zeldawolffang: I didn't plan on it being a cliffhanger. Oh well!

Ant, And12169, Draxinus, Yu Narukaze: Thank you!

Carefully, Kei opens the door before me, and waits for me to enter. I pause to gather my thoughts, before I follow the lead and step into the room.

Kei slowly and carefully closes the door behind herself. She takes in a slight breath, and then moves to take a seat across from me.

"What. Happened." she asks, although her monotone voice is… intense, with the faintest hints of emotion. "I could not locate Uni, and she was missing for over six hours."

"Wait, you were looking for her?" I ask dumbly, running the last few hours over in my head. "I didn't run into anyone…"

Kei shakes her head. "I had the guards searching Lastation. I had put them on orders to patrol the main areas of the city, and then report back thirty minutes from now. How could you not have noticed anything out of the ordinary?"

"I uhh… Well, I just got back from Leanbox. I basically only was in the harbor, then I headed straight south." I respond, scratching the back of my head. "So I might've missed…"

"Wait. You just returned from Leanbox?" asks Kei, and the sound of scribbling fills the air. She's writing what I'm saying down? "So how… Bah. You don't make sense at the best of times, but I suppose I should let you explain yourself."

"You want the rundown of what happened, right?" I wait for a nod back of affirmation. "Well…"

I more or less tell her the entire story. Everything from the uneasy feeling I woke up to back in Leanbox, to the boat ride, to finding her in the Midcompany.

Halfway through, I debate what to say about Brave, before I reach a compromise. They don't need to know about him. Having a written record of his actions would potentially cause more problems down the line. Plus, I do owe him one. There's no reason to make him look like a wuss in front of his superiors.

"I found Uni unconscious inside of Midcompany. I don't know how she was unharmed by the monsters there, but I'm willing to take my luck where I get it." I finish. Kei's massaging her brow with her free hand by the time I end, deep in thought.

There's a bit of silence, before Kei states, "Luck. Luck really does seem to favor you, doesn't it?"

She then lets loose a groan as she throws down her pen. "You followed a blind hunch. A complete gamble. Had you even thought about your actions, and the sheer improbability of yourself being correct, this could have been a disaster. It's illogical, it's a mess. And yet you, quite possibly the most irritating person I have ever met in all of my years as Oracle... Somehow, you managed to stumble blindly upon what the entirety of Lastation could not possibly have done."

I try to speak up to make an excuse, but she's still talking. She's leaning back now, but is still continuing her rant.

"I was this close to calling in external help, regardless of the embarrassment and panic that that action might have caused." she states, gesturing wildly with her hands as she speaks. "I would have done this, regardless of how weak it would have made us seem, to have to rely upon the strength of another nation to find our own Candidate. Had Uni fallen anywhere else, we would have been able to track her down in a mere half hour. Unfortunately, Midcompany is entirely outside of our intelligence network. It's a blind spot that we simply do not have the manpower to patrol regularly. Quite honestly, it would have been the last place we would have looked, and the thought of leaving her helpless that long is both daunting and disturbing."

I can't help but to curve a small smile. "So it seems the Oracle has a heart after all. I didn't think you had it in you."

"I do in fact have a heart." she retorts in a matter-of-fact tone. "Hearts are a vital component of the circulatory system."

"Did you just make a joke?" I answer, eyebrow raised. "You're able to make jokes?"

"I do not make jokes. I state facts." responds the Oracle. The corners of her mouth are definitely curved upwards, ever so slightly.

"Observational humor is a thing. Not a very funny thing, but it is indeed a thing." I state, but I shrug either way. "True enough, I suppose."

Kei sighs one final time as she rises from the table. She grabs the conversation's transcript, tosses it into a nearby storage bin, and turns back towards me. "This has been far too stressful of a night for me. Regardless, I must thank you for not making it even more difficult. I think I will retreat for the night. Do you yourself have a plan?"

I shake my head, rubbing my dry eyes as I do so. "I think I'll just book a room in a cheap hotel. I'm running dry off of only like three hours of sleep."

Kei gives me a flat stare. "We do have unoccupied guest rooms at the Basilicom."

"You wouldn't mind if I borrowed one?" I ask. I mean, I can understand if she doesn't want me anywhere near the Basilicom.

There's a bit of silence, perhaps Kei mulling something over in her head, before she replies, "Don't make a mess, and try not to disturb the workers."

And with that, I'm left alone in the conference room for a moment. What do I do tomorrow?

I shake my head instead. That'll come tomorrow… Or… Well, today. Later today.

My mind's far too foggy for this. I'm going to call it a night… I make sure to turn off the lights as I step out of the room myself.

Wait... Crap, I don't actually know where the guest rooms are.

Maybe I'll go ask a worker or something.

Yeah… I'll go do that.

My watch reports that it's long since past noon by the time I'm out of the Basilicom and ready to go.

Eugh, I'm sore. I mean I did carry a person a few kilometers, but jeez… This is way worse than the first night after arriving here, and that was before I could get used to actual physical effort.

My morning shower was a little bit rushed and I don't bother to grab breakfast, but I didn't feel like wearing my welcome out. Without anyone else to hang out with, there's really no reason for me to stick around in the Basilicom anyway.

Uni's not awake yet. When I bumped into Kei earlier, she told me that she's still out cold. I don't blame her for still being out of it, but it would have been nice to at least say hi. Hopefully she'll be up and about soon though, I really do want to tell her what happened to her. It's only fair.

Still, either way I've finally got some time for myself. Nothing particularly urgent is going on, so I should be able to do my own thing for a bit. Now… What should I do?

Well… I'm still fresh out of supplies. I definitely should remedy that. I haven't really had time to restock, what with the sheer amount of running around we've been doing lately. Last thing I want to happen is be screwed because I was undersupplied.

Yeah, I'll go do that. I don't know when I'll have another chance. Knowing my luck, we're going to be pulled through a meat grinder of a dungeon when we finally meet back up.

The grocery shopping was more or less easy. Pick up some rope, a few Eject Buttons, a few crap-tier healing items that I can spam when we're breaking for a rest… The usual stuff. Even better, it barely makes a dent in my credit stockpile, so I've still got plenty of spending cash left over. I even have enough time to grab brunch. Actually, is it still brunch if you didn't eat breakfast and you're eating at two? It might just be lunch.

All in all, I get restocked in record time. Almost everything goes according to plan.

Unfortunately, my attempt to see a blacksmith to finally make a new knife out of the Killachine alloy goes… a little bit less smoothly.

"What do you mean, I need more materials to make a knife out of this?" I ask, shaking my head. The remaining piece of the plating is on the counter in front of me. Fortunately, no one else was in the shop, so I'm not inconveniencing anyone by talking to the shopkeeper. "What would you even use the stuff for? This ingot should be plenty to work with. The damn thing's already pretty much indestructible."

The blacksmith gazes back with an unamused expression. "Sorry bud, but that's a no-go. To make a weapon of any quality out of this material, I need extra reagents to work with. I've never even seen a metal like this before, so it's not like I've got any previous knowledge to fall back on. Last thing you want me to do fail the crafting, no?"

I rub my forehead. I don't know what I was expecting. Crafting always needs random crap to work. "So it's like a magical reagent, then? Alright. Can I at least get the name of the materials that you need to make this work?"

The blacksmith nods, before he retrieves a sheet of paper from below the counter and scribbles down a list. "Here's a list of things that should work with that metal there. I only need one of them, but any of them should do."

To his credit, he does write down where to find the various monsters, and his penmanship isn't terrible either. There's a half dozen monsters on the list. Two of them are back in Planeptune, one's up in Lowee, and there's one that's relatively close. Olympus Falls. That's my destination.

"Stormcrust Fiddler. This one sounds promising." I state, circling the name of the nearest monster with my finger. "So what do I need from this monster?"

"Just a scrap of carapace will do: it doesn't need to be too much. Just be sure to break a piece or two off and bring it back. For the meantime, I'll hold onto this metal for you. Bring me back the parts, and I'll get started. Should take me about a day to make you your weapon after you do."

I nod once more.

"Oh, and you might want to get a group together before you try to hunt that thing. It's a lot tougher you probably think it is. I'd recommend checking out the Guild." states the Blacksmith as he turns away towards another person entering the smithy. "Good hunting!"

The inside of the Lastation Guild is chock full of people by the time I arrive there. It's been a while since I've been inside a guild, actually. At least a week.

Now, if I were an LFG system, where would I be? I mean, it's not like I can go looking for text bubbles floating over people's heads. Or emoticons.

"Hey there! You seem lost. This your first time coming to the Guild?" chirps a female voice to my left.

I turn towards the speaker.

Nope, no one I recognise. She seems to be a greeter, if the lack of obvious weaponry on her is any indication. She's wearing a pin on her shirt that I'm assuming is a Guild logo, and has brown hair decorated with blue tips.

"Oh. No, it's not my first time." I respond. I pause for another moment, before I continue, "Hey, you wouldn't happen to know where I could put together a group, would you? I need to do a hunt over in Olympus Falls, and my usual group isn't here at the moment."

"Oh, you're looking for the pick-up groups?" answers the greeter, as she points deeper into the building. "Just hang a left and follow the hallway to the second building. Just talk to the girl behind the counter labeled Registration, and she'll get you all set up."

"Thank you." I nod, to which I receive a smile back.

"Have a nice day, sir!"

"You too."

I can't help but blink in confusion as I stumble across the wing of the building that I was pointed towards.

It… looks like a kitschy fantasy tavern. There's a guy polishing beer mugs behind a counter, there's a few barmaids in skimpy clothing scampering around carrying drinks… In the back of the room, I can see a different kiosk, this one labeled with 'Registration'. Of course, the whole 'fantasy' effect is sort of ruined by the fridges full of carbonated beverages in one corner, and the Slurpee machines in the other.

The middle section of this wing is entirely filled to the brim with tables, of which more than a third of them are occupied. Quite a few of them are seating only a single adventurer, and honestly, very few tables seem to have any food on them. Even as I step past them, I can see a sheet of paper sitting atop each and every one of of the occupied tables.

I lean closer towards the nearest one.

Huh. So this is how it works.

The paper I'm looking at declares that Monica Darts is hosting a group to gather resources over in a place known as 'Solid Sanctum'. There's a minimum level of thirty… I actually have no idea what my level is. I should probably look it up some time. There's also a little note at the bottom that reads 'Affiliation: Neutral'.

"Hey." speaks up the sole adventurer sitting there. I'm pretty sure that means she's Monica. "You going to join the group, or you just going to stare? I've been waiting for some help the last fifteen minutes."

"Sorry." I shake my head. "It's just my first time over in the pick-up-groups section."

Monica blinks at me. "What, you entirely green? I find it hard to believe that you somehow managed to get to your level without grouping even once."

"Naaah." I respond. "My regular group's over in Leanbox, that's all. I had to head back early because reasons."

"Ahhh. A premade group? Nice. I've heard they're pretty rare. Need to get in early, apparently." nods the adventurer. "Wish I could find one, but both times I've tried, they've fallen apart due to 'personal problems'. Either way, I envy ya for that. But yeah, as much as I'd love to kill my boredom, ya might want to shove off so others can see my group, yeah?"

With a nod, I step backwards, and turn away from the table.

At least, before it dawns on me that I have no idea what my level even is.

"Uhh… You wouldn't happen to know what my level is, would you?" I venture, turning back towards Monica.

I get rolled eyes back. "And this is why they have a Registration kiosk. Go talk to them."

Soon enough I reach the kiosk. Behind the till is another female, this one with her eyes glued to the computer screen in front of her.

"Uhh… Hello?" I ask, to which I get a loud "Oops!" back in return.

"Crap! Uhhh where's the cancel... Oh, hi! Welcome. Are you here to host a group?" smiles the girl, but her eyes are frantically darting back and forth.

"Are you alright?" I ask politely.

"I'll be with you in a second! Shit shit shit..." there is a clatter of fingers across keys, before finally, there is a sigh of relief. "Whew. That one could have been bad. Stupid update popups… Who the heck forgot to install the latest update during off-hours?"

The clerk takes in a breath, and turns to face me. "Hello, welcome to the Group Registration counter. Are you here to set up a group?"

I shake my head. "It's my first time over here, so apparently I was supposed to talk to you."

There's a bit of silence, before once more I can hear the tapping of keys. "Ah, that's fine. Let me just open up the registration app… Okay. So you do not have a Guild card, right? I'm just checking here."

I shake my head. "Nope."

More tapping. "So I'm going to print out a sheet, and I'll need to you fill it out, okay? After that, I'll be able to put you into the system and get you a card. The card will let you join or host groups, as well as act as identification. It also gives you slightly more payout from jobs out front."

I'm handed a sheet, a pen, and a clipboard.

The sheet itself is more or less simple. Name, date, gender, age, birthday. There's also fields for 'weapon type', 'combat role' and that strange 'affiliation' tag.

I'm probably DPS or Utility, but I'll just write down Utility, and my weapon type is… uhhh...

"What's up? Do you need anything explained?" asks the data input clerk.

"Just on these two." I respond, turning the sheet towards her and pointing at the problem fields. "I'm not actually sure what my weapon type or affiliation are."

"Oh, those two are easy." smiles the clerk. "Affiliation is just what nation you want to be known to support. It's mostly just there for clerical purposes, as well as tracking just which nations are doing the most quests. Most people just put in their home nations. Weapon type is what kind of weapon you use. It's kind of self-explanatory. To be honest, it's mostly just another personal identifier. After all, it's pretty hard to change your weapon type."

I shrug, before I write down 'Improvised Weaponry' and 'Lastation' for those two. And then I glance back upwards at 'name'. I never defined a last name for myself, did I. Well… I guess I could turn my middle name into my last name. It should be commonish enough. My real last name's a mess and people pronounce it incorrectly all the time, anyway.

"Thank you." states the clerk as I hand back the sheet. "I'll have your card printed up in a moment…" there's a pause, "Mister Matthews."

I can't help but wince slightly. I don't think I'm ready be be called 'Mister'. Not mentally.

Soon enough, I'm holding a brand new card, with a rather decent picture of myself in one corner, and my personal information covering the rest. According to my card I'm level… thirty one? Actually, wait. When did they take a picture of me?

"Do you want to sign onto a group?" asks the clerk. "Or were you only here to register?"

Right! I nearly forgot about that. "I'm looking to hunt down a Storm… Uhhh…" I unpocket and glance towards the list the blacksmith gave me. "Stormcrust Fiddler over in Olympus Falls."

Just a small amount of tapping. "Seems you're in luck. There's a group already set up for a full run of Olympus Falls. You should be able to get your monster if you stick around for the entire trip. Two people in it out of four, it's located at table 6E. Minimum level twenty, recommended level twenty eight."

I nod. "Seems good. So do I need to do anything over here?"

"Nope. Just head over there, and show them your card. Have a nice day, sir!"

With one final nod of thanks, I turn away from the kiosk. Let's go, then.

Finding table 6E is easy. And, just like I was told, there are only two people seated at it. Both of them are female, although one is a brunette wearing what seems to be silver-colored heavy armor, while the other is black haired and wearing rather tight-fitting black and brown robes. Of course, the armored girl's suit also has exposed skin in vulnerable regions, but who am I to argue with fantasy armor?

I can hear them talking to each other as I step closer.

"I don't know, Kris. You really sure that we're ready for this dungeon?" asks the robed girl. "I mean, we've never done it before. It could be pretty hard."

The armored girl, probably Kristina, smiles back. "Don't worry, we've got this. It's going to be harder than Sonus Valley, but it's not like it's just the two of us this time. Just stay behind me, and we'll be fine."

"Uhh… Kris? Someone's staring at us." states the robed girl, finger pointed towards me.

"Hey there." I speak. I take a position beside an unoccupied seat, and glance towards the note sitting atop the table. Yup, Olympus Falls. I'm in the right place. "You girls mind if I join your group?"

There's a bit of a pause, before I hand them my new card.

"Thirty one… not bad." states Kristina as she hands me back my card. "Alright. Can you heal or buff? I'm more or less fine tanking, and while Sira might not look like it at a glance, she's a pretty solid caster."

Sira, the now-named caster, justs in as she gazes towards me with curious eyes. "Wow, you're over level thirty? You really don't look that tough… I coulda sworn you were something like level twenty! I'm only level twenty eight, but I'm getting there, right?"

I shake my head, before I reply to the first question. "I mostly do zoning and uhh… Debuffs. I've got some healing items, though."

Considering how every single time I've fought something, I've focused on taking it apart rather than brute force…

"That'll have to do, I guess. It's not like we're storming a castle or anything. Take a seat, we'll get started in ten minutes, if we don't get another person before them." nods Kristina.

I take a seat.

"So is this your first time doing this dungeon too? I'm so excited!" smiles Sira as she plays with her hair. "Kris and I usually just do dungeons by ourselves, but apparently this one's full of monsters that drop really nice stuff, so we're putting together a group for it! It's supposed to be a little bit tough though, and it'd be nice to have someone else keeping the monsters away from me, right?"

"Sira. No point talking his ear off. I don't think he wants to hear the whole story now, does he?" smirks back Kristina.

"I don't mind." I state, leaning backwards.

Sira's eyes almost seem to glow for a moment, before what follows is a near deluge of babble.

Through it all, I can barely make out her detailing the difficulties of preparing magic for a new area, her excitement at going somewhere new, and, strangely enough, her urge to go order food because they've been sitting here for the past hour and she's hungry.

Also, apparently they've been a group of two for about a year and a half? I think?

Even glancing towards Kristina for help in understanding what's being said doesn't do much more than cause her to smirk back towards me in amusement. "You did this to yourself." she mouths at me.

Still, regardless of the speed of the babble, I still find myself able to respond to the occasional prompt. Perhaps it's due to past experience, or perhaps it's just luck. Either way, the ten minutes fly by quickly.

"Alright. Looks like no one else is coming, so I'll just tell the Registration desk that we've closed the group." states Kristina, as she rises to her feet.

"Hold up!" shouts a boyish voice, and seconds later, another adventurer is standing beside our table. "Phew. I'm not too late to join, am I?"

The new arrival's got a bow over his shoulder, a straw hat, and is garbed in black and silver. He's definitely younger than me, only about fourteen if I were to try to guess. He hands Kristina his card.

Kristina glances at it, before she nods. "We were just about to close the group, but we've got space for one more. Welcome aboard."

The kid rubs his forehead. "Phew, thank the Eight… I nearly missed my chance!" He takes a seat beside us and lets out a shaky breath. "My name's Swift! What's yours?"

"I'm Derek."

"Sira! Pleased to meet you."

"Kristina. Give me a moment, I need to go finish registration."

Introductions now complete, Kristina rises to her feet to head to the Registration kiosk, leaving the three of us seated. I debate ordering a drink, but decide against it. I'm not going to be able to finish it in time anyway.

"So… uhhh…" Swift shifts around in his chair for a moment, before taking in a breath, and glancing over at us. "Sira was it? What… umm… what do you do? I'm sorta new at this, but you look like a mage, right?"

"Well…" answers Sira, "I mostly stick to Ice magic. I know a little bit of Lightning, but Ice is what I'm good at. Kris uses a big two-handed sword, so just stay behind her. Generally, the baddies are too focused on dealing with her to pay attention to me!"

"Cool!" smiles Swift, and he turns to me. "And what do you do?"

"I'm just a fighter." I respond. "I use a lot of different weapons, but usually I stick to either a crowbar, or knives."

"Multiple weapons…" murmurs Swift. "Is that something you unlock at higher levels, or something?"

"I honestly have no idea." I shrug. "But it works for me."

Swift takes in a breath. "I'm just an archer… I shoot arrows at bad guys and try to stay back." he laughs to himself nervously. "I really hope the Eight are watching over us…"

He then retrieves a small shiny object from his pocket, and begins to fiddle with it. Sira, sensing the momentary lull in the conversation, resumes her heated discussion with me. I of course humor her to the best of my ability, taking in what ten percent of her speech I can understand.

Kristina thankfully returns a little bit later, and with that, we're on our way.

It definitely a strange feeling walking out of the Guild with a party full of strangers. It doesn't feel nearly as nice as it did when I was with Nepgear and Co.

But y'know what, sometimes you gotta mix things up.

Let's get this party started.