Because of the time they'd lost waiting for Honey to finish her photo shoot, Pierre and Jude arrived at the guild outpost around noon. The receptionist, the Emolga woman, took their pictures for the guild records and gave them their ID cards and badges. Pierre inspected his.

The ID card was a small rectangular piece of plastic with his name, species, team name, photo, and rank. The badge was a gold pin displaying the adventurer's guild emblem: a silhouette of a Leavanny's head leaves with a heart in the center and a sword between the two leaves pointed upward.

"Why a Leavanny?" Pierre asked.

"The Guildmaster is a Leavanny," Jude replied.

"That's right," Emolga said. "The emblem changes to match the current Guildmaster. When Guildmaster Leavanny retires, if you two are still adventurers, you'll get new badges!"

"That sounds… expensive," Jude commented, thinking about just how many badges would need to be produced every time the Guildmaster changed, not to mention everything else that displayed the guild's emblem on it.

Emolga didn't reply. Instead, she said, "Since you two are now official members, allow me to give you a tour!" She stood up from her desk. "My name is Eva, by the way. I'm the morning receptionist. If you come to the outpost any time between 8am and 4pm, you'll find me there."

"What about the Gumshoos from last night?" Pierre asked as he and Jude followed her through the lobby to the bulletin board.

"That's Lyle. He's the evening receptionist. He works from 4pm to 12am. And the night receptionist is a Noctowl named Celeste." Eva stopped in front of the board and gestured to it with an open hand. "This is the bulletin board where adventurers can find quests to take. Each one is submitted by potential clients, reviewed by reception, and then ranked based on projected difficulty and posted here. It's important to note that the difficulty rankings are only estimated based on what is known about the situation, so it's good to err on the side of caution when choosing a quest.

"Once you've found one you want to take, you'll bring it up to me at the front desk, and I'll approve your assignment. I then contact the client and tell them you're on the case! If you'd like, we can go ahead and set you up with one now…"

She looked over the board, searching for a rank one quest, but Pierre said, "It's alright, we already have a quest."

Eva looked at him in bewilderment. "You already have one? How? You just got here."

"It isn't an official guild quest," Jude explained. "On the way here, someone asked us for help with something, and we agreed to help them."

"That's… not recommended," Eva said awkwardly. "If you accept quests outside of the guild, we can't guarantee you'll be paid fairly, and if something goes wrong and you get injured, you won't be insured."

"That's alright!" Pierre replied. "We can manage it, no problem."

"Okay, if you're sure… Um, anyway," Eva moved away from the board towards the staircase by the elevator, "let's move on."

Eva took them floor by floor through the entire building, showing them the cafeteria, the dormitory, the gym, library, entertainment room, and finally bringing them up to the training ground on the roof.

"I believe Pierre is already familiar with this area," Eva said.

"Jude, we should spar while we're here!" Pierre said excitedly.

"I'd rather not," Jude replied, shifting his gaze. "I'm not really good in one-on-one combat. I'm more of a support fighter."

"Aw, you're no fun," Pierre teased. "Come onnn, one round?"

"You'd just beat me, anyway…"

"Sparring isn't about who would win," Pierre scoffed, as if Jude was being stupid. "It's about learning more about each other and getting closer!"

"We can do that without beating each other up," Jude pointed out.

"I guess," Pierre conceded moodily.

The three of them returned via the elevator to the lobby, where Pierre and Jude followed Eva back to the front desk. "Well, I'll leave you boys to your own devices now. If you have any questions, I'll be right here!"

"Have you ever met the Guildmaster?" Pierre asked suddenly.

Eva looked at him strangely. "Yes, a couple times, why?"

He shrugged. "I was wondering what he's like."

The Emolga thought about it for a moment, but instead of describing the Guildmaster's personality, she smiled and said, "I suppose you can find out for yourself."

"I can? How?" Pierre asked.

"The Guildmaster likes to visit all the various outposts, to check in with all the adventurers throughout the lands and make sure everything is running smoothly. It's difficult to say exactly when he'll make it around to us, since he doesn't keep a precise schedule, but he's definitely due for a visit in the next couple of months."

Pierre looked at Jude excitedly. "The Guildmaster's going to come here!" he repeated. "We could meet him!"

Jude smiled, amused by Pierre's energy. "Then we'd better hurry and rank up so we can impress him."

"That's the spirit!" Eva chuckled.

"Alright," Pierre, who seemed nearly bursting with energy, grabbed Jude's wrist and pulled him towards the door. "Let's go complete our first quest!"


"Step one: Let's search Cherry's home for clues!"

That was what Pierre had said, but as the two of them searched the Lopunny twins' house, it became increasingly clear they didn't know what it was they should be looking for. Pierre rummaged shamelessly through drawers, cupboards, and cabinets, rifling through stacks of papers and inspecting every interesting object he came across. Jude, more hesitant about invading their client's privacy, made cursory glances over desks and tables as he drifted from room to room. Honey, who had let them in, stood by the doorway and watched anxiously.

"Is streaming all she does?" Jude asked as he watched Pierre dig through the trash bin.

"No, her main source of income is from acting as my manager at the modeling agency," Honey explained. "Um, do you really think you'll find anything in… the trash?"

"You never know!" Pierre replied. "There could be vital clues in here. If we want to find her, we have to know everything about her. Like… What brand of cereal she ate!" He held up a cereal box. "Maybe she went to get more cereal, but this specific kind that she likes is only sold in the Water Domain, so she had to go all the way over there to get more."

"You can get that brand of cereal at any supermarket," Jude replied flatly.

"It's an example!"

With a sigh, the Roserade turned back to Honey, content to let Pierre entertain himself with his daydreams. "What were you doing when you last saw her?"

Honey thought for a moment before answering slowly, "We met up three days ago for lunch. She told me she'd scheduled a photo shoot for me–that's the one I was doing in the park–and we talked about streamers."

"Streamers?"

Honey nodded. "Cherry and I both like to watch other streamers, as well."

"To learn from the competition?" Pierre asked from the trash can.

"No, we don't watch beauty streamers… We, um… We watch gamers mostly."

"Oh?" Jude's interest was piqued. "Which ones?"

"Um… GrassyGamer, Pigniteplays…"

"I love GrassyGamer!" Jude enthused.

"He's the reason I started playing Animal Tamer," Honey said, her voice picking up with excitement at finding a shared hobby.

"Oh, I play Animal Tamer, too!" Jude replied.

"Really? We should play together some time! What level are you?" Honey asked.

Pierre stared at the two of them as if they'd suddenly broken out into a different language. "Jude, are you looking or not?" he asked.

Jude's face flushed as he realized he'd gotten severely sidetracked. "Ahem, yes, sorry… Back to your sister…"

"Of course," Honey added, casting her gaze down, embarrassed.

"So, you went out to lunch together. Where was this?"

"A cafe down the street, Bunnelby Bagels."

"And afterwards, where did she go?"

"She had a meeting with the owner of a potential photo shoot venue," Honey explained. "I assume she went with no problem, because I didn't hear anything about her missing the meeting. I don't know where she went after that, though."

Pierre's head shot up from the trash can. "Where was the meeting?"

"I can give you the location. I don't know who the owner is, though…"

Pierre stood up and walked over to her. "Looks like we've found our second destination!"