Ch.27
Eina was smiling when I got to the counter. Not the professional smile. The one that meant she had information and the information was going to cost me.
"You look happy," I said. "Who died?"
"Nobody died." She adjusted her glasses with one finger. The smile widened. "The Denatus results came down this morning."
I leaned on the counter. The Guild was mid-morning quiet, half the adventurers already in the Dungeon, the clerks shuffling paperwork between the registration desks. Misha was at the next window over, pretending to organize forms while her ears tilted in our direction. She wasn't even subtle about it.
"Hit me."
"Your official epithet, registered in the divine naming council of Babel and recorded in the Guild's permanent adventurer archive, is-" She paused. She was enjoying this. "Little Rookie."
I stared at her.
"Little Rookie."
"Little Rookie," she confirmed. Her emerald eyes were bright behind her glasses and the corners of her lips were twitching. "Congratulations."
Misha made a noise behind her hand that she tried to disguise as a cough. It didn't work.
I put both hands flat on the counter and looked at the ceiling. The ceiling had nothing useful to offer. "What were the other options?"
"Lady Loki proposed 'The Rabbit.'" Eina pulled out a sheet of paper. Official Guild stationery, stamped and signed. "Lady Hephaestus proposed 'White Knife.' Lord Miach seconded it. Lady Loki argued that 'The Rabbit' was more memorable. Lady Hestia-" She paused again, reading from the sheet. "Lady Hestia apparently stood on her chair and demanded 'The Hero of Orario' and was voted down unanimously. There was a fifteen-minute debate. Lord Hermes proposed 'Record Holder' and it was deemed 'too threatening for a Level 2.' The council eventually settled on Little Rookie by a margin of-"
"Eina."
"Yes?"
"You can stop."
She folded the paper neatly. "I personally think it's charming."
"You personally think it's hilarious."
"Those aren't mutually exclusive." She slid the paper across the counter. "You'll need this for official documentation. Any quest submissions, Familia registration updates, and inter-Familia correspondence will reference you by epithet from this point forward."
I picked up the paper. There it was in black ink, stamped with the Guild seal. Bell Cranel. Level 2. Hestia Familia. Epithet: Little Rookie. The handwriting was neat and impersonal and it was going to follow me around Orario like a bad tattoo.
"Could be worse," I said.
"It really could," Eina agreed. "Lord Takemikazuchi suggested 'Lucky Boy.'"
I folded the paper and put it in my jacket. Misha had given up pretending to work and was openly grinning from behind her desk, her pink hair falling across one eye.
"Bell Cranel, the Little Rookie," she said. "It's kind of cute."
"It's going on my grave."
"Most epithets grow on people," Eina said. She was organizing the counter now, straightening stacks that were already straight. "Ais Wallenstein didn't choose 'Sword Princess.' Ottar didn't choose 'King.' The gods name you what they see."
"They saw a little rookie."
"They saw the fastest Level 2 in recorded history and decided to make it sound adorable." Her green eyes came up from the papers. Steady, the smile gone. "That's a compliment, Bell. Even if it doesn't sound like one."
A man at the desk behind me dropped a stack of quest forms and swore. The pages fanned across the floor and a clerk scrambled to help him pick them up, and the man waved her off and got down on his knees himself. His hands were shaking. He'd been in the Dungeon recently. The shaking hadn't stopped yet.
"Thanks, Eina."
"For what?"
"For laughing first. Before someone else does."
Her fingers paused on the counter's edge. She opened her mouth, closed it, and then adjusted her glasses again. The tips of her ears were pink.
"I'm your advisor," she said. "Preparing you for difficult situations is part of the job."
I left the Guild with a stupid name and the image of Eina's ears going red, which was a good trade.
The Hostess was packed when I got there. Loki Familia had the long table in the back and they were loud about it.
Tiona's voice was carrying over the crowd noise and the kitchen clatter, something about a hero story she'd read and how the hero's sword was bigger than the drawing made it look. Bete was drinking. Finn was at the head of the table, small-framed and straight-backed, tracking the room. Tione sat beside Tiona, eating with focused precision.
Riveria Ljos Alf sat on Finn's left.
I knew her from the anime. Jade-green hair in a long ponytail, jade eyes, pointed ears. Tall for an elf and sitting with posture that had been enforced by generations of elven propriety. She was cutting her food into precisely equal sections.
Ryuu brought me a table near the wall. Her sky-blue eyes noted the Loki Familia table and then noted me noticing it and her lips pressed together by about a millimeter.
"The usual?"
"Yeah."
She left. Syr appeared from somewhere. She always appeared from somewhere.
"Evening, Bell." She set down water and a bread basket without being asked and stood with her hands clasped in front of her apron. Her gray eyes were warm and her smile could have meant anything. "Busy night. Loki Familia just came back from an expedition resupply."
"I noticed."
"Ais isn't with them tonight. She's training."
I hadn't asked. Syr answered questions I hadn't asked the way Lili managed budgets I hadn't requested. Proactively and without permission.
"Noted."
"Mm." She squeezed my shoulder once and glided back toward the kitchen, weaving between tables without touching a single chair.
The food came. I was halfway through a plate of roast chicken and potatoes when the chair across from me pulled out and someone sat down.
Riveria Ljos Alf set a glass of wine on my table and looked at me.
Up close the jade eyes were worse. Worse meaning more. The green was deep and specific, like old glass held up to light. Her face had a symmetry that made you want to look for the flaw and the flaw wasn't there. She smelled like trees and old paper and something herbal underneath, like she'd been reading in a library surrounded by growing things.
"Bell Cranel," she said.
"Riveria." I set my fork down. "Can I help you?"
"You reached Level 2 in three weeks." Flat. Measured. Data. "Ais Wallenstein reached Level 2 in one year. That was the previous record."
"I've heard."
"One year was considered impossible. Three weeks is considered-" She chose the next word carefully. "Inexplicable."
I picked up my water. Drank. Set it down. She watched me do all of this without hurrying.
"How?" she said.
"Luck."
Her left eyebrow moved. A millimeter. On that face, it was an avalanche. "Luck."
"Good timing. Right fights. A Falna that likes me."
"A Falna that likes you."
"Is there an echo in here?"
The eyebrow settled. Her jade eyes held mine and the composure didn't shift but the pressure behind it did. She was measuring me. Ais did the same thing during training, but with her sword. Riveria did it with questions.
"I've studied the Falna system for longer than most mortal lineages survive," she said. "Growth of your magnitude requires either a hidden skill, an external catalyst, or a blessing mechanism that the Guild's records don't account for. 'Luck' is not a satisfying answer."
"It's the one I've got."
She took a sip of her wine. Red. The glass was elegant in her long fingers and she held it like she'd been holding wine glasses for centuries, which she probably had.
"Ais speaks about your training sessions." She set the glass down. "She says you learn too quickly."
"I learn exactly as quickly as I learn."
"She said that too." The faintest crease between her eyebrows. "She said it the same way."
I didn't know what to do with that, so I ate a potato.
A shadow appeared at Riveria's shoulder. Tione was standing behind her chair with her arms crossed over her chest, her dark-green eyes fixed on me. I knew her from the anime too. The twin who watched Finn's back like it was her full-time job. The one who fought like she had a personal grudge against everything in the Dungeon.
"Riveria." Tione's voice was controlled. Working at it. "You've been over here for five minutes."
"I've been here for three."
"Finn asked where you went."
"Tell Finn I'm conducting reconnaissance."
Tione looked at me. Full assessment, top to bottom, a fighter sizing up a sparring dummy she hadn't decided to hit yet. Her eyes lingered on my hands, my shoulders, the knife on my belt.
"He's Level 2," Tione said. "What are you reconnaissancing?"
"The exception to the record."
"He's small."
"Size is irrelevant."
"Size is almost never irrelevant."
"Tione." Riveria's voice dropped half a register.
Tione stopped talking. Her mouth closed, her jaw set harder, and she looked at me again. This time her eyes stayed on mine.
I looked back.
She had the build of someone who trained every day and fought like it mattered every time. Her arms were crossed but the muscles in her forearms were visible and she was holding herself back from doing something. Probably asking me a question she didn't want the answer to. Or hitting me.
"You're the one Ais trains," she said.
"Yeah."
"Ais doesn't train people."
"She trains me."
"Why?"
"Ask her."
Her eyes narrowed. I was getting the same look she'd give anything that wandered too close to Finn Deimne. I wasn't a threat to Finn. But I was a variable near someone she protected, and in her math that probably came out the same.
"Tione." Tiona's voice came from behind her. A hand appeared on Tione's shoulder, pulling her back gently. "He's not an enemy."
"Everyone's an enemy until proven otherwise."
"That's literally only your rule. Nobody else uses that rule."
"Finn uses that rule."
"Finn also smiles when he does it. You should try smiling."
Tione's jaw worked. She looked at Tiona's hand on her shoulder and then back at me and her mouth made a shape that was technically a smile in the same way a knife is technically a kitchen utensil.
"Fair enough," I said.
She held the stare for another second. Then she turned and walked back to the Loki Familia table with Tiona bouncing behind her, waving at me over her shoulder with both hands like she was flagging down a rescue ship.
Riveria stood. She picked up her wine glass and looked at me one more time.
"Luck runs out, Bell Cranel."
"Usually does."
She left. The scent of forest and old paper stayed in the air for a few seconds after her chair was empty. I breathed it in without meaning to. Another scent I was going to remember whether I wanted to or not.
Ryuu appeared with a second plate. She set it down without comment and her sky-blue eyes passed over the empty chair across from me and the wine ring Riveria had left on the table.
"Loki Familia takes an interest," she said.
"Seems like it."
"Be careful which interests you return." She wiped the wine ring with a cloth and left.
Hephaestus was at a corner table near the back wall, away from the Loki Familia noise. Tsubaki sat across from her, leaning back in her chair with a mug of dark ale, her black hair loose and her eyepatch catching the lamplight. They were talking about metal. I caught fragments as I passed. Grain direction, tempering ranges, something about a Goliath horn's crystalline structure.
I stopped at their table.
Hephaestus looked up. One crimson eye, sharp, the eyepatch covering the right side of her face. Red hair cut short, forearms marked with faint burn scars from the forge. She looked like someone who worked for a living.
"Bell Cranel," she said. Professional.
"I wanted to thank you for the knife."
Her expression didn't change. Tsubaki's mug paused halfway to her mouth.
"It's saved my life in the Dungeon more than once," I said. "Hestia asked you to make it, but you're the one who forged it. I should have said this sooner."
Hephaestus's hand went to her eyepatch. Her fingers touched the edge of it, adjusted it by a fraction that changed nothing, and came back down to the table.
"Hestia asked," she said. "I forged."
"And it's the best weapon I've ever held."
"It's a living weapon. It grows with you." She looked at me and the single crimson eye was harder to hold than both of Riveria's. "Take care of it."
"I will."
Tsubaki took a long drink from her mug and set it down with a thunk. Her red eye, the visible one, was bright. "You're politer than most adventurers who use my goddess's work."
"Most adventurers don't know what went into it."
"And you do?"
"I know it cost Hestia two hundred million valis and a goddess's pride."
Hephaestus's hand went to the eyepatch again. This time she caught herself. Her fingers curled back into her palm and she set her fist on the table.
"Don't break it," she said quietly.
"I won't."
I nodded and walked back to my table. My food was cold. I ate it anyway. Across the room, Loki Familia was getting louder. Tiona was standing on her chair demonstrating a sword technique with a breadstick. Tione was pulling her back down. Bete was arguing with a dwarf about floor kill counts and neither of them was winning. Riveria was back in her seat with her wine, and her jade eyes found me across the crowded room one more time.
I looked back. She looked away first. That surprised me.
Syr collected my plate. Her fingers brushed mine during the handoff and lingered.
"You made an impression tonight," she said.
"Apparently I'm impressive for a little rookie."
Her laugh was small and private. She leaned in, her gray hair falling forward, her breath warm near my ear. "I think the name suits you." She pulled back with the plate and the smile and walked away before I could answer.
Ryuu was watching from behind the bar. Chloe had appeared in the kitchen doorway. Anya was in the supply closet doing something that definitely wasn't stealing food.
I left a good tip and went home.
The church basement was dark when I got back. Hestia had left a candle burning on the table and a note that said "Your goddess demands a full report on Denatus reactions. Wake me." I didn't wake her. She was curled up on the couch with her twin-tails spread across the cushion and Lili's blanket pulled up to her chin, which meant Lili had covered her before going to bed.
I blew out the candle. Put the Denatus paper on the table beside the note. Lay down on the floor because the couch was taken and the cot was Lili's and the church basement had not been designed for three people who were all pretending the sleeping arrangements were fine.
The floor was cold and hard and I could hear Hestia breathing on the couch and Lili shifting on the cot and the Dungeon humming underneath everything.
Little Rookie.
I closed my eyes.
Riveria's perfume was still in my nose. Forest, and old paper, and something I hadn't identified yet.
I fell asleep trying to name it.