“It’s not a story I like telling that often,” Titania sighed, biting her lip and hugging herself a little tighter.

She stared at the floor for a minute of silence as if debating whether to continue anyway.

“At the time I died, I was in my last semester of business school,” she began. “I was so close to graduating. So close! These finals were going to be the last exams I would ever have to take, right? And… I kinda needed to ace them. I studied my heart out with back-to-back all-nighters, and when the first day of exams came at last—”

“You ran out and got hit by a truck,” I finished solemnly.

“What? No, I had crappy health and my heart gave out from overstudying. You actually believe that thing with the truck happens for real?”

God damn it! “R-Right, everyone knows embarrassing motor accidents only happen in fiction…”

“Is something wrong?” Titania asked, tilting her head. “Anyways, you don’t have to worry about it. That’s all behind us now, you know? There’s obviously a ton of stuff missing in Gadea compared to Earth, but I really started to love the simplicity of this world. I didn’t even need a degree to get into business here and start running the ‘R and R!’”

“I guess so… Wait. After all this time, you still never changed that name?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Hey, this place has a lot of marketable history!” she said proudly. “The Roach and Rat was one of the first guilds created way back when this city was originally founded over a thousand years ago.”

My other eyebrow went up. “Seriously? How would you even prove that?”

Titania glanced over each shoulder before leaning toward me conspiratorially. “Well, here’s the thing: the records get pretty hazy the further back you look…”

So she was that type of business person? All the better to try and get her on my side then!

“Oh! You must be the one who came up with that clever idea, marketing those job offerings here like fixing walls and catching cats as ‘solo quests!’” I said with the most flattering voice I could muster.

She bashfully scratched a cheek. “Yeah, that was a good one, huh? Turns out a little ‘tactical rebranding’ can make even stuff like manual labor sound exciting. It works on Outworlders, too!”

The praise went straight to her head!

That aside, for the first time in this world I felt like I was finally getting a good first impression of someone. Titania looked like a capable and attractive warrior chick, she didn’t come across as some kind of weirdo, and she even had a ponytail! I could reunite with Alice later and introduce her if the two hadn’t already met, but as it stood right now, this was definitely someone I wanted to work with!

“Say, you’ve been really generous so far,” I smiled. “Is there something I could you help with?”

She rubbed her chin. “Now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure you already did!” Titania answered with a wink. “So maybe there’s something I can help you with instead! Hmm, you…”

Titania slowly looked me up and down while holding her chin, frowning.

“You picked magic affinity, didn’t you?”

…What? Of all the possible options, that was just about the last thing I would have ever guessed she would say.

“You mean that starting bonus with three choices we got before coming here?” I asked. “Uh, yeah, I did…”

She drew a sharp intake of breath. “That’s kinda rough, but I bet you already figured that out. Since it’s so hard to learn spells, most people who go with magic end up reattuning to another affinity.”

“Wait, slow down. What does that mean?”

Another hand went up to anxiously rub her neck. “My bad, I get carried away with the lingo sometimes. Let’s start from the beginning.”

Titania sat upright, straightening herself in her seat.

“Basically, it works like this: humans in this world can get a special type of ‘passive’ talent called an affinity that’s related to either strength, agility, or magic. Some natives here are born with one, and many others develop one particular affinity over time based on the sort of stuff they do, usually by the time they turn eighteen. Since we come here alone without those first eighteen years of life to familiarize ourselves with this world and the people here, us Outworlders are given the chance to pick an affinity to begin with as part of our ‘starting bonus.’”

That actually made some sense. In hindsight, maybe John wasn’t completely insane after all…

“Magic affinity,” she went on, “helps you to sense your own mana for spellcasting and such, but you probably knew that already. With the right training, anyone can learn to sense their mana and cast spells—but it’s a lot harder, and not just because magic training is almost exclusively reserved for the nobles. Fortunately, it’s practically unheard of for any commoner to be born with magic affinity.”

“Yeah, that would be weird…”

“Anyways,” she continued, “agility affinity is pretty badass, not gonna lie. It gives you near-superhuman flexibility, coordination, reaction time, reflexes, stuff like that. I’ve always wanted to try it out one of these days, but strength affinity isn’t bad at all! Aside from a huge boost to endurance and vitality, it lets you build bigger muscle mass a lot faster, and it’s way easier to keep it! Here, check this out: my first year with the Miners' Guild was super crappy, but at least I got these!”

Titania held up an arm and flexed her toned biceps. Damn, it was kind of hard to tell before, but she was really muscular!

“And you said there’s some way to change your affinity?” I asked.

“Yeah, we call that ‘reattunement,’” she nodded. “Affinities are understood to be a sort of magical enhancement woven around the soul, and somehow magic researchers here discovered a way to switch a person’s affinity with a specific ritual.”

I couldn’t help flinching at the word ‘ritual.’

“Hey, it’s not that bad!” Titania laughed. “I’ve heard it’s harmless and painless no matter what, and the ritual usually works just fine!”

“…Usually?”

“Don’t worry about it,” she smiled. “There’s no hard limit on the number of times you can reattune if you ever want to go back. Plus, as a local guild master I have a deal with the Magic Academy: everyone can get their first reattunement for free! Because the two ‘physical’ affinities create their effects on the body, it will probably take some time before you can feel all the benefits, but it’s not a big deal if you want to try!”

The more I thought about it, the more her offer sounded tempting. I didn’t want to be a bodybuilder, and my tiny arsenal of two spells might have their uses, but that other one…! I had to admit, that agility thing with superhuman reflexes did sound pretty badass. If I could hone my skills with physical training on my own, I wouldn’t have to rely on any more wicked witches to learn spells!

“Okay, you caught my interest,” I said. “But how much does it cost to do that thing a second time, just in case?”

“It’s not that bad,” she shrugged. “For you, I’ll even cover it if you do end up changing your mind! So what do you say? I’ve got some time. Do you want to go and do this now?”

This might be a bit too sudden! But then again, considering what happened earlier… If I went ahead and did this reattunement thing, I might feel like I had something more to show Alice for my efforts today than just picking up a new set of gear!

“Alright, I’m in. Lead the way!”

***

Titania grabbed her lance and carried it with her as we got up and made our way out of the guild, but not before she received many nods of admiration from the other adventurers. Her reputation even extended to a number of locals who recognized her as we went and offered a friendly greeting or two. It was hard to believe at first, but apparently being the guild master of even a newbie guild had its perks!

The moment we finished crossing the main bridge over the river and entered the capital’s Upper District, Titania suddenly stopped dead in her tracks.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

She frowned, a look of deep concern spreading across her face. “Beryl, you said that Ciedrich was dead, right?”

“Huh?! I mean, yeah,” I managed. “Pretty much.”

“Then… who the hell is that?”

Titania stretched an arm out and pointed at two nearby figures. My jaw dropped at the sight of that demon Luc in the late nobleman’s body, now sporting a white shirt under a black suit like some kind of butler. At his side was none other than the old witch Vexina back in her magical ‘disguise’ as a wrinkled elder, the two of them walking and talking and laughing together like a couple of blissful newlyweds.

Oh, God. “You really, really don’t want to know…”