We were escorted to a bigger tent than most; not the biggest, but it was clear that it was made to appear imposing, given its rigidity and straightness.

Sheeno was finally back with us and she was sporting one of the biggest grins I’d seen on her, and she wasted no time in explaining how she had finally gotten above [Lvl 20] and some of the benefits that it entailed. That earned Undine some odd looks, mostly from me, given that she had already been above the second threshold when she joined our little [Party], but she was quick to explain that it was considered rude to talk about it, but Sheeno just shrugged it off, explaining in her defense that she wasn’t really bothered by such things anymore.

Was the [High Priestess] weirdly tightlipped about how personal strength grew through the stages, or was the [Banished Princess] completely burned out of all hush-hush that was common in the upper echelons? That was difficult to say, especially for a [Transferred] like me without the usual societal clues that might help, but I suspect the answer was a complicated blend of both suppositions being true in one way or another.

But that wasn’t important right now… I mean, it was, since I was [Lvl 19] and bound to experience what they both went through soon enough, and it was hard enough not using [Gaze of the Abyss] to [Inspect] them thoroughly- what I was trying to get at, before distracting myself, was that what was important right now were the people we found in front of us when Prise opened the third tent-flap in a row.

Because yes, the imposing tent was a multi-partitioned matryoshka of tents.

“There’s some kind [Space Magic] bullshit in place here, but it’s not part of the tents themselves… someone, or something, is actively making this place bigger on the inside because there is no way the place I saw outside, while domineeringly big, could have fit all of this in it.”

So, anyway, three important people.

One was naturally Rubicon, who we knew already known as the [Guild Master of the Adventurer Rainbow Guild], a mouthful of a title when fully laid out, and the reason why he was mostly referred to as simply [Guild Master]. Another one was a stout Dwarf with a grey sheen to his smooth skin, and a beard as wide as his torso and so long that I was convinced it forced him to stay constantly steel-rod straight, or risk dusting the floor with its tip. The last one was a woman with light-brown skin, her eyes hidden behind a beautifully decorated mask, and extremely long green hairs treaded into thick ropes- ah no, she’s a Gorgon, and those are snakes.

“Well, I can finally put a face to the trouble-maker, at last!” The Dwarf exclaims irritably, while directly looking at me, one of his oversized hands pulling at his beard in something that’s between a nervous tick and an expression of his frustration.

“Don’t be like that, Butre. You don’t need to talk about him that way-”, the Gorgon cut him off with a surprisingly shrill voice, and by her tone, they had been over this multiple times.

“Well, it’s good to know immediately who’s in my corner-“

“-The sooner we manage to send him away, the sooner we’ll be able to stop talking about him at all!”

And she just had to continue and completely ruin my opinion of her.

“If you two aren’t going to behave he’s going to make your lives impossible, especially if you’re both going to talk like he isn’t even here to his face: Good job out there, by the way, both in the fight and in helping afterward.

Even though I still think you should have gone for the head!”

Rubicon, wearing a dejected expression, spoke for the first time, taking a moment to send me a nod with the compliment.

Although he also immediately had to ruin it, his case was different because I know him, and that somehow made it ok in my book.

“It’s so nice when they make it clear that I’m welcomed… On another note, I already explained that even though it didn’t look like it, her head was particularly well protected!” I proceeded to ignore the other two nuisances in the room to argue with the pseudo-Sayan bodybuilder with the square face.

“Then aim for the neck!” Riverfist loudly rebuked while trusting a finger at my face.

“Did it look like I was in position for such a level of precision!?” I responded just as loudly while taking a single step forward aggressively.

“Only you would make it a problem of ‘precision’ because you have pathetic [Body Statistics]!”

“I’m a [Support Mage]! [Body] is my ‘dump category’!”

“Even [Reflex]!?”

Ok, he did sort of have a point there.

“Ok, that is the intermediary [Stat] between [Body] and [Mind], so it’s different”, I slightly calmed down, responding with a small shake of my head.

“It really shouldn’t be: Just admit that you have unbalanced [Statistics]!”

“I… never said otherwise? I’m just trying to say that they make sense for my build-“

“Could you two not act like we weren’t even here!? We didn’t have the chance to be presented!” A fuming Gorgon barged into our banter, her hair-snakes starting to rise threateningly.

“And whose fault do you think it was? I didn’t even get a word in before you both started badmouthing me without directly interacting with me. Now let’s cut to the chase and tell me what I was called for in the first place so that I can finally leave”, I could feel myself getting angrier and angrier, the feeling amplified by the barely contained rage and indignation Sheeno was emanating from behind me.

“Good riddance, I say! I just want this farce to be done with so we won’t have to deal with him anymore!” The Dwarf harrumphed and crossed his arms in front of himself, still infuriatingly unwilling to acknowledge me directly.

“Then speak to me, asshat! What the fuck do you want!?”

What is it with these people!? The last thing I was expecting from someone who was supposed to know the whole picture was open hostility, and yet here we were, with my [Aura] confirming the vibe I was getting from the people in the room.

“What do I want!? I’ve been pretty clear on what I want, you little shit: You GONE!!!” The Dwarf, who I feel the need to point out is shorter than me, finally addressed me, spittle flying out of his bearded mouth.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“I would have already gone out of your hair if you hadn’t called me here, so you’re either-… you know what? We’re just wasting time here. What do you all need to tell me that it was so important that it stopped me from already being out of your hair?” Surprisingly even myself, I managed to not blow up in their faces, and actually bring back the discussion to the resemblance of civility.

Unfortunately for me, I was among the minority that cared about being the bigger man in the room.

“You, little shit, are here because we needed to tell you, in an officious way, that you’re banished from the [Wild Area] until further notice!” The blindfolded snake-woman hissed at me through clenched teeth.

“What!?” I eloquently expressed my shock.

“We were talking about expelling your disrespectful ‘ass’ from all the [Guilds] in general, but SOMEONE categorically refused the idea”, the squat old man chewed through those words like he hated the sole idea of speaking to me without mixing in more insults.

“They wanted to put you as the major cause of the damages we suffered in this large-scale fight, I argued against it, they wanted to heavily punish you anyway, I explained that you were the type that would have blamed yourself about it and felt bad about it on your own, and then they finally relented, with the exception that they didn’t want you around to cause more trouble”, Rubicon, probably noticing my state of mind, decided to provide the abridged version of how things had gotten to this point.

After I recovered from the confusion and processed what I had been told, I only had one understandable question to ask.

“Why am I getting punished for something that I had no control over? Hell, it’s you guys that gave the [Priests] and [Hunters] the chance to group up and attack on multiple fronts because you underestimated their resources! Are you guys sure this isn’t just a way to blame it all on me to make you all look better- no, wait, Rubicon said pretty much that very same thing just now, didn’t he? Holy fuck, this is just politics again, isn’t it!?”

Ok, it was more than one question, with some revelations sprinkled here and there, but I still think that it’s all understandable.

“That’s what it looks like to me too”, Sheeno spoke for the first time since we arrived, her face locked in a disappointed frown.

“Miss Fyratta, we apologize that you ended up getting involved with this individual, and at the same time, we thank you and the [High Priestess] Undine for the aid you’ve provided during this time of need. As a reward for your service and exemplary conduct, we’d like to offer you both the chance to join curated [Teams] that would more fit in with your abilities and position-“, the Gorgon opted an amiable tone when turning to speak to my mate, and the more she talked the more I wanted to punch her jaw off, and by what I could feel from my companions behind me, my feeling where reciprocated almost to a T.

Thankfully, before any of us could get violent, the only other sane person in the room finally got angry, after recovering from a brief case of ‘slacked-jaw’.

“I thought I had been clear when I said that we wouldn’t make any such proposal. I’m the [Adventurer’s Guild Master], this kind of decision is up to me!” Rubicon looked both shocked and angry at the conduct of his peers, and without even thinking about it he took a threatening step toward them.

In a reactive response, the woman had her hair raised up and hissed threateningly, with a glowing ball-point hammer now in her hand, while the small old man squared his shoulder while pointing one finger in his direction, the tip of it lighting up with arcane energies.

“We had to bring it up ourselves because you’re too hard-headed to listen to us when we make sound proposals!” The woman that I thought was the [Magic Guild Master], but revealed herself as the [Crafting Guild Master], said while remaining as stiff as a board.

“And because your judgment is compromised whenever this [Fulcrum] is involved!” Who I could only assume now was instead the [Magic GM], and not the [Crafting GM], responded, his shining finger unchanged.

“No, it’s you two that have your head so far up your asses that even if all the moons started spelling it in the skies you wouldn’t understand that their [Team] is almost as tightly bound as a family would!” That exclamation got a gasp from most in the room, and I reasoned that speaking about the moons that way was some sort of faux-pass that people normally avoided.

A funny one, if the subdued snort that came out of Sheeno was to be believed.

And ‘family’? That sounded right, although I thought it sounded a little too embarrassing to admit out loud.

“I was wondering what was taking so long, and it was just the older children squabbling”, Merga stepped right in between Sheeno and Undine, and this time neither managed to avoid jolting at her sudden appearance.

“Good of you to join us, [Depth Witch]. Maybe you’ll be able to knock some sense in these two idiots”, Riverfist huffed, the sound halfway between exhausted and annoyed.

“Excuse me!?” Butre sounded angry, but his expression flickered with worry every time his eyes bounced on the newcomer.

“Hey, don’t lump me with him!” The still unnamed Gorgon seemed irked of being paired with the Dwarf, and I couldn’t tell why.

“What!?” And neither could he, apparently.

“Enough!” The sudden coldness in the Witch’s voice stopped them both in their tracks and only after staring them down for uncomfortably long did she continue, “I swear, children, the lot of you. I was still here just to assure that Darwin would be able to leave without further problems, and yet here I find those with the power to help him somehow trying to push the blame on him-“

“Witch Merga, you have to agree that it is his fault-“, The stout Dwarf decided to further dig his own grave, for some reason, by interrupting her, and she very clearly did not like that.

“You will not utter a single word more.” Reality warped under her voice, and Butre found himself soundlessly gasping for air, seemingly horrified by the revelations of his powerlessness.

Honestly, pretty much everybody was scared of the [Depth Witch] at that point, except me and Rubicon, of course, since we did have a way or another to resist this type of effect.

“I am SICK and TIRED of all this POLITICAL maneuvering! This is a moment of crisis for the [Nexus], and I will not have you all waste more time with this posturing, which is honestly embarrassing to witness to.

This situation escalated because handled poorly by all parties involved, including me. Stop trying to make yourself look better by making others look worse. We don’t need that.

What we do need is for you all to do your [Jobs] properly and make the [Fulcrum]’s life easier in the process. The [Gods] know that he needs a moment of respite.”

She stared all of them down, even Riverfist, who held up his palm to remind her that he had nothing to do with this; if anything, he did his best to resolve the problem in private, so they were technically on the same side.

I had to be honest: The more serious Merga was intimidating but in a good way. I’ve always seen her as this whimsical and incredibly powerful being who just acted according to her own hidden agenda, but this was a good confirmation that she was part of the ‘chaotic good’ part of the spectrum and that she cared about the world she lived in.

Which wasn’t a given, since with a [Void Affinity] she could travel the veil between realities until she found a new world to inhabit. Something that could do too, technically, but I was no way near the level of power required to achieve it, while also having a power set too specialized to accomplish it as normally as someone with the non-[Aberrant Affinity] would.

Anyway.

“You’re right. Darwin, you can go: I’ll take care of the aftermath. For what it’s worth, I don’t think is was ever your fault, but solely of those after you. Merga, you can leave these two to me: It was a long time coming, but I have to remind them just how I got this position”, the [Scimian Kebunu] said while sending a reassuring nod to me, a respectful half-bow to the Witch, and a cracking of his knuckles at the other two [Guild Masters].

The Gorgon, the only one that still had the faculty of speech of the two, seemed to want to say something, but as soon as she opened her mouth, she seemed to think better of it, and just shut it with an audible clack, both of the castigated individuals now sporting an expression that would have been fitting on the face of a child that had just eating something bitter.

Merga suddenly clapped her hands, once, and the sound startled most people in the room again. Gone was the deadly serious [Depth Witch], and my willful mentor was back.

She basically forced us to part on friendly terms, the gesture clearly forced by the expected two, while Rubicon gave me an unexpected manly handshake coupled with a sad smile.

Before I could fully analyze his expression, we were already in front of a familiar flying ship with flaming decals on the side.

“And this, is where our path will diverge again.”