Trials of the Wylfen Corsair

by Kaiimei

Layla was there the day Yggdrasil was due to be shut down. Clad in her Divine Class Armour as the world ended, she decided it was twelve years well-spent. Except...it didn't end. Instead, she found herself, with her armour still adorning her body, right in the middle of a desert. Well, I think it's time for a little fun! !ExtremelyAU/Original Content (Updates Once A Year!)

2. Chapter 2

I'm just going to point something out...two...no, three...several somethings.

First, I don't think this story is coming back properly. I will occasionally release these longer chapters, but it literally takes me a pretty long time to write them so...yeah. Secondly, NPC level limits for a guild-hall. Nazarick is a special tier of Guild Hall that has a higher total levels cap, increased further by the fact that they completed it in one go and got the Throne Of Kings. Because I'm lazy and this is AU, I've decided the NPC level limit can go shove it.

Thirdly, the game interface. Ainz still has ways to access his inventory but as far as I can recall it's never properly expanded upon. So, rather than faff around with that, I've decided that Skye has the ability to access her inventory in the way described in chapter 1. Fourthly, don't expect me to be too detailed about levels and stuff any more. It's been over a year since I wrote the first chapter, and my way of writing has changed a bit. I'll still go into some detail, but if an Orc Berserker should be level 40 according to canon and I say it's level 20, chalk it up to the story being AU and move on.

It's more about the fact that really, I chose Overlord because it's a world-swap which I can use to establish already-strong characters, as well as having stuff like World Items that are fun to use, not to use the established character levels and crap. Fifthly, Spirit Dancers...well, you'll see, but don't think this means this story is suddenly going to become...what's shown...you'll see what I mean!

And finally, I'd highly recommend re-reading the first chapter. I changed some stuff because, well, it was a year ago that I wrote this and I don't like some of what I established, so I changed it...=P

Hope you enjoy!

Chapter 2

---

Blinking open her eyes, Skye's lips quirked to the side as she saw the face of Kawairashi facing towards her, eyes still shut and red hair draped across her face.

Reaching upwards, Skye quietly yawned, swinging herself out from under the covers without disturbing the sleeping girl. Following her promise to Noxilous and Pest, she withdrew them both from her inventory and hung them off her belt, then exited the room silently, her high stats making her movements utterly silent as to not disturb Kawairashi.

She then re-equipped her daggers when she was safely out of the room, having unequipped them as to not accidentally stab the bed or possibly even hurt Kawairashi with them if she rolled over or woke up in the night and got curious. She then walked more casually through the hall and down the steps, her ears flicking as she heard someone moving around in Kirema and Anseen's room.

Humming softly, she opened her inventory, having a look through for something she could give the pair as a gift for housing her for the night. She couldn't go over the top and give them a level 90 mob drop, they'd probably freak out entirely about it, but she also didn't want to give them something cheap and casual like the wine that could be bought for only 1 silver and 6 coppers at pretty much any inn in Yggdrasil.

She eventually settled on a level 20 boss-mob drop, one of the pirate bosses she had farmed for a while to get all of the outfits she needed for all of her crew. It was a pretty common drop and only worth 2 gold coins, not exactly an insane value but also not stupidly cheap, still worth about 200 Silver or 2600 Copper coins. Taking two of the wine bottles out of her inventory she uncorked one and sniffed it, then took a tentative sip.

Immediately she knew two things. One, it tasted pretty damn good, and would make a fine gift for Kirema and Anseen. Two, it was also definitely still not to her taste. The flavour was alright, but as soon as the alcohol hit she re-corked the bottle and put it on the table with the other. In real life she hadn't been very keen on alcohol, and while Yggdrasil gave a buzz, it didn't have that unique...flavour of alcohol that made her dislike it. She was probably safe to drink it though, since with Corrupted Corsair she probably had nothing to worry about, getting drunk would be a poisoning effect after all. It just kinda sucked that this world had alcohol that tasted just as ass as the real world.

Scrounging around in her inventory for a moment, Skye started to pick out items for breakfast. Deep-Fried Imp Tenders, Spinesticks, Elfwine-basted burgers and various other foods. She made sure to keep the item levels below 20, most of the names were flavour-text after all, but she also nibbled a bit on each bit of food she removed to make sure it wasn't disgusting.

Briefly, she wondered if this was a bad idea, but she could chalk it up to her magic letting her access a dimensional pocket where she kept stuff. The Overorc already knew that she had magic that allowed her to put things away or retrieve them, so she could play it off as just an extension of that. She also brought out a few drinks, though nothing alcoholic since it was early morning and probably bad form. If her hosts wanted to drink that was fine, they had the two wine bottles she was going to give them, but of course Kawairashi was going to be eating as well.

As she set up the table with various foods, her nose twitching at the myriad of smells that were being released, she had to let a smirk slip on her lips as she heard more footsteps from upstairs. More than likely the exotic scents of food were waking the others up, or just attracting attention based on who was awake in the master bedroom. She placed the last dish down and surveyed the table, then sat down and pulled a flagon of Spectral Tea out of her inventory and took a sip. It tasted a bit like orange juice mixed with pomegranate and a bit of sugar thrown in to sweeten it, but multiplied a few times.

Not that it tasted bad, but that was probably some fuckery involved with the level of the item. For all she knew, adding those three things together would be disgusting. Whatever it was, it tasted a lot better than alcohol, and since she had plenty of it, it wasn't like it was going to run out from her drinking it. Hearing a door open, she turned her eyes towards the stairs, spotting a bleary-eyed Anseen walking down the steps, then freezing as she spotted the table ladened with various exotic foods. "Wha-"

"I wanted to thank you two for putting me up for the night. I know you didn't have to, so I figured the least I could do was return the favor. Though I'd appreciate if you didn't tell anyone from Finkull that I can, well...-" Skye opened her inventory, pulling out another flagon of tea and planting it down in the table. "-do that." Anseen stared at her for a moment before shaking her head, sighing.

The orc woman took the seat beside her, speaking as she did so. "Kirema made that offer in hopes of helping you get settled faster, not in expectation of you repaying us. Besides, your protectiveness over my daughter is more than payment enough. You have no idea how much the word of someone powerful like you would be to other orcs." Anseen closed her eyes, dusting her clothes lightly as she collected herself. "Kawairashi doesn't yet understand it, but her isolation is not normal for children her age. My husband and I married for love, not strength, and she is the product of that. Because we are both not strong orcs, nor incredibly intelligent or skilled in other areas, she has to bear the judgment of that until she can prove herself exceptional enough to be...'friends with'."

Skye frowned. Even as she kinda understood it, it still didn't sit well with her. But she supposed that it was an entirely different society, so things being different and fucked-up in her perspective was par for the course. The entire city ran off the orders of the Overorc, which was whoever was the strongest among them. And yet, somehow the city also seemed to progress well in other ways, advancing technologically as well as militarily. It probably had something to do with the relative autonomy the clans had to experiment and change things to find better ways to live. Without them doing that, they would probably have never invented their infinite water sources and would have died out long ago from a lack of water. "What can I say, your daughter is just criminally adorable."

That brought a smile to Anseen's face even as she adopted a far-away look. "She is." The pair sat there in silence for a few moments before Anseen regained focus, turning her head to face Skye's. "You know, if this is your idea of breakfast, I think I might be going to have a word with the Overorc about you being a liability and needing to keep you here, under...'close observation'." Skye snorted at that, and the pair spent a good minute chuckling before turning serious again. "But truly Skye, you can stay here as long as you wish. I myself can't think of any better protection for my little sweetheart, and I know she loves to be around you."

Skye's smile mirrored Anseen's as she pondered the little girl. Interestingly enough, the girl reminded her a little bit of herself, a bit too curious and friendly with animals for her own good. In this world she didn't have the scars on her arms, but back in her normal world there were plenty of scratches, bites and other markings from animals she'd gotten too friendly with too quickly. She should have learned, but they were just too cute for it. "Well hey, when I'm not looking for home or experimenting with whatever's happened to my magic I'll probably be here."

It was a shame that she hadn't said that she was on a ship when she appeared in the desert, but to be fair, the cover story she'd invented was done in the span of a few minutes, so making a silly mistake was perfectly reasonable. "Hey, do you know where I can find some maps? Who knows, maybe this is closer to home than I thought?" Anseen looked thoughtful for a moment before shrugging.

"I suppose there's always the libraries that are around, and maybe you could find a cartographer, they would probably have plenty of maps for you to look over." Skye hummed, in her mind plotting out what her plan actually was. The night's sleep had left her well-rested and with that, had pretty much shattered her dissociation over whether or not she was actually here. She could feel pain, she could sleep, and the fact that she could do basically everything meant that, as much as it felt weird, she had to accept that she was actually here.

Now, she didn't need sleep, and despite spending the entire day having only eaten a single bit of bread she didn't feel hungry nor thirsty, though she still divided pleasure from drinking, so it wasn't like she'd stop doing it. And while she didn't need sleep, waking up from a long night's rest was still satisfying and left her feeling restful, so she'd probably still catch sleep when necessary. She could play off eating and drinking to being her doing it out of the house, and she could say that she didn't need much sleep, catching winks of it now and then. "I guess so."

Her ears flicked lightly as she heard a door open again, this time it was Kirema who came downstairs and had much the same reaction as his wife, though he probably knew that she'd answered Anseen before and would just ask her later, avoiding having Skye explain it again. "Good morning." He said as he kissed his wife and sat down at the table beside her, their hands threading together. "And good morning to you Skye." She inclined her head at his greeting, her ears flicking unconsciously as she folded her legs up and crossed them on the chair.

Before any more conversation could be started, the last occupant of the house opened their door, quiet but swift footsteps darting down the hall and then down the stairs, gawping at the table as she came around the corner. "Woah..." Kawairashi let out quietly, her glimmering eyes looking at the table covered with food. Her eyes snapped to Skye, and the girl charged forwards and leapt up, almost tackling Skye off her chair as she wrapped her arms around her neck. "So cool! Big Sis Neko, can you do this every day?"

Skye laughed as she tugged the girl around and planted her on her lap, turning her to face the food. "Not every day, and definitely not this much, but this is a thank you, to your parents and to you, for being the most awesome family in the city." Surprisingly, rather than try to grab any of the food like she expected from such a young girl, the little orc girl instead looked towards her parents, then when they glanced across the table she hopped off Skye's lap and went to sit in her own chair. Only when her parents gave her permission did she start eating.

Rather than say anything, Skye just joined them as they began eating the food, though she only picked bits and pieces of what she liked the most, making sure to note down subtly which of them she liked the most so she knew what was a good choice to snack. After a few minutes she excused herself and left the house, having memorized where it was yesterday when Kirema escorted her around the city.

She dredged up the memory of Kirema showing her the nearest and biggest library, mentally mapping out the rough area it was in compared to his house, then set off in that direction. As she walked she dug out some lower-levelled Magelock Flintlocks and some data crystals, using them to lower the audio of the gunshot the guns had to levels that wouldn't cause her tinnitus.

Her plan with finding a map was to find the nearest coastline to where she had appeared. With a lot of luck and a healthy dose of logic, the ship would have been displaced to the nearest available source of water. That was supposedly what happened in Yggdrasil if a boat somehow ended up inland. If they ran aground that was fine, but if they were more than fifty feet from the coast, it would be obvious that some kind of physics bug had caused it.

That had never happened to her during her naval experience, but some people had spoken about it on the forums, about how their boat just suddenly was jettisoned across the sky, but as soon as it touched the ground the boat and all the occupants were put on the nearest source of open water. So, hopefully that was what happened to the Grand Larceny.

There was always the chance that her ship hadn't come across with her, that was entirely possible and even somewhat plausible, but she didn't want to just give up without trying. Side-stepping a cart that was being pulled down the street, she spotted the building that was supposedly the biggest and best library in the city, bar the private archives of the Finkull Clan.

Skye nudged the doors open and stepped inside quietly, her eyes searching out any kind of librarian or guide, quickly spotting an orc sat behind a desk paging steadily through a hefty book. Plastering on a smile, she sidled her way over and cleared her throat to get the orcs attention. They raised their head to peer at her, raising an eyebrow. "Hi. Do you have maps here?" The orc glanced to the side, raising an arm to point towards a corner of the library. "Thanks."

As the orc simply returned to their apparently riveting book, Skye slipped across the library silently, spotting a few orcs who were reading. Somewhat amusingly she took note of the fact that there wasn't a single blackskin orc anywhere to be seen, probably all more interested in beating the shit out of things to spend their free time reading. Not that it was a bad pursuit, being strong was a good idea, but...not a single one was a bit offputting.

Reaching her destination, Skye scanned the shelves, each one filled with rolls of paper. Curiously, and maybe because she had a good night's sleep, but she could clearly read all the plaques that were on the shelf, which said how scaled each map was and in what region it was. She spotted one that just said it was the largest scale with no direction, picking it off the shelf and unfolding it.

The map that stared back at her confirmed that she didn't recognize it at all. They were in the desert, obviously, but they were bordered by Dark Dwarves to the east, the Roble Holy Kingdom to the west, nothing but mountains as far as they knew to the south, and to the north was the Re-Estize Kingdom. The map also showed her what the orcs knew about the rest of the world, which admittedly wasn't very much since the only others that were willing to trade with them was the Dark Dwarves, who themselves had the same problem of having nobody to trade with. They were bordered by Dark Elves and regular Elves, though they had a big forest to their south and access to richer mountains with which to get valuable materials, forcing the Re-Estize Kingdom into trading simply because they required those resources.

At least, that was what the accompanying notes said. A lot of it sounded like guesswork, since she doubted the dwarves would be quite so forthcoming with information like that. Fortunately, she saw what she was looking for. To the south-west, maybe thirty kilometres away, was the sea. The orcs came from those waters, it was a fresh-water sea and was where they had to live. Their history apparently didn't say how they ended up there though, maybe they were pushed there by humans, maybe they naturally migrated there.

From there, the Finkull clan worked with the Dark Dwarves to make the Pitcher of Endless Water, and from there the desert became somewhere far more hospitable. Since orcs could handle the temperatures just fine, it was perfect for defending themselves, as any large human army would suffer on the journey, especially if harried constantly and forced to remain alert and armoured. They would be demoralized and riddled with heatstroke before they even reached the orcs. Thus, Balosar was established in the middle of the desert.

It was an interesting history lesson, but right now she was more excited about the prospect of finding the sea and the chance to find the Grand Larceny. If it wasn't at the closest water, she'd head north and see if it was on the other side of the land-bridge that connected the Roble Holy Kingdom. If it wasn't there either, she'd probably spend a while waiting and roaming the coast, keeping her ears open for any sign of a ship that nobody could recognize. After all, the Grand Larceny was a three-decked Ship of the Line, it wasn't exactly forgettable.

Rolling up the map after memorizing it, she tucked it back onto the shelf she'd found it on, heading back out with a glance and a smile towards the orc that had guided her, not that they noticed it. When outside, she went back the same way she came, taking out some paper from her inventory and writing on it using the wall, then slipped it under the door to Kirema's place, telling him that she was going to be going out of the city to go and scout an area that might be where her home is.

She didn't want to cause a bother, especially since she would probably be coming back and forth a lot, and so it'd be better to just get everyone used to her frequently disappearing sooner rather than later. With that done, she took out a Scroll of Mass Compass and flicked it into the air, watching it fizzle into blue flames and vanish. Immediately she gained an awareness for what direction her destination was in, and began heading that way, arriving quickly at the wall.

The Overorc had given her permission to leave and enter the city when she wanted, supposedly in recompense for being attacked by scouts so close to her city, though it was probably because Fubatsu knew that Skye would have just snuck out of the city with or without permission. As she arrived, the orcs around the gate noted her presence, but as credit to their discipline didn't react much differently than she'd expect from anyone else leaving.

With a short exchange between her and what she presumed was the leader of the group about what she was going to do and when she expected to be back, they let her out of the city without much fuss. Once outside she summoned Lupin, mounting the wolf and bidding him to ride in the direction that the scroll told her to head. In the meantime she rolled over so her back was against his, using the time to relax and plot out exactly what she was going to do if she couldn't find the Grand Larceny at all. Even if she did find it...would the NPCs even be friendly to her?

They all had at least a short backstory, some being pretty much copy-pasted from others, but there were the special ones like Kris and Ansash who had detailed backstories. All of the stories in some way dictated their loyalty to her, but what if this weird override had just wiped all of that, and they just saw her as an enemy? There wasn't any point in theorizing though, if they were hostile she'd cross that bridge as she came to it. If push came to shove, Noxilous and Pest were still on her belt, they would help her to deal with it.

And, if she absolutely had to, she would cast Hammer of the Fallen on her ship. If she used the full chant and aimed it right at the middle of the ship, the 9th tier spell would probably break it in two. Then again, what if it was still regarded as a Guild Hall? Ever since she beat that dungeon, the Grand Larceny was pretty much unbreakable. Sure, things could be smashed off it, and it could take severe damage, but not once had it ever come close to sinking, even with multiple holes below the waterline.

That was partially because of game balance, if a few weak cannonballs could sink a ship then even she would find herself hard-pressed to keep playing on a ship, but even so, there were times when the ship should have been a lot closer to sinking than it actually was. As she pondered it, she realized that she'd never heard of a guild hall being destroyed, even in battles where people had used Super-Tier magic like Fallen Down directly on them. They were damaged, sure, but never destroyed. Maybe they couldn't actually be destroyed? It wasn't something she'd actually given serious thought to, having never directly attacked a guild hall, only the people inside.

Since there wasn't much to do nor look at since they were just travelling across endless desert, Skye decided to fiddle around with her inventory, re-organizing items and tagging things like potions, one-time-use items and various other things, making it so accessing them would be easier. Before every item was in a distinct grid and your inventory would expand with extra rows and columns as you needed it, which means organizing it wasn't very easy. With this new system she could just filter for health and all of her health-related items would appear, first on the list being her strongest health potions.

Being entirely honest with herself, she was pretty glad that she was a solo player and didn't have a guild bank to dump things into. She was always carrying all of her stuff, which meant that when this...thing happened, she took it all with her. All of her potions, her ingredients, her crafting items, her weapons, armour, artifacts, every scrap of stuff. And of course, all of her food.

Thinking of food, she tapped through every food item she had and tagged them all as food, then did the same for drinks, before then closing her menu and rolled over again, sitting up so she could see over Lupin's head. When the same featureless desert met her gaze she frowned. She would have cast a spell to summon a Spirit Dancer to go and do some recon around the area and report back to her, but since some of her spells seemed to be a bit broken like her Fell Storm, she wasn't sure whether it'd be a much more noticeable spell or not. She'd already attracted attention with that last spell, so she'd better not, not until she could perform it in front of a shaman and see how noticeable it would be.

Hopefully, it wouldn't be detectable at all, but she didn't think her luck was that good.

---

After a while longer travelling, Lupin came to a stop, yipping at her and drawing her attention to their front.

There, laid out in front of them, was the sea. She glanced left and right, unable to pick out any sails nearby, but didn't let that get her down. She had Lupin take her to the edge of the water, then she summoned another wolf and had it head south while she headed north atop Lupin still. If the wolf saw any sign of the Grand Larceny, it would turn around and run back towards her. If it found nothing all the way south then the wolf would just fade back into the realm it came from. There was always the chance that her ship was out to sea and wouldn't be visible from the shore, but...

Standing up atop Lupin's back, Skye stared out at the water, at white sails. If she could get aboard a ship, there was a better chance of finding her ship. If they were following what she had done, raiding ships and fighting sea monsters, then they would be sailing around the seas, not hanging inshore where there wouldn't be ships to raid. Patting the wolf and rusting the fur around his neck, she set him to stay there and wait in case the other wolf returned.

Thanks to her jobs and focus on naval combat, she doubted a sailing ship would ever be able to outrun her in the water, so she dove straight in and under, not using a rebreathing scroll since she had no need to speak. Thanks to Corrupted Corsair she was able to see pretty much clear in the water, easily tracking the ship as it lazily slid through the water. When she got beneath it, she grasped ahold of the keel, pulling herself along it to the prow of the ship and then slipping up into a nook beneath the figurehead. Her ears twitched with conversations she could only barely make out over the sound of the water, nothing interesting being said. The ship was heading north along the coast, though nobody was saying why they weren't going further out to go around the peninsula that the Roble Holy Kingdom was on.

She had a few guesses, like the open sea being too dangerous and filled with monsters, or that there was a port of call they wanted to hit somewhere along the coast. She wasn't very patient though, so after maybe ten minutes of waiting and silently listening she got bored and stopped paying as much attention, instead slowly crawling back down the keel and then swimming alongside the ship so she could peek up at the sides and see what kind of armament it had.

When she saw no cannons sticking out, she honestly wasn't that surprised. If they existed, then the walls of Balosar would probably have them on top of them, since they were great for defence as well as attack. If cannons didn't exist here, then the Grand Larceny would have a wide opening to raid and pillage as much as it wanted. Silently she slipped beneath the surface and under the keel, under the rudder, letting the ship pass her by so she could look at the rear. It looked a bit like a Schooner, except with an enlarged prow and stern, and obviously no gunpowder cannons.

Diving under once again, she swam to catch up, clambering up the prow and settling back into the same hole she used before. The problem with her plan was that on the shore she hadn't been considering how utterly boring sitting around for literal hours and days would be. She had told the guard orcs at Balosar that she had no idea how long she'd take, the same in her note to Kirema, so she wasn't too worried about taking a long time, it was just that it was so boring, and unlike in some single-player games, there was no convenient waiting option to skip time.

She gave it her best go, but after half an hour of being splashed with water and with nothing interesting to see or hear, she said fuck it, cast Camouflage, a tier-1 spell that she doubted would ever have a major noticeable effect, then climbed up to sit on top of the figurehead of the ship and look at the crew. Most were wearing what looked like wool or canvas, and they all had at least a few scars, though quite interestingly, not many looked like they were done with swords. Evidently, merchant vessels were a pretty dangerous occupation, as he watched one sailor curse and rub his eye-patch.

That was what this had to be after all, a merchant ship, as there were only maybe eight members of the crew that she could see. There might be more below decks, but those were all that she could see or hear, far too few for some kind of pirate or military vessel. Slowly, since camouflage wasn't the strongest stealth spell, she moved. She would have cast Perfect Unknowable, except that was a 9th tier spell and way too risky. If it had a noticeable effect she might as well just tap-dance naked along the taffrail for all the good it'd do.

She climbed along the outer rail of the ship under camouflage and froze whenever it looked like she might be noticed, keeping low to the side of the ship. When she got halfway, she took a moment to hang there and looked out at the water, spotting nothing interesting. With a nod, she kept going, up the stern and ending up sat on the wooden taffrail at the back of the ship, directly behind the captain of the ship. Nobody had seen her, or at least if they did they had dismissed it as just a trick of the eye with the swaying ship and the endless water. She had been climbing on the side that was facing out to sea, so behind her was just the ocean, no land to easily silhouette her for them to see.

Skye sat there on the rail for a moment watching the captain do basically nothing, not that there was any need to, and the crew who occasionally checked on different parts of the rigging but for the most part were just sat around doing nothing. She got around the boredom of sailing normally by playing games with her crew, having copy-pasted some code from someone who had set their own AI to be able to play games like solitaire, poker, blackjack and various other card games. She had to tweak it a bit so they would be able to play Liar's Dice and Drop Dead as well as a few other dice games, but it was worth it.

What she couldn't do was sit somewhere where the water would splash her constantly doing absolutely nothing. She wasn't even able to practice using her spells, something she had a lot of fun doing when on the Grand Larceny. Finally, she couldn't take it any more. Since everyone on the ship seemed about as weak or weaker as a Fell-spawn Imp, she decided she could have some fun by just de-activating her camouflage.

Then, she just sat there. The captain didn't notice her, he was looking forwards, and the crew were all either below decks, amidships or at the bow of the ship. It took another few minutes before the captain glanced to the side, and he must have seen her just barely in his peripheral vision since he then turned around. They stared at each other for a moment. Or rather, she watched him as he stared first at her face, then at her ears. Honestly, she was pretty curious about how he'd react to seeing her. "Two silvers and I won't care that you're stowing away on my ship."

She...wasn't expecting that. "Uhh, sure?" Skye made to open her inventory, then stopped as she realized that questions would be asked if she pulled items from nowhere. "Uhh, can you look away for a sec?" He raised an eyebrow, and she flicked one of the leather lappets that made up her thick skirt, prompting him to make a noise of realization, his eyes flicking up to her face for a moment.

"No funny business, you hear?" With her nod, he turned to the side and then down the steps to the amidships, while she withdrew the two coins from her inventory and palmed them, rubbing her thumb over them as he heard the captain tell the crew that they had another stowaway, and that they were free to have her if she didn't have the coin he asked for. As he marched back up the wooden steps, she flicked the two coins between her fingers, then rolled them back into her palm and hopped off the taffrail, planting them in his palm. He closed his hand around them, then raised it closer to his eye, taking one and trying to bend it or bite it.

With a grumble he put the two coins into his pocket and jerked his head towards the steps. "She's good. I want no funny business the entire time you're on my ship, and you have to feed yourself or pay for food, agreed?" She shrugged, hopping back onto the rail and swinging her legs. "Two coppers a meal, up-front." She ignored him, rolling her legs over to face out to sea. "Damn stowaways. Why can't you just pay for normal passage like everyone else does?"

"Because I wasn't on this ship an hour ago." Skye jerked her thumb at the coast, then gestured to her soaked clothing. "I spotted the ship when you were further south and decided to say screw it, swam out to intercept you and grabbed some of the barnacles on the hull. Before you ask, I've got my own food wrapped up tight, it's waterproof enough to handle the sea, don't worry about that. While we're talking though, don't suppose you lot have seen a big, triple-masted, three-decked ship sailing around? I've been trying to hunt it down but I can't find them, I thought they'd be in this area but, well, obviously I haven't seen them yet."

The captain palmed his chin, making her ears flick as she heard the hairs of his beard scrape his hand. "I can't say we have. But we've been out of port for a few days now. When we go ashore I'm sure you'll be able to ask around. Though I suppose you'd want to keep those ears low in the Roble Holy Kingdom, they aren't best keen on Demi-Humans." She raised an eyebrow, pointedly looking towards one of the crew, horns sprouting from his head. "Aye, Kerva's going to be staying on the ship until we get around the Roble peninsula and to the coast of Re-Estize. I suppose that's probably where you want passage to if you don't find this mystery ship of yours."

"Nah, I need to stay in this area. If you lot don't hear anything about it then when we hit the southern tip of the...fuck it, I'm calling it the RHK, when we hit the southern tip of the RHK I'll just dive off and swim back across to this coast." When the captain's face contorted in surprise she grinned. "Trust me, I'm a lot faster in water than out of it. Might not look it of course, but I am." She pointedly twitched her ears as she said that. "I doubt anything out there would be able to catch me, and even if it was, I'd just kill it."

The captain just sighed, shaking his head as he turned to face forwards again. "If you want to tussle with the beasts out in open water be my guest, but I'll not have your death on my conscience. You do know that even the best adventurers with rebreathing scrolls wouldn't dare venture into dark waters such as the water between the...'RHK' and the Dolor Desert. Underwater combat is best left to the Mermen and Sea Naga." Skye raised her own eyebrow at that, even as she faced out at the water again. "So, unless you want to get torn to pieces by a kraken or a megalodon, I'd recommend you stay on a ship."

Taking one of her knives out, she twirled it idly. "I don't know, that sounds like fun to me. D'ya know what-" Skye cut herself off. She was about to make mention of a level, but after talking to Kirema a while, it had become pretty clear that in this place, levels didn't exist. Nobody had an interface or an inventory or anything related to the game, which then begged the question of why she still did. She didn't have the regular UI that displayed her health or mana, but after trying to feel how much she had, her mind helpfully supplied a numerical quantity of each, as well as her regeneration rate. "Never mind."

Muttering over her shoulder, she lazily swung her legs back and forth through the gaps in the wooden rail. She of course still had her inventory, and it had changed and improved, which was pretty weird when she thought about it, so why she still had that but not the rest threw her off a bit. Skye slipped her knives back into their sheathes, reaching up and cracking her arms. "Mind if I sleep on top of the yard up there?"

The captain glanced over to her, then up at the wooden yard spamming across the sail, shrugging to himself. "Knock yourself out, but if you fall we don't have a magic caster or a surgeon on-board, so don't expect us to fix you up." She grinned at the thought of falling. Even if she did, she doubted it'd cause her an issue. Not from that height. Plus it'd be a good test of her ability to stay still while asleep.

In real life she pretty much rolled all over the place, sometimes ending up either falling off the bed entirely or somehow ending up with her head where her feet should be and her feet amongst her pillows. But last night she hadn't ended up on the floor, not even on the single bed that Kawairashi had invaded, lessening the available space even further. So since so much had changed, what were the chances that she now didn't roll about, and actually stayed mostly still? "So, where are you guys heading? At the end of the journey, I mean. I know you're going to the RHK and then Re-Estize, but are you then going further north or something?"

"We're planning to head right up to the Argland Council State to the north of Re-Estize, then when we hit the northern tip we'll sail back south, since by then we'll have sold off most if not all of our cargo. Sometimes those ports sell dragon scales that have been found after the dragons shed them, though those are usually shed because of damage." Humming, she told the captain she'd be going for a swim, and to tell the crew to not freak out when she climbed back on board, before then diving off the back-rail and down under the surface.

Since they were close to the coast it wasn't super-deep, but that didn't matter. In Yggdrasil the waters were pretty barren of life, and any life that was there was hostile. As she got to the bottom and started languidly swimming along, she saw all manner of small fish come up and investigate her, this new and interesting addition to their lives. They swam away whenever she moved particularly quickly, but for the most part most of the fish were content to swim around her a little bit, bumping into her occasionally. As long as she was slow and not threatening, the fish didn't even mind being very gently pet.

Not exactly exciting, but a rather amazing experience none-the-less.

---

"Alarm, ship off the port side, closing fast!"

Tipping her head up, she oriented herself, looking out to port and spotting a ship a little bigger than the one she was on. Skye sat up, focusing in that direction, then quickly opening her inventory and pulling out a spyglass. Clacking it open she peered through it, taking a moment to re-acquire the ship. Behind it, she could see the water churning, raising an eyebrow as she saw a tentacle reach out and smash into the back of the boat. "There's something with tentacles behind it as well." She said loud enough for the lookout in the crow's nest to hear, who bellowed out a repeat of what she said to the rest of the crew.

Looping her legs around the wooden yard, she watched the boat approach, being smacked a bunch by tentacles as something chased it. Below, she could hear the crew running around, ropes being adjusted and weapons being taken from boxes. A few had bows, but most had equipped themselves with spears and even a few pikes. The captain himself had a regular sword, though she could see he was more focused on steering the ship. Re-focusing on the boat, she watched a tentacle snap up and over the deck of the encroaching ship, pulling a man out over the ocean and then beneath the waves. "Dear Gods...it's a fully-grown kraken!"

Her ears snapped up at the yell the lookout gave. She figured it was, but the way they were reacting was very over-the-top. Unless krakens were really strong here, then the crew were weaker than she'd given them credit for. Completely unnamed regular krakens were something a single level 15 player could handle in a 1 on 1 fight. If they were really so afraid of it, then either the entire crew were even weaker than Fell-spawn Imps, or krakens were way more dangerous here.

Then again, this wasn't a game. If the ship took major damage, they'd probably sink before they could repair it. All the kraken had to do was smash through the keel and let the ship sink. They'd be far less effective fighting in the water than on the deck of a ship. She watched through her spyglass as a long wooden spear stabbed a tentacle, blue blood splattering out as the appendage flailed and disappeared beneath the surface.

Making a decision, Skye double-checked Noxilous and Pest, her knives and her flintlocks, then got up from her seated position. Taking a few light steps to the edge of the yard, she hopped straight off the edge, ignoring the alarmed shout of the lookout as she dove beneath the surface, immediately kicking her legs and sending herself soaring towards the beleaguered ship. Now that she was below the surface she could see the kraken attacking the ship, and while it looked a bit different than the model used for krakens in the game, a few more barnacles here and there as well as more tentacles, it didn't exactly look tough.

Drawing one of her Magelock Flintlocks, she snapped a shot off, the ball shearing through the water to slam into one of the eyes of the kraken. The water vibrated as it let out a sound of fury and pain, all of its tentacles retracting into the water as it turned to face her. She dropped the weapon and drew the one on the other side, snapping her second shot off and striking the body instead of the other eye she was aiming for.

This still prompted another roar of pain as the kraken whipped its tentacles through the water behind it, propelling the main body towards her. She smirked, drawing the replaced flintlock and snapping another shot off, then another, sending a good half a dozen minie balls at her target. The kraken wasn't stupid, it covered its remaining eye, but each impact drew a large burst of blue blood.

As she fired a final shot, she ditched the pistol to grab her two daggers, kicking her feet to sail over a tentacle, then again, weaving through them as she closed the distance that the kraken kept from her. It panicked, flailing all its limbs in front of itself to try and stop her, but any that got too close she simply sliced apart with one of her daggers. When she got near enough, she threw one of her daggers, the tentacle that rose to block it being cut straight through as it sailed into the other eye of the kraken. As the beast was distracted, roaring and in pain, she took her second dagger and threw that directly at the bulbous head of the beast.

The entire kraken twitched madly then stopped moving as it died, though Skye frowned upon realizing that of course the kraken wouldn't just disappear into items in her inventory. She pondered what parts of the kraken would be valuable, eventually deciding she would just let it sink. If she needed money she had tons of raw materials she could sell, it wasn't that important. With one kick of her legs she sent herself back up to the surface, blinking as she saw the crew of the other ship all lined at the rail staring at her. "Yo. It's...uhh, dead I guess?"

One of the crewmembers stepped up onto the rail, peering down at the water before then jumping off the ship. He went under for a few seconds, then rose back up. "The beast is dead! Cast a line!" The cheers that went up surprised her a little, as did the frenzied activity as the crew started working to rig up what looked a bit like a pulley system. "So, you're an adventurer or a worker or something?"

She blinked at the guy who was swimming beside her. "Or something." She eventually retorted. "So, you lot planning to hoist that thing up onto your ship?" The guy nodded, cursing as he dove back under. She frowned and dove under, watching as he peered into the water where the kraken was sinking. She tapped his shoulder then rose back up to the surface, him following her. "If you want to, wait here, I'll go and get it."

Before he could respond she twisted and dove, heading straight down at the kraken. It hadn't hit the seabed yet, but it was nearing it. She latched ahold of one of its trailing tentacles, then kicked her legs and began hauling the sea beast back up to the surface. She saw a rope smack the surface of the water, then several others, and as she breached the surface with her cargo in tow, rather than question her the man in the water simply and quickly wrapped and tied the ropes around several of the tentacles. "Heave it up!"

With that yell, the ropes went taut, the body of the kraken being pulled up out of the water and onto the ship. "Or something, eh?" She smirked, watching the kraken's body flop down onto the ship, tentacles trailing off both sides. "So, I'm guessing that's your ship we were heading for?" She glanced over at the ship she'd been sleeping aboard, watching it sail over and flying signal flags.

"Well, it's not mine, I'm just a passenger." She admitted, watching the sailor climb up the side of the ship. As he turned and tipped his head, she clambered up after him, in time to see what she assumed was the captain of the ship stood waiting for them. "Uhh, sorry if I stole your kill, it looked like you were having a rough time so I figured I'd just kill this kraken for ya."

"Stole our-" The captain cut himself off, laughing and shaking his head. "If it weren't for you, this beastie would have put us under the waves." He reached out a hand, grabbing her own and shaking it. "Thank you, you saved everyone on the ship." Releasing her hand, he then turned to look at the kraken. "This beastie will sell well in the next port. And, as only fair, I propose a 60-40 cut? In your favour of course!"

Skye looked over the kraken, trying to guess how valuable it'd actually be. "Uhh, sure? I guess 40% your way because you're transporting the beast and you took casualties fighting it as well as being the ones to inadvertently bait it towards the ship I was on?" The captain nodded, rubbing his hands together. "Then to be honest, just split whatever profits you get 45-45 with the captain of the other ship, I'll just take 10%." The man she was speaking to raised both his eyebrows in surprise, his jaw dropping as he looked first at her, then at the kraken, then at the ship that was almost alongside his own. "I don't really need too much money, but having some spending cash would be useful."

He stared a moment longer before smiling. "You know that this beast will probably be worth about two platinum coins when it's all sold off? The meat is considered a delicacy, as it's not every day a kraken is killed and brought back to port. Plus the blood is a valuable potion ingredient." He gestured at the bullet holes which had been patched over to stop the creature's blood from dripping out further. "And if you hadn't destroyed them, the eyes would be worth a few dozen gold on their own, each. But I guess they are a very vulnerable point and you obviously weren't thinking of the money, just of killing it, huh?"

"I could have avoided it I guess, but yeah, easier to stop it from being able to see." As the other ship came to a stop, she shifted over to the edge of the ship. "Well, I guess I'll just tell the captain to follow you then?" As the man she was speaking to agreed, she turned to jump across the gap, latching onto the rail and slipping over it. "Okay, before anyone says anything, we're following them to port, when the kraken is sold they get 45%, you lot get 45%, and I'll be taking 10%." And without waiting for a response, she clambered up the nearest rope and onto the yard she had been happily sleeping on not long before, silently whining at the fact her clothes were soaked again.

She could hear the crew below her and their various responses, but she tuned them out. The fact remained that the kraken she had just fought was stupidly easy to kill, it didn't hit her a single time. And while her daggers were her best ones because she hadn't equipped anything weaker, the flintlocks were only crappy level 45's and using regular hardened steel minie balls. They still worked underwater thanks to her skills, stopping the powder from being drenched as well as letting the balls actually shoot through the water, since in reality they'd be stopped after only a few feet.

Snapping her fingers, Skye mentally chastised herself for forgetting to ask whether they'd seen the Grand Larceny, and since the ships were still beside each other while their captains hashed out the details, she slipped down a rope and then hopped back over the gap, interrupting the discussion they were having. "Sorry to interrupt, but you guys haven't seen a three-decked, triple-masted ship sailing around? It's called the Grand Larceny and I'm searching for it." The other captain shook his head, though promised he would tell people to keep an eye out for it, and would try to get a message to her if someone did tell him that it was seen.

With that promise acquired, as well as the captain of the ship she was travelling with doing the same as thanks for her 'generosity', she leapt back to the other ship and then back up onto the yard, laying down and sighing. Idly she threaded a hand through her hair. It wasn't that she was worried about the Grand Larceny, in this world where gunpowder didn't exist and naval combat was done with either a bow and arrow or regular spears, pikes and swords, the Grand Larceny would be nigh-untouchable. But she wanted to know for certain whether they had come here as well.

And if they had, what kind of reception would she get from them?

---

Accepting the twenty gold coins from the captain, whose name she still hadn't bothered to get, Skye slipped into the crowd of the port, her ears low to her head and concealed by her hair.

She had told him that she was probably going to stay on the ship, but she'd been doing that for the past day and a half anyway, so since she wasn't used to long periods of boredom she had decided to have a bit of a search around the port city and see what was up. As much as they were unaware of it, they were actually a decent wealth of knowledge. Balosar was actually pretty advanced, probably because it was one gigantic city, and their advancements were because of the harsh living conditions and the constant attacks by the Re-Estize and Roble Kingdoms. Compared to the orc city, this relatively large port city was much further behind them.

That wasn't to say they were more advanced than she expected. They incorporated creatures called Sanitary Slimes into their sewage systems, which literally fed off the raw sewage and processed it. They also had glass in most windows, which was fairly advanced for a medieval society, where glass was actually a rare thing, especially clear, unblemished glass.

She wasn't exactly a historian, but she knew that every house having a window was not something that a pre-gunpowder medieval society would normally be able to sustain. That meant that advancements had evidently been faster in some places than others. Maybe rather than finding gunpowder, they discovered and spread easier ways to make glass? And perhaps weapon development stalled thanks to the fact that here, people were able to develop their fighting capabilities far beyond human limitations. After all, no normal human could ever hope to fight a kraken, not one from her world at least, which meant that humans had to be able to become far stronger than they should, perhaps leading to a stagnation of arms and armour development.

Coming across what was marked as an adventurer's guild, she poked her head inside, taking in the environment of the building silently. She wasn't too sure if she even wanted to be an adventurer, not if she planned to hook up with her ship and start to enjoy herself...wait. Something about that thought felt wrong. Enjoy herself...but that would involve killing and stealing from living beings who felt pain and died...she knew she shouldn't like that idea, but it also sounded like fun.

Frowning, she decided it wouldn't hurt to at least see what kind of jobs adventurers would be undertaking, since there was a chance that one would be assigned to attack the Grand Larceny. Walking across the room, her senses itched as several of the adventurers eyed her up, and even she had to admit that now that she was no longer known by anyone, her visage was probably even less intimidating. And since she couldn't just put on Noxilous and Pest to gain an aura of death, she was stuck being unimposing for the time being.

Arriving at what looked like a quest-board, she looked over the various pages that were stuck to the board, threading her fingers through her hair as she glanced between the various pages. They all looked stupidly boring. There was one that called for the extermination of six goblins and a half-ogre that were attacking travellers. Another that seemed like a Narutoverse D-rank, literally a quest to fix a fence. Granted, the fence was six foot tall and made of 'sturdy' wood reinforced with metal, but it still seemed really boring.

And what was most interesting was that aside from one quest set for killing two goblins, all the combat-based 'quests' called for Iron-class adventurers at the very least. Copper-class seemed to be the lowest of the low, with Adamantite being the highest, and then there were a bunch between them. They all seemed stupidly boring though. There was one quest to kill a Zoastia, a demi-human, that had gotten into the country and was killing anything it found. That was something she didn't recognize, and the sketch for it made it look a bit like a ten-foot-tall beastman.

Curious, she took that posting from the wall, rolling it up and taking it over to the kiosk-like spot that was obviously where quests were given, giving a smile to the guy manning it as he glanced up at her. "Hey. I'm curious about this posting." The guy finished what he was writing and folded his hands together, looking at her again. "How do I go about accepting this job, and where exactly is this Zoastia?" As soon as she saw the thin smile that appeared on his lips, she knew there was some kind of bullshit rule about to prevent her.

"I'm sorry, but as you are neither a member of the Adventurer's Guild nor a known entity, I could not in good conscience allow you to undertake this task. If you would like to join the Adventurer's Guild and begin your progression up the ranks, you may undertake a Literacy Test for 5 copper coins and pay an entry fee of 5 silver coins." Skye raised an eyebrow at that. Five silver coins for the privilege of being a part of their illustrious organization? Sounded like a scam to her.

She shook her head. "What if I was to end up bringing back the head of this Zoastia? Would that prove I can handle myself, since it seems the kraken that was brought back hasn't done a lot to gain me fame." Behind his counter, the guy narrowed his eyes, flicking his gaze towards the side of his little booth area. Following it, she couldn't see what he was looking at, but from the fact he stood up, it probably had something to do with the kraken.

"If you would wait here a moment, please." She folded her arms over, watching him turn and slip out of the door at the back of his gated-off area. Humming to herself quietly she turned around, resting her elbows on the wooden surface as she observed the rest of the adventurers. It seemed that with all the chatter going on nobody had heard what was said, though there were definitely a few curious looks towards the now-empty booth.

A few minutes passed before the door to the side of the booth opened, the guy she'd been speaking with locking eyes with her. "If you would follow me please." Curious, she planted one hand on the butt of her flintlock, stepping over to the door and then following the guy as he led her through the back areas of the building. Several turns later he opened a nondescript door and ushered her inside, a weathered old man sat inside behind a desk piled with parchments and other clutter. "I shall take my leave."

She heard the door close, and the gentleman behind the desk gestured at the chair in front of his desk. "Well don't just stand there, take a seat." For some reason, her hackles raised at this, and she observed the chair as she approached it. Smirking, she hooked her foot underneath one of the supports between its legs, flipping the chair over and setting off the magic that had been cast on it.

She didn't know what spells they were, but as she did that she drew one flintlock and pointed it at the old guy, her finger twitching to shoot even as she restrained herself. "So, what were those spells then?" She stopped to consider it, humming as she raised her pistol to point above the old guy instead of right at him. "Probably some kind of detection spells as well as maybe a light paralysis?"

As the old guy got up from his chair she tracked him cautiously, his hands coming together in a slow clap as he stepped out from behind the desk. "Very good. You don't see many high-and-mighty adventurer wannabes being cautious nowadays. They assume that being in here means they are totally safe, the fools. Nowhere is ever totally safe. If I believed that I was totally safe in here, I'd probably be the one asking you to shoot me." Though he was obviously old as hell, there wasn't any shaking or even stiffness in his movements as walked past his desk, his eyes searching her. "Yes, I can see it. You don't even mean to, but you hold yourself as a warrior. I don't doubt that the thing you're holding is some kind of weapon, perhaps a compact magical cannon of some kind. Though I wonder where you would have gotten such a thing, perhaps from Eryuentiu...but I digress!"

The old guy walked past her to a set of more comfortable chairs, padded and all facing a fireplace. This time as he sat down and gestured at the other chair, she didn't feel suspicious of it. That didn't mean she trusted it immediately, she was wary as she sat down, but she couldn't feel any kind of magic, and when she did sit, she didn't feel anything happen. "You know, you should really ask before trying to cast magic, or the next person that comes in here might just put a shot through your head."

Her ears twitched lightly at his laughter, though she kept them burrowed in her hair. "Perhaps. Now, you say you are the one who slew the kraken brought in today, and your appearance does match what they described. Two daggers, two unidentified weapons, and a pair of fingerless leather gloves at the waist of leather armour. Your senses speak of a seasoned fighter, and you drew your weapon with confidence that it would kill or at least severely injure me, leading me to believe you have experience using it, enough to know what it can do."

Skye was a little surprised at how much he analyzed from her actions, though didn't let it show on her face. "And then, of course, there's also the fact that you walked in here, saw one of the toughest jobs on the board and immediately wanted to take it." The man leaned back, his eyes watching her. "The guild is tied as to what jobs can be handed out. When instated into the guild, you must be at a copper rank. However, you have already displayed aptitude above that station. As such, if you would be willing, we shall spar in a training arena under the eyes of three adjudicators who will determine your level of skill and assign you the appropriate rank."

He raised a hand as she made to question that. "This is not entirely unheard of. However, should your skill-level fall below that of a platinum-rank adventurer, you'll need to pay the guild a recompense for time and services rendered, increasing as your decided rank falls. If you are Gold-plate level, ten silver coins. Silver would be a leap up to a whole gold coin, Iron would be 5 gold coins and if your skill level falls to that of a mere copper-plate, you would be required to pay the total of twenty gold coins to the guild. This was decided to stop any young and big-headed fools from wasting the time of the guild. The weaker the applicant is, the more severe the fee. However, from the way you react, I don't doubt that you are at the very least Platinum-plate level."

"That all sounds well and good I guess, though I do need to know whether, just in case of course, these will be acceptable." Reaching behind herself, Skye withdrew a silver and a gold coin from her inventory, flicking them both over to the old guy. The man peered at both coins, attempting to bend them both then tapping them against the wooden foot-table in front of their chairs, before finally flicking them back to Skye.

"Those are not any coin that I recognize, but they are certainly equivalent if not more valuable to regular Roble currency, not just from the metal content but the intricate artwork detailing them. Might I ask where you got them from?" Skye shook her head, following the man as he got up from his chair. "A shame. Well, it was a pleasure meeting you. If you would return in an hour I'll have our adjudicators and we can have a bout of combat. I wouldn't usually admit it, but these old bones are already feeling invigorated for the fight ahead." Chuckling, she followed him out, through the weaving halls of the guild.

"Me too, though not the old bones part."

---

"Oh, well that's unfortunate."

The unfortunate event she was referring to was that the ship she'd been sailing with was due to leave in a few hours, meaning if she joined the guild and took that quest to kill a Zoastia, she would miss their departure. Then again, it wasn't like it was really a big deal. She had been riding along with them in the hopes of seeing the Grand Larceny, but they hadn't seen it so far and probably wouldn't, since that was just how her luck worked. Except of course by getting off the ship, chances were now that they would run into the ship, just to spite her.

Rather than tear her hair out about it, she just decided to stick with her new plan. She'd more than paid her dues to both ships with letting them have almost a platinum coin each by way of selling off the kraken, so she didn't doubt that both crews would be asking around about her wayward ship. And of course the longer that time went on, the more likely that someone would see the ship and would spread the word, meaning more of a chance of her or someone who knew she was looking for it would hear about it and get the word back to her.

There was also the fact that if she rose in the ranks of the guild, she could subtly ask around about it. Anyone who heard about it and the fact that she was supposedly generous would probably tell her in hopes of getting some cash. If a quest got issued about it, she also would need to be a high enough rank to actually take said quest. So, she said her goodbyes to the captain of the ship and went about searching the city for anything interesting. They had a library, but way smaller than Balosar's as well as just not having anything interesting. A lot of it was religious teachings, with only a few 'history' books that told of how the Roble Holy Kingdom was blessed by the gods and was the protector of humanity from everything else.

Curiously, there was a potion shop, but there she found a discrepancy. The potions were all blue, and they were pretty expensive. The cheapest were, according to the bored alchemist, ones made just of herbs, with only Preservation cast on it to keep it fresh. Those were a few silver each. There were then ones that enhanced healing, but over the course of hours, and was meant for after a battle had ended. Those cost a pretty staggering 15 gold each, just for the cheaper variants. Then there were the instant-heal potions, supposedly referred to as the 'Adventurer's Lifeline' potions. Those were more like the potions she was used to, to be drunk and would immediately heal the user for a portion of their health. There were only three of those, and they all cost 40 gold coins.

She left that shop pretty off-put. None of the available potions seemed nearly worth their cost, meaning that the piles of potions of varying qualities she had in her inventory were a lot more valuable than she realized. Other than that, the port city had nothing else that interested her. There were the generic shops, as well as a few different tradesman shops like blacksmiths, leatherworkers and whatnot, all of which didn't interest her even slightly. What did catch her eye was an alchemy shop. It wasn't a potion shop, it was just a place for buying and selling raw ingredients.

The smell of the ingredients hit her before anything else, a pretty weird combination of different and bizarre smells from equally different and bizarre ingredients. The store itself was neatly ordered, baskets laid out in rows inlaid into wooden frames, each one labelled and carefully segmented from the next, probably to avoid the ingredients interfering with each other. Chancing a glance at the shopkeeper, she looked around the store for a while. None of the ingredients stood out to her, she didn't recognize any but the simplest like dandelion flowers and other obvious ones. "Can I help you?"

The voice of the shopkeeper caught her attention, again making her ears twitch in her hair. She turned and gave an airy smile. "Maybe. I'm not too used to this region nor the potions brewed here, and I don't really recognize many of the ingredients. Back home we use other stuff, so I figured this was a good chance to see what kind of stuff is used around here, but it's all, well, confusing I guess." She muttered as she gestured at the varying ingredients.

She spent the next half an hour having a surprisingly pleasant conversation with the shopkeeper, talking about various ingredients that were in his shop, how they were used, their prices and how they were gathered. She, in turn, told him of the ingredients she sometimes used, sticking to the lowest-level ones that didn't sound super-exotic. But, inevitably, she left the shop with a pleasant wave and a small woven basket of various ingredients as well as a small book on alchemy for a gold coin, one of the two she had gotten from the kraken sale.

Skye slipped into an alleyway and tucked away all the ingredients and then the basket into her inventory, before making her way back to the adventurer's guild. This time, the chap behind the kiosk simply asked if she remembered the way, and when she nodded, let her through the door before getting back to his station. True to her word, she reached the old guy's office and knocked on the door, waiting a moment as he opened the door and stepped out. This time however he was wearing metal armour with a helmet tied to his belt and had a short-sword and a buckler also attached to his belt, presumably his weapons of choice.

Subtly she switched out her flintlocks for weaker ones, applying data crystals to them to quieten their sound again, then also swapped her daggers out for weaker ones. It wouldn't be very good if she accidentally killed the guy she was supposed to be having a spar with. "So, nervous?" She smirked at the old guy's voice, clasping her fingers together behind her head as they walked.

"Not really. I mean, I killed a kraken underwater by myself, you think a spar would make me very nervous?" She said with a raised eyebrow, then snorted. "Nah, I'm not nervous. A bit jittery I guess, but not exactly nervous. I mean, even if I get rated as a copper-plate for some bullshit reason that I can't possibly fathom-" She had to resist the urge to twitch her ears at that. "-I'd probably end up just not bothering to come back. If someone wants to deliberately mark me down for an undisclosed reason why should I bother?"

"Hmm...not many people would have that kind of outlook on joining the adventurer's guild. Most believe that it's their gateway to 'fame, fortune and family'. It's all tosh, of course, this job kills far more than even being a soldier, but rarely do we ever see people like you, who are comfortable in their lives enough to be able to act so nonchalant." Skye shrugged at that, it wasn't exactly like it mattered.

But, before they could converse further they took a turn through a pair of double doors, a large arena greeting them, as well as three figures who were presumably the adjudicators stood beside the arena, each clad in their own armour and with their own weapons. That was probably in case she turned out to be some kind of psycho and tried to kill the old guy who was evidently high-up in the guild.

"Okay, the rules are pretty simple. We fight until one of us concedes, is knocked out, or the adjudicators decide that the match is over. We are not allowed to leave the marked area, though if one of us is knocked out of the arena we are to reset to starting positions and continue. Now, this is supposed to be a measurement of your skills, which means not immediately using a knock-out move or trying to simply end the fight, that won't let the adjudicators get a good gauge of your skill level. Do you understand what I mean?"

Skye nodded, drawing a flintlock in her left hand and her dagger in the right. "I get it. But, before we start, I need to test something. You guessed pretty close to what this is, it's a ranged weapon, and I want to make sure it doesn't go through your armour. I swapped out my good ones for these two, so hopefully it won't, but if this does go through I don't want it to be when I'm aiming somewhere dangerous. So, mind if I check it on your pauldron?" The old guy looked at her for a moment then nodded, unstrapping and lifting up one of his pauldrons.

Snapping her hand up, Skye flicked her pistol tip towards the metal, the trigger squeezing and firing off a shot. The sound was loud but not enough to hurt her hearing, and the clang as the ball struck the metal was like a bell being rung. Smirking, she tossed the pistol behind her, the reloaded pistol appearing in its holster as she observed the damage.

Fortunately for her, while the metal was a bit dented, it was still solid. "Blimey, when you said...that's a mighty impressive weapon you have there, to dent dwarven steel like that." She shrugged, drawing the pistol back out of its holster and spinning it. After refastening the pauldron to his shoulder he planted his helmet on his head then drew his sword and buckler, settling into a stance. Following him, she shifted into her own stance, pistol pointed upwards and dagger held in a reverse grip out to the side. "Then, when start is called, we shall initiate combat."

Focusing, she made carefully sure she didn't slip into a blood frenzy. Fortunately, unlike when she butchered a bunch of empire scouts, she wasn't going to be covered in blood...hopefully. "Start!" The sudden yell almost caught her off guard as she was in her thoughts, but she lunged forwards, her right hand reaching forwards to slash aside the swing of the short-sword before it built momentum, her pistol looping under her arm to fire but being blocked by the buckler. Smirking, she then curled her arm and struck her opponent in the helmet with her elbow, making him stagger backwards from the force.

Following through, she spun around to her left, using her dagger to impact his sword and stop him from being able to take advantage of her back while she turned, letting go of her flintlock and crashing her left arm into his buckler, which has pulled up to block the attack intended to hit his helmet again. As he brought his sword over to attempt to slice at the side of her head she leaned back and brought her dagger over her chest, deflecting his strike and leaving his right arm open for her to smack it with the blunt end of her knife, then snatched ahold of his wrist with her left hand.

Surprising him, she then turned to the left and went low, bringing her foot to suddenly yank at the back of his knee, making him fall as his leg buckled involuntarily. With his right arm still in her grasp, he lunged forwards with his buckler and smacked the boss of the buckler right into her face, making her stagger back and releasing his arm, which he lashed out with, forcing her to take another step back. Grinning, she drew another flintlock, flicking the dagger in her hand to point upwards, watching as he tapped at his helmet then settled into a new stance.

Shifting forwards, Skye snapped a shot at his foot, the impact of the shot taking him by surprise as his leg was knocked back a foot or so, leaving him suddenly horribly off-balance as she suddenly lunged forwards again, throwing the flintlock itself at his sword and smacking it back before it disappeared, leaving his buckler out of position. Unfortunately for him, as he was focused on several different things, like his sword arm suddenly being knocked back, his balance being entirely off, and the fact he had such a small defensive item to use, he wasn't able to adjust as she looped her dagger under his buckler, wrenching that arm to the side, before she let go of the knife, planted both hands on his shoulders, and slammed her forehead into his helmet.

The impact visibly dented the metal, sending his head rocking back, coming forwards again in time for her to slam her forehead into his helmet a second time, this time releasing his shoulders and sending him falling to the floor. Shaking her head lightly, she then froze as she realized that in the excitement, as well as the fact she had just headbutted a metal helmet twice, her ears had risen out of her hair. Sighing, she grabbed the dagger that she had let go of, hearing the old guy getting up from the ground, albeit rather slowly.

She drew her second dagger, not even bothering to tuck her ears down again. To his credit, the old guy didn't seem to care about her ears, he just shook his hands loose then charged her, a sweeping swing from his left arm which she leaned back to avoid, stepping to the side as he brought his sword over and then into a sideways sweep whilst holding the buckler out protectively, forcing her to block the swing with a dagger. She countered by then jamming her second dagger forwards, forcing him to move his buckler whilst she smacked his sword away, then brought that free dagger down to smack the end of the grip against his helmet.

This time, she then moved in close, smashing her knee into his stomach. As he reeled from the impact, she took two quick steps back, then a fast step forwards and hopped into the air, crashing her knee right into his face. The repeated impacts stood as testament to how durable his helmet was, even as he flew back and landed hard on his back. After a few moments, just as she wondered if he'd been knocked out by the blow, she heard him laughing, and watched as he got up from the ground for a second time, though he was holding his left arm to his side, gripping his sword by the pommel and using it as a support. "That was a workout that I haven't had in years. I concede the battle."

Glancing over at the three adjudicators, she was surprised to see how neutral their faces were, even as they each wrote on papers they had available. "Well, it was a good match." She said with a grin, sheathing her daggers then reaching her hand out and shaking when he offered. "Though I could have knee'd you between the legs, I figured I'd probably not be able to remain on friendly terms with you if I hit you with a nut-shot." The man laughed loudly again, patting her on the shoulder.

"And I thank you for that. Sure, it woulda been perfectly reasonable, but I couldn't say I'd be happy about it." He sheathed his sword then tugged his helmet off, flipping it around and groaning lightly. "Though you definitely pack a punch." He muttered as he flicked at the metal. "A few dents, and to think, you did those with your forehead and your knee!" He tied the helmet to his belt and did the same with his buckler, planting his hands on his sides and stretching his back. "I think you might have popped a few knots I've been having in my old age, I haven't felt this loose in ten years!"

Snorting, she folded her arms over. "Well, I guess I should hope I never reach that age then, huh grandpa?" Cutting into their banter, the three adjudicators caught their attention, waving them over. Idly, she wondered whether she was actually going to be aging. Reaper Soul meant her soul was essentially in service of the shinigami, she had literally used a fraction of it, according to lore at least, to sign the contract. And part of the contract was that she was to be eternally in service. Since some of the things that she thought was lore seemed to be reality now, what was there to say that the shinigami didn't exist, and she was now stuck like this literally forever? Even better, maybe the lore about her being a Corrupted Corsair was also actually reality.

But, she didn't get far in her musing before the adjudicator spoke. "After observing your fight with the Guild-master of the Loras branch of the Adventurer's Guild, we have decided that you have at the very minimum are equivalent to a Mithril-class adventurer. This is based on the known skill, speed and strength of the Guild-master as well as the complicated combat manoeuvres used. The headstrong method of combat, which could also be taken literally, was considered as a reason to deduct value, but as you are not noticeably even dazed from the impacts your unorthodox move performed, no value has been removed for that specific attack. As such, we three adjudicators believe that instatement as a Mithril-plate is more than sufficient for one of your skill level."

That was pretty curious, they made no mention of the fact that she'd hidden her ears. Then again, maybe they just weren't as prejudiced since they were adventurers and had more to care about than the fact someone had fluffy ears or a tail or whatever. if they could fight they would make a valuable asset to the guild, and so they put petty things like racism aside...no, it was more likely they just weren't racist. "Cool. So that Zoastia mission, was that Mithril or Platinum-class?"

"Congratulations, and that mission would, in fact, be Platinum-class, though to take it on solo would increase the difficulty rating to Mithril. I suppose that'd be your first undertaking then?" She shrugged, shaking the hands of the three adjudicators as they congratulated her. "A question, if you don't mind then." She raised an eyebrow. "Why would you join the adventurer's guild in a country where your species are discriminated against?" She shrugged at that.

"Meh, probably because this was the first guild-hall I found?"

---

After getting herself officially instated, which included being told all the various rules, she was once again stood in front of the quest board.

Her shiny new Mithril plate was safely tucked into a pouch she had bound to the back of her belt with some strips of Terravore leather, the pouch itself also being made out of said leather, making it basically impossible for it to be broken or removed unless she wanted it to be. This had confirmed that some of her non-combat skills still existed, having sewn the pouch herself.

As it turned out, the Zoastia mission had already been taken, which was a bit of a shame, so she just searched for the highest-rated mission she could physically take. According to the Guild-master, since she was a solo adventurer, any mission she took which has higher than Gold-ranked would be upgraded to one tier higher, owing to the fact she was doing it alone. So a platinum would be mithril, mithril would be orichalcum, and orichalcum to adamantite. If she reached Adamantite, her own personal strength and skill would more than speak for herself, and since there was no higher rank, it wasn't like they could upgrade them to the next rank.

Spotting a quest that called for the elimination of a band of trolls, she took it, scanning the contents of the mission and quirking her lips to the side. It was a platinum-level quest, so she could take it and not have to have a team with her, but it seemed a bit boring. Then again, if she undertook a few seemingly boring quests, she could get to the more interesting ones, hunting salamanders and basilisk and all manner of new and interesting mobs.

She took the request over to the kiosk, planting it down in front of the worker sat behind the desk, then opening her pouch and placing the mythril plate down beside it. "Are you sure you wish to undertake this quest alone?" She just folded her arms and waited. She had the rank for a reason, so the quicker she could get out there fighting scary monsters and proving she had what it took to actually fight, that would be better. "Alright. Bring back an identifiable piece of each troll you kill and you'll get a bonus. Most people usually go for the ears as they are easily stacked together, but it's a personal choice really."

The worker stamped the quest, then opened a drawer and flicked through it, taking out a map of the area, clearly noting where the city was as well as where the targets were. She took the map, rolling it up and tucking it away in the pouch, then taking her mithril plate and putting that into her pouch, sealing it up again. When the worker simply got back to work, she turned and left the building, resisting the urge to groan as she heard the door open not ten seconds after she departed.

Rather than deal with any bullshit hassle, she slipped sideways through the nearest alleyway, casting camouflage and hugging the wall, letting the group of four gold and platinum-plated adventurers pass her by. She went back the way she came, disabling her spell and walking away from the area, steadily making her way across the city and to the border, where the buildings petered off and the land slowly grew more sparse.

Loras, the name of the city, didn't actually have a wall, supposedly because of the 100km long wall protecting their borders. That didn't stop monsters from appearing within their borders in odd numbers, something the kingdom had never managed to stamp out. That was why the adventurer's guild was even able to support itself in the kingdom, dealing with the monsters that got into their borders. That meant that as the buildings turned to fields and small forests, she wasn't actually sure where the edge of the city was and where the wilderness began.

She walked along the road at a casual pace, not really caring too much about getting to her mission quickly and returning fast. She'd been incredibly active in the past two or three days since she began actually living as what had been just a character, jumping around a lot without a real plan. For once, she could slow down, in an environment where she wasn't going to get splashed with water repeatedly in an awkward position.

Spotting a wagon coming down the road she stepped to the side, watching it pass as the driver watched her right back. It was probably still sinking in, just a little, that she was actually in...well, this wasn't really Yggdrasil. There was no UI, no levels, the monsters were different and humans were far weaker than the level 100's they were capable of in the game.

Lifting Noxilous and Pest from her belt, she considered the two gloves. They were two thinking beings. She wasn't sure if she would call them living, she wasn't really too sure about that, but they were definitely aware, and had their own distinct personalities. She slipped them on but didn't activate their blood-drain ability, just opening and closing her hands as she walked along the road. She honestly doubted she would even need them, but they both had wanted to be out of her inventory and she wasn't about to deny them something so simple.

With a sigh, she tugged them back off and slipped them both back through her belt, then switched out her daggers for her level 100 ones, but only brought out the same Magelock Flintlocks she had used against the kraken. If she needed more strength her daggers would give her it, and as a last resort she could use Noxilous and Pest. As a last-last resort she could use Stand of the Reaper or Hammer of the Fallen, though she doubted either would be necessary for a bunch of trolls. The guild-master had told her that a kraken was an Orichalcum-class threat thanks to how hard it was to attack it. Very few could fight in the water, and with it being the kraken's home territory, it was far too easy for the beast to snatch legs and swing adventurers around freely, being basically unassailable.

She reached around behind herself, opening her pouch and withdrawing the map she'd received, tracing the path she'd been following and making a sharp turn towards where the trolls were. Placing the map in her inventory, she lowered her torso and began charging across the land. Sure, she liked taking things slowly sometimes, but all her thinking about combat and violence had set off her more violent tendencies. Recalling the map, she traced the topography of the area, the various hills and the forests and scattered buildings, eventually spotting the rocky hill that had a cave on the opposite side.

Rather than draw any of her weapons, she decided she wanted to test her strength. She would only draw them if she felt actually threatened, maybe a bad idea, but she was in the mood for it. She charged up to the top of the hill, weaving around rocks and reaching the top just in time to see a troll trundle into the cave. Grinning, she started skidding down the hill, sliding straight over the top of the cave and dropping to the ground.

The sound of her feet hitting the ground didn't attract attention, but what did was the cascade of smaller rocks hitting the floor. The slow-moving troll turned around, several other trolls being visible behind it as they stared dumbly at her. "Oh please don't tell me they are all mentally-deficient. At least swing at me!" Her sudden yell seemed to incite something in the trolls as they started lumbering towards her with growls and glares.

Glancing at their hands, she could see that none wielded a weapon, which was a pretty major shame actually. Without a weapon, they would only be able to attack with their bodies, as evidenced by the wide swing the lead troll unleashed at her. With almost tiresome ease she hopped over the arm, picking a rock up from the ground and flicking it at the troll. Her aim was on-target as it smacked into one of its eyes, bursting it with a squelching noise and making the troll roar in pain even as its regeneration kicked in.

Hopping to the side to avoid the arm-smash that the troll hit the floor with, she then had to shift back to avoid the swing of another troll. From there, she surprised the dumb trolls by then charging forwards, rearing her leg back and smashing it as hard as she could into the leg of the troll, sending the limb snapping back and ripping the troll's torso forwards, sending its face smashing into the ground, a hit from which it didn't get up again.

Picking up a foot-sized rock, she tossed it in the air lightly, then threw it at the arm of a troll that was punching towards her. She was then hit in the back by the fist of another troll, humming as another theory was confirmed. High-tiered physical nullification meant that these 'low-levelled' mobs didn't even do any damage to her. Just like if the Guild-master had landed a hit on her, he was almost certainly under level 60, which was the level at which the skill activated, and he would do no damage.

When she let a hammer-fist smash into the top of her head, she snorted. All it did was embed her feet into foot-shaped holes in the ground an inch or so deep, with no damage. Her hair and ears were barely shifted by the impact. Sighing, she drew out her flintlocks and got to work, putting precise shots straight through the forehead of each troll. This encounter had the potential to be fun, but the revelation that basically nothing she ran into would be even remotely dangerous took the wind out of her sails.

Yawning, she decided to do an experiment, holding her hand outwards and ignoring the attacks of the trolls. "Shrouded Harlequin Court, send forth a Spirit Dancer to bedazzled and betray those who oppose me. Summon Spirit Dancer." An orb of purple appeared in front of her, swirling around in circles and disappearing to reveal a sensually-dressed woman wielding two short-swords. "Kill the trolls please." She ignored the appearance of the Spirit Dancer, having seen them dozens of times and no longer being surprised at the fact they were basically wearing a bra and some very tight leather pants.

"As Master bids, it shall be done." However, the fact the Spirit Dancer responded caught her a little off-guard. From the way her Amarok Wolves acted she wasn't stupidly surprised, but it was still interesting to see that they could actually speak. And she had to admit, watching the Spirit Dancer as she wove her way around attacks was pretty mesmerizing. More than once she had to force her gaze away from the shapely curves of her summon, the small smirks the woman gave telling her that her observations had definitely been caught.

So what if it was odd to look at her summon that way, the woman was literally the perfect image of a lithe but strong body and impossibly beautiful, and was an unstoppable devil with a pair of sword swords. If she couldn't admire that beauty whilst watching her literally carve a bloody swathe through the trolls then what was the point? Folding her legs, she sat on the floor, content to simply watch the Spirit Dancer as she mercilessly felled Skye's targets.

As the last troll fell down dead, the Spirit Dancer resheathed her swords and strode over to Skye. Curious and a little wary, Skye rose and watched her summon, surprised when she bowed in front of her, and even more surprised when the summon then rose and stepped into her personal space, an arm around her back as the woman planted her lips on Skye's, though the Spirit Dancer broke the kiss swiftly, her tongue flicking out to slide across Skye's lips while she was too busy gaping to do anything.

She felt the woman nuzzle her neck with her nose, unconsciously touching her own lips with her fingers, a bit too dazed by the sudden affection to do anything. "You should really summon me more often. I am rather...eager, to experience you again." With that the Spirit Dancer dipped her head and stepped to the side, evidently waiting for Skye to give her orders or to be de-summoned. A strangled noise escaped her throat as her mind reeled, and she caught up with what the woman said, having been too busy focusing on the kiss and the lick to do anything else.

"What?!"

---

Deciding to clear out the cave entirely, Skye, against her better judgment, decided to keep the Spirit Dancer around.

What she said, 'experience you again', was what she assumed to be referring to the lore around Spirit Dancers. Supposedly those who summoned them 'spent time' in the harlequin court with them in return. They weren't all female either, there were male Spirit Dancers. And that thought both aroused and scared her. She was almost reduced to a hot mess by the kiss and touch of just one Spirit Dancer. If she had her in bed doing that...that was what led her to her current conundrum.

It wasn't that she was opposed to the idea, it was just that she was worried that she wouldn't be able to make her happy. She wasn't exactly a paragon of virtue, but neither was she some kind of well-experienced nymphomaniac who knew all the erogenous zones and could play someone's body like a harp. All the sex she had had was pretty regular, and sure it felt good, but to a Spirit Dancer, that was probably the equivalent of foreplay.

Shaking her head, she cleared her mind, watching the Spirit Dancer move ahead at the sight of another troll and swiftly decapitate it, moving back to her side seamlessly. She glanced at the Spirit Dancer, getting a coy and sultry smile in return. She had been with a girl once, though it had broken up when she was revealed to be a lying cheating bitch who was sleeping with everyone who was available, and the time she'd spent with her was...nice. And it definitely wasn't like she didn't like looking at her.

She shook her head again, sighing in frustration. The annoying thing was, she couldn't even blame this on anything but her own sex-starved mind. She hadn't had an actual physical partner in at least two years, and while toys were nice, they weren't able to cuddle, to do aftercare or bondage or anything more thrilling. Here she had a beautiful, willing and dare she say eager female who would jump into her bed with her if she merely asked, but she...didn't want to?

That wasn't right though, because she did. But she felt if she did, it would be...weird? Maybe the fact she was controlling the Spirit Dancer and it'd feel like she was ordering her to do it. But the kiss, the lick and the nuzzle, as well as her shaking her ass and doing over-the-top gymnastics to display her body, that was all her. Skye grumbled and pushed her weird thoughts aside as the end of the cave was revealed. She had been slicing off one ear from each troll to keep track of her kills, and she had...a good amount of ears, not bothering to count. At the very end of the cave there was one last troll, blue and unarmoured just like the rest.

Her Spirit Dancer ran over and neatly decapitated it, grasping an ear and pulling the head back for her, leaving it at her feet. "Thanks." She said quietly, kneeling down with her dagger to slice the ear off and add it to the rest whilst the Spirit Dancer basked in the single word she'd told her, pointedly ignoring where one of her hands slipped at that. idly she wondered just how much they were affected by her if a single word of thanks was enough to literally make her shiver in delight and touch themselves, pondering idly how they would react if she died or something.

She had no intention to die of course, but if she did somehow die, well it would test two theories for her. Well, one wasn't a theory, it was just curiousness. It would let her learn how her Spirit Dancers would react to her death, but it'd also test one of the pieces of lore around her being a Reaper Soul. As the ones harvesting souls for the Shinigami, they themselves were not applicable for dying, as the Shinigami would simply send their souls back to the real world. If that was the case, she might actually be immortal.

Then again, only a few days had passed since she came here, so she hadn't tested it, nor was she in any hurry to. Maybe in a hundred years if she didn't age even a fraction she would test it, though she'd probably run into a problem too strong to fight even with Noxilous and Pest and would die in a more normal way. That would let her know whether she was immortal or not.

Though that then brought up the question of what would happen exactly. Would she be sent to a graveyard zone like with Yggdrasil, or just imparted back into her body. And if that was the case, what if she got buried alive and trapped for literally centuries and millennia? She made a mental note to avoid a situation like that, though of course she could just use a spell, like maybe Five Elements Vorpal Beam to blast her way out. Considering how spells now actually affected the environment, she could just melt her way straight through any kind of cave-in.

Getting up from her knelt position she flicked the troll ear once then tucked it away with all the others, her eyes staring at the dead troll head, then at the body a few dozen feet away. She hadn't asked whether troll meat was useful, but she was considering trying to stuff the body into her inventory. Humming, she decided she could always test it later, and turned back around, her Spirit Dancer following quietly behind as she pulled out a small patch of Terravore leather and began sewing it to her vest. When it was attached and she was confident it wouldn't be easily torn off, she did the same on the opposite side of her vest.

She then tucked her hands into the newly-made pockets, grinning to herself as she had essentially replicated hoodie pockets. They wouldn't be useful, but they were a good place to put her hands, and they felt comfortable. With a little spring in her step they made their way out of the cave, though she frowned at seeing the group of gold and platinum adventurers that had been attempting to follow her earlier waiting outside. She raised an eyebrow at the wolf-whistles two of them let out at the sight of her Spirit Dancer. "Can I help you lot?"

"Aye, you can. You see, we was gearing up to take this quest, and then some hotspot freshie waltzes in and takes the quest? Now that just won't do." She kept her eyebrow raised, one hand in her pocket whilst the other was planted on her hip. "Now, maybe you impressed the guild-master, or maybe you sucked his wrinkly old dick to get bumped up to mithril, I don't care. You give us those ears and maybe tell your friend there to lose the top, and we won't leave you in a bloody puddle on the ground." Snorting, she watched his nose flare as he drew his sword, face contorted in anger.

Before he could speak again she suddenly rose her hand from where it was resting, drawing her flintlock with ease and levelling it at his head, then snatching the trigger and blasting a hole through his stupid head. Tossing the pistol behind herself, she drew the replacement and levelled it at the now-terrified three other men in the group, all before his body even hit the floor. "Now then, you three gentlemen want to continue? And I'd advise against running back to Loras and telling any tattle-tales about what happened here. Your leader wanted to be greedy and sexist, and threatened to kill me or maim me if I didn't listen, so I killed him. Anything else than that and I'll butcher you and leave your body parts for the slimes to eat."

Jerking the gun to the side, she sent the three men scampering away, smirking as she reholstered the pistol. She heard the quiet sound of metal brushing leather as her Spirit Dancer put her swords away, kneeling down to loot the corpse of the man who had threatened her and paid the price. Curiously enough, just as before she held absolutely no remorse for killing him. Now that she wasn't coming off the high of a blood frenzy, she could actually feel something...else. It was like...like she could feel vapors off his body that were being drained away and into her.

Curious, she laid her hand upon the body, feeling the siphoning feeling strengthen suddenly before receding. She removed her hand and flexed it, tilting her head to the side as she glanced at the body. The only thing in her repertoire that she knew would do something like that was Reaper Soul, which meant she had just drained this body of its soul and sent it to the Shinigami. According to lore, if souls were not removed, they would remain in the world and would become undead. When undead were killed but not drained still, they would just keep returning endlessly.

But this also meant that revival magic wouldn't work on the body any longer. So she had effectively just killed this guy in two ways, preventing him from ever returning to life. Of course, if the Shinigami deemed his soul as being able to return then it would, but as a blank slate. If it was utterly irredeemable the Shinigami would send it to the void, the mass of endless souls, and draw a new and fresh soul to impart upon the world. That was, according to the lore, what it meant to be a Reaper Soul, pretty much a key part in the life-cycle of the world.

Her first reaction, back in the desert, was admittedly a little over-the-top. After all, the Shinigami would have no reason to bother with her, he...it would probably be happy if she just kept working and sending any souls she found up to it for judgment and sentencing. As she thought about it, she figured it might actually be a fun experience to speak to such a powerful being...if it actually existed.

And just as she thought that, she froze as something cold brushed against her very existence. It was like something cold and unknowable had literally wrapped around her insides, but only mentally, like her soul was being held onto. There were no words spoken, but she knew her idle thoughts had caught the attention of what she could only assume was the Shinigami. After a moment though, the cold receded, replaced with warmth, like the feeling of inner glee at receiving a great present, or kissing a loved one and hugging them after a long time apart.

Her mind snapped to the realization that this was how the Shinigami communicated. Words and languages were a mortal thing, the Shinigami dealt in emotions and senses. She felt her lips unconsciously pull into a wide grin as the warm feeling intensified briefly before the grasping sensation receded, leaving her feeling tingly and warm. Shutting her eyes, she grinned and hopped on the spot. "Master?" Her Spirit Dancer asked curiously. She spun around and wrapped her arms around the surprised summon, releasing her before the thought of reciprocating even occurred to her.

"That was awesome!"

---

The entire way back to Loras, Skye was practically bouncing on her feet.

She had sent her Spirit Dancer back to the Harlequin court, though not without another kiss that she was coherent enough to return happily, a cuddle and a promise to summon her often and not just in a combat environment. The reason she had sent her back was so questions wouldn't be raised about whether she actually had a team but was just trying to pretend to be a solo adventurer to make herself look better. She really didn't care too much about that, but since other questions could be asked, it was just easier to not bring her Spirit Dancer into Loras. Plus her attire left very little to the imagination and would attract a lot of attention.

But that was entirely overshadowed by the fact that the Shinigami itself had taken notice, and presumably then a liking to her. She had made right then a mission to herself that she would send as many souls to the Shinigami as possible. That didn't mean she was going to become a serial killer, but anyone she found who was irredeemable as well as corpses that still had lingering souls she would cleanse and send those souls. The same with undead and spirits, basically anything that had a spirit the Shinigami would recognize. Monsters like goblins, ogres and trolls didn't have souls the Shinigami recognized, it was only those that could be regarded as intelligent and properly sentient. So from humans all the way to dragons, as dragons were intelligent beings and certainly possessed souls that would require judgment for their actions.

She honestly felt a little like some kind of weird Japanese schoolgirl, fangirling over a cute new sempai. It was weird, and she clamped down a little on her weird new fixation, but that was hard when she'd literally been met with a being who was literally above gods. And he liked her! Well...it liked her, and not in that way. The like she presumed was the fact that she cared enough to try and discover its existence, as well as the fact that, despite the fact it was a bit scary, the Shinigami also had really awesome lore, and she knew all of it. Her Stand of the Reaper spell even incorporated it...him. She had to decide whether she liked referring to the Shinigami as he, it or she, because for all she knew the Shinigami was female.

Wouldn't that be an expectation subversion? Subconsciously her mind painted an image of the Shinigami, and for some reason he was male, even though a being such as itself would probably be genderless. Maybe it would be relying on her thoughts though and would mirror her own body and be a female? There were so many possibilities! And she hadn't even gotten a chance to ask it anything! She wanted to know so much, but didn't have the time. Then again, the Shinigami had to be really busy, so couldn't spend longer than a few seconds indulging its own curiosity.

Top of her list was what would happen if she died? Since the Shinigami was bonded to her soul through the contract she had signed with a piece of her own soul, according to the lore it meant that if she died, the Shinigami would feel it and would directly draw her soul back to it, then send it back down and revive her at the nearest graveyard, albeit at the normal cost of experience obviously. That was the lore, supposedly how Reaper Souls revived, rather than being drawn to the nearest graveyard by wandering spirits like normal players did.

But there were so many other questions she wanted to ask. Rather than focus on that and potentially annoy or distract the Shinigami from its job, she instead focused on other things. The thought of her Spirit Dancers went in the same direction as the Shinigami, because that was a can of worms she didn't want to open yet. No, she wondered what the adventurer team had said upon getting back to Loras. Did they lie about what happened to try and get her in trouble? If that was the case her word probably wouldn't be believed since she was, as their leader had said, a freshie.

Hopefully they just said their leader died doing something dumb, or some other excuse. No doubt that one kill had fucked their group dynamics up fiercely, but she couldn't bring herself to muster a single gram of sympathy. Those assholes were nodding along and seemed eager to go along with their leaders orders, so if they were now fucked as an adventuring team then good riddance. Maybe she should have just killed them all and let the Shinigami judge them, but she had figured letting them go wasn't going to be a big deal.

As she entered the city and then into the adventurer's guild, she was glad to see that nobody looked at her differently to before. When she entered the guild, she could see a lot of curious gazes at her, or rather at her hair, but not really many hostile looks. She could see the three men she had scared off huddled around a table, each one resolutely not looking at her.

Since they didn't know about her being an Okami, that meant that either the guild-master, or more likely one of the adjudicators had spread the word about what she was. So, they harboured a distaste for demi-humans, but hid it well enough and pushed it far enough back to give a fair and reasonable judgment of her abilities. So they disliked her and wanted to make her life a bit harder, but also wouldn't deliberately and directly sabotage her? She could respect that. That was honestly as reasonable a way of handling it as she could expect.

Taking out her pouch filled with troll ears, she planted it down on the wooden surface alongside taking out her mithril plate and the quest-map and planting them both down. The worker behind the desk opened the pouch and flicked through the ears, each one being the left ear and confirming that each ear was from a different troll. "Twenty-seven trolls, 25 Silver each, totalling 6 gold coins and 75 silver coins. Added to that the five gold reward for the quest, and that's a total of 11 gold and 75 silver."

The worker knelt down, casting some kind of spell that opened a box near his feet, swiftly withdrawing 11 gold coins and 75 silver coins. She took them and put them all into her pouch, then her Mithril plate, while the worker took the ears and the map. "Thanks." With that she turned and moved to the quest board, flicking her gaze over it and folding her arms as she saw no interesting quests. There were some that were to guard ships, and while getting back on the sea could be fun, the environment would probably be boring since she wouldn't have her crew with her.

Sighing, Skye turned away, heading out of the building, then orienting herself towards a nearby inn, checking herself in and buying a decently-sized room. After being told when food was and how much for various things, she managed to extricate herself from the conversation and head up to her room. Closing and locking the room, she drew the curtains across the window, then for good measure took some fabric from her inventory and covered over the window with that so nobody could see inside, exhaling as she focused, then put her hand out. "Shrouded Harlequin Court, send forth a Spirit Dancer to bedazzled and betray those who oppose me. Summon Spirit Dancer."

As the purple ball appeared and formed into the same Spirit Dancer, she held her breath, worrying that her spell was detectable and that someone would bang on the door. She held her finger up to her lips for silence the Spirit Dancer smiling coyly at her as she sat on the edge of the bed. After a minute of nothing, she released a slow and relieved exhale. "I didn't think you'd actually call so soon, Master." She smiled back at the Spirit Dancer, sitting beside her on the bed.

"Well, I wanted to ask you some things. I know you told me to summon you often and...well, I want to confirm some things with you." The Spirit Dancer reached and started idly playing with Skye's hair, and she took the silence and the eyes calmly watching her as consent. "First, I want to know whether it's the bond I have with you that makes you want me. Because I don't want to be doing...anything with a partner who is being forced to do it by some kind of bond or agreement." The Spirit Dancer blinked, her hands stopping her idle braiding for a moment before her smile widened.

She gestured at herself. "If you can look at me and not see someone who would willingly do that, then my Master is not very keen, hm?" Skye frowned at that, and the summon hurried to explain. "Master, Spirit Dancers practically live for physical intimacy. We fight for our chosen Master because we want to protect them and bring them back to our beds time and again. To deny us that which brings us the most pleasure and almost the entire reason of our living would be a cruel punishment." Blinking, Skye re-adjusted her standpoint on Spirit Dancers.

"So...when you say you practically live for physical intimacy..." She trailed off, her mind recalling the lore of Spirit Dancers even as her summon continued messing with her hair and nodded at her words. Spirit Dancers weren't something she had really looked into too much. It was a spell she liked using, but unlike being a Reaper Soul which was literally a massive part of her character, they were just a summoning spell. But she knew they were lustful and that supposedly they adored whatever master they chose, which would be a single master they would singularly bond to. Once a Spirit Dancer had chosen a Master, they would only be summoned by that master.

Of course that was only lore in Yggdrasil, but if that was the case...it still made her uncomfortable, and apparently the Spirit Dancer sat beside her could tell. "Master, we all love you, and would do anything to keep you safe. We all chose to follow you, even if we weren't able to say so to you as much as we wished to. Since the day you first called us and we answered, we have always loved you." As she spoke, the Spirit Dancer reached to wrap her arms around Skye. "And we always will. I am thankful that I can finally speak to you, that I can hold you and love you properly."

Skye opened her mouth to respond, but her voice seemed to have departed her. That was...she didn't have the words. Rather than try to voice anything, she closed her mouth again, turning to the side and returning the hug her Spirit Dancer was giving her. "Should I...summon the others then?" The Spirit Dancer shook her head, making her raise an eyebrow. "Why not?"

"Please, just for today at least, let me be selfish?" She couldn't help the light giggle she let out at that, apologizing to her. Or at least trying to, as the Spirit Dancer planted a finger on her lips, then removed it and replaced it with her own smooth lips. Shutting her eyes, Skye let herself be absorbed by the kiss, simply focusing on the feeling of another's lips on her own. She didn't know how long they sat on the edge of her bed, lips pressing together and retracting only to join once again, but eventually her Spirit Dancer broke their makeout session, a hand on her shoulder guiding her to lay on the bed. Her head tipped up in surprise as she felt a hand on her thigh, her Spirit Dancer gazing at her. "Do you trust me, Master?"

Biting her lip, Skye felt her stomach doing flips. On one hand, she knew this was going so fast. But on the other, she wanted to let go, to be with someone again. She nodded, watching that hand as it slid further up her thigh, halting just before it touched her panties. Her Spirit Dancer brushed her thumb from side to side a few times then removed her hand, shifting up the bed and planting a hand on her cheek, her head resting in the crook of Skye's neck. "Do you trust me?" She said firmly, making it obvious that Skye's hesitance was clear to her. Skye stared at her for a moment before closing her eyes and nodding again, laying her head back against the bed as she spread her legs willingly, invitingly.

"I do."

---

Because I'm utterly hopeless, I was going to write a lemon of this.

Fortunately for my sanity and for following the rules of Fanfiction, I didn't. At least, not here. I'd like to ask whether anyone would be interested in seeing a lemon between Skye and her Spirit Dancer, since I wrote a little bit of it, decided not to put it here but copied it, then figured 'Fuck it, I'll ask.' and so here we are. As I said in the opening AN, this story won't suddenly be focused on that, but I wanted it, and so there it is.

Anyways, hope you enjoyed this chapter! It's been a long time, I know. But hey, if you did then please leave a review. If you didn't, leave a review. If you want to talk about how many naval terms I've gotten wrong so far go right ahead, write that review and I can correct them for ya! But, well, I do hope you all enjoyed, sincerely.

See you all in 2022, because that's how long Chapter 3 will take apparently!