Natsu and Shui trudged back up the hill to the Verm?genburgh Mage’s College after Natsuko dealt with the Ice Wyvern for the week. She felt like there was something she ought to say to Shuixing, but Natsuko wasn’t a thinker, and she was hardly much of a feeler beyond raw emotion. She usually let Shuixing explain things when they required 'tact' or 'subtlety,' but she had the sneaking suspicion that in this case Shuixing might, in fact, be the source of her weird feelings.

  Natsuko stuffed her cold hands into her pockets. “Damn, it’s cold.”

  No response.

  “Hey, guess who’s not gonna drink tonight?”

  No response.

  “Me! I’m not gonna drink. Isn’t that wild? That’s archetype development! I didn’t even get a questline for it either. Unless you count that whole thing in the dungeon with the… you know…”

  Natsuko’s brain, on its 24th grueling hour of sobriety, was whirring into motion, rusty gears grinding and screeching. With herculean effort it came up with the hypothesis that her friend’s silence might have something to do with what happened in that very same dungeon. Natsuko jogged ahead of Shuixing and walked backwards facing her.

  “You uh… still bummed about those papers?”

  Shuixing’s cheeks puffed up. “Yes, Natsuko, I am still bummed about the papers. Gods… do you know what I released into the world!? What if someone who… who moves as fast Sofiane or Daisy— a Top Tier Hero, what if they recreate your bottle? They could knock us out of existence before we even know what happened, and it’s all my fault!”

  “It’s not your f—”

  “Yes, it is,” Shuixing said, a glare filling the frames of her glasses.

  “Okay, but—" and Natsuko had no idea where she was going with this but decided to keep talking until Shui felt better, "—as a uh... a wise man once said: Things never really get better or worse, they just get different. All you can do is roll with the difference."

  Shuixing raised an eyebrow. “By wise man you mean Pechorin?”

  “No! Oh Gods, please tell me you’re joking, that isn’t really a Pechorism, is it? It just popped into my head. There’s no way!”

  Shuixing snorted. “He didn’t say it exactly like that but he said something like it when we gave up adventuring. You teased him for 'huffing copium' when he said it, if I recall correctly.”

  “Rrgh, gods-dammit! Do not tell him I said that, alright? Do not!”

  “I won't—”

  “I’m being a hundred percent real, you cannot tell Pechorin I repeated one of his stupid edgelord phrases. You can not. I will literally dimension-jump you.”

  Shuixing giggled. “I won’t, I promise!”

  Natsu extended a pinkie and Shui grasped it with her own. After that they turned onto the tree-lined avenue leading to the Mage’s College. Twilight was painting the clouds a purple-orange and gas lamps along the street were flickering on.

  “It’s not that easy to do...” Shuixing said in a half-whisper.

  “What’d’ya mean? What’s not easy?” Natsuko asked.

  “It's not that easy to accept things have changed."

  Natsuko opened her mouth to reply before realizing she had nothing to add.

  Pechorin settled down in his comfortable home for the night. Most people would find it uncomfortable, but Pehcorin was not most people. To him, discomfort was comfort. It was all he knew and all he had ever known since that fateful day a mysterious group calling themselves “The Dark Conglomerate” massacred his entire clan, leaving him to fend for himself from the tender age of 12. Streets or fields, forests or barns, they all made no difference. His home was the rage and torment within him. The cold steel of this temporary abode he found himself in matched the cold steel which enshrouded his heart. And from the darkness came the acrid, phosphorous smell of the hell which awaited him for his many, many sins.

  As part of his bedtime ritual, he emptied his pockets of the myriad things he carried with him in his trench coat. Out fell his two pepperbox guns followed by loaded dice and a set of cards missing the ace of spades which he kept separate in case he did something cool and could leave it as a calling card. Beside this he set down a flask (empty), a straight razor (still new, he didn’t grow facial hair), a hunting knife (which his class could not equip), a note from his deceased father (fictitious), nine pork dumplings, and an opto-box photo of his former teammates with the phrase "Always fight for what’s right, even if it’s suicidally stupid!" written on the back.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  He kept this photo as a reminder to rely on no one but himself, for that was all you had in this cold, self-interested world. He set it down beside his guns on the floor of this steel fortress. Pockets emptied, he could finally rest his weary head on his rucksack pillow and shut his eyes as he waited for the nightmares to come and torment his soul.

  “So, I’m not the only one who thinks this should not have happened in the first place, right?” Sofiane asked.

  Daisy rubbed her neck. “Ah, ahaha, hehe, well…”

  Most of the regulars at the Devil’s Cut abandoned their Monday night drinking in the absence of their red-haired gremlin of a drinking buddy. Aside from one or two Non-Heroes in the corner nursing pints of ale, Daisy and Sofiane had the run of the bar. Plus the bartender. Claws, or something like that.

  “I didn’t mention it earlier out of politeness, but if Shuixing didn’t invent a way to murder people there would've been nothing to steal. Do you really think there’s nothing there? That she’s totally innocent?” Sofiane asked.

  “I’m not always a good judge of character. I mostly want to be friends with everyone,” Daisy said. “There’s enough competitiveness and hostility over the Use-Rankings that I don’t want to add more.”

  Sofiane raised an eyebrow at that. Seeing that he knew about that part of her past, Daisy blushed and turned away. He decided not to prod. Regardless of the rumors, it was better to be friends than enemies with Top-Tier Heroes, and since the maneuvering at the top was out of his league anyway, it really didn't matter.

  “Okay, but besides the jockeying for rank, this is a much bigger deal. Way bigger! Friggin’—” Sofiane expanded his arms to demonstrate how big and knocked over his glass, spilling pink moscato across the bar.

  Ignoring the mess, Sofiane motioned for another drink before turning back to Daisy. “This blows the Use-Charts up entirely, I'm sure you've realized. This is an equalizer. Everyone becomes equal if people start making weapons out of Shuixing’s research. It'll be anarchy."

  Daisy nodded. “That was my first thought.”

  “It doesn’t matter what anyone does then. Stats won’t matter, equipment won’t matter, dungeons, skills, classes, quests, the Entropic Axis, none of it. Numbers. Numbers won’t mean a damn thing,” Sofiane said, slurring half his words.

  Listening to Sofiane voicing all of her fears, Daisy’s mind felt like it was on a needle-point. She had to come down on a concrete decision about what to do about not only the secret of forced dimension-jumping, but about what was going to do with Natsuko and Shuixing. For now she was keeping her options open until she absolutely had to pick, and being part of the Top Ten Heroes, there were a lot of options. But that window closed as soon as word got out to the other Top Ten Heroes.

  “Shuixing seems to think someone on top of the Use-Rankings will use it to dominate everyone else,” Daisy said for no other reason than curiosity about what Sofi thought.

  “She’s wrong,” Sofiane replied. “Shui and Natsu haven’t been on top of the rankings in years. They both still think it’s a free-for-all competition, the pure anarchy it used to be before the 5th generation. But you and I both know it’s not like that anymore. It’s a clique of whoever is closest to the Yishang with little rings outwards for people who aren’t as close. I’m what, second-ring? Maybe third after that smarmy little shit Koyon took my archetype. But you, Ms. Gets-Orders-From-The-Yishang, you’re—”

  Daisy slapped her palm over Sofiane’s mouth so hard it made him gag.

  “Goodness gracious, Sofi, why talk so gosh dang loud!?” she whispered.

  She withdrew her hand revealing a smirk underneath.

  “What do I have to say to make you do that aga— Ow!”

  Daisy jammed her fist into his face and retracted.

  “Shoot, I’m sorry! That was instinct, I swear! Here, do you need me to order some ice?”

  Sofiane winced and pressed the glass of chilly moscato to his jaw. “I'm fine. Probably deserved that."

  He took a long pull from the wine then asked, “Why the secrecy though? We’re the only Heroes around and it’s not like the Non-Heroes really care. So what if we bring up…”

  He stopped when Daisy gave him a look like she was going to 'instinctually' punch him again.

  He threw up his hands in surrender. “Whatever. Best case scenario we nab Yuna or whoever was stupid enough to steal the secret to forced dimension-jumping and talk some sense into them before they go and ruin the game.”

  Daisy huffed and put her head in her hands while her mint julep dripped its condensation onto the counter, mingling with the spilled wine.

  “Hmm… I don’t know if it’s a good or bad thing if Yun-chan is the thief. On the one hand, she'd probably just use it to cheat the Yishang and win her storyline to take over Shikijima. That’s not as bad as someone using it to destroy the Use-Rankings. On the other hand… well, you’ve heard about her, right?”

  “That she takes her archetype even more seriously than that dork, Pechorin?” Sofiane said.

  Daisy nodded. “One hundred and fifty percent true. She hasn’t figured out yet that the Yishang just plum don’t want resolved questlines. I sure as heck don’t know why, but if she believes somethin’ like Natsuko’s bottle will get her closer to conquering Shikijima, well, she’ll say nuts to everyone else and try it. Which means…”

  “She won't give up Shui’s papers willingly,” Sofiane said.

  Daisy closed her left eye to aim and fired a few shots of her signature finger guns dead between Sofiane’s eyebrows. “Bang! Bang! Bullseye!”

  Sofiane chuckled and motioned for another round of wine.

  “What are you gonna do with the papers if— once you get them back? It’s not like any of us can stop you from doing whatever you want,” Sofiane said.

  There was that pinprick under Daisy again, getting smaller and smaller all the time, trying to get her to throw her chips down. Gosh was it irritating.

  “Hmph, I’m a simple gal, Mister So-Fee-Yawn. I take things one step at a time, and it sure ain’t time for me to worry about those papers just yet,” Daisy said with a disarming smile.

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