The Park Theatre was unabashedly Tower-themed in its outer design with its large portico, metal and glass exterior, and staggered greenery stuffed into every nook and cranny around the open entrance areas. There were lawns, though you were only allowed to sit on some of them, and fountains which people threw coins in—you weren’t allowed to take those either.

Lisa walked past it all. Usually, she would have loved to hang out here to eat, do homework, or prepare. The lawns lured her with the promise of sunlight, but she wasn’t in the mood today.

Luckily, the interior had been spared.

Joe gave her a confused look when she walked past the guard. “I thought you were too busy for work?”

She made herself shrug. “I had some free time today.” Exams didn’t start up for a few weeks and she had nothing better to do until tomorrow. Rather than wait, she wanted a distraction. This would do.

The man wished her good luck and she thanked him as she pushed through the doors that divided the foyer from the inner workings of the building. The scenery changed.

The public got to bask in the subtle, or not-so-subtle, references to the Tower. The arena stood closer to the city than many other climbing establishments for that purpose: it attracted all those who saw the massive structure in the distance, heard the tales, but couldn’t find the time or effort to explore it for themselves.

To some, the Tower was a hobby; to others, a luxury after all. A destination for special occasions like school breaks, time off, birthday parties, or even corporate retreats, she’d heard. For … trust exercises?

She was unclear on that last part.

But people would borrow equipment for a day or two and head for the more exciting lower floors, which usually meant they’d go hiking across the Fields in the hopes of finding a treasure chest.

Or at least, it had meant they’d gone hiking and had borrowed equipment back then. Not anymore. Ever since the changes, there were safety concerns.

If they asked her, the new first floor was—on average—safer than the old one had been. She’d read and discussed more than enough reports on them in school to think that. The only problem was you couldn’t work with averages anymore. Wandering, Hidden, and Floor Guardians were largely to thank for that, but all the other new features also factored in. The same floor could be deadly in some locations and trivial in others, and they all flowed into the next.

So people stayed away. Luckily, that meant more customers for them as those same people sought their fix elsewhere. And it meant more money for Lisa … if she ever found the time to work.

The staff corridors gave her a brief respite from the references if she didn’t think too hard about them. Because it wasn’t like they had intentionally designed the inner space for the staff and fighters who may have been in the Tower often enough to feel sick of it. They just hadn’t tried at all.

The drab and barely finished hallways, locker rooms, and training areas easily carried their own associations, if you compared them to the endless corridors of the Guild, school lockers, or the drab tunnels on some floors …

But those were the kinds of thoughts she wanted to avoid, as well as the people associated with them, so she pushed on through up the stairs.

This place probably hadn’t been the best destination in hindsight, but where else was she supposed to have gone? To hang out with Micah or Ryan, fester in silence, and lie to them if they asked?

No.

She headed past the staff rooms and storage areas, and walked on until she reached the gyms where she stopped.

Another consequence of the Tower changes: the gym was packed. New faces; their noises of training audible from the distance. Higher demand required higher supply, after all, so they were testing possible new recruits to see if they could get them ready for the bigger matches by summer.

Sooner rather than later, preferably, because who knew when the fade would end or the next Tower changes happen?

Lisa watched them exercise for a moment, searched the new faces, and nodded at some of the trainers watching over them, but she didn’t have that much to do with these people.

She thought she recognized one of the faces doing poor benchpresses in a familiar tank top, but …

A voice interrupted her and she looked left, at the office that could look into most of the gym. She stepped through the cracked door and tuned through frequencies in the back of her head. The figure had been too far away to make out clearly, but she had other senses.

Valles, the organizer, was looking through files when she rapped on his desk. He looked up and said, “Lisa.”

“Hey—”

“Go away.” He promptly turned back to his papers. “You can’t just come and go as you please. What do you think this is? A food stall?”

She paused, unsure because she didn’t know where she stood with the man. Had that been a joke or was he actually angry? Should she crack a joke? Apologize? Ignore it or act annoyed?

She had no idea, and had no frame of reference for a situation like this from other people she knew, so she went for an odd middle ground instead with a slightly bowed head and hopeful tone, "Valles, I was wondering if you had something for me today?”

He flipped a page. “Oh, and just today, is it?” The light-hearted sarcasm was a little clearer this time.

Lisa sighed in relief. “Yeah, just today.” At the same time, she found the signal she was looking for in a locker not far from here. “And also,” she added, “I was wondering if you could tell me who let him in.”

She leaned against his desk and pointed at the guy on the bench with a scowl on his face and a trainer standing over him now, lecturing. Probably about proper form. If she went by what the others said, it would be easy to find things to criticize about him.

“Who? Ah— The new kid. I did.”

“Personally?” she asked, almost surprised. There were other, slower channels most people went through. She had gone through him.

“Yes. You know him?”

“He’s a classmate— Well, I’m not sure I share any courses with him, except … maybe Grammar?”

Was he the guy who sat in the back? She didn’t really pay attention, either way, ever since she’d given up the notion that she had to have perfect grades, here.

She knew what she was capable of and given the opportunity, she could show it. She didn’t need stupid test scores to verify it when the Tower could let you show your own results.

“If you fight him in the ring, you can’t go easy on him,” Valles said. “You know that, right?”

Lisa scoffed. “There’s no chance of that, trust me.” Belatedly, she added a, “Sir.” She wasn’t sure if she’d had to.

Why would she go easy on him, though? Especially when he might have stolen one of Ryan’s tank tops.

The man must have noticed something in her expression, because he added, “You can’t go hard on him, either.”

Lisa rolled her eyes. “My question is how he even got in here.” He hadn’t been here when she’d checked in before Spring Cleaning and he already had the attention of a trainer. Either this was recent or they'd missed each other often. Either way, it was a surprise.

“He qualified,” Valles simply said.

She turned. “How?”

All she got was a reproachful look in turn. “You know I can’t hand out personal information like that, Lisa. Check his card if you want a hint. He’ll be participating in some of the warm-up matches tomorrow.”

She sighed, but that brought her back to her main topic on hand: distractions. “I can’t come in tomorrow. I had just hoped you might need some extra help tonight.”

“Again, just tonight? And you ask this on the morning of?”

He stared at her and for a moment, Lisa considered explaining. But she could see ‘explaining’ becoming ‘guilt-tripping’ and she didn’t want to do that. It reminded her too much of a younger self, of sitting on moss while the sunlight warmed her through the canopy while she waited.

“Just as a support, of course,” she rushed to say. “I thought you might need some extra help these days. Maybe to summon the cannon fodder? Then another [Summoners] could try making something bigger.” He still seemed unconvinced, so she went on, “It could even be a special event. A surprise for the fighters, or the audience, for those show rounds you do.”

He considered, grumbled something, but gave in with a tired sigh. “We can always use the extra help. How’s your mana?”

Lisa smiled. “I have three rings.” She made herself raise her hand to show them off.

“You used to have more,” Valles said, looking down in half a dismissal. “You were almost more useful then.”

“Almost,” she agreed and took a step toward the door, waiting for a proper send-off. Her own mana had increased over the last half year as she had leveled, and a few of her Skills helped with reducing costs as well. Especially with the type of work she did here.

“Check in with Day and tell her I said to squeeze you into the summoning fights this evening. As a support only. And you’re only doing minimum hours and minimum pay,” he added.

“Thank you, sir.” She knew how things went by now. Even that was good enough a distraction for one night. She could get home late and go straight to bed.

“And Lisa?”

She paused in the door. “Hm?”

“You better drop by sooner rather than later, so we can properly congratulate you on your birthday.”

Ah. So he’d known. He couldn’t congratulate her just yet. Had it affected his decision any, though?

Lisa sighed and said, “Will do.” She angled the door again on her way out and knew she had to see Day after this, but first, she was off to bother someone else.

The trainer had left him to his own devices by now, which he'd used to drink something. He seemed to recognize her when she walked up, by the way he sat up on the bench and put the bottle aside. He didn't stand, though.

“I think you might be in the wrong place, Glove Guy,” Lisa called.

Kyle scowled. “I’m beginning to think that, too.”

He wore shorts, a tank top, and the gloves, of course. Two, this time around. For the exercises?

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Lisa leaned in to pinch his cheek. He slapped her arm away with a snarl, “What the hell, Chandler?”

“Hm.” Her eyes drifted down to his hand, then his shirt. She switched back to an earlier topic, “I’m guessing Ryan didn’t lend you that?”

For a second, he looked as if he’d misheard her. Then he went straight back to form. “It’s mine.” He gripped the shirt. “They told me to bring clothes to exercise in, and he and his other half are always running around in these, so I thought— They were cheap.”

Yeah, they were. He’d probably gotten that the wrong way around, though. Not that Ryan wasn’t an expert on this sort of stuff, but still.

When Lisa didn’t say anything for a moment, he let go. “What the hell are you doing here anyway?”

“I work here,” she said, paying attention to his body language as she spoke. To decipher it. “I’m the one who gets to ask you that. What the hell are you doing in my arena?”

Not that she had any particular reason to dislike him, like some of their classmates claimed they did. She just objected to the presence of familiar faces here in general. It was hers.

“How the hell do you work here?” he asked and looked at her in probably much the same as she had him earlier.

“I’m a [Summoner]. And I’m the Dragonslayer’s ward.” That was answer enough. But his face scrunched up like a half-finished scowl, so she pressed on, “Now, answer the question.”

He glanced away. The way he still hadn’t gotten up, the longer explanation about his shirt, and his posture—he almost seemed … defensive? Was that right? What did he have to be defensive about?

Sure, he’d bought a tank top a size or two smaller than Ryan, she could see now, and he still didn’t fill it out as well as her friend did. Micah could get defensive about that sort of thing—not that it stopped him from wearing them. Maybe all guys their age did?

She remembered the way Micah had fibbed on the loot distribution to pitch in on his fire axe. Or was it because she’d accused him of stealing?

“I’m broke,” Kyle said, which made her double down on the line of thought. “I wanted to earn some money and this seems like the closest equivalent to the Tower out here.”

“Ah," she said, but was still mentally stuck on theft. “Have you considered getting a job like everyone else?”

What if he was defensive because … he was embarrassed about ‘stealing’ the look? Figuratively speaking. It was almost exact same tank top Ryan wore, and some people could get defensive about that sort of thing. He might not have expected to see familiar faces, either.

Lisa liked that explanation most, as it wasn't something Micah, but normal people had done, but she squinted. How would she know for sure?

“Not my style. I don’t want to risk getting the [Worker] Class, and I can fight and earn experience here. Maybe even level up before the exam.”

He looked at the other guys in the gym, most of them older than him, as if sizing them up as opponents.

“You’re training for the fighting matches, then?”

He nodded and looked away again, this time as if he were growing impatient. With her?

“Yeah.”

“Have you not had a lot of experience fighting other people, then?”

There was the eye contact again. A glare, with a hint of confusion around the edges. “What?”

“No, it’s the opposite, isn’t it? Micah said you were the [Fighter] type.”

“Micah can mind his own damn business. Does he talk a lot about me then?”

She pushed her shoulders up. “All good. In his eyes.”

“And yours?”

Lisa ignored the question and the chance that she might be wrong. “If you’ve had a lot of experience fighting people,” she said, “and you wanted to level up quickly, why would you come here?”

He frowned and a moment later, understanding lit up in his eyes. It was promptly swallowed like fuel to the fire. “Repeated actions are worth less,” he said, almost making it sound like ‘worthless’.

“Yeah.”

“Fuck.”

Hadn’t he been aware of that? It was common knowledge to anyone who had finished classroom or started school. Lisa had tried out all sorts of things when she’d chased twelve for her Proof Of paper. Although, Kyle had started school late and she was all-too-familiar with special cases not knowing common things.

And suddenly, she almost felt bad for the guy. The way he looked around the gym in newfound frustration seemed familiar as well.

More than that, she was beginning to hatch a plan for herself. “I mean, you might still get something,” Lisa said. “From fighting people who are older and higher level than you—”

He shook his head.

“—or fighting in an arena setting.”

He hesitated, but shook his head again, less vehemently this time. “I already got more than enough from that stupid combat training we’re forced to do in school.”

He made it sound like a bad thing but also like he had already leveled from training at school, which didn’t make any sense. He couldn’t both want to level from fighting and be unhappy about having leveled from it already. It wasn’t like he was going to get anything different here.

Unless, he was unhappy with a Skill he’d gotten? Or Lisa was just wrong. She couldn’t ask, though ...

The next expression on Kyle’s face was a little more familiar: frustration, as he looked around the gym again and Lisa felt something similar. He threw an arm up. “Great. So this was all just a waste of time?”

Lisa went back to her impromptu plan. “Arena matches are supposed to be flashy, too. That’s how you get popular, earn more money, and rise up in the rankings.”

He caught on immediately this time and nodded to himself. “From the beginning, then. Because I’m not crowd-friendly or what?”

She shrugged. How would she know?

Kyle hung his head and grumbled, “‘Should’ve headed for the shady arenas from the start.”

“Eh. I tried those. I wouldn’t recommend them.”

He looked up, confused.

“Again, [Summoner]. It's easier for me. Now, can you use that fire axe of yours properly yet or …?”

“No. Barely.”

Right. Of course, not. From what she could sense of him, he either had little to no leakage or his overall mana capabilities were abysmal. Like the opposite of Ryan in where he should have been at his age.

She wondered why, but maybe getting a few levels in a magic, or magic-adjacent, Class could help him. Lisa didn’t care enough to suggest it. She doubted he would take the advice anyway.

She hoped he would listen to her other advice, though. “Listen. You could still earn a lot in the summer, but … if you want money and experience fast—” She made herself crouch and summoned a lithe flame lizard wrapped around her wrist. “You could ask your trainer to switch you over to the summoning fights.”

He stared, but didn’t inch away from the lizard either. Many others would have, if only because it was made of fire. Not afraid?

“The pay cap is lower, true, but you can start out earning more and start out earlier. The experience is much closer to the real Tower than fighting other climbers, so if you’re looking to level …?”

She made the lizard hiss at him and a breeze of tiny motes escaped through its open mouth.

“I get it.” He pushed her arm aside, lizard and all. “Get that thing out of my face.”

She banished it with a flick of her wrist and tried not to smile, or gloat. The organizers always complained about seeking new recruits for the summing matches. She’d never tried to convince someone herself yet, though. Maybe this would help.

She got back up. “And hey. Who knows? If you do level, it might help you find a team more easily this time.” Out of curiosity, she added, “How often have you been in the Tower anyway?”

He’d been looking at her with a frown, but glanced away for when he answered, “Often enough.”

So that was a lie, then?

“And what the hell do you mean, ‘help me find a team’?”

“I’d heard you had troubles last time.”

Kyle frowned and then, for some reason smiled as if he had just realized something she hadn't. He spoke in a tone as if he were lording it over her, “You don’t know."

Know what?

"He didn’t tell you?”

Lisa didn’t want to ask, but she didn’t like not knowing either. The only hint she had was context and a ‘he’, so she wracked her brain for a second and said, “Micah.”

Kyle shook his head, still smiling, and scooted forward. Lisa regretted taking pity on him already and not gloating more. “And here I’d thought he’d learned from his communication issues last time around. He said he wanted to be on a team with me, provided the Guild reqest doesn’t change too much until then. I had naturally assumed you would tag along with them.”

Of course, he had. And of course, Micah had invited him. Why the hell was she the tag-along to 'them', though?

“Why?” she asked and immediately clarified, “Why would he want to be on a team with you, I mean.”

That came off more unfriendly than she'd intended, but it got the job done. Kyle glared.

“Maybe he was impressed by me from the last exam.”

“Doubtful. Other options?”

“I did better than both of them on my grade. Better than Ryan.” He paused, frowned, and looked bewildered by his own statement. “Why am I arguing this again?”

Lisa had no idea, and she still wanted to know why she might be on a team with this angry stranger during the exam, but she could pick that up with Micah tomorrow.

For now, she matched his flippant tone. “The three of us already are a team, and Micah doesn’t get to make decisions on his own. If you happen to catch us in a good mood before the exam—and that’s a big ‘if’—Ryan and I might allow him to invite you again. Given that you meet the requirements, of course.”

He gave her a droll look. “So he’s just like your team mascot, then? Not allowed to have a say?” He nodded as if to answer his own question. “You two seem like you’d need that.”

She made a perplexed face and shrugged. “Look who’s talking.”

He was still smiling. It sounded stilted when he said, “I hope you understand why that’s not a valid counterargument.”

“I don’t, and I don’t really care.” She took a step back and moved her arms and legs a bit. “If you hurry and sign up, maybe you’ll make it into a proper match in a few weeks. Maybe it'll take longer, because it’s you. And maybe if you level up by time, we’ll consider letting you join our team.”

She made herself move as if to leave, paused, and added, “Not that we would know for sure.”

“Screw you."

“Looking forward to your battle card,” Lisa called and gave him an over-the-shoulder salute as she walked away, past the other fighters.

“Lisa!” he called after her. “Don’t think I actually fell for that spiel you just did, though. I’m not dumb.” He said it with an unspoken, ‘unlike you’ at the end.

Lisa turned around, giving him the benefit of the doubt. “What?”

Some of the other fighters were watching them, either annoyed or amused.

“I’ll just do both," he said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Start with summoning matches and work my way up to the interpersonal ones.”

She didn’t actually have a remark against that, because of course, some people did that. If they had the time. Most didn't. Instead, she just said, “Your form sucks and you need to find someone to spot you.”

“I really don’t.”

Then she was out the door and down the hallway, and by the time she’d reached the hallway toward Day’s office, she’d already put most of the conversation behind her.

It was quieter, here. The sunlight from the far window was just distant enough that it didn’t feel natural. What would she even do after this scheduling?

She still had over eight hours to waste, to find some kind of distraction for herself so she wouldn’t think of tomorrow. Maybe she could hang out with any of her friends after all, or something?

No. That would be just the same as the sunlight. It reminded her of the times she would sit on the moss and let it warm her through the canopy. Moss, because it was more comfortable than the duff and she was less likely to kill it than grass or flowers.

But she knew it wasn’t really sunlight she longed for. Or rather, it would only make her long for other things more. Indoors was probably better.

She was only a few meters away from the office, but she didn’t know if she should step inside. She’d forgotten to switch back from the fire axe’s frequency and was left wondering. What if they were home already, or they got home while she was working tonight?

The hallway was silent aside from the occasional screech of furniture or metal, or a door shutting in the distance. Inside, the forest screamed over years and hundreds of miles of distance. She used to sit, and wait, and listen. Any moment now, he would step into the forest and then she could sense him clearly; not like she was looking into a pond.

Any moment now, he would step out of the Tower.

If she’d been lucky, she would find other frequencies while he trudged on his giant legs forever to them. Magic items other than his equipment, which was far louder than it had any right to be. A ‘skill’?

Now, Lisa nodded wisely. A Skill from [Adventurer] which made him better at using items in general.

Some of those would be gifts and she would use the frequencies to try and guess at what they were, rolling around on the moss. Other times, he was late. Other times, he didn’t come at all. Never an exact promise to come, just a promise never to stay away.

Tomorrow was her birthday and he was still away.

She missed the way her family would console her if he didn’t come, telling her that he might still show up tomorrow with more stories about the famous Towers, that there was always next year; she missed the way she would hoard all those gifts and books like her own little treasures and fantasize all year about them, while her family coddled her, their miracle child; she missed the way she hadn’t known what things were really like back then, and how she’d thought they might turn out.

She missed her family.

Lisa never would have thought that she’d feel like this again after she had gotten the chance to get away. She never would have thought that she’d miss her cousin, but Hannah had her thinking of her lately.

Again, it felt she was waiting for … something. But both here and there, she was tired of it. She headed for the office door and knocked.