Chapter 85 - 79 - Zino
The walk down to the hunter's base camp was uneventful. With Pacifica by his side, nobody paid him the slightest bit of attention. Taika always earned looks from nearly everyone, and Rebecca drew curious gazes from those who considered the possibility of her being a Renard.
Pacifica however, was just a regular otter girl, nothing about her stood out – and that's the way Shouri liked it. Man and Otter, completely unremarkable in every way. No hateful glares, no adoration, just a guy and his loyal Resonator going in, doing their job, and going home with a slightly heavier pocketbook for the trouble.
"Hm?" Pacifica perked up suddenly.
"What's up?" Shouri asked.
The otter hummed in thought as they approached the hunter base camp. "There's a lot of noise." She considered her word choice. "Rhythmic noise. A lot of people are really excited about something."
Sure enough, as soon as they left the pavement for the dirt path, the pair spotted a small crowd excitedly chattering about something. Neither Shouri nor Pacifica could see what the hubbub was about. They just watched the small bit of chaos from their spot in the registration line. People walked away after a little bit, but it seemed like for every person who left the mob, another one ran over to replace them.
"Maybe a celebrity is here?" Shouri pondered quietly. He pulled out Pacifica's tuner to see if there was any news on the gossip sites about celebrities arriving in Lyreann.
"Maybe? Kinda feels like it." Pacifica nodded.
"Next!"
Shouri and Pacifica's gossip was interrupted by the registration process. Shouri handed over his solitary blue tuner to the registrar.
"Hey, do you know what's going on over there?" Pacifica inquired of the booth attendant.
They grumbled something, regarding the noisy crowd with a scowl.
"Yeah, some hot shot brought a Dinosaurian here," they mumbled, more annoyed about all the commotion the rare Resonator was causing.
"Huh, never thought I'd see one in the flesh." Shouri shrugged.
"Yeah, neither did all of them." The attendant rolled their eyes, finishing up the registration. "Main group. Assuming any of them show up." And with that, Shouri had back possession of his tuner.
Stepping out of line, the pair continued to eye the crowd to see if they could catch a glimpse of the fabled dinosaur Resonator. When it was clear to them that the crowd wouldn't allow that, they returned to why they were there.
Shouri thumbed up a text back to Colette.