James noticed the smell as soon as the door opened.

It felt like a distillery had been teleported directly into his nose.

“James, meet Denmac!” Helios announced with an awkward smile.

As surprised as James was by the smell, he was more surprised by the Denmac’s demeanor. Eyes half-closed, hunched over, unkempt hair. The man looked like he just got out of a coma.

Noticing James’s surprised expression, Helios chuckled. “He might look out of it, but he’s actually extremely alert.”

To prove it, Helios sneakily conjured a waterball, barely even moving his hands, and discretely launched it at Denmac’s back.

Denmac didn’t seem to react at all until the last moment, when he barely moved his body a single inch. But that was enough for the waterball to miss him.

“You see, I told you! Could you have dodged that?” Helios asked with a smile, and then proudly announced. “Anyway, Denmac here will be an important part of our battle strategy on this dangerous mission.”

Denmac bowed. As he bowed, his hunched, slumped figure made him look as if he was about to fall over. James almost rushed to keep him from injuring himself, but then he realized Denmac was just bowing.

James bowed and greeted him as well with an awkward smile, not knowing how to react.

“You guys got any booze in here?” Denmac asked.

When he heard the question, James became even more confused. What the man did on his own time was nobody’s business, but they were about to embark on a dangerous mission! How could he even think of drinking?

Helios simply led him to his wine cellar, a room that James didn’t even know existed, even though he had spent quite some time in this house by now. That made James wonder just how many other strange rooms could possibly fit in this house. Was it infinite or something?

Helios then came back without Denmac.

“All right, I think he’ll be there for a while. So, what do you think?”

James opened his mouth but didn’t know what to say. He stood there with his mouth open, trying to make words come out, but he couldn’t articulate anything.

Helios was cracking up looking at him. Lunaris broke into laughter as well.

“That reaction right there is why we didn’t fully inform you beforehand.” Helios said while laughing. “I know you’re probably thinking ‘how is this sleepwalking alcoholic going to be of help to us?’, but he’ll actually be quite useful. And he’s a good guy too, a bit weird, but all diviners are like that.”

“Do all diviners reek of booze?” James asked.

“Nah, that’s just what his spell uses as fuel. Like how you power your Chaos Barrier with your own health.” Helios looked at James and shook his head.

“You crazy bastard. Usually I’d consider any skills requiring a particular substance unreliable. But compared to you basically torturing yourself to fuel your skills, these kinds of spells seem like a cakewalk in comparison.” Helios sighed, but then he smiled. “But I suppose no pain, no gain, isn’t that right?”

Helios had mixed feelings about James sacrificing his HP for power, but he was very proud of him nonetheless. He came quite far in a relative short time.

“There are people who keep poisons in their body or even ingest them, others who eat a lot of food, some who breathe in a lot of smoke. It’s used in their skills. In this case, Denmac uses alcohol.” Lunaris explained.

“So he’s drunk all the time?” James asked.

Helios chuckled at James’s naivety. It was amusing and endearing, like talking to a child.

“Quite the contrary.” He answered. “He’s stone cold sober. Actually, alcohol or drug abuse is a thing of the past in most of the world. Alcohol is a poison, whereas meditation and training your body and mind have much better effects anyway. Being healthy of mind and body is much better than being drunk. Also, who needs alcohol when you can level up? That’s better than any drug. You should know that better than anyone.”

“So why does he use it then?”

“He’s a farseer! And that’s his catalyst. Well, for some skills. It’s not like he can’t learn new ones or evolve past the need to use alcohol.” Lunaris replied. “While alcohol doesn’t affect him directly, it helps fuel and maintain his spells. His seemingly sleepy demeanor is a result of his always active skills. That’s why Helios’s waterball couldn’t hit him, he’s constantly surveying his surroundings, and even divining the future.”

“So it’s like my Combat Clairvoyance?”

“Your Combat Clairvoyance is impressive since it pretty much has no cost, and you pulled it out of thin air like you do with everything.” Lunaris rolled her eyes and chuckled. “But it’s still quite limited, it only tells you of the danger one moment ahead. As impressive as that is, divination spells in general are quite important, and that’s what makes Denmac valuable. Without him, this would be a suicide mission. We’d be headless chicken wandering around without any idea about our surroundings or where we’re going. But with him there, we actually stand a chance.”

“Yep, if we’re lucky he’ll even be able to tell us of any dangers ahead of time. But even if it’s just general information gathering and scouting, that’s still the difference between life and death.” Helios added. “And he was free to come join us! Even though he’s a great guy, most people can’t stand his smell. But we’re used to wearing earplugs and nose plugs, aren’t we?” Helios grinned.

James had certainly gotten them used to wearing earplugs after all the times he caused loud explosions. Some nose plugs on top of that wouldn’t be too much of a hassle at this point.

“I’ve actually been meaning to tell you guys that I’ve been working on the plugs!” Lunaris then handed everyone a set of earplugs and nose plugs. “I did manage to enchant them after all. I would’ve thought it’d take some skilled craftsman to do that, but it wasn’t very hard. The nose plugs have a special enchantment, they continuously emanate a nice smell into your nose. And the earplugs can actually be linked to other people, so even while blocking out other noises, their voices can be heard loud and clear. I think more advanced designs can even play music, but I couldn’t figure those out. We’d probably have to buy those, but that’s a luxury we don’t really need for now. Unless James plans on trying out some new spells.”

Helios and Lunaris laughed. As good as James’s spells were most of the time, sometimes they really backfired.

Denmac came back from the cellar and saw them with their nose plugs. Lunaris immediately tried to offer him a pair.

“They’re enchanted! They smell very nice! And you can breathe through them as if they weren’t there. They’re comfy too, you forget you even have one on.”

Denmac took the nose plug and smelled it. He then shook his head vigorously as if he had smelled poison.

“No, no, no, that’s no good. Actually, as a side effect of my spells, my sense of smell is skewed. I actually love my smell, it smells like candy to me. Conversely, actually pleasant smells have turned foul.” Denmac explained while inhaling a bottle of wine he took from the cellar.

“By the way, Helios, thanks for the wine. I must’ve guzzled several hundred bottles. I’m now all set for our mission, since it’ll definitely last me for a long time. You don’t mind I used so much of your wine, do you?”

“Not at all, I actually acquired the cellar just for this purpose. Alcohol is a poison, I don’t drink it. All I need is a healthy body and mind. Anyway, I bought that specific cellar design because it has a built-in wine-making device. So by the time we leave tomorrow, you’ll be able acquire another round of wine.”

James was right after all! Helios didn’t have a wine cellar before! So he bought one just for this occasion. But when was it built? They were in the dojo for weeks, did a construction mage come over, build the room and leave without him even noticing it?

“That’s true, I completely agree.” Denmac responded.

“What? You’re an alcohol-based mage and you agree that alcohol is poison?” James asked, surprised.

“Oh, for sure. If not for my spells, I wouldn’t ever touch it. But my spells purify it and it’s more like sugary water for me. Delicious, and the poison parts go directly into my mana.”

Helios then made the final announcement.

“Tomorrow we take the portal to the kingdom of Andarmat. With Denmac here, we’ve got our scout, diviner and we've even got some utility like stealth and whatnot. It's far more useful than just hiring a combat mercenary, but we still can't get careless. It'll still be a very perilous mission. We need to rest up for tonight, so we’ll be at 100% tomorrow morning. We don’t know when we’ll be able to rest again.”

The four of them then had a feast. Helios ordered special foods with long-lasting buffs, and their deliciousness certainly matched their usefulness. James had to take his pants off, since it was so good he wouldn’t stop eating, and he was afraid his button would pop off and take somebody’s eye out.

The feast lasted for hours. The three got more acquainted with Denmac and shared stories. Denmac seemed to be slumping over and almost falling asleep all the time, but he was eating and talking like a completely normal, sober and awake person. It was a confusing dichotomy for James at first, but he slowly got used to it.

Denmac was particularly interested in James’s past life on Earth. Helios and Lunaris had heard most of it before, but they still listened with extreme interest as well. Every detail about an alien world was exciting to them, even the mundane.

The feast would’ve lasted a lot longer, but Helios’s warning about being fully rested wasn’t said in jest. They were about to embark on a perilous journey. Exploiting every possible advantage was crucial to their success, and that included being well-rested.