As night descended, I entered the guild and walked to the desk. Mary showed me her best customer service smile. Bless her heart. 

“My quest is finished!” 

“You collected five green lamengrass?” She asked. 

“Five? No, I collected way more than that.” I mentally cheered for a job well done. “Oh,” I said, “and I managed to get much more!” 

“You did? Tell me, Eerie—” Mary’s face became scary. Her lips were upturned, but her eyes weren’t smiling. “Did you do anything else while you were out? Don’t worry, I won’t be mad.”

“N-no, in fact, I was just joking about collecting more lamengrass!”

“Of course you were!” 

“Of course I was!”

“Hahaha!”

“Hahahaha!”

“Oh, Eerie,” she said, “you are such a jokester. Really, don’t scare me like that. I thought I was going to have to leave here sooner.”

“Leave?” I asked. 

“I am transferring to the capital’s branch next week. Before then, please don’t make my workload unreasonable.”

“I would never dream of it!” I pulled the five lamengrass from my inventory and placed them on her desk. “Here.”

Mary picked them up and began inspecting them. She twirled them around by the stems as she looked at the leaves. 

“These are in perfect condition. I am surprised you knew—” Mary cleared her throat. “Thanks, as promised,” she said and handed me five silver coins. “One silver for each.”

“Oh, pretty.” I turned the coins over in my hand. They had a face on one side, but the other was a weird-looking candle. “What’s with the candle?”

“Obviously, that’s because we are in the Candlewax Kingdom.” 

Even I had to laugh awkwardly at that. There was definitely no place called Candlewax. I pocketed the coins in my inventory. As I finally turned to leave, I almost bumped into Wood Beach again. The traveling circus really had a knack for running into me. 

“H-hey, Eerie,” he said. He must have been embarrassed about me having to heal him from his last act. Wood moved past me swiftly to the receptionist's desk. “Marcy, are you putting in an escort request?”

“No, why would I?”

“You are going to the capital alone?” He asked. “I know you are strong, but…”

Mary sighed and pointed at the quest board. “Gee, between you and the guild master, I don’t know what’s worse. If you really want to come, I will put a quest up tomorrow.”

Wood’s face went red. “It’s not like I want to come. I just want you to feel safe.”

What the heck? Was this the legendary tsundere act? The acting troupe was really upping their game. I decided it was the perfect time to pull a bag of popcorn from my inventory and started eating while the free theatre continued. 

“Wood, you know I can’t stay here in this small town anymore,” Mary said.

“I know, it’s just—”

What? What is it? A love confession? I was desperate to know where the rom-com would lead.

““Will you stop eating that!?””

“Huh? But you two were just getting to the good—”

““We’re not an acting troupe!””

I sat in my one silver coin inn room. I pondered hard about what happened. It seemed my guess was spot on. They were an acting troupe, and next week, they’d be leaving together on a journey to the tentatively named Candlewax Kingdom’s capital. And how did I feel about all of this? I was bummed. 

I didn’t want to lose the first acquaintances I had made, especially if they were actors. It’s not every day you get to meet famous people. Not to mention, the one job at the guild earned me five silver coins. If I stayed at an inn every day, that would only pay for five days. 

“Yes, that’s it!” I stood up from the bed. “I just have to tag along with the acting troupe!” 

This town also didn’t have many businesses. I wanted to try good food, and the only way to do that was to go to a large city. I chewed on one of the asparagus vines. “At least I still have you.”

But if I was going to leave with them, I had to make a plan. I needed to be prepared for anything. It wouldn’t cut it to remain at level one forever. Mary and Wood had been so friendly to me. I needed to rise up. I clenched my fist tightly. Coincidentally, the building shook at the same time. 

“The earthquake traveled over to here as well?” I asked. 

Luckily, the commotion ended as soon as I unclenched my fist. 

I clenched my fist again, and the commotion happened once more. I unclenched it, and it happened again. 

“Huh? Could it be?” A horrible realization dawned on me. “Someone is watching me!”

It was so evident that I should have known. First, they threw me inside a strange world. Then, they threw me at a place with a forest inside a cave. “And now they are playing tricks on me!” 

No, that wasn’t quite right. The gods of this world had been playing tricks on me all along. It was like I had become part of their game. They reincarnated me as the weak one of the bunch and expected me to grow stronger. I had been playing into their hands all along by trying to level up. 

“It makes so much sense now!” That was why I couldn’t level up. They’d given me a no-level system. “There must be some challenge I must overcome to level up. But I am not going to play by your rules.”

If the gods of this world expected me to level up, I wouldn’t. My mom always told me to follow my heart, and my heart was saying to join the acting troupe. I wasn’t going to bend or break. I would be an acting witch in another world, no matter what. 

“And I could do some side quests along the way. Fufufu, my life is looking up!”