“I accept.” said Serene.

  “...HUH???” Sylvia’s eyes widened in surprise — Serene’s answer completely caught her off guard.

  “Is that so strange?”

  “OF COURSE!” Sylvia didn’t hesitate to answer Serene’s question. “I just don’t understand why you would accompany me on my journey.”

  “I have my reasons.”

  “Vague as always — Well then, I guess welcome to the team?” said Sylvia, this is her first time doing something like this so she had no idea how people usually welcome a new party member.

  “It’s my pleasure.”

  “Do you have any idea on where we could go after thi—“ before Sylvia could finish her sentence, a loud csh could be heard near where they were.

  “What was that?” asked Sylvia.

  “It sounded like swords cshing — there must be a battle nearby.”

  “Do you want to go check it out?”

  “Sure.”

  “We should use our Agility Enhancement thing to get there fas—”

  “Not a chance.”

  “Huh — why?”

  “It’ll make a lot of noise. We have no idea what’s up ahead so it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

  “Ah gotcha gotcha!”

  The party soon leaped across many trees to reach their destination. As they went deeper into the forest, the sshes became louder and louder. It was clear to them that this is no ordinary battle.

  “What do you think could be up ahead?” asked Sylvia.

  “Not sure. It could be ogres – but they aren’t known to wield steel weapons.”

  Not long after, they finally reached the battlefield. They hid in a nearby bush to observe the fight that’s currently happening. To their shock, there looked to be many swords hanging upside down in the air, and to Sylvia’s surprise – she recognized one of the participants of the fight.

  “Is that… Ms. Joanne?” whispered Sylvia.

  “You know that woman?”

  “She gave me a meal and some directions on what to do not long after you saved me when we first met. She introduced herself as “one of the strongest sorcerers in the castle”, but I’ve never seen her fight before – well until now.”

  “What the hell is that… abomination…”

  “What do you mea— oh…”

  Their eyes soon locked sights with what Joanne was fighting. It looked to be a tall, disfigured human with 3 heads and 4 arms, each arm wielding a sword, a battleaxe, a staff, and a spear. When compared to Joanne, the figure looked massive.

  ————————————————————————————————————————

  I think that’s enough catalysts. All I need to do now is break its barrier and then cast Heaven’s Judgement. I need to keep dodging its attacks though — If I get hit a single time, there’s no telling what this spirit will do towards the castle.

  Joanne kept dodging the spirit’s attacks, trying her best to not get hit. Due to its massive size — the spirit wasn’t very agile so Joanne had no troubles dodging its attacks.

  The barrier should be very close to breaking, who would’ve thought that spirits could cast barrier spells. One more hit should be enough and then before it can recover, I’ll immediately cast Heaven’s Judgement.

  Setting her pn in motion, she waited until the spirit was exhausted. The spirit soon prepared itself for a massive attack by smming down its battleaxe towards the ground, causing cracks into the ground beneath it. However, this left it vulnerable.

  Perfect.

  Joanne jumped and prepared herself to attack the spirit’s middle head. She casted a spell that would increase her physical strength and agility mid-air and then dived towards the spirit’s head and sshed her sword — leaving behind a sonic boom beneath its wake. White and yellow particles were scattered as soon as the attack connected, indicating the barrier was successfully broken. She had to act fast before it could gain its composure.

  “Heaven’s Judgement!”

  Joanne lifted her left hand up and casted her signature move. The hundreds of swords that were constructed in the air soon moved in unison. The swords initially moved slowly, but not long after — the swords accelerated extremely quickly and pierced the spirit’s body, leaving it screaming in pain. The sword that was in Joanne’s hands lit up and she dashed towards the spirit in a blink of an eye and successfully cut it in half, leaving behind a rge beam of light that transcended the skies.

  “Job completed. What a pain.”

  Joanne dusted off the dust and debris off of her clothes as she looked at the transfigured human being absorbed towards the ground.

  “You can come out now — it’s better than silently watching.”

  Serene and Sylvia were surprised by Joanne’s remarks. Serene immediately hid in the shadows while Sylvia came out of her hiding pce and confronted Joanne.

  “Ahahahaha… How did you know that we were in there?”

  “We?”

  “Huh—” Sylvia looked back and saw that Serene was nowhere to be seen. “—oh come on!”

  “What were you doing here?”

  “Well, my friend and I completed a commission earlier today. We were on our way back towards the castle and then heard loud sshes coming from this direction. When we arrived here, we were shocked to see you fighting that… thing…”

  “Those things are called Spirit’s Remorse, they’re usually left behind not long after a person’s passing. Whenever a person with lingering regrets dies — those things are usually left behind and pose a major threat to human society. Due to how dangerous it is, only highly skilled sorcerers can take them on.”

  “Is it really a spirit? How does it have a physical body — not to mention that it can also wield physical weapons?”

  “To be perfectly honest, we still don’t know much about these things. They don’t come up too often and if they do, they’d normally get defeated by some of our strongest sorcerers. We want to avoid casualties which is why whenever a Spirit’s Remorse is informed, it doesn’t get distributed into the Commission Center.”

  “I see — can we talk about that attack that you did though? That was AWESOME!”

  “Ah, I would rather not expin it. If words spread about how my special move works, the safety of the castle could be threatened.”

  “It’s that serious? I did see how it worked though, but I just don’t understand why you would want to construct those swords and leave it up there until the final attack.”

  “I guess I can tell you — you don’t seem to be tied with anyone. The basic premise is that, the more catalysts that I construct and save up, the more powerful the st hit attack will be. In prolonged fights like earlier, I will always construct many catalysts early on so that I wouldn’t have to worry about it and then whenever I find an opening — I would cast Heaven’s Judgement and eliminate the target. If needed, I could transform the catalysts into other objects, but usually swords are enough.”

  “I see…”

  “I need you to promise me one thing though – do not tell anyone about this information.”

  “Don’t worry, your secret’s sealed!”

  “Good. I’m gonna go back now, I’ll see you some other time.”

  “Byebye Ms. Joanne! Stay safe out there~”

  Joanne left as Sylvia said her goodbyes towards her. As soon as Joanne left the vicinity, Serene appeared behind Sylvia.

  “That’s good to know.”

  “OH MY— can you stop jumpscaring me?”

  “Sorry.”

  “Anyways, why did you leave me alone again?”

  “If I was here, there was no way that we could’ve learned about Heaven’s Judgement.”

  “Ah — but she knew that you were here though? I mentioned my friend multiple times.”

  “Friend?”

  “Yeah — you’re my friend. Who else would it be?”

  “...” Serene went silent not long after Sylvia said those words.

  That has to be a joke, right? She’s just using me to progress through and improve her memoria. I’m also using her as a means to my own end — those are not what friends do right?

  Serene couldn’t comprehend the fact that Sylvia treats her as a friend. It has been so long since anyone treated Serene as a friend instead of a mere tool.

  “Hello? You’re dozing off again — Gosh at this point, I think a 24 hour sleep is a must for you.”

  “...no, that's not needed.”

  “Anyways! Why did you want to learn about Joanne’s signature move in the first pce?”

  “Just in case I need it.”

  “You’re always so vague — not that I expected any less from you. Meh I guess I won’t ask you too much about it.”

  The party soon walked back towards the castle as the sun was setting down. It wasn’t a far walk so in the span of a few minutes, they had finally arrived towards the castle.

  “That journey was much more taxing than I imagined it to be, I thought we were only going to check out what spells you can use but instead — we went camping, I went boar hunting while you were testing me and then I miraculously learned ice magic, and st but not least we encountered Joanne fighting a… Human’s Regret?”

  “Spirit’s Remorse.”

  “Yeah whatever that’s called, I didn’t expect that today would be this eventful.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Why be sorry? Days like these are what makes this journey fun! Even more, I can finally share my experience with another person other than myself~”

  “...”

  “You’re much more quiet than usual, something wrong?”

  “...no.” said Serene as she was still thinking about the fact that Sylvia deemed her as her friend instead of an object.

  “Okay then, let’s cim the rewards really quickly! I know that you don’t want to talk to anyone so could you wait for me in the shopping district?”

  “...sure?” said Serene with a confused face.

  “Alright, don’t go anywhere ‘kay? I’ll be back in a jiffy!” said Sylvia as she sprinted towards the Commission Center to get her rewards.

  So carefree — Even though she has had many setbacks, she’s still cheerful. Even after knowing how cruel the world can be, she still chooses to put up a smile and go through even life’s most challenging difficulties.

  Serene reflected on her journey today and what she had experienced. She didn’t show it — but she had a ton of fun today. Prior to this, she had always done her commission alone and traveled alone. She wanted to cherish this moment for as long as possible.

  “Heyya I’m back! Let’s go shopping now — I’ve been waiting for this ever since I arrived here~”

  “Shopping for what?” Serene’s mind immediately went towards new weapons for their upcoming adventures.

  “Clothes and bags!”

  “...huh?” this revetion surprised Serene.

  “Of course! We need bags to store items in and we need new clothes to stay stylish~”

  “I get the bags — but shouldn’t we spend our coins on more important items first?”

  “Are clothes not important to you?”

  “They are, but we don’t have a ton of money. We should spend it wisely.”

  “I guess you’re the experienced one, fine… That means the next time we go shopping, I’m going to buy you 3 dozen clothes!”

  “That’s not wha—”

  “Shush! Now let’s go find ourselves 3 bags!”

  “3? Why do we need so many?”

  “2 bags to carry our items, and another one to store our frozen foods. Of course we’ll have to make it clean first so that it would be safe to eat.”

  “...that’s actually smart. I probably wouldn’t have thought about that.”

  “Ahahaha — feel free to praise me more!”

  “...”

  “...”

  The silence has never been so loud before. Both sides had no idea what to say, Sylvia was too embarrassed to say anything while Serene got used to Sylvia starting the conversation back so she just waited until Sylvia talked again. That however, took much longer than she had expected.

  Oh my god why the heck did I say that – I sounded so full of myself. Serene must hate me now after knowing how full of myself I truly am. Oh gosh, why in the world did I want to be praised? It was just her complimenting me about something that she would have never thought of, and yet I took it WAY too seriously. AHHHHH let this silence end please—

  What would one do when faced with a situation like this? The talkative person refuses to talk while I’m no good at starting a conversation. I guess I can try to start the conversation.

  “...so you want to go check the bags now?”

  “Yes. Yes please. I would love to. Thank you so much, Serene.”Serene soon broke the ice and initiated the conversation first. After arriving at the bag shop, Sylvia was already back to her normal self.

  “Welcome travelers! What would you like?” said the shopkeeper.

  “We would like 3 bags, please~”

  “Sure! What colors would you like?”

  “What color do you want on your bag, Serene?”

  “Any.”

  “I should’ve expected that. Umm, we would like light blue, white, and purple bags please!”

  “Alright, please wait here while I get the bags for you!”

  The shopkeeper went upstairs to get the bag. As they were waiting, Sylvia initiated another small talk with Serene.

  “I hope you’re fine with purple, I picked it because it fits well with your hair and the crystal spell that you used earlier.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  “Listen — I’m sorry, okay for what happened earlier? I don’t know what came over me to be THAT overconfident. I understand if you hate me after knowing how full of myself I am.”

  Serene’s eyes widened in surprise. She was shocked to hear what Sylvia was saying.

  “What do you mean? I had no trouble with you saying that.”

  “HUHHHH???” after hearing what Serene said, Sylvia immediately curled up on the ground – dying in embarrassment.

  “Here are your bags… Uhh – are you okay, ms?” as the shopkeeper went back, he was shocked to see Sylvia curled up on the ground

  “Please, ignore her.” said Serene as she talked to the shopkeeper

  “Okay — 3 bags are worth 6 gold coins.”

  “Here.” Serene handed in 6 gold coins towards the shopkeeper.

  “Pleasure doing business with you!”

  “Thank you — let’s go find ourselves an inn now, Sylvia.”

  “Nuuuhhhhh.”

  “If you don’t stand up now, I’m gonna drag you to the inn’s entrance.”

  “I’M UP!” Sylvia already had enough embarrassment for one day. She immediately got up before she could be dragged.

  “What inn do you usually go to?”

  “There’s one near the Commission Center, I usually go there mainly because the price is cheap.”

  “Do they have 2 separate beds?”

  “Not sure, let’s go there and find out!”

  The party proceeded to go into Sylvia’s usual inn and ask whether or not they have 2 beds in one of their rooms or not.

  “2 beds? You’re in luck! We’ve got exactly one room left with 2 separate beds.” said the receptionist.

  “Perfect! We would like that room please.”

  “Okay — here are the keys. Have a safe night!”

  When they reached their room, it was already 7 pm. They pced their bags in the corner of the room and immediately went to their own beds.

  “Now that I think about it… we never grabbed the boar meat, did we?”

  “Oh…”

  “I guess that’s fine, boars are everywhere so we can always get them.”

  “...” Serene closed her eyes, almost falling asleep. Before she could fall asleep though — Sylvia called out for her.

  “Serene?”

  “...what is it?”

  “I really enjoyed traveling with you today. I’ve never really had someone I could really talk to during my time in school. You’re my first true friend, and I just want to say — thank you for being a good friend. Thank you for staying by my side despite knowing I’m not skilled. Thank you.”

  “...”

  Serene took a moment to process what Sylvia said as it echoed inside of her head. Although she didn’t say anything back – she was subconsciously smiling while thinking about Sylvia’s words and then closed her eyes, falling into a deep sleep.