I force myself to remain composed, but eventually fail and scrunch my face in annoyance.

“Please, don’t tell me you’re one of those lunatics with [Purity]”, I get out of a slanted grimace.

“Of course not! Those guys are way over the line-!” She’s quick on defending herself, and multiple sighs of relief tell me that I’m not the only one that had a way to tell that she was saying the truth.

Unfortunately, it seemed that Cherry was the type of person that unexpectedly dug their own grave under themselves when left free to talk at their own pace.

“-I was just saying that it’s an insult to have someone as accomplished as me babysit some unnatural wretches just as a punishment due to a little bit of miscommunication!”

Everyone stares at her for the second time, but the sound of a triple face-palm attracts my attention to the only exceptions being her three Gnomes that probably already knew what she was doing but didn’t have it in them to stop her.

“I’ll say: For how much I hate to admit it, Cherry is some sort of a spiritual match to me, which I can work with, but the three little men need a little more backbone in them asap.”

Even Sir Prise’s small facial movements, and extremely light glances, make it clear that she would have agreed with that last point.

Before anyone could say anything else, Rubicon slapped the back of the Elf’s head so hard that she went blindingly fast from an upright position to face-planting on the floor, it happened so fast in fact that she didn’t even get the time to start screaming before she was eating dirt.

“Stop feigning ignorance. You’ll be working with the scion you’ve been inquiring about and the most promising [Transferred Human] that has been observed. Nobody here is babysitting anyone”, the [Guild Master] growled to the still laying form of Cherry.

To her credit, after another couple of seconds, she shakily got back to her feet, her face as red as her name-sake, without uttering anything besides a whispered affirmation.

“Good. Then go back to your [Job]!” The [Scimian Kebunu] curtly said before moving towards the exit, with the lady [Knight] right on his heels.

I tried arching an eyebrow at him, trying to ask if he thought that he could leave such an awkward situation just like that, and his glare in response seemed to scream that it seemed obvious to him that he could. Me and Sheeno let them pass between us, and besides a little nod of respect and acknowledgment towards Undine, they went out the door with little fanfare.

Even more awkward silence ensued.

“Well… since the [Guild Master] has already eloquently explained the situation of your joint operation, why don’t we move on to officializing each [Quests] and explain which ones you’re charged with taking on together as a group?” Merglobth was the first to break the silence, and seemed that they just wanted to move things along as if nothing strange had happened.

A still red-faced Cherry mutely nodded, and the [Sky Gnomes] took the occasion to take charge and discuss plans with Merglobth and Sheeno.

What was I doing then? Well, I was keeping a close eye on the ‘potential companion turned ticking time bomb’ that Rubicon had just dropped on my lap.

Because, why he might not have realized what he had done, Riverfist, with his actions, had just enlarged the gulf that existed between our two groups.

And I feared it was going to get a lot worse before our situation got any better.

…

“Fuck me! Did I just jinx myself again!?”

[Luck] didn’t respond, and so I hoped that this time I ‘lucked’ out and managed to not tempt fate while she was there to hear it.

* * *

{LUCK’S POV}

Sometimes Darwin made it too easy for her to work her powers into controlling the chances with threads of Fate, so his future could bring about the best growth he could possibly hope for. In fact, it had gotten to the point where [Growth] herself had taken an interest in the situation and offered her help to further tweak things.

An unexpected offer, but decidedly a welcomed one: It didn’t happen often that multiple [Gods] took an interest in the same mortal, but when it did it normally rippled into something unexpected from all parties involved.

For [Luck] that was even better, because if she were to rely on Darwin being a [Fulcrum], that alone wouldn’t be able to counter-balance the amount of [Authority] that [Destruction] has invested into the destruction of this [Nexus]; but if one started taking into account the help of multiple [Gods], and the [semi-demi-Divine] nature that her protegee seemed to naturally have, then everything suddenly looked rosier than it did just a scant few days ago.

Unfortunately, ironically enough, not all whims of fate were under her jurisdiction, so there had to come a time when her influence would run out.

All she could hope for is that when that time came her preparations would be enough to make everything go as smoothly as they possibly could anyway.

* * *

“Well, this isn’t awkward at all!” I exclaimed, trying to break the ice.

Undine was wriggling her hands, probably worrying about whether she was meant to help the Elven woman, or further berate her for being so hyperaggressive from the get-go against me and Sheeno, while the latter was trying really hard to not burst out laughing, very successfully I might add, since I wouldn’t ’have been able to tell if it weren’t for my [Aura].

The [Sky Gnomes] all the while were fussing over their leader, checking if she were more physically hurt than she appeared to be, even though they knew full well that the wound was mostly emotional.

“Yes, quite well put, Mister Darwin”, Merglobth decided to run with it, probably hoping that things would go a little more smoothly now that Cherry had been humbled so thoroughly.

The Chthulian horror re-enacted their show of floating papers, while pulling a cardboard box from under their desk, and they tapped it for emphasis, “these are the whole of the [Quests] that you agreed upon previously, the new sheets are just for the officialization of the temporary [Team-up] by your groups; nothing too special, just the bog-standard legal jargon that needs to be properly documented for legal reasons, you all know how it works”.

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At that, we all got closer to see what we needed to do, and with a subtle push from me, I got Sheeno to stand on the far left side of the desk, directly opposite from where Cherry was still sulking, in the hope that being far away from her would not stir up more trouble.

Of course, that was while hoping that once she calmed down she would be ready to work with us, instead of working up something in the background that would blow up in our faces at the most inopportune of times.

Going back to the papers written in ‘jar-jur’ (jargon juridique), I saw that besides the usual fluff that one expected to find in these things, what it implied was pretty straight-forward: Our [Parties] would be considered a single one while working together, we were prohibited from harming one another if not for self-defense, and we would divide rewards and found resources equally among us.

“Nothing s-“

I dare you to finish that sentence.

Deciding that taunting a being that controlled the interface to my [System] was a very poor choice, especially when it meant what it said, I kept my mind shut.

A couple more tidbits on how to handle disagreements and loot priority, that basically boiled down to ‘figure it out yourself’, and then all it needed was a signature from all those involved at the bottom of the last page.

We made our way signing from the center outwards, with the Gnomes having to float a little to more comfortably write on the paper, which unfortunately meant that eventually I and Cherry were standing next to each other, neither of us willing to take the pen first, resulting in what would probably get to be known as ‘the most awkward standoff this side of the [Wild Area]’.

“After you, please”, I tried being chevalier, but it only seemed to irk her.

“Why?” She asked, narrowing her eyes at me in distrust.

“Uhh… No reason in particular? Back on my planet, it was just gentlemanly to make women go first, no matter the circumstances”, I lamely explained myself, not even being sure if I was 100% correct.

I never read the ‘Galateo’, and it probably had a lot of ass-backward teachings against equality, but my parent tried to raise a gentleman, so I could be one when needed. Emphasis on the fact that they ‘tried’.

“That sounds sexist. Are all [Humans] sexists?” She asked, a new dangerous glint present in her ever-narrowing eyes.

Didn’t really like how she implied that I was sexist with that.

“I don’t think so. I mean, there are a few bad, sexist, apples, but I wouldn’t believe you if you told me that it wasn’t the same everywhere else… at least until the [System] came, I guess”, I was caught slightly off-guard by her general lack of aggressiveness, given the forcefulness of her questioning, but I had to say that Magic probably did make things easier towards equality among sexes.

Just like Sheeno and Undine being stunned by how [Human] perceived gender norms and sexuality, it looked like the Elf did not like hearing about my [Race] predisposition for how our men felt the need to ‘allow’ women to go first, or other such matters.

“I was just trying to be kind, though.”

“Was that a dig at us [Tree Elves]? Did you really think that I’d never heard your pathetic ‘apple’ joke!?”

“Woah, calm your tits, woman! I could as easily get offended by you choosing the word ‘dig’ as a joke to my expenses for being almost as short as a Dwarf, but I won’t because I’m not an idiot, and I believe you aren’t one either!”

Now, in retrospect, maybe I shouldn’t have ‘exploded’ like that, but, to be fair, I was being conciliatory and accommodating for so long that if I pushed it for any longer I would have grossed myself out for how fake it would have felt.

But I do realize the irony in stating that I’m not sexist, and then immediately coming with a ‘calm your tits, woman’. I am many things, and orator and conversationalist are not among them.

“How dare you!” Cherry seethed, making me realize just how much I had fucked up.

To be fair, I tried. Just not hard enough.

“Ok, ok, break it up you two. I want to get this show on the road as soon as we can, so no in-fighting yet”, Sheeno bodily interposed herself between us two, facing the Elven woman as stoically as she could, which turned out to be a lot, probably due to her being once part of [Royalty].

Cherry looked at my girlfriend hatefully, but the fire in her eyes lost all of its smoldering quality on its own after she forcefully breathed out a frustrated sigh; now her eyes only spoke of how much she didn’t like the situation she was in, with just the tiniest smidge of anger thrown into it.

“Fine! But this is not over”, the green-haired Elf got through clenched teeth, and without waiting for anything else she sign the page and stomped off towards her lackeys, who immediately started fussing over her.

“Who put a stick up her ass!?”

Probably you, I would say.

“I’m sorry, but I think simply ‘existing as I am’ cannot put me at fault here.”

Before I started moping any more at the thought of having to deal with this new brand of trouble for the foreseeable future, I also signed the bottom of the paper, prompting Merglobth, who has been just sitting there awkwardly the entire time, to stack the papers back on top of each other and file them away for later.

“Most excellent! Now, I believe you’re all ready to depart, so I’ll keep it brief and just recommend discussing tactics before you go, and wish you all an auspicious fate. May our paths cross again”, the mass of tentacles was visibly ready to do all but physically force us out of their office, and it wasted no time to bid us adieu in the hope that it would get us to leave faster.

We actually did end up leaving faster than what would have been considered normal, but for a vastly different reason: Cherry was hell-bent on getting as far away from as fast as she could, the three Gnomes orbiting around her as usual, and I was unwilling to let her get away before assuring that she would work with us, and not against us, urging Sheeno and Undine to come with me right after a hasty farewell thrown Merglobth’s way.

I managed to catch my target in a relatively secluded corridor that seemed to sort of connect various backdoors to other places in the [Guild], making it reasonably deserted and an ok place to have the discussion that I wanted.

“Wait, we need to talk!” I almost shouted when I noticed her starting to walk faster in an attempt to put more distance between us.

“What do you want!? Why are you following me?” Cherry spun around so fast that her light green hair whipped in the face of all three [Sky Gnomes] around her.

“Now that I’m thinking about it, we don’t know their names!”

“Nothing untoward, I promise! I realize we started on the wrong foot, so I wanted to talk to you for a bit a try to smoothen out this collaboration as far as we can, which is also an attempt to get to better know each other”, I explained myself, far more calmly than I was feeling at the moment.

The Elf immediately looked ready to fight, and a light shifting of feet behind me told me that I wasn’t the only one to notice, and yet I waited. The more I waited the more contradicting emotions my [Precognitive Aura] seemed to pick up: From unquenchable anger to mild discontent, from unwilling reluctance to deep sadness, I could feel Cherry having an emotional fight inside herself.

After an uncomfortably long pause, where both our sides, excluding us two, looked ready to come to blows, her more reasonable side seemed to win the conflict, although not without giving in to a bit of snootiness.

“I can’t believe that I’m saying this, but you’re right. I’d prefer to take this somewhere more private, though…” Cheery finally responded after a deep, defeatist sigh.

“That’s fine by me”, I simply responded, motioning for her to lead the way.

For a moment I almost thought that she would get angry at being told to go ahead first again, but she thought better of it and just shook her head before going.

Look at you, actually being the “bigger” person.

Big quotation marks there because you are the fourth smallest person in the [Party].

“Hey, that makes me also the fourth biggest!”

I was soundly ignored by [Buddy], but that was fine because apparently, we had reached our destination, which looked like one of those rooms where Sheeno had brought us for some privacy when we were just starting to know each other.

Both the door to the room, and the room itself, was exceptionally plain, just like I remembered, this time though there were enough chairs around the table for all of us to sit on; which was weird, since I never noticed any indication to show what these rooms had inside them, making me think that they adapted to the need of whoever opened the door first, and given that the long table in the middle worked as a sort of barrier separating a group of for seats to a smaller group of three, I thought that the symbolism made that likely.

And so, with my head lost in the cloud, as usual, our first [Team]-meeting started.