Kara, typically for her start of week shift, gets stuck with the after-hours work. Unfortunately, despite the way the guild’s policies are structured specifically preventing such ritual in theory, practice is always king, and the last one to get back from a weekend or day off is the one to do the after-hours.

 

Sorting papers, cleaning the front, and…

 

That guy! Shit! His name… name name name namenamename SHIT!

 

“Uh… I know I’m here after the place is supposed to be closed, but I’ve got some questions.” Leuen’s name popped into her head the moment she made eye contact with the man. Unfortunately, her mouth wasn’t signaled properly that the tone she ought to be taking with the man is ‘respectful lower class woman’, because her perky receptionist mode is what came through.

 

“That’s quite alright, sir, I’m just doing some cleaning, what can I help you with? I’m happy to assist.” Kara silently curses herself when Leuen’s gaze immediately swept across the ledger she’d been ‘updating legitimately with the day’s business’ the moment she stopped talking. After that, those eyes of his lock on to her, with the same piercing quality that she remembered from the other day.

 

“I see. I’m sorry for interrupting you, but I’ll gladly take you up on that offer. Basically, I have some questions about guild policy regarding certain things…” Leuen’s tone is even, measured, and Kara isn’t quite sure if that’s because he knows something she doesn’t or if its because he’s about to say something he thinks is stupid.

 

“Oh! Well… Please, have a seat, I’ll go get some things to see if I can help you. We don’t need to be so formal since it’s just the two of us here.” Why did I admit that? You should never admit that, Kara!

 

“As you please.”

 

It’s only once she’s out of his immediate vicinity (with the ledgers, she managed to remember to get those far away from someone who doesn’t know she’s doctoring them), that she realizes he’s still in his adventuring gear. She heard secondhand that Leuen had taken a job helping Voran’s group, and that the job had gone exactly as expected. Poorly, but survived. Yet, hours after close and easily an hour after sundown, he’s here, with his sword.

 

Kara can’t shake the feeling that either Leuen knows full well that having it on him is a social faux-pas, or that he genuinely thinks he’d need to defend himself with lethal force from a guild receptionist. If that look in his eyes is the work of conscious effort, she’d easily believe the latter.

 

Returning to the receptionist desk where she’d given Leuen a spare seat, she decides to avoid eye contact and just bite the bullet now.

 

“About you using my name on the registration form…” Kara begins, hoping that Leuen will pick up what she’s putting down without her having to embarrass herself.

 

“Did someone call you out for the prank? I can take responsibility for that, but I really don’t have a surname to put there.” Leuen answers, and Kara can’t help but spot the telltale signs of honesty on his face, not to mention his lack of that eye spike thing. Eyespike. That’s a good name for what it feels like.

 

“N-no, nothing like that. It’s just… Were you flirting with me when you implied you wanted to use my name as a surname? Because… Most circumstances… That’s a…” Kara didn’t feel like she could adequately explain the ritual practice of using a spouse’s surname on legal documents as a way of showing filial ownership with just a few words to someone who didn’t claim to even have one.

 

Fortunately for her, the man’s piercing gaze can be interrupted by embarrassment, as she can see the same heat rising in his cheeks that she can feel rising in hers. Unfortunately, the man recovers quickly, though he is still red in the face.

 

“I was just making a small joke then- I apologize for the misconception, I didn’t know. I just didn’t want to not have one put down…” Leuen’s eyes seem to check over Kara’s body, a look not unlike the way some of the rowdier adventurers stare at the receptionists before heading off to brothels. Yet somehow, Leuen’s gaze isn’t horny or ‘hungry’ as her thirstier colleagues put it, as though he’s simply objectively analyzing her. “I wasn’t flirting with you… Not consciously at least. I will admit to getting caught staring at your breasts once, though.”

 

Th-thats- Even if I caught you doing it, I hadn’t said anything and neither did you! You’re not supposed to- Just then Kara realizes that the eyespike is gone. At that, she thinks she understands. Suspicion. He’s suspicious. On edge, analyzing everything for threats and cracks. A newbie to the concept of combat, but suspicious and cautious enough to have a fucking aura for it. Auras. The things veteran warriors call ‘killing intent’ or ‘willpower’. The fact that he’s dropped it, even has it, or might not even know that he has it and has just dropped it around Kara…

 

“You don’t need to try and win honesty points with me, Leuen. I trust you when you say it wasn’t something you knew about. What did you come here to ask me?” Kara knows full well that the eyespike aura he’s got means he’s probably got serious potential, even if she knows nothing about anything related to magic and warriors. But, it’s a suspicion aura, she thinks, and that he’s dropped it around her means this is an opportunity worth betting on as much as she can.

 

-X-X-X-

 

“Alright. First question. Not a question, a hypothetical. Let’s say, the guild has a hypothetical request to go hunt a specific monster. If someone hunts the monster without accepting the request, and comes to the guild, will they receive the reward?” Leuen feels like an idiot for asking, but he needs to confirm his knowledge base. Kara’s attention seemed to be hyper fixated on his eyes, instead of avoiding them, but once he’d started talking she’d snapped back to her old antics of averting his gaze.

 

“Um… Maybe. Someone registered with the guild probably would, if it could be authenticated that the request was indeed completed correctly. If they weren’t registered with the guild… They’d need to sign up then and there, or no reward. The request would be removed in either case.” Nodding at Kara’s level headed reply, Leuen continues.

 

“Now, hypothetically, someone completes this request but doesn’t bother telling the guild it was done. What do?” Leuen decides not to give the full question, since Kara already seemed ready to answer before he finished the hypothetical.

 

“Easy. Once it’s discovered that the request is already completed, it will be rescinded. If a group already took the request, they’d still be eligible for the reward even though they’d have done nothing, since they’d still need to be compensated for the time they could've spent on a real request.”

 

“Right, that’s sensible. Now, the previous hypothetical, but this time everyone knows who completed the request, they’re just not bothering to take credit for it themselves.”

 

“Um… The request would be taken down… and if they never claim the reward themselves… It’d probably be written off as volunteer work or just serendipitous happenstance and the payment would be kept by the guild in full.” Kara seems to fidget in place for a moment, scratching the back of her arms and looking at the floor beneath her feet for a moment. “Why do you ask? Did you do something?”

 

The tone of the question throws Leuen off a little. He hadn’t done anything-yet, but Kara isn’t stupid. She’s probably realized what he’s asking these questions for. Or at least, thinks she knows. ‘I just want to grind xp without party members or guild knowledge’ isn’t a sensible response in this world, so her misunderstandings will have to be left to fester for now.

 

“No, I have not. Follow up; Where in this town can I buy adventuring supplies other than the guild itself? I know you girls sell certain things, but I suppose I’m looking for a more general selection, not just ropes and boots.” For some reason, Kara seemed suddenly willing to look him in the eyes and answer his questions with enthusiasm, but it isn’t like he’d complain about that for any reason.

 

“Well, if you need clothes, there’s-”

 

-X-X-X-

 

Leuen adjusts his newly purchased brown cloak/overcoat/hooded piece of cloth to be a little more comfortable. The point of such clothing is to cover oneself from the rain and also to obscure one’s form, or so the shopkeep he’d bought it from had claimed. Basically, rogue gear. The idea is that you wouldn’t be able to tell much about the build, height, gender, or much else of anything really if there’s enough distracting brown cloth in the way. Plus it would offer rudimentary, and mostly token, protection from the elements.

 

The lantern in his hands is a basic travel lantern, but that’s because he’s not expecting to need to bring it into the dungeon with him. Speaking of the dungeon, he tests the door in front of him. Leuen wonders why he’s out here for a moment. Rushing out to a dungeon several hours before the sun is set to rise isn’t the smartest thing he could be doing. He could be sleeping, or sleeping, or sleeping. He’d taken yesterday off to just go buy stuff after his conversation with Kara had enlightened him to the places to buy stuff from.

 

The girl hadn’t offered to take him on a shopping date, but by his own estimation of the girl’s enthusiasm, she would have if the conversation hadn’t been happening at something close to nine P.M. Oh well. Love life shouldn’t be important right now, this is.

 

That being his ‘get xp quick’ plan. See, Leuen had been thinking. Killing gremlins granted an… indeterminate amount of exp, he hadn’t exactly had time to check in the heat of his first few fights with hordes of the things, but an indeterminate amount spread across four party members ought to be less than if it were just him. The issue is that he can’t kill hordes of the things by himself, so he’d needed to do some thinking.

 

The solution? Rock. Ok, no, ‘rock’ is not the be-all end-all of the plan, it’s actually step two. Step one being ‘recon’. He wants to try a classic MMO strat: Pulling. If he can dink a gremlin with a rock, or alert a group of them with a rock, perhaps he can lure away a manageable number of them at a time. The existence of rogues at all implies that stealth should matter a little bit, even in a dungeon, so his plan of stealthily taking out only manageable numbers of the little buggers should be tactically sound.

 

It isn’t, since he’s performing it solo, but he if had hypothetical backup, it would be a great plan. He’s honestly not sure why Voran’s group hadn’t done it, beyond simply having not thought of it. Perhaps there’s a reason it wasn’t tried, but that’s not Leuen’s problem. If he bites off a group bigger than he can chew, the plan is to hit the legs.

 

That’s it. Step one: Scout a group. Step two: Lure away a portion using rock. Step three: Kill them or run away if he doesn’t think he can. Step four: Repeat steps 1-3 if he didn’t need to run during step 3.

 

Snuffing his lantern, Leuen checks his supply of rocks in the pouch on his fancy new pocketed and padded adventuring vest. Twenty rocks. More than strictly necessary, but it isn’t like weight is a concern. Plus- Leuen feels the pouch with the rocks in it. That would probably stop a knife better than the regular cloth.

 

As long as he’s within the weight limit of his CC, he won’t lose stamina for carrying stuff, no matter how light or heavy it ‘feels’. He’s sure there’s more to it than that, but he’d tested it. By getting naked and holding all his supplies in a wooden crate over his head. For three hours. He hadn’t lost stamina until he put in a few more pounds and tried again, and after taking those things back out, no stamina loss.

 

Basically, CC is another stat he wants more of. His current priority list of things to get from his level ups is Analyze, Absorption, Hard/Tough/Grit, CC, everything else, in that order. He also wants to just mundanely get better at fighting, and…

 

“Jumping in the deep end is the best way to prevent being thrown in…”

 

As he suspected, the dungeon’s soft orange glow provides more than enough light to leave the lantern snuffed outside. Good, because he’s going to need a free hand. He’s not taking his right off the sword, ever, meaning it’s the left hand’s job to open doors and throw rocks.

 

After heading around the bend and entering the hallway with the doors, Leuen sidles up behind the bend and fishes out a rock. Earlier, a full assault had been initiated because Ird saw archers at the end of the hall and then Leuen had opened an ambush door earlier. Now, Leuen hopes that tossing a rock will illicit a response, ideally from a small group of maybe two or three. He could handle two or three. Four might be taxing, though.

 

With a ‘crack’ of the rock against the faux-stone floor from a snappy wrist-based throw, Leuen waits. And waits. And waits. Nothing happens. Ok. Second try. This time, Leuen nails the first door (which has miraculously reattached itself to its hinges despite the way it was fully broken last time he saw it), and that seems to get some amount of attention, because Leuen can hear the faint shuffling of many sets of feet.

 

After a minute or so, four gremlins step out into the hallway. More than I wanted, but… It’ll have to do. Leuen pulls out another rock. Waiting for a moment when none of them are looking at the bend and when one of them is hunched over looking at the two thrown rocks, Leuen steps out and pitches a rock at one’s face.

 

The creature makes a ‘squee’ noise before covering its face, and its three friends immediately rush to the bend Leuen strategically snuck around to get out of sight. The first gremlin rounds the corner and eats a sword to the face, knocking it onto the ground skull first and spraying the gremlin’s signature blackish blood everywhere. The second gremlin Leuen doesn’t have nearly as good of a plan for, but thankfully, it trips over the likely-corpse of the first. The third isn’t as unlucky, resulting in Leuen having to bring his sword up to deflect a crude, curved spear-stick-thing.

 

Thinking fast, Leuen doesn’t try to ready his weapon or do anything regarding his opponents, instead pulling his left foot up and kicking the gremlin in its mid chest. Leuen only has a small moment to appreciate that if it wasn’t for the decidedly poor shape of the gremlin’s spear, the leverage involved wouldn’t have allowed him to turn it aside so easily. It’s not a mistake he can afford to make twice without a healer around. Regardless, as the creature attempts to scramble to its feet, Leuen puts a stab through its skull, killing it.

 

Checking his Exp, the whole encounter so far has gained twenty-five. Not bad. Leuen thinks to himself as he puts both hands on his sword and twists his entire body to bring as much power as possible down on the second gremlin’s recovering form. Scratch that, thirty-for Exp per three gremlins, or 11 and a fraction per. Wait, where’s the fourth one?

 

Leuen isn’t wondering long, as the forgotten gremlin returns just a few seconds later with three more allies in tow. Well… I beat a group of three. Took some luck, but… I can do this… Leuen hypes himself up while raising his sword.