Contrary to my expectations, I managed to wake up refreshed quite a bit earlier than usual. Grabbing the opportunity I washed yesterday's clothes and put them out to dry on the windowsill. It was somewhat chilly this early in the morning, but I draped a blanket over myself and rested my elbows on the windowsill, next to the drying clothes. For the next good while I just focused on taking deep breaths and listened to the early morning sounds of Orario.

After getting my dose of tranquility I geared up and left for Babel with more time to spare than usual. This allowed me to make a small detour and buy a few jagamarukuns to bolster my food supplies. Since today was the first day on a new floor I thought I might need the additional energy.

This time when I arrived there was no sign of Lily yet, so I spent some time trying to judge the approximate power level of adventurers walking through my territory. Among the ones I appraised this way there was not one even near what I can sense from the girls at the pub, but that was expected. Even Level Two adventurers are fairly rare compared to the entire adventurer population, so it's no wonder I don't come across any just by standing around for a while, even at the foot of Babel. At least sensing many Falnas of similar strength allowed me to hone that sense further.

I'm also well aware that stats, which is effectively what I can more or less sense, aren't everything when judging a person's overall strength, but it's still a good indicator.

The arrival of Lily soon interrupted my musings on the subject.

"Hello, Avrora-san," greeted the pallum.

"Good morning, Lily," replied back the other pallum, namely me.

"You are here quite early today. Does Avrora-san wish to start earlier from now on?"

"No, there is no need for that. My arriving earlier today was just a one off thing. There is no need to change the schedule for that," I paused, then added. "Unless of course it would be better for Lily to set out sooner?" She started a bit from that question, as if the fact that someone adapting to her instead of the reverse is something she hasn't experienced before. Oh, wait. Fucking Soma Familia and other bottom feeder adventurers.

"Don't worry about Lily, Avrora-san. The same time as usual is perfect for Lily," she declined the offer with a smile that was hopefully a little bit less fake.

I nodded in response, pushed off from the wall of Babel I was leaning against, and we were off to the untamed and exotic region called the sixth floor of the dungeon. Well, it will be new for me at least.

Since just like yesterday we started descending well ahead of the morning rush there was nary an adventurer within sight most of our way down. Instead there was the usual wandering group of mixed goblins and kobolds barring our way once again.

This time it was less than a dozen over all, so Lily had no objections to fighting them. She took a few steps back and readied her mini ballista just in case. I, too, was reaching back for the handle of Biggy when a thought hit me.

These are all small fries. In the last four days I fought the harder monsters enough times to see how lacking the few floors are in comparison in terms of ferociousness. The war shadows, killer ants, even the horned spiky bunny things are more likely to be able to injure me than a dozen of these. With my stats where they are currently, even without the Shell, I don't think they would be able to inflict life threatening injuries anymore.

With that in mind I decided to not even bother using Biggy for them anymore. So I pulled back my hand, crossed my arms, and waited for them to get closer.

"Avrora-san?" Lily asked in an uncertain tone.

Waiting for the best moment I absently replied with an "It's fine" without looking back at her.

By the time the last of the group got inside my fifteen meters range the closest ones were nearly on me. Just as Lily took another few steps back and aimed her mini ballista at the monsters I launched my strikes.

All of a sudden the incoming six goblins and three kobolds found themselves on the floor of the dungeon with at least cracked skulls and most likely broken necks too. Suffice it to say none of them showed signs of getting up after that.

I smiled at the result. I was waiting for the time I could do something like that and it seems it will be possible to deal with these kinds of monsters the same way from now on thanks to my maxed out Magic stat. Well, only when I can be sure no one other than Lily can see me.

Speaking of Lily.

"See? I told you it would be fine," I said with a small smile as I turned towards her.

She didn't seem to agree with my assessment since the first thing she did was walk up to me with a pretty angry expression and poke me in the middle of my forehead. Since my Shell was off I felt it too, so quickly covered the impact point with both hands and sent her a questioning look.

She moved her hand back seemingly wanting to poke me further, but managing to hold herself back from it with a serious application of will. Even though I'm not really younger than her I feel like I'm being scolded by an older girl. Her comparatively greater height contributes to that too, but I'm starting to think this body has something of an age detector in it, at least in regards to pallums. It would make a certain kind of sense for a race of more or less perpetually early adolescent looking people to have an awareness of the approximate age of others.

"Avrora-san! Why are you being so reckless? What if one of them reached you? To not even draw a weapon is just playing with fire! It's not like Avrora-san to take a risk like that!" She started her diatribe, killing all pride I felt from taking out a sizable group of mobs without moving a muscle.

I do not regret testing my ability to do what I just tried, but not notifying Lily first was a large mistake. Not telling her like that and leaving her to panic at my apparent suicidal actions would have been an asshole thing to do, if it was at all intentional, but my head was so full of my superiority over the weak mobs that honestly did not think about it. Overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer of amicable relationships.

Feeling bad about being a crappy party member I apologized to Lily for scaring her like that. Thankfully she let me off with a final admonishment to not do it again. Sufficiently chastised, I waited until Lily extracted the magic stones, then followed her towards the next staircase leading down.

Unfortunately, the encounter allowed another party to come around a corner and catch up to us. Sadly, they were another example of a group of reprobates. None of them saw the 'fight', so the one walking closest to us had no compunction about pushing away Lily's backpack hard enough she stumbled and had to let off her pack if she didn't want to fall over.

"Fucking supporter runts, getting in the way," he shared his enlightened views with us as the others in his party laughed. Charming.

Luckily Lily wasn't under a chianthrope disguise, because in that case his puppy kicking villain nature would've most likely compelled him to try and kick her too.

I honestly did not think that someone would just do that for no reason whatsoever, so I didn't do anything to ward off that push, but it was probably better this way. I was walking a few steps behind Lily, so the only way I could've prevented it was with my Territory, which is all kinds of problematic.

I stepped between Lily and the scumbags to make sure none of them tried to take it further than that, but they just continued walking to the stairs leading to the next floor, chuckling all the while.

God, what a bunch of dickbags.

"Are you alright, Lily?" I asked as I turned back to her. It was clear from her expression that this was far from the first time something like this happened to her. Anger, frustration, resignation. She knew all too well that all she could do was endure it, since she had no way of retaliating.

"Don't worry, Avrora-san. I'm perfectly fi-" Lily was cut off by a cry of surprise coming from the direction of the stairs, which turned into cries of pain accompanied by rhythmic thudding growing more and more distant. Apparently an adventurer somehow managed to trip while walking down the stairs. Oh dear, how unfortunate. The rest of the adventurer party reacted fairly quickly and hurried after their rapidly descending member, cursing all the while.

It took a few moments for Lily to notice her open mouth and close it.

"Avrora-san. Was that...?" she asked tentatively, not even finishing her question.

"I have no idea what you mean," I smiled at her with the smile of perfectly innocent people the world over. Lily, of course, believed my every word.

Once she picked up her backpack, we continued our trek to the sixth floor. On the bottom of the stairs we saw a battered, groaning pile of excrement, excuse me, respectable adventurer getting nursed back to health with a healing potion.

Wow, for an adventurer to get this injured from simply falling down some stairs, that's somewhat unexpected. Joking aside, I knew that even someone who just received their Falna a minute ago would survive the fall. I wanted the guy to get his comeuppance, not straight up murder him for being a dick. I'm not that xianxia.

By the time we left line of sight with the group the guy was already standing up, seemingly none worse for wear. Except the embarrassment of tripping on 'nothing' and falling down the stairs.

I wondered for a bit if I made the right choice there, but the slight smile Lily wore for the rest of the way chased away my misgivings.

Fighting war shadows could be tricky at times. Even with my Territory covering them sometimes they lash out fast enough that I can barely react in time. Their actual speed wouldn't be that big of an issue, but the smoke their bodies are made of apparently muddles my ability to sense them accurately enough. Actually seeing them isn't much better either, due to the layer of fuzzy smoke that conceals the initial indications of their attacks.

Since we started on the sixth floor, our opponents were mostly frogs and the aforementioned shady characters. Goblins and kobolds were basically nonexistent anymore, which was both good, since I was getting a bit fed up with them, and not so good, since at least they provided some easy earnings so far. War shadow and frog shooter stones are worth a lot more than goblin and kobold ones, but so far we weren't able to hunt them fast enough to make up the number difference.

At least we didn't encounter too many ants either. Just because I can now fight them without freezing up too much, it doesn't mean I enjoy it.

Speaking of not enjoying something, frantically dodging and blocking the attacks of three war shadows is not as fun as it sounds.

We were just finishing up another fight, when the dungeon decided to spawn a good half a dozen shady dudes on top of us. I managed to kill off two as they emerged from the wall, and secured Lily's exit to a safer position, but then the other four managed to surround me before I could position myself better.

What followed was a struggle to keep their claws from interacting with my internal organs as much as possible. Honestly, the whole dodging thing reminded me of playing dodgeball in school. Thanks to my Shell, which was obviously up and running, the damage from getting hit should be about the same, but I didn't want to risk it in case I was wrong.

During this melee I managed to cut an arm off one of them, which caused it to retreat back, straight into a bolt shot by Lily. Getting shot in the back of the head was apparently unhealthy enough for even a mass of shadows to drop out of the race.

This left the other three that kept invading my personal space with even more fervor, not giving me enough room to effectively swing Biggy. How rude.

Getting real tired of their shit, instead of blocking a war shadow's thrust with the flat of my blade again, I threw Biggy up in the air, leaned out of the way and grabbed the creature's arm with one hand. At this point I really should've just thrown it into one of its buddies, but instead I jumped up and bicycle-kicked its head hard enough to separate it from its torso.

This may or may not have been a super cool ass move, but the remaining two war shadows would've been sure to punish me for it, if they hadn't fallen victim to my falling sword.

I can't even blame them for it; why would anyone expect a discarded sword to keep fighting without its owner?

With the encounter over I plopped down into the dust to catch my breath. Dodging like that was probably good fuel for my Agility stat, but it was both tiring and somewhat nerve wrecking.

"Thanks for the assist there, Lily," I said to Lily who was collecting our loot. "Fighting four of them in close combat was a bit hairy there."

She stopped her work for a moment and turned to me, smiling. "Anytime, Avrora-san," she said.

I managed to catch my breath and Lily finished her work in short order.

"How about we make it an early lunch today?" I asked Lily from my sitting position on the ground. "As far as I know it's unlikely that this room would spawn more monsters for a short while, so we might as well take advantage of it."

"Very well, Avrora-san. I don't see why not," she said as she discarded her backpack with an audible thunk. Damn, that pack must be heavy as hell.

Now that I think back on it, when that unfortunate adventurer shoved her backpack he visibly bounced back from it somewhat. It was enough of a push to unbalance Lily, but the effect was less than one would expect from the difference in size.

We did our by now customary exchange of lunchboxes and started eating in peace, but I was getting more and more curious about exactly how heavy that pack was. Quickly finishing the sandwiches I handed back the empty box and decided to simply ask.

"Lily, can I try and pick up your backpack?" I requested suddenly. "I was wondering how heavy it really is."

Lily looked surprised at the question, but finally nodded in assent, since she was still eating.

"Thanks, Lily."

I got up from the ground and walked next to the backpack. Judging weight is something my Territory is very subpar at currently, so I can only do it the ordinary way. Taking one of the straps in hand I tried to lift the pack onto my back.

Holy shit, how heavy is this really? I could barely lift it and only by properly bracing myself first. If I'm not wrong this thing is at least three times as heavy as Biggy. How the hell can Lily just hop, skip, and jog with this on her back like it's nothing?

Seeing me struggle with her backpack Lily apparently couldn't hold back her giggles.

I managed to walk in a small circle with it on my back, but it was still heavy as shit. Still, when I finally set it down I was mostly convinced that I was right about Lily's Skill.

"That's amazing Lily. And you can just run around all day with this on your back, not even breaking a sweat?" I expressed my amazement.

"Well, more or less, Avrora-san. Lily still gets tired, of course, but the weight of her backpack never made much of a difference since Lily got her Skill," she informed me. "Truly a fitting Skill for a born Supporter like Lily. Don't you think so, Avrora-san?"

From her well practiced cheerful tone, someone less familiar with Lily's circumstances could have mistaken her for someone that is happy with her lot in life, but I could hear the underlying bitterness in her words that told me otherwise.

"Lily, did you ever try to work as a battle oriented adventurer?" I asked her, not answering her question for now.

She did not reply right away, probably debating what to share. "Yes, Lily tried it one time," she finally said with apparent reluctance. "However, the result was the obvious. Lily struggled and struggled, but it was no use. Even with taking chances that should've killed Lily, it was not enough." She discarded her fake smile by now, highlighting the somber mood that descended. "When Lily finally got a Skill, she was so happy for a moment," she chuckled derisively. "Lily thought that her hard work and persistence had finally paid off and she could finally take a step forward." Another pause. "Then Lily was reminded of her place with a Skill tailor made for a Supporter. Honestly, it was Lily's fault for daring to reach for more."

By the time she finished, her head was tilted forwards enough that it was fully hidden from my view. It was obvious she was on the verge of tears, but even after a few moments passed I did not see any tears falling.

"I'm sorry, Lily. That must've been difficult," I said, not knowing how else to react.

"Lily is sorry too," she said as she adjusted her hood, and if she surreptitiously used the chance to wipe away her unshed tears it didn't need to be remarked upon. "Lily shouldn't have bothered Avrora-san with Lily's circumstances like that." She obviously regretted opening up like that.

"Don't worry, it's not a bother," I assured her.

Lily's Skill is a subject I spent quite a bit of time thinking about, even before I ended up in this world. At first I was interested in the mechanics on how exactly the whole thing works. For example, do the items decrease in weight so she can carry them or is she getting stronger physically? If she gets stronger to carry heavy loads, then is her mass increased so she doesn't simply fall over? All are questions that the source material doesn't really address. Really, the exact mechanics of extraordinary abilities of the cast was never the focus of the story, so it can't be helped. However, since I came to be present here these details turned from unimportant details to potentially game changing information.

Besides pondering the mechanics of the Skill, I also looked up the meaning of the name of the Skill. The translated version of its name was Artel Assist, however it's important to note that the original japanese name had a deeper meaning to it that got lost in translation.

First off, in the light novel, the names of most Skills were written with kanji, with katakana above it to show its pronunciation. The kanji version can be counted as the descriptive version for japanese readers, while the actual pronunciation is the appropriately foreign and mystical sounding name.

In Lily's case those two are the aforementioned Artel Assist and the kanjis for an idiom generally meaning 'a person who does a thankless task' or 'unsung hero'. My personal interpretation of it, taking Lily's situation into consideration, would be 'a person who is strong even when downtrodden by fate' or something along those lines. Not something easily conveyed in english. That's also why I wonder how much of that was apparent of her Falna and how much Soma told her about. If I don't miss my guess, not much at all. If I only saw its name containing the word Assist and it lets her carry more weight, I would also come to the conclusion that it's a Skill especially for Supporters.

But when I factor in the aforementioned nuances, the fact that she got the Skill right after taking on a fighting role, and that the name 'Artel Assist' was apparently not a publicly known Supporter Skill, I can form a theory that her particular Skill could be so much more.

Yet, I need to temper my enthusiasm about the subject to not scare Lily away. For example, it would be a less than ideal time to bring up these things right after she relived her disappointment about the subject. If it turns out her Skill is exactly what it says on the cover, then giving her hope and ripping it away the next moment would be just too cruel. It's something I need to approach carefully.

With the early lunch break over we got back to roaming the sixth floor.

Frog shooters, war shadows, horned rabbits, all of them were highly annoying to fight. Frog shooters because of the damn sticky tongues, the war shadows because of their fuzziness and fast attacks, and the horned rabbits due to their agile movements, small size and their obsession with trying to pierce my knees with their damn horns. If I didn't want my catchphrase to become 'I used to be an adventurer, then I took a rabbit to the knee', then I had to be nimble on my feet and dodge them all.

Since I didn't actually test the endurance of my Shell against piercing attacks like that, it's not actually impossible that one could manage to hurt me through it.

By the time the end of the workday came around I was highly motivated to move beyond this floor as soon as possible. Even a larger portion of killer ants would be better than all these annoyances at the same time.

Our return to the surface went without complications. I was a bit afraid of the morning group of pricks showing up, wanting to 'teach us a lesson' or some rubbish, but thankfully no such cliche developments occurred. Even for those intellectually challenged people, it would've been too big of a leap to suspect two obviously harmless little pallum girls, who were more than ten meters away from the guy at the time he tripped.

One curious thing I noticed as I was waiting for Lily to come back from the Exchange was the fact that even though Lily was well outside of my maximum Territory range, I was still able to feel and locate a few of the magic stones I helped her pick up. Now that my telekinesis ability was known to Lily in some form, I decided to help out Lily with gathering the loose magic stones not inside a body. This allowed us to move on faster and make up for the loss of the easy income from the missing larger number of goblins and kobolds.

So, the magic stones I marked at those times should've lost their charge outside my Territory in a few minutes at the very latest, but even after more than a dozen minutes I could still sense all of them. If I had to guess they weren't about to run out either.

This was a very interesting interaction that is worth exploring in the future.

Just before Lily got back with today's income I also remembered that tomorrow was supposed to be my day off. I thought about pushing it off, but finally decided against it. It's better to keep it at regular intervals.

Seeing Lily walk towards me with almost a skip in her step I figured we managed to get a good haul today, and indeed that was the case. Even split two ways we managed to get almost 30,000 valis each. I guess we more than compensated for the lack of easy prey on the new floor. Still, it was not a pace we couldn't keep, so there is no reason to go slower next time because of it.

Lily was of course quite happy with the state of affairs and I couldn't help but smile seeing her one joyous expression that was sure to be authentic.

I felt a bit bad for telling her after that I planned to take the next day off, but she didn't seem at all down hearing the news. It seems she had various things to take care of too.

Promising to meet after the one day break we parted ways.

When I was putting the pouch of money away I noticed the jagamarukuns I bought in the morning, which I forgot to eat during the day, so I extracted them from my bag and munched on them on the way home. One would think they would be less than ideal to eat after the whole day of being packed away, but they provided a different kind of enjoyment from the freshly made ones.

I was walking up the stairs towards my room when an interesting conversation caught my notice.

"It's your own damn fault you stupid cat," the voice of one of the girls came from the upstairs kitchenette, accompanied by a thunk sound of something impacting the surface of the table. "There, drink."

"Be more gentle with that nyaah," came the other, much less energetic sounding voice. "Too loud. Head hurt," she complained.

"Maybe you shouldn't have spent the night drinking then," the voice of Lunoire, I managed to remember, scolded the black haired cat girl, Chloe. It seems the former assassin just woke up to a sizable hangover.

"I couldn't help it nyaah! I was so close to winning it big, then it all went poof in the blink of an eye," she retorted hotly. "I just had to drown my sorrows after that nyaah. Blargh." Apparently her spirited answer proved too much for her recovering body, so she buried her head back into her arms resting on the table, doing her very best to not throw up.

"You lost most of your money with some stupid gambling, so you decided to drink away the rest." Sounds of distress and misery emanated from the direction of the cat girl in reaction to that statement. "Forgive me if I don't feel sorry for you, you dumb cat."

"Just leave me alone, nyaah!" Chloe recovered enough to lash out again.

"Fine, fine. Just be sure to look alive for the night shift. You don't want to piss off Mama Mia by showing up with a hangover," Lunoire cautioned her as she walked out of the kitchenette.

Hearing her steps closing in I realized I was just standing there on the stairs for the last minute, essentially eavesdropping on their conversation. With it over I started moving again, trying to be as nonchalant as possible. Thankfully Lunoire wasn't coming towards the stairs, so I wasn't caught in the end.

Finally in my room I took off my bag, dropped it on the floor and fell forward onto my cot.

I'm so thankful for the seemingly unending energy children my body's age, and therefore my current body, seem to possess. Without that I could only hope to spend as much time in the dungeon and still have energy to do some things before going to sleep for the night. Even if I get home feeling nearly out of energy, a couple of minutes of rest and I'm ready for another few hours of uptime.

The first two of those hours today I spent on working out the cons and pros of my new plan that I came up with in light of the unexpectedly useful piece of information I inadvertently obtained on my way up the stairs.

Staring at the sheet of paper I wrote my notes on I can only hope I wasn't about to commit a huge mistake. The conclusion I came to in the end was clearly written and underlined at the bottom of the sheet, but I can't help but doubt myself anyway. I only came to be living in this world not three weeks ago, so I can easily be mistaken about some things that could overturn the whole thing.

Still, the risk should be worth it.

But first I went and took a shower, changed into everyday clothes, washed my adventuring getup, maintained Biggy and my dagger, and tidied up my room. I was absolutely not procrastinating in the least. Nuh uh.

In the end I ran out of excuses, so I tied my hair back and with shaky movements I walked out of my room and approached another door on the same level. According to a quick scan of my Territory, the person I was looking for was just on the other side of it.

With significant reluctance I raised my hand and knocked.

A few moments later the door opened with Chloe checking for her visitor. When she opened the door she obviously expected someone much taller than me, which was pretty much everyone, so not surprising, but she quickly noticed me.

Then she broke out into a huge sunny smile. What the hell? That reaction I wouldn't have expected in a million years. But then the smile disappeared and her expression changed into a pout. What...?

"Avrora, how could you toy with the feelings of a pure maiden like me nyaah~?" She asked with an exaggerated haughtiness. I could only stand there, stock still, having zero idea what she was talking about. I would like to someday experience what it's like when dialogues like this would go anywhere near how I would expect them to, but that might just be nothing more than a pipe dream. When Chloe saw that I didn't respond she provided a much needed explanation. "When I opened the door I thought a charming young boy was looking for me, but alas, it was just you Avrora nyaah. How tragic nyaah~."

Oh, well, I guess that happened. Okay. Great start. Yay. I think I'll just ignore that whole thing now.

"Sorry to bother you, Chloe-san. I have something to discuss with you if I'm not too much of a bother," I delivered my rehearsed opening line after a successful reboot. "Can I come in?"

The cat girl looked a bit surprised, but she quickly answered. "Avrora wants to talk to me? How unexpected~. Come in, come in," she ushered me in.

Her room was very unlike my own, not just because it was much smaller, since it wasn't a storage room like mine, but because it looked very much lived in. If I disregard the approximately one square meter slice of the room I made my nest in, the rest of the room was virtually untouched habitation. In contrast, Chloe's room was full of various decorations, ornate bottles, gaudy mirrors, and an exceedingly frilly carpet. I couldn't help running my gaze over the room's peculiarities.

"Here, take a seat," she patted a place on her bed, then walked next to the window and leaned against the windowsill. "So then Avrora, what did you want to talk about nyaah?"

I sat down on the indicated spot by hopping up on the bed thanks to my small height.

"I couldn't help but overhear your conversation with Lunoire-san earlier and if I understood correctly, Chloe-san is currently experiencing financial difficulties," I cut to the chase.

"Don't even remind me nyaah," she winced at the reminder.

"Since that's the case, I thought we might be able to help out each other." I did my best to look her in the eye and project sincerity. "I would like Chloe-san to undertake a task for me, for adequate compensation of course."

"Hoh, what kind of task did you have in mind for a simple yet lovely waitress such as myself?" She asked with apparent cheer.

This was my last chance to change my mind. With the next sentence I will be committed to this line of action. My first instinct would be to call the whole thing off and mull over everything again and again, right until I manage to convince myself to not do anything. Just as I did many times in the past. However, in this new world I won't always have the luxury to spend weeks on each and every decision, so I had to quickly change that habit. In this particular case the time I spent making this plan should be enough that it can't be called impulsive, or overthought either.

"I would like to borrow Chloe-san's expertise not as a waitress, but something closer to your previous profession." There it was. The die was cast, Iacta alea est, crossed the Rubicon, all that jazz.

"Reeallly?" The former assassin narrowed her eyes and subtly took a much more ready position. Although she was still smiling, all playfulness fled from her demeanor. "I never would have thought that Avrora of all people would approach me with a job offer, but I'll have to disappoint you kid. I ain't taking those kinds of jobs anymore. So if you want to get rid of someone, then knock on someone else's door."

"The task I had in mind would not be anything as drastic," I denied with some cold sweat running down my back.

"Oh? Then what would you need a former assassin for?"

"I would only need Chloe-san to locate someone for me, nothing else," I said. She narrowed her eyes, not immediately reacting. "As you know, I'm new to Orario. Also, I'm not the least bit versed in the darker aspects of society. I'm quite sure if I tried to locate the person in question I would be discovered in short order. Which would be very bad," I tried to explain further.

"If you are so uninformed, then how did you even know about me?" She pointed out justifiably. Thankfully, I had an answer to that one.

"My Goddess gave a general overview of the staff of the Hostess of Fertility. Nothing too personal!" I quickly reassured her. "Just some basic information, so I would know to trust you all."

Her expression flickered at that, but I couldn't tell exactly what emotion it represented. My thundering heartbeats and slightly shaking voice and hands might be casting some doubt on the veracity of my words as well. She had no way of knowing that her being a former assassin with a sizable body count was only responsible for approximately twenty-five percent of my current anxiety meter. Without that addition I would still be under the threshold for the shaky voice.

After a few seconds pause, which felt much much longer to me, she finally spoke.

"Then tell me, Avrora. Who do you want to find so badly?"

Rejoicing about the progress made, I answered. "Her name is Sanjouno Haruhime, a thirteen years old renard from the Far East. As far as I know she was captured by bandits and sold in Orario to Ishtar about two years ago." Even in this situation, when I said that bitch goddess' name I couldn't keep my contempt from leaking into my tone. Calming back down with a sigh, I continued with the story I prepared. "My goddess owes some debts to the god Takemikazuchi, who has some connections to Haruhime, so I was tasked to try and get her out if I can."

"Is that all? In that case you can just buy her out yourself. If she's still thirteen then she won't be working yet, that's one of the few restrictions the Pleasure Quarter has to abide by thanks to the Guild. Renards are an exotic race, so she will cost a pretty penny, but it's still much easier than tangling with the whole Ishtar Familia," she recommended, waving one hand as she explained.

I wish it really was that easy, but due to Haruhime's level up magic, I can't imagine Ishtar letting her go at any price. Although the existence of the age limit is a weight off my mind for the time being.

"Sadly, that's not an option in her case," I replied with a grimace. "All I can say is that she is strategically significant to the Ishtar Familia. That is why I don't dare to attempt to find her on my own. The chance of someone noticing my amateur sniffing around is simply too high." Taking a deep breath, I looked up with pleading eyes at Chloe. "I was hoping Chloe-san would be able to do it in my stead. For suitable compensation of course," I hastily added.

With my piece spoken, I waited for the catgirl to formulate her verdict. Not long after she started letting out a kind of a whine, groan, and moan, accompanied by an expression that looked like she bit into a lemon. I started to see this as a bad sign, but when she gave her answer, it went against my expectations.

"Gaaaaaah, fine," she finally forced out. "But it won't be cheap. Got it, runt!?"

I bobbed my head up and down vehemently at the good news. I guess her greed got the better of her in the end. Even if judging by the muttered 'Mama Mia is gonna kill me if she finds out' she doesn't find this a risk free endeavor.

Still, not counting the possible peril from the homefront, this job shouldn't be too difficult for someone like her. She doesn't even need to scope out Haruhime's daily routine in detail, since assassination is not on the table this time. Hopefully that means she won't quote me some outrageous price.

For the next few minutes Chloe and I hashed out the details of the assignment, which basically boiled down to 'Find out where the target lives, how she spends an average day in broad strokes, and possibly find out if someone is guarding her'. I doubt that she would have a constant guard with her, but it's best to make sure.

With the request parameters properly defined she mulled it over, then spoke her price.

"That'll be one million valis," she said with a dazzling smile.

Jesus fucking tapdancing Christ, that's a lot.

Thanks to my cheap accommodations, penny-pincher attitude since I arrived here, and the nigh unrealistic success I've been enjoying so far in terms of income from the dungeon, my current monetary assets come to more than a quarter million valis. Suffice it to say, I was hella surprised when I tallied up my transactions in preparation for this meeting.

Therefore, me being able to gather that much money in the short term should be just about possible. I don't know what kind of assassin black magic she used to come up with that figure, but she just about hit the upper limit of what I was willing to fork out. Damn devious feline.

"All right. I accept," I agreed with my head still down and lightly gritting my teeth.

The next moment I heard a clattering noise from her direction, so my head snapped up. All I could see was her clutching a perfume bottle with both hands that she apparently almost knocked over. Did she make some sort of victory gesture when I ok'd her request, only to bump against something? That's surprisingly clumsy of her.

"Heheheh, it's nothing nyaah~," she deflected with a strained chuckle as she put the bottle out of reach for her on the desk. She looked a tad thrown off balance and she even reverted from her business tone to her more casual one. I tilted my head and looked at her with narrowed eyes. Maybe she was worrying about me using her displayed clumsiness to try and haggle down her payment. Not that I would do that, even I know that shortchanging someone like her is not the wisest decision one could make. The peace of mind that comes from someone of her caliber not being angry with me is more than worth the money I could possibly save by haggling here.

Now that we reached a tentative agreement, I grabbed the opportunity to say goodbye for now. Happy that the whole thing went as well as it did, although less happy about the amount it will cost me, I briskly retreated to my room. Once inside I flopped onto my cot like a fish on its last death throe. Even in my old world I immensely disliked negotiating about monetary things, so this meeting, where I had no idea about the value of the service I requested, was particularly unpleasant. I could only hope that Chloe wasn't trying to rip me off too much. I can't deny that this job where she will be risking her earning the ire of the entire Ishtar Familia must warrant a lot of hazard pay.

After a few minutes of just lying there my adrenalin rush finally ran its course. Lifting up my head a bit from my pillow I looked out my window and saw that the sky was already starting to darken. I planned on visiting some Babel stores to check just what kinds of magic items are sold to the general public, since I'm both considerably curious about that and the information could come in handy for the future, but I guess I'll have to leave that for tomorrow. It's not like I'm all raring to go right now, as demonstrated by my mostly inert state.

So I dropped my face back into my pillow and continued imitating that aforementioned, by now deceased, fish.