When I opened my eyes that morning, sunlight was pouring through the window—so bright it almost hurt. Our room was on the second floor, and none of the surrounding buildings could block the blinding rays.
I sat up and looked beside me. Lina was still fast asleep, hugging my towel—the one she insisted on keeping because it had my scent.
At first, I really didn't want to give it to her. Knowing it "smelled like me" was… honestly kind of embarrassing. But when she looked up at me with those big pleading eyes, I ended up surrendering.
I was a bit worried at first when we went to sleep, but watching her wriggle around happily calmed me down. I once heard someone say that when you like a person, even their sweat smells nice. …Could it be something like that?
Lina's sleeping face looked so happy that I couldn't help smiling too. But we needed to get moving—we had work to earn money today.
"Lina, time to wake up."
"Mmm~"
With that cute little sound, she slowly opened her eyes, sat up, and blinked at me sleepily.
"Good morning, Karen."
"Morning, Lina."
After washing our faces in the restroom, we went downstairs to the cafeteria for breakfast.
Then we headed to the Adventurers' Guild. I planned to visit Gajeel's shop in the afternoon, so for now, we would take a nearby quest to earn some money. On the way, Lina and I discussed a few things, and she agreed with the plan.
The moment we stepped into the guild, my heart twisted with guilt—after all, we ran out of here yesterday. Lina hid behind me as usual.
I scanned the hall, looking for certain people. When we approached the quest board, they were standing right there looking for quests. I called out to them.
"Hello. Do you still remember us?"
The one who turned around was the swordsman from Digoman. His expression showed clear annoyance.
"Of course I remember you. You two bicycle kids who stole our quest."
"Sorry…"
"What do you want?"
"We're here to apologize. We didn't mean to take your quest, so we'd like to give you half of the quest reward as an apology."
To be honest, after I heard their quest target yesterday—and realized we had already hunted it down—I felt pretty guilty about taking someone else's quest by mistake.
That was why I asked Sylvie for the reward. It wasn't for us—it was for this.
But he just crossed his arms and looked at us calmly.
"No need to apologize. I was just being impulsive yesterday. I know you only happened to run into it and hunted it down for self-defense. There's nothing to blame you for. And keep your money. That's that."
"O-okay."
He walked off coolly—completely different from his aggressive attitude yesterday.
So mature!
It startled me a little. I thought they'd be mad and pick on us. Well… maybe not really, but still.
A heavy weight lifted off my chest. I turned to Lina.
"Glad they didn't blame us."
"Mm!"
She nodded quickly. But then I noticed people behind her were staring at us. When they saw me glance over, they immediately looked away.
Lina leaned close to whisper.
"Karen, it feels like a lot of people are watching us."
I pretended to casually look around the room, but actually used the corners of my eyes to watch them—they really were sneaking glances at us nonstop.
Did we do something wrong?
Could it be because we were too flashy yesterday and now they're targeting us!?
"It's almost everyone… We're standing out way too much."
"Mm, let's pick a quest quickly and leave."
"Right."
I looked at the quest board. Some quests were posted too high, so I grabbed one from where my hand could reach.
The stares behind me made my back itch with nervousness. I just pulled down a random decent-looking quest and hurried to the counter.
"We want to take this quest."
Sylvie picked it up, brows furrowing.
"Mr. Karen… Are you sure you want this one?"
"Yes. Is something wrong?"
"If you believe you have the strength… then it's fine."
"Then we'll take it."
"All right. One moment."
After recording the quest, she handed the paper back with a worried look.
"Please don't push yourselves. Make sure you come back safely."
We didn't think much of it—our minds were full of getting away from all the staring—so we rushed out of the guild.
"Got it. Lina, let's go."
"Mm."
We walked down the street, glancing back often to see if anyone was following. But we didn't spot a single armed adventurer. Slowly, we relaxed.
"Haa…"
I finally stopped walking and realized something.
Why didn't I use Enemy Sense?
That would've told me instantly whether anyone was hostile.
But with all those eyes on me earlier, I couldn't think straight. I just wanted to get out as fast as possible.
(I'll just use it immediately next time we enter.)
While I was thinking, Lina peeked at the quest in my hand.
"Karen, what quest did you pick?"
"Huh? No idea. I grabbed it at random."
Looking back, that really wasn't like me. I usually double-check everything. Those stares truly shook me.
"Ms. Sylvie sounded like it was a dangerous quest."
She was right—I totally noticed that tone but ignored it.
"Let's see what it is."
Please don't be something weird…
I lifted the paper and read it with Lina.
It was to hunt down orc hybrids in the northeastern forest—about twenty of them. Reward: 30 silver coins.
(30 silver coins!? That's insane!)
We were new here, so I didn't know the exact value of money. But if one silver coins could buy days of food… then thirty meant we could go sightseeing for ages.
Definitely a dangerous quest.
Ink marks crossed out the original reward—2 silver.
Then changed to 5, 10, 20… and now 30.
It also had an appearance description: tall, crimson bodies, pig-like snouts, pointed ears.
It had been upgraded from an Indigo-rank quest to a Blue-rank one. Many adventurers must've failed.
"It's a Blue-rank quest… Aren't we Indigo adventurers?"
Lina raised a good point. Why were we allowed to take a quest above our rank? Weren't they worried we'd fail?
Then I remembered something Sylvie once said.
"Sylvie said we can take quests above our rank if we have the strength. But how did she judge that?"
"Maybe because we hunted down the Stonefang Tiger yesterday. So she thinks we can handle it."
"That makes sense."
Her explanation was convincing. Sylvie did have the authority to allow or deny quests.
"But this will take a while. Let's go to the forge first. The owner should be open by now."
"Mm."