GO WILD
Chapter Twenty-One: Enjoy the Detours
"…Hunter?" I ask innocently.
His fruit-bat eyes bulge at me and I brace myself for a lethal dose of Incredulous-Shalnark.
"You know…Hunters?" He motions his hands as if to summon the mental image and spark my recollection.
I picture huntsmen clubbing their wildebeest-prey with woolly mammoth tusks. "I know hunter as in…meat-hunters?"
"Oooohhh, Safra," he says pitifully and steadies himself on his computer table. "You've never heard of Hunters? Nada? Zilch?"
Once again I've stumbled over and collided my clumsy self into a new-world reality.
"Hmmm, maybe they go by a different name in your neck of the woods," he murmurs thoughtfully, cupping his hairless chin. "East Gorteau must have them, then again…could it be that the Hermit Kingdom has kept Hunters out all these decades—"
"What are Hunters?" I ask. "And how is a Hunter gonna help with my predicament?" Again, my mindset: huntsmen, tusks, and mammoths.
Suddenly he smiles, his trademark adorable-disarming smile and knuckles my head. From anyone else, the gesture would be condescending rather than affectionate. "Oh, you're cute, Safra."
I know why Shalnark is fond of me. He enjoys shattering my ancient perspective where he gets to unveil a new part of the world to me.
"As for a Hunter," he says. "I could tell you, but I'd rather show you."
He reaches from behind. I flinch reflexively, expecting to fall victim to his stealthy bat-wing needles yet again (I hope he sterilizes them after each use), but instead, between his fingers is a plastic card. Barcoded, lined with a magnetic strip, blue and red, but what catches my attention are the two criss-crossing Xs. On the front in crisp font: Sha-naa-ku.
"You're one of them? A Hunter?"
He gives me the card to hold. It's sleek against my gloves, unmarred by scratches as if it were brand new despite, judging by the issue date, it being five years old.
"Careful," he says. "You could hock that and buy East Gorteau with it."
This? This card with the preschool-primary colors is worth trillions of jenni?!
"You're serious?"
He lists the perks: passport-free access around the world, free transport, and banking privileges. "I can mosey into a bank and get a 100 million jenni loan without collateral, you know if I was into that sort of thing..."
My grip softens because unconsciously, I'm scared to damage it like glass.
"Is it a secret society?"
"It's public. An elite organization of humanity's best and brightest. They track down priceless treasures, explore uncharted lands. Unknown to the public thouuuugh—"
I lean in.
"All Hunters are Nen users. Every single one of them. Part of the secret job description. Only Hunters are supposed to know of the disciple of Nen. You're a novelty."
"A secret society of Nen users. Like the Book of Beasts," I say. "Publically regarded as the Book of Beasts, but to your secret cult—"
"Association."
"To Nen Users, it's the Book of Nen Beasts," I say. "You said you're the only Hunter in the PT. If Danchou taught the Troupe, how did he did uncover the secret of Nen?"
"That's Danchou's secret to tell." He veers the subject. "You know..." he drawls, sliding into his computer chair. "You could get a Hunter's license. Pass the exam and it's all yours."
"I'm supposed to be off the grid, remember?"
"So am I," he says with a handsome wink. Oh, stop it, Shalnark.
"So, which of those reasons inspired you to get a license?"
"None that I listed, but this," he says and with a resolute click of his mouse, he slides away from his monitor to yield to me.
On his monitor with the vibrancy settings cranked up, is a pair of pixelated wooden doors. He clicks to enter and the doors, enhanced with a cracking hinges sound effect, spread open.
The pixelated picture changes to an equally pixelated scene in a saloon, homage to the wild west.
I'm not a designer, but you would think a group allegedly worth trillions of jenni could splurge on some better-looking web design.
"Not impressed, I see," he says.
My eyes go desert-dry from his too-white screen. "What is this?"
"I'll show you."
I'm going to die a dusty bag of bones before Shalnark 'shows me' what's so damn impressive about this Hunter thing.
"What information would you like?" asks the center character, a boxy bartender with brown hair and a bow-tie.
Shalnark clicks through the various menus. "Brace yourself."
"For what—"
Aura, fulgent as the sun, envelopes us and our surroundings transform.
After Shalnark's retina-burning screen, I have to adjust to the yellow haze. Glares dance on my vision, like phantoms.
"Shalnark..." I ask the blond beside me and swivel around, matching the saloon, patrons, tables with the image from Shal's monitor. "Are we..."
"In the Hunter's Tavern, aka the best net database for info on people and loot."
There's no smell. It should be easy to explain, the absence of scent, but my brain knows something is missing. When I picture saloon I await the dingy odor of wet dish rags, beer hops, and manky patrons with sweat-stained pits that burn nostrils a mile away. There's no sound either. No clinging of glasses, slurping of foamy drinks, and no garbled banter or wheezing laughter from tipsy patrons. We might as well be standing in a vacuum.
The voice behind snaps me out of it.
"Here is the information you requested on Lost-Hunters," says the boxy bartender with the bow-tie, no longer a pixelated image on a screen, but life-sized and talking to me.
"Here is the comprehensive list of all Lost-Hunters with the assocation," he say. He passes Shalnark what I at first think is a bar menu, but with a flick of Shal's index finger, the contents scroll like a phone screen. "You may use the filter options to condense your search. Press the contact button beside their names to solicit a job request."
Shalnark shows me proudly. "I told you I'd show you. A full list of Human and Contraband traffickers ready at your disposal! Lookie! Drug-mauls! Hitmen! Renegade Prostitutes! The database is your oyster!
Shalnark's saccharine smile and the gruesome topic of human-trafficking nearly triggers my gag reflex.
"How is any of this legal?" I ask glumly.
"The Hunter's Association belongs to no country and thereby follows its own rules. Sahh." He sighs, mouth dangling open as he read through the options menu. "Let's see...we should filter those who serve East Gorteau."
The list instantly shrinks to less than a 1/3.
"Let's filter by those who smuggle people, not just goods, and for fun, let's filter by experience—"
It's out of my hands as Shalnark plays with the filters and with each tweak, the list shrinks ever so few in number.
"Change from alphabetical to ascending by the number of trips and voila!" He shows me the menu he had whittled down, to one listing that stands out among the rest.
I see the floating #10 at the top for number of trips to East Gorteau and a sad list of 0s that followed the top listing. "Only one Hunter has ever been?"
Human traffickers I never quite picture as human. More like shadows who creep in bleak hallows of society, preying on the desperate and desolate.
"Phew!" Shalnark says with an impressed whistle. "This Hunter has been over ten times."
"Ten trips while everyone else has zero." All this time I've been told it's impossible to sneak in and out of East Gorteau and some Hunter does it on a regular basis? But no one else in this amazing organization has done it? I stare at the floating font, wishing for more. Who is this Hunter? Whoever they are, they've chosen to keep their name anonymous, and remain contactable only by digital message.
Shalnark's shrugs his sleeve-less shoulder. "It's what is said on their profile. They sound like a good bet to contact, buuuuuut," he drags the word out coyly. "It could also be a trap."
"A trap? What kind of trap?"
"Rule of thumb, for jobs that are more black-market that attract illicit patrons, anything too good to be true means it's a Bounty-Hunter."
"So we both need to be careful." Internationally, I'm still considered an illegal refugee. "Should we skip this listing?"
"It's worth a shot," he says, not in the least bit worried, but I don't think I've ever seen Shalnark worry over anything. He hit Contact and is already typing a message at 100 wpm. "If I sense anything funny, we'll cut contact and go with someone else for the smuggling transaction."
Transaction? My siblings are a transaction?
"It's that easy," he says and with a final click of the virtual keyboard, poof! his words crack into digital shards and disappear into cyberspace to be delivered into some Hunter's inbox.
No complaints from me. Shalnark has done a splendid job, navigating the system. I like convenience, but I can't help but feel detached. This...transaction is no different from the people in West Gorteau. On their phones, I spied them buying furniture, clothes, cars, apartments with the click of a button. Like it was nothing, meant nothing. This transaction, the very thing I've been most anxious to do for ages has been completed by the click of a button.
"Request sent," says the bartender. "Request can take up to ten days to receive a response. Do you have any other inquiries today?"
"Go ahead, ask him anything that's niggling your brain."
I face the boxy bartender who is uncannily sentient. Shalnark and I are different heights and yet he registers that as he faces us individually.
"What are," I ask. "Nen Beasts?"
The bartender's neutral face didn't move long enough for me to wonder if he had glitched, but he finally answers. "Nen Beasts are Guardian Nen Spirits. Visible to Nen users without the use of gyo, but invisible to everyone else."
"Can you create Nen Beasts and if so how do you make Nen Beasts?"
"I'm surprised this is free information," says Shalnark. "I've never seen it listed before so maybe it's free as long as you know what to ask."
"Nen Beasts born from an individual are manifestations of their creator's Nen, in personality, power, vision, and desire. Users may incorporate live animals or mythical visions of animals. No process is identical."
"Like drawings?" I ask. "From a book?"
He doesn't answer. So I try another question.
"What is the Book of Beasts?"
"The Book of Beasts is an epic tome of poetical writings and bestiary from Ancient Gorteau," says the bartender. "The work is comprised of poems formed as animal pictographs. Written during the Qian dynasty, it is regarded as one of the earliest surviving great works of literature."
That I all pretty much knew. "Last question…what is the Book of Nen Beasts?"
"Deposit 10,000 jenni for more information."
Before Shalnark could meep, I'm already double-pressing the bright green PAY button.
"Oi! Slow down or you'll make it glitch and we'll be stuck here until a Hacker-Hunter digs us out!"
A cha-ching sound to mark a successful transaction.
"The Book of Nen Beasts is an epic tome of poetical writings and bestiary from Ancient Gorteau. Ownership of the book gives users the ability to call forth the beasts drawn in the pages. The Nen capabilities of the fifty beasts is transcribed in the poetry."
So Danchou wants a zoo of Nen beasts at his disposal.
"So I could read their abilities...if only I knew how to read the damn thing," I say, with a sigh, I prop myself against the counter.
"A very large book of Indoor Fish. Danchou is a madman," says Shalnark but with a laugh. "No more questions, right?"
"I'm good. Lunch after this? I'm famished."
Right as I extend my knees to stand from my stool and depart with Shal, a bell chimes and an envelope icon blinks at us in read-me-now red.
"Sheesh! That was conveniently fast," says Shalnark, pressing the icon. He reads the message. "Request received...Wants to meet for further consultation."
"Is that promising?" I ask.
"Bound to be. Hmmmm, when's a good time to schedule? We're leaving Meteor City the same time, so in two-ish weeks. Let me double-check the schedule and we'll get back to them."
Sounds reasonable. My head's feeling a little funny, probably dehydration and the lack of moisture in the air isn't helping.
Shalnark's Nen seems to knock on the Tavern, as if to say, please open the door to let us out. Nothing.
He tries again a little firmer.
"What's wrong?" I ask.
He tries a third time but the whole Tavern, even the bartender seems frozen. Could it have glitched?
"Hmm, odd? Usually it's very responsive. Sheesh don't tell me it's glitched and we have to wait for a Hacker-Hunter to—oooi! Wait! Stop!"
I hadn't even noticed until Shalnark's cry. First an odd light-headedness then a floatiness in my entire body like I was on the cusp of fainting. I glance down and don't see my body there. My legs gone, my torso transparent and fading fast. "Shal—what's going on?!"
"Barkeep! Tell 'em to hang on a second!" Shalnark tries to anchor me, but it's no use. His skewers my immaterial torso, a void where my ribs had once been.
Panicked, I throw myself against him. His pulse races under my cheek, but I could still feel the slippery aura creep in between the touch of our skin, and pry us apart.
My vision blurs and the last I feel before losing my entire state of being is falling painlessly and immaterially through Shalnark like a ghost.
I'm cold all over.
My senses jolt at the resurgence of noise, scent, and atmosphere and I know I'm back in the 3-D world. No longer transparent, but I miss being immaterial, if only to not feel the freezing cold.
I'm indigenous to the jungle so cold is a foreign concept to me. I've experienced brushes with it on chilly nights in Meteor City and that felt like a cute tickle compared to this. It drives through my loose sleeves and settles into the marrow of my bones like liquid lead. My nasal cavities are so painfully dry, breathing hurts. This is true caliber of cold, the kind that ended wars because troops could no longer march on feet black from frostbite, the perma-frost kind in the Taiga biome where no human dares to inhabit, the kind that traps Dante's Satan in the ninth circle. Even colder than Machi's targeted gaze.
Gulls circle high in the pastel gradient while the sun, a golden yolk, breaks in the West. Last I checked it was late morning. Was I knocked out for several hours? On the icy gales, rides salty sea air. Where am I? The tips of my gloves are chalky white from the ground. Stiff from cold, I manage to roll over, feeling my phone as a solid square in my pocket. I'm laying on a chalky cliff, towering over the bay. Along the coast, ember colored foliage of a beach forest.
This is a conjured illusion, right? "This can't be real."
"I assure you, it is."
I whirl around and a…man stands behind me. I'm hesitant in that observation, my only real clue is the depth of his masculine baritone voice. His stance is non-aggressive, hands tucked casually into the pockets of his loose frock.
"Yo," he greets.
Not the abstract criminal, lurking in the shadows, exploiting the desperate I pictured. He looks more like a nomad than a trafficker or bounty hunter with his shapeless clothes, and navy scarf swaying in the wind. The brim of his turban-cap shades his face, masking his features. Poignant among the navy-gray-drab of his clothes, my eyes naturally target the reddish feather, perched between the weave of his turban like a strange cowlick.
Play it cool. He could be a Bounty-Hunter. How am I supposed to tell the difference between a human-trafficker and a bounty-hunter by first glance?
"Are you the smuggler—erm I mean, Lost-Hunter?" I withhold a wince; I'm a total amateur.
Hesitation before he surprises me by asking in astonishingly fluent Gortese, "Are you the client?"
Should I reveal it to him? That I am Gortese? It lends credibility to him being a smuggler who has gone ten times, because I can't imagine a Bounty-Hunter going that far for a facade.
"Are you the client?" he asks again.
"You're looking at her," I answer in Gortese, giving him the hint he wants. I'm not enthused about standing up in the wind, but it's more dignified than being rolled over in the chalk. I find it too disconcerting to speak to his shadowed face so I vaguely peer at his scarf as a focal point. "Where are we?"
"Care to guess?"
Again, answering a question with another question, fine.
"Care to give me a hint?"
"It's head-smackingly obvious," he says, oozing with derision.
I give him a look and he begrudgingly obliges.
"Stop thinking this place is a concoction of your wild imagination and the answer is simple."
My inflamed mind doesn't easily let up so I think hypothetically. If I saw this scene in a magazine where would I guess? Judging by the brutal cold, we are WAY up North, where penguins vacation when they're sick of the artic. It's late summer so anywhere else would be more temperate.
"North West is all urbanized sprawl from Yorknew. If we were there, we'd be sharing cliff space with a few ten million jenni sky scrappers. So...North East Yorubia?
He tuts in a manner I find very annoying. "You're not listening. Your incredulity is blinding you from the simple answer," he says. "Central Yorubian time is noon. Does that setting sun over there look like noon to you?" He points a tanned hand to the West.
"For your information, I had noticed the time. What time is it here? How long was I knocked out for?"
"You weren't," he says.
My brain wants to dash into the logistics, but I refrain. Again, HYPOTHETICAL, if Meteor City is late morning now and if the sun is setting here and there's no time lost that could only mean we've magically crossed several time zones... As he said, remove the incredulity and the answer becomes clear.
We're not on the Northern coast of Yorubia...not even in the Western hemisphere anymore... The words don't leave my mouth easily, again, part of me stubbornly doesn't want to believe...
He waits for my answer and I oblige him.
"North...Azia?"
"Turkei, to be precise."
Turkei as in the Northern-most country of North Azia? I swivel around, taking in the ledge, the forests, the bay once more time to confirm. Yes, I've heard of this place. The white cliffs of Turkei, colloquially known as the top of the Earth.
I remember Shalnark's arm skewering me like a kebab. In the span of a blink, I traveled thousands of miles. "What k-kind of Nen ability did you use on me to ghost-transport me here?"
A chuckle. "Ghost-transport?" He scratches the side of his turban, stray black hairs poking out like a broom brush. I can't read his expression under the brim of his cap, but the gesture reads to me a little...sheepish.
"Saw someone else do it and I'm a copy-cat sometimes," he says in a suspiciously non-committal way.
Despite his joking tone, I stiffen. Can he steal abilities like Danchou? There's something fishy about this.
"I wish you had warned me so I could have been prepared."
"Hmm?" he sounds, a tad offended. "But I did."
"No, you d-didn't." My shivers weaken my words.
"The message clearly stated 'wants to meet for further consultation'." He angrily motions his fingers as if he were mimicking typing a message.
Is he really this dense or is he hiding something?
"We thought you meant schedule a consultation, not literally right then. And your message didn't say not one thing about the Ghost-Transport ability."
"How else could we have met then? Apparently you're not serious about this job at all, wasting my precious time."
"I was with someone. Where is h-he?" Brrrrrr. I'm losing feeling in my armature and my mental commands to flex don't reach the doll's appendage. I cross my arms to solidify my stance against this guy and for warmth. "Are you going to nab him by turning him into a ghost?"
"I did not turn you into a ghost. And I don't need to nab him. He can sit put in the Tavern," he scoffs. "There's a reason I conjured you here alone."
"Why?"
He doesn't bother answering. He's definitely hiding something and I definitely don't want to be alone with him.
"If he's not here, I won't agree to any terms."
"Then I won't agree to the job." He tips his cap as if he's about to leave.
"My friend needs to be here." I don't budge. "He sent the message. We entered the tavern with"—I risk it and say—"With his license, not mine—"
He pauses in the midst of turning around and my words are cut by his hysterical cackle. He laughs so hard I think he'll die from running out of breath. "You expect me to buy that lie?"
"None of it's a lie."
"You're the lie," his baritone booms, his sheepish side gone. "I know you're not a Hunter. How dare you pretend! You barely know what a Hunter is. What we are!"
Even in the cold, sweat beads in my palms and shoulder blades. My phone weighs heavy in my pocket, all the PT numbers are in it but what could they do? Even if I could type a message to Danchou without this guy noticing, as powerful as he is, what could Chrollo realistically do?
"Is it a crime to lie about being a Hunter?"
"Not being a Hunter is one thing, having the audacity to lie is another. Pft! So haughty I don't even want to take the job."
If this guy really is the best, I need to mind my tongue and deescalate. "You're right. I'm not a Hunter. I didn't mean to lie and insult your profession."
"Did your friend by any chance tell you how to become a Hunter?"
"Pass the exam then the license—"
"Pffft! This is impossible! Your friend is also a liar. That may be how you get your license but that is not how you become a Hunter."
"Enlighten me then. How?"
"You can start by getting rid of that pitiful look on your face."
I can't see his eyes but I feel him boring into me.
"THAT one. You look exhausted and hunted."
I don't care if he's the best or not. I'm ready to calll this whole thing a wash and start over with Shalnark. "Take me back to the Tavern. Or ghost me or whatever the hell you did."
"I didn't turn you into a ghost. And you're not going anywhere."
"Why not?"
"I said I conjured you here for a reason. The job remember?"
Icy waves crashes against the shoreline far below the cliff. "At this point, it's better if I do the job myself," I say. "Take me back to the Tavern."
"Not until we're done with the consulation."
Is he serious? "Take me back now."
"Pffft," he flaps his lips dramatically and kicks his foot brusquely. "For all this trouble, just to turn your Phantom Troupe friend in for his Class A bounty. And you, turn you in as an illegal East Gortese refugee, collect the bounty and watch, with more change in my pocket, as you get shipped back to East Gorteau in cuffs."
It was all a trap.
My instincts kick into overdrive, searching for an exit—not that I'm not going to find one on a cliff, barring the long drop off the cliff itself. Cornered, frustrated and cold as hell (oh I understand that expression now) I absolutely shout at him.
"You call me the liar!" I exclaim louder than I expected, loud enough to hurt my vocal cords, louder than the crash of waves against the shoreline. His figure rattles as if the ground quaked beneath him, and I'm not sure if it's from my harsh accusation or merely the explosive-volume of my voice. "You had no intention of doing the job! You're not a Lost-Hunter! You would send a refugee to her death for money?! You're despicable!"
I claw at the hem of my glove. I'm halfway through peeling one off when I freeze.
Despite my manic desire to tear into this fraud, another frigid gale interrupts me. Innervation coos sweetly at my ear to lie down, nice and slow. I pool back to the chalky ground as a useless shivering heap, glove still half dangling. Time slows and my blood pumps slower in my veins, draining from my fingers and toes to protect my limbs and torso.
The startled Hunter composes himself with a sigh and steps forward. While he doesn't look tall or bulky in his loose clothes, he sits me up with strong gentleness. He peels his top layer and cocoons me in his overcoat. I'm ten times warmer and calmer as soon as he wraps me in it. As he unravels his navy scarf, I spy sparse stubble on his upper lip and expressive hazel eyes.
He notes my half-off glove and fits it back on properly. He sweeps stray hairs from my brows and cheeks, tucking them behind my ear before wrapping the scarf around me, tight as if he wanted to muffle my mouth shut. Only my eyes are exposed from the muffler and I inhale what I can best describe is a wilderness spice with manly musk.
At my level, he lifts up his cap to finally meet me face to face. Tanned skin that suggests he doesn't dwell in the tundra and a perfectly honed poker frown. He waits a moment, for me to completely stop shivering. Feeling returns to my fingers and toes
"Can you understand Japanese? Nod if you can."
I nod.
He sighs a visible vapory breath. "Let me be clear," he says, switching to Japanese. "No one is getting hauled in. I'm not a Bounty Hunter. Nor am I a Refugee Hunter. Despite what some at the association might tell you, I'm not that unethical or selfish. Scratch that, I am selfish, but not that selfish."
You know, at first, when he switched to Japanese, I thought his real personality would shine, after being bottle-necked and lost in translation when he spoke Gortese. Sometimes trying to express yourself in a foreign language is like trying to shove a square peg through a round hole. For a moment, I'm empathetic. A moment later, I'm not.
"When I said," he goes. "There's a reason I conjured you alone, it's because you're the true client even if you aren't a Hunter."
...Oh.
"I wasn't speaking Prussian. What did you think I meant?" he says, tone rebuking as if I had been the abrasive one. "Pft! You're already making this so difficult."
"Then why threaten me?"
"Because you insulted me. You thought I was a Bounty-Hunter! You expected me to act like a Bounty-Hunter so I did!"
I narrow my eyes into what I hope is a deadly glare. How is that my fault?! For someone who made sure to immediately address me in perfect Gortese, to then suddenly be so bad with words...unless...
"You riled me up on purpose," I say, against the scarf, but I know he heard by his rough "Hmm?"
"Are you really that bad with people or was that all a dramatic ruse to play me like a fiddle?"
The brim of his cap almost touches my forehead so I witness how my words slowly stir him, like watching a pond that ripples when disturbed by a pebble.
It's brief but I catch a measure of subtle respect on his face before he shyly scratches the side of his turban, cap-feather waving.
"It's because you're not taking this seriously! You came to the Top of the World, without a coat! Pft! Why did I bother? You're impossible to work with."
Regardless, game or not, he's not much of a people person. Danchou is slick as oil and this guy fudges our introduction before he's even told me his name.
"It shows because you didn't rehire your old smuggler."
"What smuggler?"
"The one who hauled you out in the first place. Why haven't you rehired them? Or did your sour attitude burn that bridge to ash?"
Our brief interaction has been a rollercoaster, but I can't describe how much that insults me. "No one hauled me out. I got myself out by crossing the DMZ, three miles littered with more landmines than shells on a beach. You should grasp what a tantamount task that is since you're the only Hunter with any experience with East Gorteau. Right?"
I lower the muffler so I can give him a serious poker face, pronounced with I'm-not-here-for-bullshit.
I repeat, "Right?"
He hoarsely clears his throat. With a changed tune and an audible misstep in his words, he says, "Well...erm, let's go. This cold is getting to me too. We could have been done with the consultation by now if you hadn't been so difficult to talk to—"
"Go where?" I ask when his back is already turned, frock billowing in the wind. He's not the type that waits for someone to follow, or cast a glance behind.
"I'm taking you to early spring."
Is that the name of a place, I wanna ask, but he's already striding into the forest as if he's determined to lose me. With a delayed start, my thawing legs finally chase after the strange hunter into the dense cover of redwood trees.
AN: Didn't expect him to show up did ya? Safra has no idea who the smuggler is, but she'll learn who he is in the next chapter. If I did my job right, you smart peeps should be able to figure out who ;) Drafting this chapter I myself didn't know who he was until two days ago. I plot-line a ton but I 'discover' a lot of the narrative as I flesh it out, enjoying the detours :)
I'm not 100% happy with this chapter, but I was excited to get this chapter out. I think gonna try this thing where I write shorter chapters and post more often? Weekly deadlines are too tight for me, but I think ten days is doable.
Cheers to the awesome reviewers who made my week reviewing the latest chapter! Luminaaa, WormwoodSand (I read your review in the morning and laughed all the way to work XD), and AwkwardBlackCat!