"A-anyways, uh, th-thanks again." Zramazos said, after Sis's rude but probably necessary interruption. 

"Oh, uh, y-yeah." I said.

. . .

Zramazos and I did little more than stand there, fidgeting, for a moment. 

"We should probably get going soon." Sis suggested. Seemed like a wise idea, if a little forward.

"Oh, uhm, uh, that's- uh, yeah th-thanks again." Zramazos said.

"Yeah, n-no problem." I said. Then, after a brief moment of pause, I flipped my hood up. I put my hand on Zramazos's shoulder again, and said.  "Good luck tonight. Not that you need it, of course. You got this."

"Oh, uh, y-yeah. Th-thanks." 

"Alright. Later, dude." I said with a simple wave, as Sis and I walked off.

"Y-yeah, l-later!" Zramazos concluded, weakly returning the wave.

As we walked off, I couldn't help but notice that he looked at the clothes a bit skeptically. Surely because he's totally never seen such a fine ensemble before. It's only natural he'd be a little dumfounded. 

Regardless, we walked off towards the bridge. A very cinematic place to walk off towards to, I find. 

"That's everything, right?" Sis asked.

I paused dramatically, for a moment.

"Yeah. That's everything."

And, with that, I flipped off my hood, one last time, in silent celebration of a job well done.

I couldn't help but smile as I did so. 

"The heck are you doing?" Sis asked, looking confused.

"Being awesome." I explained.

"I see."

. . .

"So, we're fighting something next, right?" Sis asked.

"Yeah. We'll head to the guild hall after this." I said. "Good thing too, 'cus I spent a lot of money just now..." I added, quieter. Yeah, I'm basically running on pocket change at the moment... It's a good thing I have superpowers ready to monetize.

"Cool. Let's do somethin' rough. I want my first time to be special."

Phrasing! "R-right." I said. Well, we'll probably stick to Starsford, the jobs there shouldn't be too hard.

. . .

"Y'know, you put in all that work, spent all that money, for sake of setting up a date between Zramazos and Charolette, right?" Sis said as we were part way through the bridge.

"Yeah, why?" I asked.

"Well, you're not gonna actually be able to see it, are you? I mean, you don't really know when exactly they'll eat dinner." 

"Well- Uh... Oh. Yeah. Huh. W-well, that's not really the point, anyways. I had enough fun just getting to play cupid for a while."

"I see." Sis said. "Still, it's a little unsatisfying, isn't it?" 

. . .

"Yeah, kinda. Huh."

---

(Later, at around dinnertime.)

"Uh... Those are some nice clothes, man." Charolette said, as she and Zramazos walked through the field, looking around for a nice spot to sit down and eat.

"Really? I thought they were a little tacky" Zramazos accidentally let out, with thousands of thoughts racing through his mind at the moment. "U-uh, I-I-I mean, th-thanks-"

"Yeah, I was gonna say that next, actually. Don't get me wrong, it looks good, but it's a bit... Much, I guess."

"Ah. Yeah, I thought so too." 

"Where'd you even get something like that?"

"Uh, I, uh, had it in... a... closet? Somewhere?" 

"Hmm, that makes sense." Charolette said, paying no mind to the fairly obvious dishonesty placed throughout that thought.

Once they found a place, Charolette placed down their blanket (which, as you might recall, actually, Beyes said he was going to provide, but it would seem that literally everyone forgot about that. How comical.), and Zramazos readied the food they had brought.

It took some time for everything to get set out.

Quite a lot of time, actually. It was a lot of food.

After it was all placed, the both of them stood above it, looking down at the spectacle before them.

"That's... A lot of food." Charolette stated the obvious.

"Yeah..." Zramazos said, expressing his simply incredible creativity and communication skills. 

"Are we gonna be able to eat all of it?"

"I'm doubtful."

"Huh."

. . .

"Where did you get all this, anyway? Rather, how?

"I... I have no idea."

---

Once we were a decent ways down the bridge, I warped us back to Starsford, near the guild hall, which was our destination, naturally.

"So, anything in particular you wanna fight?" I asked Sis as we made our way there.

"Hmmm... That's a good question." She said, clearly deep in thought about this. "I'm debating between some sort of giant monster type, or maybe, like, a real tough guy. With, brains and stuff. Think they have human bounties?"

"Not sure. Never seen one, at least." Man, on one hand, that would be pretty cool, but, on the other, that would have some pretty icky moral implications.

Then again... The idea is really cool. I mean, stuff like pirates or a phantom thieves have a lot more 'oomph' to 'em when they have a coin amount on their head, right? I almost want a bounty. 'Course, that would also come with scores of hunters trying to collect... Ooh! My secret identity should totally have a bounty! Yeah! 

But, like, for cool reasons. No burning down orphanages. 

"S'posse I'll just keep an eye out, then." Sis said.

"Pretty good chance we'll run into someone like that on the way, actually..." I muttered

It didn't take us too long to get to the place. Funny thing, the attendants there at the time were the same ones that were there the first time I came here, with S. 

And that includes the guild attendant lady who was with us the other day.

Ah. This might be a little awkward. 

She looked a little surprised as we came in, and seemed to peek over at the door expectantly. After a moment, the two of us made eye contact with each other.

Ah, crap. What do I do in this instance? How familiar should I be? Should I start a conversation? Or is this more of a 'smile and wave' situation? Or would that be weird? Man, this is rough... If she was just, like, a nurse, or something, y'know, just doing her job, this'd be easier, but in this case, she had to, like, take time out of her (admittedly, seemingly rather uneventful) day to help us. How grateful am I expected to be? Is this, like, a gift situation, or just a 'thank you', type of thing? Dangit! Why couldn't I have learned this in school?!

. . .

"The heck are you standin' around for?" Sis asked, after the attendant lady and I had been staring at each other for some time. 

"Oh, uh, n-nothin'." I said.

"Let's just get to the board." 

"Oh, uh, yeah."

Sis and I quickly made our way to the board.

. . .

Y'know, I can't help but wonder if that girl and I were thinking the same thing as I was...

---

She was. Mostly. 

---

...nah, probably not, that'd be silly. 

Anyways, the board.

The board seemed to be the same as ever, not much new stuff. And the most dangerous things were still just at, like, 4ish at most. That's reassuring. I think we should be able to take those. I have before, after all.

Though, that was with S...

. . .

Anyways, I'd like to think I'm a good bit stronger now than I was back then, what with my actual weapons and magic and all that. There shouldn't be anything on this board that'd prove to great a challenge. I'm feeling confident! And even if that proves to be misplaced, I'm confident in my ability to retreat!

I looked down at Sis, and it seemed that a sheet had caught her eye. I went to take a look at it for myself, naturally.

And, in that split second it took for my head to move,

I remembered something.

The first time we came here...

I just happened to spot...

Oh, and, that's just about where it was, wasn't it...

Ooohhh... Oohh no...

Sis happened to be looking directly at a certain page... A certain page that contained something that looked like something an elementary schooler would come up with. 

The spike horse.

Ahh.