Jay logged on to find piles of paperwork waiting for him inside an office that had previously been used by Lester. There was a massive backlog of paperwork that Lucille hadn’t gotten to when Jay and the others had been on Mercura Island. Now that he was back, as the guild leader, it was his responsibility to catch up.

Lurian had helped him for a few minutes but quickly disappeared from the room. Jay hadn’t even had enough time to ask him if he wanted to stay and help. It quickly became apparent why.

Lucille was obviously not very good at keeping up with paperwork, if she had even attempted to stay on top of it. Requests were waiting in a pile as much as a week old, and now they were all Jay’s responsibility.

With a deep sigh, he got to work on sorting through the pile. Some of the requests asked for specific kinds of gear to be crafted. There were papers requesting people to join or form new dungeon farming teams. Other paperwork confirmed various leaves of absence. One person even submitted a request to develop a merchant company under the guild banner.

There wasn’t any paperwork on membership, so someone was at least making sure the new members were being processed. It made perfect sense; Jay remembered there were issues with people resigning after the guild lost Lester.

Unfortunately, when it came to everything else, there wasn’t a lot of help available to make those decisions. He opened his friend list and the guild list to look for help. Lurian was obviously uninterested, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t help somewhere. Jay had no idea if he could compel somebody to help, but that didn’t feel right.

The only person who looked to be available was Taylor Lynn. He messaged her, so he could spend some time avoiding the paperwork, thinking instead about the other note. The one Sarah had left him inside of a book.

A part of Jay wanted to easily let Claire into the guild. Spending more time with her would be nice since he was always in the game. But Sarah’s note complicated matters. The handwriting was a mess, like she’d been writing really fast. It read:

Don’t trust Claire. They’ve been vague, but they’re using someone to set you up.

Sarah obviously knew something Jay didn’t. She was in that hospital facility, around all the employees, so he figured she had heard something. Unfortunately, he couldn’t think of a way to ask her about it. Her side of the phone call would end up recorded by the cameras Tumult used to monitor her health. They couldn’t exactly converse while she was in the bathroom—that one would be hard to explain if a nurse overheard.

Keeping Claire at arm’s length wasn’t appealing to him, either. Jay knew he was pretty into her. It was a blind spot, but he was convinced she wouldn’t betray him. The note was likely old, which meant her information was stale.

“Surely, she can be trusted now that she isn’t employed with them?” Jay muttered aloud to no one in particular. “I suppose I could text Sarah and ask when she got the book. She’d probably understand that I was curious about when she wrote the note.”

Jay let out another deep sigh. The complicated situation with his supposed contract employer was a nightmare scenario. He was no spy, and yet, he found himself immersed in a cloak-and-dagger game of chicken with them. Although, if they truly needed him, the corporation would be expected to offer whatever help they could. Instead, they screwed him out of an attorney by pushing him toward one with a deep conflict. They barely gave him any help with the game, rendering only the Founder’s Pack but claiming they could not do more due to contracts with other parties.

Looking up, Jay saw that Taylor Lynn still hadn’t come to the office. He decided to busy himself with some of the paperwork. At least she wouldn’t think he was lazily waiting around for her to come to do all the work.

He immediately recognized the name of the requester. It was from Kylar for a new level 60 armor set. He whistled. Kylar had already reached that high level, so he’d definitely been working.

Jay recalled a vague memory that Kylar had been paying off a debt to the guild from ninja-looting a piece of gear. Surely, that payment had been made. He liked Kylar, despite his previous concerns about the player hitting on Taylor Lynn—well, none of that mattered anymore. That was their business.

He looked around the desk, figuring out how to approve or reject the paper. A message dialog popped over his game HUD with a thought, allowing him to accept or reject. He accepted the message and moved on to the next paper.

The subsequent request was an armor set request for Casey. She hadn’t yet been able to get a proper guild armor set crafted since she’d joined the adventure to Mercura Island, so that was another easy approval. He mentally snapped accept and moved on to another, thinking about how easy it would be if he recognized every name.

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No way that was going to happen, of course. The next player was someone Jay hadn’t even heard of, but he was starting to get the hang of navigating the paperwork system. He could call up some basic player information from the name listed on each paper. This player had joined the guild three days previous and was applying to be an alternate for one of the dungeon groups.

That wasn’t enough information, so Jay pulled up more information on the other players in the dungeon group. The group had been playing since the beginning of the game, so that wasn’t too difficult. He sent a message to the leader of the dungeon group to see if they were interested in the player as an alternate.

Finally, his lucky stars aligned, and the office door gave a resounding knock.

“Come in,” he called out, hardly able to contain his excitement at the reinforcements. Three papers hadn’t even gotten close to making a dent in the paperwork. As if to mess with his head, the game showed him there were still 369 pending requests.

Taylor Lynn entered, recognizable by her red hair, despite her gear changing thoroughly in only twenty-four hours. “Hey there, boss! Sounds like you needed help with some paperwork?”

She smirked, accentuating the word “boss” and raising her eyebrows at him.

“The people have spoken,” Jay said shamelessly, waving it away while grinning back. “But anyway, I could use some help identifying and understanding some of these players, too. I haven’t had a chance to meet all that many people personally.”

“You called the right woman,” Taylor Lynn promised. “I’ve met as many people as possible the past few days. Didn’t want to level too much without you. Although, it appears you didn’t feel the same.”

Jay grimaced. His level gap had widened again, leaving six whole levels between them. “I ran into some unavoidable quests.”

“That seems to happen a lot with your Monster Hunter stuff,” Taylor Lynn commented with interest. “What kind of quests? Another strange dungeon, right?”

Jay nodded while he drew his new repeating crossbows from his inventory. “Yeah, actually, although the loot in this one was solid. Two new repeating crossbows, one that uses mp and one that uses regular bolts. Should do wonders for my damage output.”

As he really looked at them, they were quite impressive. Since his Wrath crossbow didn’t use mp, there wasn’t even a slot to place the clip. It created an asymmetrical look between the pairing, although they kept style based on the creatures there were derived from. Wrath was a fantasy-styled harpoon gun without a clip. Resentment, on the other hand, was a proper repeating crossbow adorned with feathers. The pairing was strange, but it worked.

“Very cool,” Taylor Lynn agreed. “I just bought some new gear myself. Upgraded some of my spells with spell books finally, too. Learn anything new about Monster Hunters from that dungeon? I know the details have been pretty vague so far.”

“The whole thing is complicated,” Jay explained. “More of an over drinks conversation than over paperwork. Maybe we can get a drink once we get through all this?”

“We can?” Taylor Lynn asked, genuine surprise lining her face. “You sure Claire would be okay with that?”

Jay looked at her over the paper he held as he thought it through. He hadn’t asked Claire, of course, so there was little awareness of how she might feel about it. Still, despite everything else, Taylor Lynn had been a friend to him for years. She’d bothered to keep in touch even when he wasn’t gaming much. It didn’t feel right to stop hanging out with her.

“We’ve known each other for too long to let everything disappear,” Jay said. “I’m sure it’ll be fine. As long as… you’re okay? With everything?”

“Pretty full of ourselves today, huh?” Taylor Lynn teased. “Gee, you give a guy a guild leadership position. Everything goes straight to his head. Can you give me approval to manage guild paperwork?”

“Uh…” Jay said, eyes glazing over his game menus. “I have no idea how.”

Once again, the game helpfully offered him a prompt, which he accepted. He gulped hard as he waited for her to answer honestly about how she was doing.

“Anyway,” she continued. “Really, I’m fine. I actually went on a date last night.”

Taylor Lynn paused like she wanted him to ask about it. Her shoulders dipped slightly, slumping into herself. The game’s sensors gave her away. She was lying; that’s what she always did when she lied. But Jay played along, anyway.

“You went on a date? How was it?”

Jay tried hard to feign interest as they worked on the paperwork. He knew she was lying, so the whole thing felt like stage acting. The pair made good progress over the course of a few hours of work.

Without missing a beat, Taylor Lynn made up entire conversations he knew couldn’t have happened. Jay desperately wanted to know why she was lying, but there was no way to find out without calling her out directly. Undoubtedly, calling her a liar to her face wouldn’t work out in his favor. So he kept his mouth shut, entered autopilot, and did paperwork.

There was still a ton of work to do, but finally, he didn’t answer one of her questions since a notification caught his attention.

“What gives?” Taylor Lynn asked, waving her hand in front of his face. “Why are you ignoring me?”

“I just got a quest,” Jay said. “I have no idea why. Hang on a second.”

System Message: The guild quest Ilra Must Survive accepted! The barriers have fallen, and the world is poised for war. The Demon and Lizardman Faction alliance has declared their first target within Elvish Territory: Ilra. As such, the Mayor elections have begun a little early. As the leader of the Fourth Ranking Elvish Guild, you are eligible to run. First, decide if you’ll run. Then, ensure the lifeblood of our territory survives. Warning: Failing this quest may have dire consequences for Elvish faction members.