell good,” she said, finding herself drooling.

“What is it Nobina?” asked Lare, stepping over.

Seeing the egg, he gave a nod.

Nobina was going to say something, but then another object appeared in her bag. Opening it up, she felt very tempted to throw it, but Lare’s shocked face stopped her.

“Nobina, what’s wrong,” he said, sounding panicked for the first time.

She held the book in front of his face, with him staring confusingly at it.

“The… Adventurer’s Guide to Adventurers Guides… For Idiots and dummies…. Volume 15 of 3? Nobina… what exactly is this?”

“Some utter nonsense,” she found herself almost yelling.

She had to take a deep breath before regaining her composure.

“Sorry… I need to talk to Eric about this. Uh… here.”

Nobina handed him a package with an egg, prompting him to nod.

“Thank you,” he smiled.

“I’ll be right back,” she said, taking her bag with eggs. She then recalled the book before heading off.

Moments later, she found herself storming upstairs into Eric’s office, causing him to freeze the moment she entered.

“Nobina?”

As Nobina was about to say something, another glow came from her Gaze bag. Nobina, trying to keep herself calm, opened the bag and looked at the note. As she read it, she immediately recalled it and summoned it.

“One way to test my ability,” she said, completely annoyed.

She ripped up the paper and held out her hand.

“Summon.”

The paper appeared again in good condition, causing her to nod.

“At least some things make sense,” she nodded, her mood unchanged.

“What is going on Nobina,” said Eric, stepping in front of his desk.

“The Gaze Eric! It’s trolling me!”

Eric tilted his head.

“Trolling? What does that mean?”

“It’s… driving me crazy,” she sighed. “See, take a look at this.”

Nobina held out the book she received. Eric took it, looked at the title, and set it down.

“Nobina…”

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Her bag flashed again, and she merely turned to it without saying a word. She began pulling out a small fairy statue. Her expression darkened when she saw the expression it was making. With a face full of anger, she lifted the statue up and immediately smashed it into pieces.

“… Do I need to ask?” said Eric, merely smiling calmly at this point.

“No,” she said. “I guess I’ll ignore the Gaze bag for now. Anyway, I need to talk to you about something very important.”

Seeing the tone shift, he nodded as the two sat down. She began the talk by reporting the goblin incident and everything involving it. In particular, she was concerned with the Gaze’s rapidly growing influence.

“Take a look,” she said, pulling out another container with eggs.

“Is that… an egg in there?” asked Eric. “I thought my nose was sensing something.”

“Yeah… want one? I got three more after this.”

He nodded and received the egg. Trying it out, his eyes lit up.

“Wow… this is pretty good. Never thought eggs could be that good.”

She nodded and saw the Gaze bag flash again. She was very tempted to ignore it this time, but she decided to give it one more chance. Opening it up, she found what appeared to be a massive canvas flag. It had to be five feet by three feet. It had the words “I’m sorry, Nobina” written on it, with a lot of fairies giving different hand-heart signs.

She felt the anger she was clinging to finally start to fade as she let the kind gift get to her.

“Fine… I forgive you… whoever is trolling me,” she spoke.

Eric examined the flag, giving a nod.

“This fabric is pretty good,” he smiled. “What’s your plan with this flag?”

“I don’t know, but I’ll keep it for now,” she responded. “It will go next to my fan art.”

As she said that, another object appeared. As she pulled it out, her face became bright red as she found herself dropping the body pillowcase immediately.

A beautiful image of Eric was displayed, a bright gold background right behind him. The very fine details, almost bordering realistic, made the image of Eric lying back look life-like. The only saving grace for Nobina was he was fully cloth in his guild master outfit.

Looking at Eric, Nobina caught even his face going pure red.

“Nobina,” said Eric in a disappointed voice. “I forbid you from opening that bag within the guild unless absolutely necessary.”

Nobina nodded, accepting the permanent ban of Gaze content within guild grounds. She felt a sense of relief, considering everything that had happened, but she was a bit saddened due to not being able to enjoy the kinder stuff.

“Ok… we are so off track… So, the goblins?”

“Right,” said Nobina. “Lare said he’d have scouts look at the location so hopefully it’s determined to be an isolated incident.”

“For our sakes, yeah,” he nodded. “Anyway, feel free to take a few days off.”

She gave a nod, standing up to leave.

“Oh…” said Nobina.

She walked over and handed him the body pillowcase. The moment she did, she heard a laugh from the bag, causing her to flinch in anger.

“Here. I’m sure you rather have it than me.”

The anger in Nobina’s voice made Eric chuckle, causing Nobina to “hmph” before leaving. As she did, Eric looked at the body pillow, shaking his head.

“I don’t know if you’re supposed to be a hero or anti-hero, but your certainly an odd one Nobina… You and this Gaze.”

As Nobina headed downstairs, the laughter intensified, causing her to take the bag and stomp on it a few times.

“Stupid bag,” she said.

Her mind realized something immediately, with her opening the back to check. Her face felt relieved seeing the eggs fine, confirming that, at the very least. The bag was similar to her special bag in protecting its content, but different in the fact it was meant for storage only.

“I can’t put stuff into it, but anything in it can just build up endlessly,” she thought to herself.

The bag began speaking to her in a language she couldn’t understand.

She thought about trying to speak to it. Perhaps it could actually talk and communicate with her. However, the voices stopped, and soon, she realized this was merely a part of the trolling she had experienced earlier.

“New world… yet the trolling still happens.”

Nobina began recalling seeing such a thing happen to the streamer she used to watch. She’d always laugh, enjoying everyone having a good time. It made her wonder if this was exactly the same thing they experienced, causing her to burst into laughter.

“Nobina?” called Sarah, coming to the hall. “What’s wrong.”

“Nothing,” she said, wiping the tears away from her eyes. “Just… realizing I’m in a funny moment.”

Sarah’s confused look didn’t go away, but the smell of eggs caught her attention. Nobina handed her a package with one egg, which she ate and enjoyed.

“So good,” she said. “Can I get another?”

She was about to say something, but she noticed a hand slowly trying to make its way out of her bag. Not sure whether this was going to be an actual person, she began going into a panic. However, the hand merely held itself open next to one of the packages.

“You… want an egg… Gaze?”

The thought was ridiculous, but now it seemed the bag itself was an entity of its own. Why did it want something it gave her? No idea. However, she merely sighed and let it take the egg. Once the egg was in hand, the hand disappeared with the egg.

“Enjoy… Gaze…”

With that, she shook her head.

“Sorry Sarah. The last egg is for Mimiki.”

“No worries,” she said with a frown. “Just… Know it was good.”

Nobina was tempted to go home and lie down, but today was her first day of training with Mimiki with the sword. Despite everything, she wanted to make progress in the sword today and wouldn’t let a bit of tomfoolery stop her.

As she stepped out of the guild, she found her bag change form into a crossbody bag, making her smack her hand against her face.

“You can do that Gaze?” she asked.

Not expecting a response, she was surprised to see it glow. She was tempted to not open it but did so anyway. What she ended up finding was a sword. It was a well-built sword, as far as she could tell, and holding it felt far better than holding those wooden swords she held for training. Though, it was much heavier.

“Wow… This is… cool…” she smiled.

She found herself making her way to Mimiki as quickly as possible, only slowing down to avoid cutting herself. Eventually, she reached Mimiki’s house, panting as she waited for the door to open. When it did, Mimiki saw her with a sword. Not only that, but her bag flashed once again.

“Nobina?” she asked curiously.

She went into her bag and cheered a bit as she pulled out a well-made scabbard for the sword. It had a bee stamped on the tip in a metal that appeared to be platinum. However, Nobina couldn’t really confirm that since she hadn’t seen platinum in real life. She had only seen it in games.

The bag flashed again, and this time contained hand-sewn sword gloves with her initials on them.

“Whoever you are… thank you,” said Nobina.

Mimiki sighed, asking her to come in.

Once she was inside, her bag flashed.

“Nobina,” said Mimiki, her voice firm. “Do not open that bag.”

“Yes ma’am,” she replied.

With that, the two sat down, and Nobina began unloading everything that happened so far, including all the Gaze items. When she was done, it looked like Mimiki had a headache.

“My god Nobina, please tell me this isn’t going to be a regular occurrence,” she said.

“I hope not,” she said, shaking her head.

The bag flashed, but Mimiki’s rather hostile stare stopped her from even considering opening the bag.

“So… training,” said Mimiki. “We aren’t using a real sword for it, you know…”

“I know… Blame the bag,” sighed Nobina. “I… let’s get down to training.”

With that, the two stepped outside and prepared to train. Nobina was given a training sword, which she held as she was instructed.

The training session this time was unlike the previous training she had received from Mimiki. Unlike with exercising, in this training, Mimiki ensured that Nobina’s form was proper and explained in as much detail as possible the basics of swordsmanship.

Listening as carefully as possible, Nobina noted down how Mimiki was making sure she understood every concept she was teaching her. From the basic forms to other things like striking and defending, the goal of the day was to drill down the knowledge of the basics. Afterward, it was making sure she could execute the basics enough that she could do them on her own without constant correction.

“The key is to make whatever you’re practicing is performed correctly,” said Mimiki, keeping her eye on how Nobina was holding the sword. “If you swing the sword one hundred times incorrectly, it becomes a mess to correct the form since you’ve basically started drilling it into your muscle memory. It is why I’ve been drilling correctly sword holding into you all this time. Thank god you did train with me, cause if you were at it alone, who knows how long it would have taken to correct it.”

“I’m very thankful for it as well,” said Nobina.

Mimiki nodded, going back to teaching Nobina about basic sword forms, strikes, and blocks. There was a lot of complexity behind being a swordsman, but Nobina didn’t need to know every detail immediately. Rather, Mimiki explained how she intended to layer the basics on her to confirm she was doing everything correctly while keeping her engaged with new material.

Nobina understood that this was Mimiki’s environment. She was a swordsman at heart, and she would do whatever she could to ensure she was doing things correctly. That was why Nobina had no intentions of slacking and kept her focus the entire time.

The day felt long as Nobina began to tire. Her determination kept her going, and Mimiki didn’t fail to notice that. As Nobina swung her sword again after probably twenty swings, she felt Mimiki place her hand on her shoulder.

“You did good today Nobina,” she smiled. “Don’t force it though. If your tired, let me know and I’ll tell you how many more to do.”

She gave a nod, relaxing and breathing deep breaths. Despite all the chaos that happened earlier, moments like this really made Nobina appreciate this part of her day. She imagined that one day, she’d no longer need to depend on the Gaze and could do things without it. Though, in her mind she worried that even if that became the case, the Gaze would continue to watch her for who knows how long. All she could do was be prepared for whatever the Gaze had in store.

“What chaos is in store for me,” she thought to herself.