Did they say, Boss? It can't be mine, not from the Container Park anyway. Okay, he's not my Boss to begin with, it's only a name he goes by in our group. But who are these guys, and why are they helping me? If they even do, because the girl is reluctant to cast that spell.

"Eh? Cure him? After Stone Skin? It will deplete my mana." She tilts her head, the red locks falling over her exposed shoulder. I'm too busy coughing to ask what their deal is. "Whatever, that gives a few Exp too. Hold tight, um, Noob? What a name, haha. [Cure!]"

When she says the last word, it sounds different from her normal voice. It's almost ethereal, echoing inside my head, and it comes with a light effect that reveals more of her. She has big hazel eyes, almost like an anime character, dominating her entire face.

She balances cute and sexy with a few freckles sprinkled across her pointy nose. So this game has makeup too? She has plenty of eyeshadow on those lids and her lips are shiny pink. She has eyelashes for days too.

It's the first female player character I have seen up close, are the others this detailed too? She's like a Chikstagram model with only the best filters applied. How much would this reflect on her real-life counterpart?

The text floating above her spells xX_CrimsonMage13_Xx despite the others calling her Lilith. It describes everything about her character, from her age to class, and the color is obvious too. She wears a short red tunic with fire motives and a pointed hat like a witch.

It's so huge, almost comical, making me question if she could walk through a door with it. The rest of her clothing is rather revealing and has plenty of accessories. With her legs and shoulders exposed she looks nothing like any other characters in the game.

This tells me she must have spent ages in the selection window, but it was worth it. She has a petite figure though, even shorter than that police chick and much flatter. Well, it's only a game character, it doesn't mean she'd look like this in the real world as well.

The spell she cast on me has much less of an effect though.

[Status effect: Food Poisoning 1:02.]

The sickness is still there, although her magic took five minutes off the timer. It didn't heal me either, yet she looks satisfied with herself. And what's with her gear? She has a book open in each hand, and a big shiny amulet and ring with the same motifs as her pointy hat.

"How many potions did you drink to get to this point? Haha." She appears chatty considering her party members are already headed for the house. "If you drink any more within an hour, the timer will keep restarting too. Take a break, Noob, haha."

"You sure like to joke with other people's nicknames while having a cringey one yourself." The one who asked her to cast that spell notes. His name's much simpler. It's FootSoldier420, without the other fluff and extra characters as the girl's.

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"What do you mean cringe?" She raises that pointy nose, punching the guy's shoulder with the book's spine. The other four are already inside the house, and from the sounds, they begun fighting the rats. "Crimson Mage is such a cool name, and I found the right accessories too."

"Whatever you say, Lilith." He shrugs, rubbing his shoulder after that hit. He is almost twice as tall, with long black hair and dark eyes. He's not as muscular as you'd expect from a warrior and went for an elvish look instead, without the pointy ears. "Hey, you good?"

"I'll manage somehow." The timer runs out, making me feel a little better, but I'm still at one HP and the pain is annoying too. And now I'm not supposed to drink another healing potion for an hour? What about the food? Will the system let me eat some at least?

"Sorry, but we'd like to farm this mission if you don't mind." FootSoldier turns me away from the infested house, using my shoulders as handles. He is very polite but rather forceful. "We didn't spend an entire day to keep escalating this for nothing."

"Wait, you can do that?" This piques my interest. Indeed, the quest was only an F-rank in the Guild's description and once I got here, it jumped to C. That's a huge leap. "And um, thanks for the spell. My character can't handle these rats anyway, not on one hitpoint."

"A! I should have cast Healing instead, didn't I?" The Little Red notes but don't seem like she's about to do any more magic. She explains what she did instead as if it wasn't obvious. "Cure is to clear bad status effects, and Healing is to charge you up."

"Okay, Lilith, you stay outside anyway, so tell him what is the deal, I go in farming too." The guy notes and leaves me alone with their mage. He only pauses by the door, to throw a casual introduction. "I'm Archie by the way, nice to meet you."

"Uh, Arnim." I bark after him, and he's gone. The system freaked out when I tried to call my character that, but they have no issues giving away their real names. The girl looks me up and down, making me sweat.

"I'm Lily, but my friends call me Lilith because it's cooler." She announces while her eyes are still on the move. "I can't heal you though, I'm all out of mana. Having a low-level wizard sucks in this game. But Stone Skin is so OP against swarm-type mobs."

"I bet, um, nice to meet you, Lily." This 'friends call me part' put me on the spot, so let's use the original form. She raises an eyebrow at it, but won't say a thing. "When I partied up with a high-level multiclass guy, he used it on me too."

"High-level multiclass? It was Dragi, huh?" Her eyes narrow, and her mouth is in a strange grin. As if she caught me talking about something naughty, and trying to tease me about it. Who are these guys? And Dragi? The Textile guy called him that too, right?

"DragonSlayer, yes. The Guild's NPC convinced him to take me on an A-rank mission against bandits." Why does she make me explain myself? That grin makes me uncomfortable, and my heart rate keeps increasing. If only my HP did it instead.

"Ahahahah, yeah, Selena loves to force randos into parties, but that's how I got into my current clan too." She throws her head back to laugh, the pointy hat almost falling off. Mentioning her clan, there are three extra letters after her name, saying OPH.

It's easy to guess what it means. Origin Pharmacy. So these guys own that place? And they noticed my standing with them, that's why they're so nice? If they're in charge of the prices, Can I convince them to give me a higher discount on the potions too?

Oh, she said I shouldn't drink any for the next hour though, so what's my character supposed to do until then? Even the basic ratting quests are risky with such a low HP, and the escalated one requires an antidote.

"So Dragi's playing again? Haven't seen him in a week." She stops me from losing myself in thoughts. If Little Red stays this chatty, that one hour might rush by before I realize.