Nobody spared a glance at the group of young-looking monsters who entered Grand Noah. The Four Bandits, accompanied by Mini, were touring through the city at a slow pace, strolling as the young phoenix girl was admiring the city with starry eyes. For a reason, she was amazed by the smallest things, which endeared her companions a great deal.
"Woaaah, this place is so nice! I wished I lived here before instead of that cruddy dump!"
She was running around from place to place, amazed by the stone houses, the flowers-covered central plaza, or even the moats around the castle. While several of her companions were also happily walking around, one of them was also slightly miffed by her current predicament.
"You only invited me so that I could carry your stuff, didn't you?" Gob was carrying and balancing an impressively high pile of crates behind Vanilla and Papi. Some of them were merchandises that the vampire sold to one of the shop, while the other ones were smiting equipment and materials found far from Grand Noah, such as Rainbow Crystal.
"No, of course not!" Vanilla sounded unconcerned by her friend's sarcastic remark. She was walking with a dreamy smile as she envisioned the profit she would do from her new deals.
"Uga! We are a team! You are the muscle, Vanilla's the brain, Mini's the heart, Teeny is the legs, and I'm the leader!"
"…We never chose you as the leader."
"Indeed, it should be me, the brain!" Vanilla puffed her chest proudly.
"You would just make us slave away…"
"I want to be a princess!" Mini happily twirled around. "I will care for all people under me!"
"We're still taking care of you…"
"Then you will be my servant!" The small phoenix started pouting.
A few minutes later, the small group had reached the shop where Gob could finally drop off most of the crates she was carrying. Vanilla negotiated a few additional minutes with the merchant, and, sooner than later, the small vampire left, happy with her business. She was rapidly caught back by her partners.
"She didn't even give you gold for all the stuff I delivered?"
Vanilla scoffed. "We're merchants on a grand scale. We exchange goods worth hundreds of thousands of gold daily. Do you think we'd walk around with purses that big?"
"The hero Luka does and it works fine for him."
Vanilla deflated, but still gave an explanation to Gob. "It's managed by the trade guild and banks behind in offices. I have an account specifically to my name managed by an advisor to save me the trouble."
"Wow! And everybody can do that?"
The vampire girl haughtily chuckled. "You have to be a recognized member of the merchant guild, and only traders of high rank like me can have an advisor."
"But… Still… Don't you want to have all that gold ready?" Mini tilted her head in confusion.
"We're talking about a loooooot of money. See this street?" Vanilla gestured to the large, pave central paved way of Grand Noah. I could cover it all with my gold alone!"
"Woaaaah! I'm sure nobody else could do that!"
"See? You don't see merchants carrying that much gold because it's heavy and bulky!"
"I don't see people walking while carrying that much stuff just like that either." Gob's voice echoed from under the still impressive pile of crates she was carrying.
"Well, that's because you have unique skills." Vanilla answered while trying to sound like she was not about to get outsmarted by Gob.
When they reached the forge, Papi was greeted by the smith like an old friend. The two exchanged a few pleasantries before the man checked the content of the crates, and whistled in admiration. He praised the girls for the quality of the material found, and gave Papi a document that the latter gave herself to Vanilla.
"I'll have to come back to help him, but I have a few hours in front of me before we actually start. Soooo, what next?"
"Wait…" Mini looked sad for a moment. Nobody else can come to help him? There was someone else near the smith..."
"Uga! That's because I'm a master smith! I'm one of the only people, human and monsters alike, who's able to work the content of the crate! Everybody request my skills!"
"About that… There's still a crate to deliver…" Gob looked at the final large wooden box, a slight shade of despair showing in her eye.
"Ah! Yes! It's furniture I have to deliver to the inn! I almost forgot!" Teeny awkwardly chuckled.
The goblin girl sighed, but she none the less picked the box and delivered it to the inn, still accompanied by the four other party members. The innkeeper thanked them, discussed business with Teeny a little about the needs to adapt the accommodation to the seasonnal traffic, and the group left afterward.
"A good hostess should always know how to adapt to please its customers."
"Woah, that's so cool! …But can we see the colosseum now?"
The small party made its way to the large arena, which soon filled their field of vision. Once again, Mini was absolutely amazed by the massive arena standing in front of them, a big goofy smile on her face and her eyes filled with stars. She repeatedly jumped around like an over excited child on a sugar rush, and kept repeatedly shouting.
"I want to visit it! Let's go inside!"
And so the small party entered the lobby of the colosseum. They were greeted by a smile from the woman behind the counter and the guard, and looked around a bit while a few gruff-looking men were sitting on a bench, sarcastic smirks on their faces.
"I want to see a match!"
One of the men chuckled. "Get out of there, kids, you're too young to see what's happening besides those walls."
Gob raised an eyebrow. "Actually, I'm a regular fighter at the colosseum…"
"Riiiight…"
"She's Hammertime." The guards and the greeter announced in perfect synch.
The man raised an eyebrow in surprise. "Very funny. Now get out of… there…"
Gob proceeded to pull out an impressively large hammer from nowhere, and she lifted it on her shoulder like it was nothing before turning toward the greeter.
"Can we get five tickets for me and my friends to see the next match, please?"
"That will be 50G. Please put away your weapons so that you don't disturb other spectators. Have a nice day!"
The party left the colosseum an hour later, and while all five young monsters were pretty happy with the show, Mini was still the most excited of the lot.
"That first fight was so epic! I mean the centaur charged that man, then *bang* she struck him down, then he got up, then the elf stepped in and paralyzed the centaur, then the man attacked the elf and then she showed him good!"
She twirled around to look at Gob… "And then there was that match where you completely tossed that giantess liked a broken doll and everyone was singing your name! That was impressive! How do you do that?"
Gob awkwardly blushed. "Well, I started training with Salamander and Gnome for several hours a day…"
"I want to be popular just like you! And you! And you! And you!"
"Sure, but you have a lot of work to do to reach the peak of glory. What can you do?"
Teeny's extremely relevant question froze the phoenix girl mid-air, then every four bandits.
"I mean… What can you do besides belching fire and using your feathers to revive people?" Teeny corrected herself as Mini was starting to tear up. "I mean, those are powerful skills that make you useful, but… What do you want to do?"
"I…" Mini was starting to cry. "I have no idea! I'll never be as good as you! I'm just a load!"
The Four Bandits cuddled the small phoenix (or more accurately trying to not crush her, as Gob and Papi still had difficulties controlling their own strength). "It's okay, we're going to find you the best job ever."
Mini looked at her friends, still sniffling occasionally. "For real?"
"For real! It won't be that hard, right? Let's start by considering what you can do!"
"Well, I can fly, I can breathe fire, my tails revive fallen guys, and I can keep reviving indefinitively."
"Then why don't you come help us at our lab? We could use someone like you…"
"KYA! When did you arrive!?"
The group turned to face Promestein. The small angel scientist was smiling while holding a notepad. "I was also watching you at the colosseum…"
"Creepy…"
Promestein repositioned her glasses in a hurry. "That's not what I meant! I wanted to say that I saw you enter the colosseum when you arrived, and I watched several matches, including Gob's…" She once again nervously repositioned her glasses, which were getting slippery with her own sweat. "But let's get back on the matter at hand… I never had the opportunity to study phoenixes. They're incredibly secretive, and I wanted to ask you questions about your lifestyle, and how do phoenix tails finish in great quantities in the human market…"
"…Didn't you also say something about using her for experiments?"
Promestein stuttered for a few seconds before leaving awkwardly, her face decomposing as she excused herself and left the group to ponder what they should do once more.
Gob turned back toward Mini. "Soooo, do you think you'd want to fight in the colosseum?"
Mini shook her head negatively. "I'm tired of fighting bad guys!"
Teeny's mouth opened to suggest working in kitchens and becoming a cook, but a certain episode involving Papi and the kitchen being set on fire while meat was charring was coming back to her mind. Just because some monsters could cook their own meal with their own fire didn't mean they were skilled at it. She decided to remain silent, and see if her partners in crime could come up with a better plan. However, Papi didn't manage to come out with something better than the idea to use the small phoenix as a support to heat up the forge, while Vanilla, the merchant she ever was, once again suggested to sell the phoenix girl's tails. She retracted her statement after four mean looks froze her into place.
Gob raised a finger. "I… No." She deflated and started looking pensively at the ground again."
"There wouldn't be anyone in the castle to tell people what job they're good at?"
"Mmmmmhhh…"
Mephisto sighed in front of the small group after Tenny asked her the question.
"I could advise you if you were more interested in a career in magic, but as it currently is, no…" She joined her hands under her mouth. "As it stands, the only advice I have is to not let yourself be exploited by people who wants to exploit your feathers…" Everybody briefly glared at Vanilla, who looked once again passably ashamed. "And to try your hand at several jobs, because I will be fully honest and tell you that I don't have a single idea what job you would be good at… Do you at least have the smallest idea of what do you want to do?"
"Helping people!" The small phoenix answered cheerfully.
"That's… Broad... Let's try a different approach… Is there anything you don't want to do?
"Being manipulated by bad guys and hiding myself!"
Mephisto's head slowly hit her desk once, then twice in front of the not-so-surprised four bandits. She calmed down and assumed a reassuring smile.
"While your intentions are worthy of praise, I unfortunately can't say that they will get you a good job easily. First of all because you don't even know what you're really looking for."
Mini looked down, slightly ashamed of herself.
"But you're still young, and have actually quite a few skills that could be put to good use. Why don't you travel the world with your friends? It's not like it's difficult in those days, and so far, I've always -well... Often- seen good results coming from that."
"But where could we-"
"I WANT TO GO TO YAMATAI!" Mini rushed through the door at an impressive speed, soon followed by Gob who was running just as fast, and eventually by the three others, Teeny taking the time to bow and thanks Mephisto as they left in front of the dumbfounded yoma. The hall fell silent for a moment before Succubus, the mayor of the village with the same name came in.
"You didn't happen to have seen Eva or Amira, did you?"
Thanks to her experience, Mephisto managed to hide her bemusement and offered out an easy lie.
"No, why?"
Succubus sighed. "Oh, I was just wondering. We received an additional cargo of potatoes and I wondered if they could use their network to explain why I keep receiving some… Or maybe you could explain it yourself?"
Mephisto pondered the options available to her. She could tell the mayor the whole truth about the duo and save her interrogator some time, or she could just let the surprisingly reasonable, scantily clad nymphomaniac monster search around for more.
Upon remembering that said monster was also one of the only two representatives of that race of sex-crazed monsters actually doing effort to manage her race's more problematic behavior, she decided it was better to give succubus a half-truth. Only because she didn't want to be the one to deal with with her kin.
"You see, about that… The latter had a bad run-in with Morrigan and Spider Princess..."
"Woaaaah, this is so cool!"
The small party was now in the oriental village of Yamatai, where once again the small phoenix girl was amazed by the environment. Whether it was the unusual architecture proper to the region, the clothes worn by the people, or the local monsters (that she shouldn't have been discovering, as a lot of monsters like them lived in the Pocket Castle), everything was a reason for her to be amazed.
They took the opportunity to taste some of the local food, and eventually, they found themselves at the bottom of the famous Shrine Hill. The group of monsters visited the first three shrines quite rapidly, and soon was in sight of the large, magnificent Snake Shrine. Mini rushed in at an impressive speed, ignoring the handmaiden at the entrance to directly fly upstairs to stop herself in front of the younger of the two Shirohebi sister.
"I want to be worshipped just like you!"
The white lamia let out a surprised, bemused chuckle, and, a second later, the four bandits arrived accompanied by the handmaiden.
"Mini! It's rude to rush in people's house like that!" Teeny raised a scolding finger.
"Sorry…" The small phoenix girl deflated.
"Oh, it's the small company of the hero! Don't worry about it… Now, did you came here to see me for anything in particular?"
Mini was back to dancing happily around again. "I want to be like you! I want a big house and I want to be worshipped and…"
"I see.. What wisdom do you have to offer people?"
"Wisdom?" The phoenix girl got extremely close to the white lamia, who appreciated the radiating warmth. "What do you mean?"
"Well, a large part of this shrine got built by donations people made after having benefited from my wisdom. They often come on their own accord here to ask me for advices on issues they suffer from in their lives, whether it's something as mundane as dealing with an heartache, advices for crops, or sometimes more specific about potion crafting." She gestured around herself. "And this wisdom, as well as other skills from my family, is what got us recognized for generations. We had this shrine built and expanded, becoming bigger and bigger to reach the structure you see now. But it wasn't always easy for us."
"That stuff is too complicated! Can't I just stand in and be worshipped and be rich from donations?"
"No. That would just be lazying around, and getting rich requires effort. Or an alarming amount of luck."
"Guuuuh…" Mini went limp once more.
"But you're young, I'm sure you will find something to do in your future." Shirohebi straightened herself. "Now, if you'll excuse me, guests and offerings are going to arrive soon…"
The group bowed while one of the handmaiden gently led them outside. The miko lamia came back to see the white snake passably sullen.
"Lady Shirohebi? Are you alright?"
"I'm going to miss that heat in winter…"
While Mini initially came out depressed from her exchange with the white lamia, she was back again to her perky attitude before the group even stepped away from the terrace of the building.
"Let's continue! I want to see the whole world until I find myself a job!"
"Uga! Where do you want to go next?"
"I have no idea!"
The group awkwardly fell silent while looking at each other.
Teeny shrugged. "Well, there's always the obvious place for people who want to be popular but don't know what to do…"
"Grandeur?"
"Grandeur."