[Ascension]

When Hecate logged in, the time was already evening. Her game avatar, which was sleeping due to the quasi-logout had awakened.

The escort convoy which she was riding had almost reached its destination, Calmen Town.

"Welcome back, Hecate-chan." (Minami)

"Good evening, Hecate-chan." (Floire)  ||  "Hello there." (Kaire)

"En... Good evening, Minami... Kaire and Floire." (Hecate)

As soon as Hecate's game avatar opened her eyes, Minami was the first one who greet her, followed by the Nakamura siblings. Meanwhile, the last person, Touya was nowhere to be seen on the carriage. Hecate looked around but couldn't find his appearance.

Her curiosity was quickly answered by Minami.

"Touya is outside near the client's carriage. As our party leader, he is in charge for the talk. Now that we're almost there, maybe he'll be back soon." (Minami)

Hecate only responded with a nod.

Sure enough as Minami said, a few moments later, Touya appeared and jumped into the carriage. There was an expression of displeasure written all over his face. He greeted Hecate and sat on the seat before complaining to his party.

"In the end, the water is just pure rainwater! There's nothing sacred about it!" (Touya)

"Ah, then... We wasted our time for hours just collecting rainwater?!" (Kaire)

"That's what I'm talking about." (Touya)

Hecate just silently listening and did not participate in their conversation.

It seems that they are talking about the holy(?) rain before. Touya, Minami, and Kaire went down because the guards released a quest to collect the rainwater as much as possible. When they did so, their system info obviously told them that it was just rainwater.

However, they persisted in carrying out the quest until the rain stopped. Perhaps, there was a hidden effect on the water that they couldn't see, or so they thought. When the water was collected and passed on to the guards, they do Appraisal on the water. And they discovered that the water was... actually just rainwater.

Minami calmed down the situation.

"Well, calm down... At least the quest is over. The rewards don't seem like much but our contribution point went up."

"Well, that's true." (Touya & Kaire)

Hearing her words, Touya and Kaire opened the quest contribution list window and calmed down when they saw their contribution value. After all, the greater the contribution they made, the greater the final reward.

Meanwhile, Hecate also looked at the contribution list.

Even though she didn't really care about the rewards, it wouldn't be hurt to simply take a look. Her contribution rank surprisingly only fell by about 3%, from 25.6% to 22.2%, dropped from fifth to seventh.

Anyway, it meant nothing to her so she stopped caring.

Then, a few moments later one of the guard coming to their carriage.

"Adventurers, we have arrived in Calmen Town. We will stop by the Adventurer's Guild to report the completion of the quest, as well as send out a new escort quest for three days later. If you wish, we would like to hire you again."

"Thank you, Sir Aston. We'd love to." (Touya)

Perhaps because Touya has earned a lot of favorability on the way, the guard was very friendly.

Hecate and the party Sharp Edge immediately got off from the carriage in an orderly manner.

♠♠♠

   

The Border Town of Gemmerio Empire, Calmen Town.

This city was a border town of the Gemmerio Empire with two places. To the south of this town was Nerkia City, and to the southeast of the town was the territory of Croissa Kingdom.

Although the two countries have signed a truce, but they have just been at war with each other. This was why there were a lot of Centurion Knights standby within the city.

Thanks to the crest on Georg's carriage, the group passed through the gate with ease, but Hecate couldn't help but notice some unfriendly gazes towards Minami, Floire and Kaire, or more precisely, towards non-Human Players.

Of course, the people in question were also aware of it.

"Wear your hood and ignore them, Kai-kun, Flo-chan." (Minami)

"Yeah..." ×2 (Kaire & Floire)

Minami quickly equipped a hooded mantle to hide her tail and antler-like horns.

Following Minami's signal, the Nakamura siblings hid their animal ears with their hoods and continued walking. Although what they were doing didn't change the overall bad atmosphere, it at least reduced the odd stares that were directed at them.

After they passed through the gate and walked away from that place, Floire couldn't help but grumble.

"What's wrong with them?! Really, they're a bunch of jerks! Did you see their disgusting eyes staring at us? Have we ever done anything wrong with them?" (Floire)

"Well, they recently had a war with the Beastkins. This is somewhat normal." (Kaire)

Kaire's reply couldn't calm Floire's irritation. She continued to badmouth them as they walked.

The guard that accompanied them could only awkwardly apologize.

"I apologize for their behavior. The knights under General Bernard mostly held belief in human supremacy. But you don't have to worry, they won't do anything to you because of the treaty." (Anton)

"Ah no, this is not Sir Anton's fault." (Touya)

"Yeah, it's those bastards who are wrong!" (Floire)

"Ahaha..." (Anton)

The peace treaty in this game was not like the peace treaty in the real world. It was supervised by the system and was capable of binding on all participants. From a Native's point of view, this treaty was equivalent to an oath to Goddess Norn and must not be violated. Those who violate this oath will have to pay a painful price, or so they said.

As for the exact content of the treaty, it was printed in the Miscellaneous section under Tutorial and was available for all Players to view. One of the content was for the Empire to not mistreat other races, especially Beastkin.

Perhaps this was why the party Sharp Edge dared to go to the Empire, despite having a majority of non-Human members.

♠♠♠

   

Thirty minutes later at the Adventurer's Guild building.

Georg's representative had already left the building after speaking with one of the receptionist. Then, one by one, the Players participated in the escort queued up to report the completion of their quest.

Hecate successfully reported the quest completion to another receptionist. The receptionist girl, Camilia, stamped the quest plate Hecate had brought, before placing it on the shelf along with the other completed quest plates.

"Okay, the quest completion has been recognized. And this is your reward from the client."

"Thank you very much."

Camilia handed out a small bag of money, and a few mid-grade potions to Hecate.

Hecate expressionlessly received the reward and put them to her inventory. The reward wasn't much, and the Red Potions or Blue Potions was just trash items, if compared with Hi-Potion and Hi-Ether. There was no need to be excited.

But the quest reward was not Hecate's main focus. For her, reporting the quest was just a side task.

"I'd like to withdraw my Gold coins." (Hecate)

"Understood... Then, please touch this plate." (Camilia)

Hecate touched the metal plate that Camilia had taken out and quickly operated the screen that appeared soon after.

With a swipe of her finger, she withdraw 50,000,000 in one fell swoop. Comparing with her savings, the money from the quest rewards earlier was just like a joke.

'Quest that last for 2 days only give me 500 !? With that pitiful amount, I won't be able to get rich even if I work myself to death! As I thought, the true way to get rich is to rob the rich!'

Hecate could only sigh.

"Okay, I'm done... Thank you." (Hecate)

"You're welcome." (Camilia)

Having finished her business, she thanked the receptionist and walked to the lounge.

In every building of the Adventurer's Guild, they usually have a lounge where people could sit. It was widely used by adventurers, whether it was Players or Natives to discuss something, whether it was about quests, loot distribution, or many more. Though, this place does not serve food or drinks, and uncivilized discussion is prohibited.

For uncivilized discussion, there are already pubs and bars for something like that.

In the lounge, Touya and the rest of the Sharp Edge party were sitting at a 6-seater table near the Save-Crystal. Minami waved her hand when she saw Hecate approaching.

"Did you complete your report?" (Touya)

"Yes." (Hecate)

Hecate nodded.

The report took quite a while because the queue she was on was slow.

"So, what are your next plan, Hecate-chan? What about joining our party?" (Touya)

"Yeah, join us, Hecate-chan! Coincidentally, our party lacks ranged DD⁸Damage Dealer. With you, our party will be perfect!" (Minami)

With excited expressions, Touya and Minami invited Hecate to join her party.

When Hecate protected Floire from the wolf assault this morning, they had been convinced of her battle performance. At that time, she was not in the same party and had no obligation to protect Floire.

Moreover, she was capable of one-shooting a Grey Ash Wolf to death easily. If she used an AOE spell, it would be an easy task to slaughter all the monsters and monopolize the EXP. However, she didn't.

It was not every day that they could meet a good(?) person, especially a cute loli like her!

They thought that it would be a big profit if they could invite this girl to their party. Not only strong, she can also be the party's mascot. Even if she did nothing in the party, she can heal their heart with her cuteness!

"What do you think, Kai-kun, Flo-chan?" (Minami)

"Uhm, well... I don't mind." (Kaire)

"Well, if Onii-chan says okay, then I also don't mind." (Floire)

The Nakamura siblings also nodded.

Although their relationship with Hecate was awkward, but they weren't against her joining the party. In addition, she was the first one that knew their forbidden relationship and yet, she supported them.

It would be good if they could get along with this loli.

Unfortunately, Hecate shook her head at their invitation.

"I had some business to do. I'm sorry, but I can't join your party." (Hecate)

Perhaps because of her cheap equipment, no one ever noticed that she was an Archwitch who had reached Lvl 132. Forget about this party, she couldn't even join Leon's party because her level was too high.

"Ah, that's... a pity." (Minami)

Minami honestly thought so. Touya also looked disappointed, but he quickly said.

"I see, that's okay... But if you ever need help, you can call us anytime." (Touya)

"Yes, I will do that." (Hecate)

There was no reason for Hecate to refuse.

She then walked to the Save-Crystal and touched it to access her storage.

It had been so long since her last visit to the Gemmerio Empire. The last time she visited the Empire was 4 months ago when she ransacked Stellar Wing Guild clean. It was one of Black Phantom's achievement that earned her nearly 10 billion gold coins. The contents inside her storage in this Empire were her leftover items from that time.

Hecate sorted out her inventory and put everything except her bookmarked items to the storage. With this, her inventory weight had greatly reduced from 85% to 20% and she didn't have to worry about her skills got sealed due to being overweight.

Then, she opened the cash shop.

Hecate has been spending 4850 every day to purchase those cash items ever since her Capstan Table was bought 6 days ago. Though, she had missed a day for doing so due to the escort trip.

Excluding Elixirs and Amnesia Stones, those items were her battle supplies, mostly for Black Phantom to use.

However, her focus right now was only on the Amnesia Stones.

'Hmm, I still lack 5 more to reset my skills. But, I don't want to wait any longer. I'll just buy the rest!'

The reason why she collected Amnesia Stones was because she had planned to reset her skills.

Currently, she had 5 Amnesia Stones in her inventory, for her who had reached Lvl 132 to reset her skills, she needed 10 stones. But, it would be too long if she waited for another 5 days. And so, she decided to just buy the rest at the Auction Hall.

Hecate closed all the windows and said to Touya and his party.

"Well then everyone, let's meet again another time." (Hecate)

"Yeah, let's meet again, Hecate-chan!" (Minami)

"We will stay in this town for three days. Just call if you need us!" (Touya)

Kaire and Foire didn't say anything, but the expressions on their faces already explained everything.

Kaire & Floire: "Don't forget your promise yesterday, okay?"

Hecate: *Nods*

Kaire & Floire:

This secret conversation between these 3 people went undetected by Touya and Minami.

Having said her goodbye to the Sharp Edge party, Hecate left the building.