He jumps a little in his seat like he forgot I was here at all. “Oh, it’s, uh… It’s a meeting for the leadership. After the Guild of Representatives got overthrown, someone had to step in and make sure people followed the new rules, and Bach decided that that should be, well, us. According to her, we’ve already shown the drive and passion needed to lead people, so… yeah. To simplify things, we just decided to make her the leader of our little band, too.”

“Uhuh,” I say. “Alright.”

He pauses for a second before continuing. “This meeting has been a long time coming, and all members of the leadership are required to be there. That includes me.” He looks me up and down and gives a small sigh. “Since one of my formal duties is to keep track of you, I guess I have no choice but to ask you to, well, come along to the meeting.”

I perk an eyebrow at him and point my hand at my chest. “Me?”

He nods, maybe a tad bit too gravely for the situation. “Yes, you. You won’t need to say anything—in truth, it might be better if you kept quiet—and all you need to do is keep in my line of sight. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t go and tattle to everyone about everything we talk about, but from what I can tell, you don’t really spend too much time in the message boards anyway.”

“Too busy grinding,” I add with a sagely bow of the head.

For almost a full minute, Moleman doesn’t say anything else. Then he looks back down at the clock and just stands up, saying, “So, uh, yeah, we’d better, um… get going. There’s no reason not to get there as early as possible.” As I make to stand as well, he suddenly drills his eyes into me and I freeze mid-lift. “I’ll say it again just so we’re clear. No monkey business, okay? Unless you’re asked something, you’d best keep your mouth shut. That’s rule two here—try not to mess with the leaders.”

He stands up fully, straightening out his back. He turns to look out of the window. For some reason, his face looks older than it should be for his age. “Bach may not have succeeded in executing you last time, but that was because they didn’t know that you were immune to poison. The next time, they’ll go with the axe first thing.” He turns back to look at me. The fact that he’s technically still a teenager—much like myself—is not visible in the least. “The next time, I won’t be able to stop them.”

I look down at the table. “If they…” I close my mouth again. Lifting my face again, I look straight into his eyes. “If they come to kill you, then I will protect you. I don’t mind if they kill me instead, but you’re not the kind of guy who should just get killed by some idiot bundle who doesn't know any other punishment than killing. That’s just dumb.” My hands clench into fists. “No matter what, I won’t let you die again.”

Dumbfounded, he stares at me for several seconds, until he finally bursts into laughter. “Hahahah, you sure do know how to ramp up the tension, huh?” He smiles warmly. “Thanks, though. I’ll trust you on it, alright?”

“Just like how you’ll trust that I won’t do any monkey business while you’re not looking?”

He hums. “That’s a bit too far, don’t you think?”

“Alright, alright, that’s true,” I huff. And for a second or so, we just smile at each other.

He looks back down at the clock. “The time is starting to get a bit late. How about we get going?” I nod at him and step away from the table, but right as we’re about to leave the room, he pauses and points at me. “Before that, though, is there anything you’d like to have brought up at the meeting? Anything you’ve learnt in the difficulty we might like to know?”

“Uhhhh…” I tap my thumb to my lower lip. Oh, yeah, there was that one thing, wasn’t there? I grin at him. “Today’s my 18th birthday. One more year and I’ll be able to drink!”

“Hey, congrats!” Moleman says and pats me on the back, but then his expression shifts into the thoughtful. “But, you know, I’m pretty sure you can still drink even now.”

“Huh?” I say. “Why?”

Moleman shrugs and gestures at the room around us. “Dude, we’re in a fantasy world here. Different rules and laws apply, and from what I’ve heard, according to our new rulebook, there’s no age you need to be to start drinking.” He grins at me. I can feel something warm and fuzzy form in my chest.

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“You’re telling me that I can get black-out drunk?” I breathe.

He nods at me. The world fills up with birdsong.

“This is the best birthday of my life,” I mumble. “This is the peak. From here on out, it’s just downhill.”

He slaps my back twice. “Hey, no need for those kinds of thoughts! Today… today, we will celebrate. But, for now, we’d better get to the meeting!” I nod at him numbly and he pulls me along through the winding hallways again. I have no idea how he knows this castle so well. Maybe he has a skill like mine? Anything is possible in a world as wonderful as this one.

After a few minutes of walking, we finally reach a larger room containing a few tapestries depicting unknown battles and flags, with the centrepiece of the room being a large round table fitted with a total of twelve chairs. Just for the sake of it, I check if there’s any nameplate above the entrance to the room, but there’s nothing like that.

The only other thing of interest would be that the main source of light in the room is a blocky dome of stained glass above the room, which looks pretty cool, to say the least. And now that I look closer at the table itself, there’s a little piece of paper by every chair that has what looks to be a username on it. Let’s see if we can find Moleman’s… Yup, there it is! Right next to HookedOnBach. Curious.

Obviously, there’s no name tag for me since I haven’t got any place at the table.

Moleman looks at the table for a second or two before turning to me. “I’ll go get you a chair, just stay here and try not to cause any trouble, alright?”

“Yessir!” I say with a joking salute. He squints at me suspiciously and then leaves. Alright.

What’s the most amount of monkey business I can cause in around a minute’s time? Well, firstly, I could give those nametags a bit more of a, uh, non-insane-ifying colour. WHITE… bad. Slowly, I creep up towards the table.

“What are you doing in here, Princess?”

I jump a foot off the floor and twirl around mid-air like some sort of ballerina. In the entrance to the room stands a woman I know very well. “Bach…!”

She leans against the doorframe, crossing her arms. “If you’re trying to mess with the seating arrangements out of foolish spite, then I can tell you with full certainty that no matter what order we sit in, we’ll still talk about the same things. It would be a silly prank at best.”

I scowl at her. There’s no one else in the room. My personal record for disassembling a shade is only a single minute if I work at top speed. Since I’d be stressed by the situation in this case, I could do it even faster. If I use hurry across my entire body, then…

“I’m level sixty-six,” she says. “Don’t even try it.”

Tch. I really don’t like her. She’s got that look to her. Mad with power. If she could order my execution once, she can do it again. Even though I don’t exactly have any way of beating her, it doesn’t mean I’m powerless or anything. Silently, I hunch down into a prepared crouch. If she tries something, I can drop into a FPB roll within the span of a single second. My body tenses. Where she stands, Bach doesn’t even look remotely fazed.

Before I can do anything, someone shuffles down the hallway and I have a brief hope that it might be Moleman, but their appearance shatters those thoughts. This guy… I do not recognise him. He’s pretty big, and he doesn’t look Korean.

“What’s happening in here?” he asks as he steps inside. His eyes quickly train on me. “Isn’t that…?”

“The former Hell executive?” Bach fills in. “Yeah.”

The guy thumbs his lower lip. “Didn’t we execute the executives?”

Bach sighs in obvious frustration. “Not this one. So, if you want to kill him, you’ll have to face the consequences yourself.”

He looks at me. I look at him. He’s well-armoured and big, but that doesn’t mean anything. If he’s got a throat, then I can claw it open. Simple as that.

His nose wrinkles. “Dunno about that one, Leader. It looks kind of… feral. Are you sure I won’t catch some kind of disease touching it?”

In response, Bach shrugs dismissively. “How do you expect me to know?” She turns to me with a sly grin. “Why don’t you try it out yourself? Maybe you’ll get yourself a nice new tolerance from it.” Her smile fades. “Either way, pesky stray cats like that shouldn’t be wandering around in here. How about it, Princess? Why don’t you show yourself out before Brutus here helps you?”

Brutus takes a step towards me. Alright, that’s it.

I drop into a roll and dart across the floor, between Brutus’ large legs and out into the hallway, where I promptly crash into Moleman, making him fall over and the chair in his hand go flying and then falling to the ground with a loud clatter just a step away. I’m atop Moleman. He seems confused. In the greatest haste I’m able to muster, I leap off of him. Should I keep running? Should I fight? Would Moleman be a proper hostage? What should I—

“K—Kitty?” Moleman asks from where he lies, still on the floor. He puts his hand to his right temple and glances up, just past me, his eyes falling right on Bach and Brutus. “...Ah.”

“Oh, Mole!” Bach says. “Excellent timing, I was just about to find you and ask why you haven’t been keeping an eye on this guy.”

“Well, firstly,” Moleman says as he slowly pulls himself up, dusting off the front of his robes, “he does actually have a name.” Just to help out somehow, I dust off Moleman’s back, to which he whispers a small, “Thanks.” Moleman looks back at Bach. “Secondly, I was actually keeping track of him. For that purpose, I had invited him to join me at the meeting so that I could do just that. And since we only had twelve chairs, I went to get another one, asking him to remain in the room. And, if I may ask you a question in turn,” his eye gleams sharply, “how come I now meet him trying to escape that very room like it was filled with snakes?”

Bach doesn’t say anything in response.

Man, I should have gotten this guy as the lawyer for my trial, then I would have gone free without any issues! Hm. Hang on…

After a fair amount of time, Bach finally finds her voice again. “I’m just as surprised as you are! As soon as Brutus here showed up, he just darted for it. I was questioning him regarding his presence, but he gave no real response, so…”

“So?...” But even though Moleman’s prompt is well-placed, she doesn’t actually continue the sentence. The silence is just about to turn five degrees beyond awkward when the tension is broken by an approaching presence down the hall.

“Hey, Moleman, you’re already here!” some guy that I think I can vaguely recognise says as he approaches. But no matter how much I rack my brains, I can’t come up with any name. Something with fish? The man stops just a few metres away from the whole gang, his eyes jumping from Moleman to me, and then to Bach and Brutus before returning to Moleman. “Heh, did I walk in on something, or?...”

“Not at all, Herring,” Bach says with undue confidence. “We were just about to take our seats. You don’t happen to have any word on when the rest will arrive?”