Poisoned Rationality

Over the next eight days, the five of us did varied quests and hunting expeditions, getting our levels up. I had done quite a bit and had gotten my level all the way up to level 16.

On the night of the final day, Ria and I would visit Stella in our dreams.

“I wonder, will both of us be there?” She asked.

I think so, I replied.

I lay down on my bed, stretching.

See you in a bit, I thought.

<See you,> Stella said.

I closed my eyes.

…

A moment later, I opened them and found myself lying down on Stella’s bed, with Ria next to me. Stella came rushing in and leaped to hug both of us.

I smiled and leaned into her hug.

“I missed hugging you,” She mumbled into our shoulders. I smiled and patted her head before petting her tall, fluffy ears.

After a bit, we got out of bed and walked into Stella’s living room.

“How have you two been?” She asked, flopping onto the couch and pulling Ria with her.

“Good,” I replied. “We’re planning on going to a dungeon soon.”

“But we’re going to rank up as adventurers first, though,” Ria added.

Stella hummed, leaning against Ria. I smiled watching them and sat down on the couch next to Ria.

“Oh, something interesting is happening,” Stella said after a few minutes. “I heard from the Goddess of Nature that the position as the God of the Forest opened up again.”

“So the one we lost was our Forest Authority?” Ria asked.

“Yep,” Stella replied. “Yrasyln told me that her Apostle of Nature was given the ability to ascend.”

Is she nearby?” I wondered. “We might see her at some point if she is.”

“I’m not sure where she lives,” Stella murmured. “I’ll ask tomorrow.”

Ria yawned all of a sudden, curling into Stella’s side. I smiled and leaned against the two of them.

“You’re both adorable,” I told them. Stella blushed, and Ria grinned sleepily.

“So’re you,” She mumbled, yawning again. I laughed softly and patted her head. After a couple more minutes, she drifted off to sleep.

“She’s really sleepy,” Stella noted.

I smiled. “Yeah. I think part of it is that usually I’m the one who’s controlling our body, and she’s not used to having her own.” I looked at her, cuddled against Stella, and patted her leg.

Stella leaned against her, yawning, and I hugged them both.

“You can sleep too, if you want,” I murmured. “I’ll stay here with you two.”

Stella nodded, curling against Ria. I watched over them as they slept.

…

Soon enough, it was time for Ria and me to leave Stella’s home.

I stretched in bed, yawning as I woke up.

“Morning,” I whispered, shaking out the stretches.

“Morning,” Ria mumbled back sleepily. “Today’s the day we rank up, right?”

Yep! I said, grinning.

I got up and headed into the living room. There was a note on the table from my mom, which told me that she had gone to the town library earlier that morning and that my dad was at the market, buying food.

I left my own note that I had read her note and eaten breakfast before heading out to meet up with our party.

“Good morning!” Sarya said, walking up and waving. I smiled and waved back.

“How are you?” I asked.

“Great!” She replied. “I have my rank-up test in ten minutes!”

“Nice,” I said, smiling. “Are you ready?”

“Definitely,” She grinned.

The two of us began walking toward the Guild. After a couple of minutes, Ariana and Tyler joined us. Then, right as we reached the Guild, Nat finally got to us as well.

Sarya went to her rank-up test while the rest of us got ours scheduled. There were a couple of others testing already, so it would be a bit before it was our turn.

A little while passed before Sarya came out, grinning widely.

“I passed!” She exclaimed, holding out her Guild card, which now had darker color text showing her Rank, which said Bronze.

“Nice!” I said. “Congrats!”

The others added their congratulations as a Guild member stepped out of a room.

“Ariana?” They asked, reading from a sheet of paper.

“That’s me!” My girlfriend (gosh, that sounded nice to say) replied, stepping over.

“Come this way, then,” The employee said, turning into the room. Ariana followed, right as another Guild member came from a different room, and an adventurer left.

“Nyxandira?” The tall woman asked. I stepped forward.

“Here,” I said.

“Right in here, please,” The employee told me, holding the door open. I stepped through into a round room. Standing in the room was a short wolfkin woman with orange-red hair and fur, with armor on her legs.

“Hello,” I said, smiling.

“Welcome, welcome,” The woman replied. “How are you?”

“Good,” I said.

“Great,” She grinned. “My name is Jolyne. Let’s get this test started. Class Type?” She asked.

“Paladin,” I replied. “Physical attack and magic attack.”

The Guild’s system of organizing adventurers was very interesting. There were four main categories: defense, physical attack, magic attack, and support magic, with two minor categories being speed and range.

Depending on which category your fighting style was focused on and any secondary category you might have, you were given a Guild Class, which was different from your actual System-given Class.

Being focused on physical attack with a secondary focus on magic attack, I was classified as a Paladin.

Ariana, who focused on physical attack with a side focus of speed, was a rogue. Nat focused only on magic attack, so she was a mage. Tyler, being primarily defense with physical attack, was a tank, and Sarya, who was support magic and physical attack focused, was a sage.

The Guild’s testing system based its tests around your Guild class to accurately test your strength. Testing someone focused on physical attack and speed wouldn’t do well if they were tested on their magic ability and their range.

Focusing back on my test, Jolyne was equipping some leather armor. I checked my own, tightening a couple of straps that had come loose.

“We’ll be dualing,” She told me. “No lasting damage skills, no destructive skills. Got it?” I nodded. “We’ll have a healer in case of an emergency,” She added, before drawing a one-handed sword and picking up a round shield.

“Let’s begin.”

She rushed forward, swinging once with her blade, and I dodged back, drawing my swords, forming an ‘x’ shape, and blocking.

“Left,” Ria called out, and I leaped to the right, turning to dodge a blast of bright pink magic that had hit the ground just to the left of where I had been standing.

Jolyne grinned, conjuring up another spell and throwing it my way. I dodged again, lightly smacking the spell with my blade as it passed.

Surprisingly, instead of being deflected like most spells, it burst on impact, creating a cloud of pink light.

The effect splashed onto me, and I staggered slightly, my head spinning.

Confusion spell, I thought, shaking my head.

“I’ll guide you,” Ria told me. “I’m not affected by it. Right!” I turned to the right, stepping back and parrying a sword swing.

Jolyne raised an eyebrow at me, and I grinned back. Forming my mana into an effect-clearing spell, I hit myself with it, clearing my head.

I didn’t have any particular spell for clearing negative status effects, but I had practiced before on shaping raw mana. It was difficult to learn at first, but once I knew how, I only needed to know the shape of the spell to cast it if it had no element.

However, dispelling the effect was useless, given the fact that Jolyne was now casting several more confusion spells.

I dodged the first, but the second one hit the floor next to me, and the third hit me square in the chest. My head swam and my vision wobbled as the status effect took hold.

Fuck, I grumbled, shaking my head.

“Let me control our body a bit,” Ria said. I silently agreed, and the two of us began moving together.

Ria would move our body as best she could, calling out Jolyne’s attacks as she did so. I listened to her commands and blocked or parried, letting Ria handle the dodging.

“She’s getting frustrated,” Ria said. “I’m going to start repeatedly casting the effect-clearing spells. You start attacking back.”

Got it, I thought.

Ria passed total control of our body over to me, and I began fighting as she focused on casting the spell.

Repeatedly, each time I was hit with a confusion spell, she cleared it as I continued fighting.

Jolyne was moving faster and faster as we fought, and it was getting close to the point where she was outpacing me. Early in the fight, I had been moving at slower than my best speed, but now that I was going all out, I couldn’t go any faster.

Then, suddenly, Jolyne disappeared.

“Match is over,” A gruff voice said from the doorway. I turned to see a very tall man, holding Jolyne by her shirt. His body was covered in a short coat of dark grey fur, and his head had a wolf-like snout.

“Why’d you stop me?” Jolyne whined. “I was having fun!”

“Exactly,” The wolfman rumbled, and I realized who this was. The Guildmaster, the leader of our town’s Adventuring Guild, and amongst the highest-ranked of the Guild members. “When you’re having fun, you’re very likely to break something.”

He set Jolyne down before looking at me.

“Sorry about that,” He said, rubbing the back of his head. “You did really good. We’ll get you your new Guild card in a few minutes.” I nodded, and he turned to leave before pausing. “Before I go, I wanted to tell you,” he added. “Try not to use [Decimate] so close to town again, please?”

My eyes widened as he left.

“How does he know about that?” Ria asked.

<He’s a Guildmaster,> Stella said, startling me slightly. <Sorry, I had a few things I needed to do this morning.>

You’re fine, I thought. What does being a Guildmaster have to do with anything?

<Guildmasters have a unique ability to know about anything that happens around their Guild that’s related to adventuring, in detail,> Stella explained. <He heard about the big thing you did, and then knew it was you who did it and about your skill, because you did it during your quest to kill that orc.>

“That’s a weird ability,” Ria said. “How do people know that their Guildmaster isn’t abusing it?”

<They can’t,> Stella told us. <When a person becomes a Guildmaster, they bind themselves with a divine oath to the God of Adventuring, Arlion, who is also the God of Justice and Secrets. They can only reveal any sensitive information if it’s necessary.>

How is it deemed necessary? I asked.

<Arlion decides it,> Stella replied. <They are the God of Justice, so he can literally never be biased.>

“Here you go!” A Guild employee said suddenly, handing me my new Guild card.

I thanked her before leaving the room, examining it. Surprisingly, I had jumped straight from Copper rank to Iron, skipping over Bronze.

“Neat,” I murmured, before heading out to meet with the rest of our party to see how they did.