I’m making out with Selena Gomez. She’s so beautiful and hot. We are sharing a glass of wine in a fancy NYC apartment, sitting on the hard, wooden floor that creeks a bit when you walk on it – but in a good way.

She’s saying something about how I’m an amazing lover between tongue lashings. I don’t really have the will to listen. She’s just absorbing my full attention, and I swear, even if you don’t believe me, she’s just so hungry for my kisses! She’s basically slobbering all over my lips!

WOOF!

I think one of my eardrums just ruptured.

My eyes pop open, and I find Grigio on top of me while I’m lying on a bed. Stan is standing by the bed, and someone’s asleep on a chair, bent towards my own bed.

Is that Vilith?

Grigio suddenly licks my face, and I realize that it wasn’t Selena Gomez I was making out with.

“OH, GRIGIO! NOT COOL, DUDE! NOT COOL!” I try to push the massive dog out of the way, but it’s like trying to move Godzilla. “Off the bed! Off!”

I push, but Grigio just sits like an unmovable monk. The goddamn bastard looks like he’s smirking at my plight.

“Grigio, leave him alone for a second,” Stanimal says while looking at the massive dog.

The dog snorts and shoots me a pitiful stare before jumping off the bed, making the floor of my room creak. This goddamn monster will cave in the pavements of my bakery one of these days.

“Stanimal? Am I not in prison?” I look around, surprised. I fully expected to be arrested as soon as we landed a foot outside the mine.

“Some friends of yours found a way to play the law for you. And it wouldn’t have been put in prison, Joey. You would have been executed,” Stan says with a sad smile.

“My countrymen love to say, ‘here for a good time, not a long time,’” I snort. “It’s obvious that I do not agree with that, but I’m glad I won’t be hanged.”

“Hanged?” Stan asks, confused.

“Well, that’s how they execute you, right?” I ask, now in doubt.

Wait.

Don’t tell me these freaks have people go through terrifying torture before dying…

“We slowly stab people with thin, enchanted blades. Some die because they bleed out after screaming for hours. It takes a while for your body to fail, especially because they use potions to make it last longer if the crime was heinous enough. They use potions until they are not effective anymore. This method was born during the first wars against Humans, Joey. It’s rarely used nowadays. But I’m sure the Captain would have loved to rehearse it in your honor.”

“Stanimal, don’t be so bleak, dude. Come on. Cheer up. We slew that Dungeon! Plus, I’m not going to get executed. Listen, don’t tell me details about the law, ok? I’d rather not know it.”

Stan stifles a laugh and nods.

Oh.

Oh.

Wait a second.

“Stan? What is that laugh?”

“This old man is going senile, Joey. Don’t pay too much attention to me.”

Having said that, he slowly takes off.

“Stan. Stan! STAN! WHAT DID YOU DO? STANIMAL, DON’T YOU DARE LEAVE ME HERE!”

My shouts seem to finally wake up Vilith, who has slept like a rock through the rest of the conversation. Waking up, she stirs quietly, like a cat. Her sharp eyes could cut, I swear. There is something about this woman that makes me piss myself in fear. It’s like some very hard to describe quality that encompasses her flesh.

“You,” she says with a determined look in her eyes.

I can’t help myself.

“Me?”

“You,” she says again.

“Me,” I snort.

This stuff will never get old.

“How you doin’?” I flash her a wink, and she just stares at me. There’s no threat to break my teeth or anything like that.

She stands up and stretches an arm toward me.

Is she going for a shake?

I tentatively move my hand out to grab hers.

When I do, she pulls me out of bed, almost making me fall in the process. However, she helps me by counterbalancing my weight to avoid having me sprawl on the ground. There’s something different about this woman now. She’s never really bothered with me or to hang out with the others at the bakery. When I asked them what she would do all night, they said train or think about training.

She was from another continent, and her people had a weird name. And a weird naming sense.

“You showed a heart of a Vanedenis, Joey. My people rarely respect outsiders. Even the Demons are barely qualified to stand to the standards of my ancestors. Nothing short of legends is worth admiration in my culture. And what you did was not just great; it was heroic.”

She puts great emphasis on that word, and the entire room seems to get stuffier because of that.

“Some of the great [Heroes] who had shaped us into who we are today started from meager jobs. [Gardeners] took down one of the most terrifying empires after diving hundreds of feet in the darkest waters known to the world. And that’s the standard I hold myself up to. The greatest of the greatest stopped world conflicts and defeated both parties. My heritage might be unknown in the present time, Joey, but I just want you to understand that certain things are not thrown around lightly.”

She speaks with so much tension in her words that I find myself sweating.

“When I say you were heroic, I mean it. I have never seen anyone do what you did. Not even among my kind. You are going to make a great [Hero] one day. And I want to ask for your help to reclaim my continent from the hands of those filthy—”

“WOAH! Time out!” I make a T with my hands, and I start inching backward toward the door. “I’m no [Hero], hero, Hero, or whatever you want me to be. I came to rescue you because I like Gaius and the others. We are buddies. But I’m not getting roped in any legendary quest to save an entire population or anything like that. I’m not even sure I want to visit anywhere outside Amorium yet! So, thanks but no thanks!”

I almost bolt for the door when something she says turns my feet into bricks.

“Now that you have been certified as an adventurer, you will have to.”

I stare into the woman’s pupils, hoping she made the first joke of her entire life and that it was a good one.

“Come again for big fudge?”

She raises an eyebrow.

“Julia bent the rules for you. But I testified under oath and truth stone that you slew a Gold-rank threat meant for more than one group on your own. That’s why you are not going to prison. You are an adventurer. And if you refuse to take quests, your license will be removed after a while. With that, Drusillus will take you to court to litigate the fact that you were never an adventurer, to begin with; and if he can prove that, you will be court-martialed for treason. I thought Stan told you. You have been sleeping off your Mana exhaustion for two whole days. The paperwork is already filled in and all, and Stan has apparently got your approval for him to sign on your behalf. We’ve already put everything in place to save you from the law. You were a hero, and now you are a Gold-rank adventurer.”

Am I having a stroke?

I think I’m having a stroke.

I can’t have heard right.

“So,” I start slowly, making sure that every word of mine is comprehensible and clear, “you tell me that I became a Gold-rank adventurer. And not just that, but also that the title means I have to take on missions, otherwise, the Watch will literally kill me?”

“Exactly. It was all Stan’s idea,” she smiles kindly.

“Huh, right. Ok. Huh, you know what? Just give me a second.”

I get out of the door, clear my voice, and shout.

“STAN! YOU CURSED OLD GEEZER! YOU DID WHAT?!”

I find him chatting with a bruised Gaius and his teammates around him.

“Joey! Our Gold-rank adventurer is finally showing his face to us, poor Silvies!” Gaius crackles and raises a mug filled with something alcoholic.

Stan smiles warmly at me, and I’m considering my chances at strangling the old man right here and now. Looking at the smug beast by his side that is still grinning like a goddamn Hyena, I presume that my chances are pretty low.

“It was the only way to prevent your death,” the old man says in a leveled tone.

“Stanimal, you goddamn traitor!”

I’m desperate.

What am I going to do?

I can’t die because someone wants me to kill some stupid monsters!

“Good news is that you won’t even need to move from Amorium. The mine’s Dungeon got bumped up to Gold, and I’m sure you can just take some simple extermination quests there. You could even join a team and—”

My ears start ringing while I stare at Gaius with the willpower of a man who’s about to get shot.

How did it come to this? What the hell have I done wrong to deserve such fate?

I sit down at the table and rest my head on it, closing my eyes.

[Luxmancer – Level 22!]

[Luxmancer – Level 23!]

[Skill – Aura Lucis Acquired!]

[Skill – Light Overcharge Acquired!]

God, please, give me a break.

“I wish I were that strong,” one of Gaius’s men tells his leader.

“Our favorite baker was hiding his capabilities all along!” Gaius slaps my shoulder and forces me to raise my face to the guys.

“Joey!” Vilith’s voice comes down the stairs together with her.

“Here she goes,” Gaius removes the hand from my shoulder and gives me a wide berth.

Holy hell, Gaius, you sneaky little raccoon. I mean, you giant, fat raccoon. Why do you act like you don’t know me when Vilith comes down? Who’s the boss here, you or her?

“Vilith,” Gaius says somberly, “have you already told him about your proposal?”

I can see Gaius trying his best not to laugh.

Oh, so they are in cahoots!

Let’s see, should I start blasting people with my magic now that I—

“Wait. What about Lucillus and Antoninus?” my brain finally catches up with reality.

“The fact that you are a Gold-rank adventurer now justified their actions too. They were here until a few hours ago. However, they are both out of jobs right now. I took the liberty to tell them you’d hire them both. Please, correct me if I was wrong.”

I stare at Stan, tired. He knows I’d agree to that without batting an eyelid. At this moment, I still ignore our finances, but the old guy knows what he’s doing, or I like to think so, at least.

I look around, taking in the crowd of chatty people around me. Vilith still wants me to take on some weird crusade for her people. But Gaius and the others are laughing and joking about everything and nothing. Maybe, even if this is the start of my life as a part-time adventurer, I could still have some fun.

Something comes to my mind.

“Oh, Stanimal, listen. I need some help with a thing later. I’ve been working on a very complex spell to carry messages across great distances. So far, I’ve not figured out much more than playing my voice through a light construct. I wanted to send a parting message to Lucinda since she’s never given me the opportunity to reply. I have something important to tell her, and I need some closure. If you help me get some range, I can show you the spell I’ve been working on!”

…

Lucinda

Three months after her arrival at the Nine Towers Academy

It was deep into the night when Lucinda got back to her room. She opened the window to breathe some fresh air, tired after spending all this time segregated in the personal library of [Archmage] Titus. She had earned his favors after sharing ‘her’ research and had got a fast-tracked apprenticeship. Everyone at the Nine Towers Academy was more than jealous of her.

She was already the star-pupil, the [Mage] you should keep your eye on and not slight because one day she was fated to join the ranks of the [Archmages].

Plus, she had also got a nice suitor among Titus’s other disciples, Atticus.

Who knew what was going to happen in the future? But one thing was for sure; hers had never looked brighter.

Sometimes she felt little pangs of guilt for how she had treated Joey. But when he explained to her the insane theory he had come up with, the gears in her head started spinning unstoppably. She had to flee Amorium and bring what he told her to an [Archmage]. It had cost her a lot to get an audience, but the gamble had paid off.

In the end, even if Joey had made a crazy deduction, it didn’t mean they had a future together. He was funny and easy-going, but that wasn’t part of the world Lucinda was going for.

To this day, she still wondered how Joey managed to create the spells he had displayed in his bakery the day they had kissed. Lucinda’s ears flared a little after diving into those memories, but she tried to calm down, nonetheless.

The rose had been an insanely difficult [Light] construct, but that had been as far as Joey had gone with his magic. And Lucinda suspected he would never go further than that because of his laziness. A rose was complex enough to be impossible for him to break that ceiling.

Just as her thoughts hit that note, something appeared in her visual field.

She was now staring at a butterfly made of pure [Light], with minuscule junctures recreating the complex structure of its wings and shedding motes of light in the night as it fluttered its body around.

It was a celestial vision, something so stunning that Lucinda felt her throat go dry. Instantly, she ruled out it could have anything to do with Joey, for obvious reasons. She wondered if it was one of her master’s great creations.

It was clear that it was a spell, probably an illusion, though. It would be too hard to build something like this from a simple spell matrix. It would have too many parts to visualize properly, and it could never produce such smooth movements… could it?

The butterfly stopped on the edge of her windowsill, and Lucinda felt a flicker of magic vibrate through the air. Then, the butterfly spoke.

“Yo! This is Joey speaking! Joey Luciani! Sad you had to go do your archmagery stuff; I will miss those buns!”

Lucinda gasped and waited for several seconds to hear the rest of the message.

The butterfly took off and flew into the night, flickering and disappearing right after.

Turns out that was the whole message.