As gay as she was, there were no male customers that Rin was genuinely attracted to, but she still had preferences, even if they weren't sexual in nature.

For one, she liked it when they were quiet. That way, she could close her eyes, moan a few times, and be done with it. The talkative ones, the ones who wouldn't stop moaning in her ears about how massive her tits were, or how good her pussy felt, were the annoying ones.

Sadly, this morning's customer was one of the latter.

"Oh, fuck, FUCK," he yelled out with a laugh, "if I'd known the women were this good, I'd have come to that whorehouse a lot sooner."

Another athletic customer, unfortunately.

Rin took deep breaths under him, keeping an emotionless face as he pumped into her. Thankfully at least, he didn't seem to care much if she was enjoying this, so she didn't have to fake any moans.

"I'm close, holy shit, I… Agh!"

With that war cry worthy of a hero, he emptied himself inside of her, not wearing a condom though as he'd paid extra to do this raw, and Rin cringed at the feeling of her insides being flooded like this. He remained there for a moment before finally removing himself, and Rin quickly sat up.

"Thank you for using our services," she said blankly. "I hope you liked it."

"Oh, I fucking loved it," he cackled. "Might come back for more soon, that was damn good. Here, keep a little something to remember me by."

Out of nowhere, he tossed a platinum varol at her. Rin's eyes bulged out of their sockets. [Wait, what?] She asked herself as she looked back up at him. [Is this guy rich?]

"Um, excuse me," she started to ask, as she couldn't help herself, "h-how, uh, what do you do?"

"Well, I'll just say this," he smirked, "you just had a Rank B cock in ya, love."

Rin nearly rolled her eyes in front of him, but a thought came to her.

[Rank B… Same as my brother, before he went missing…]

The adventurer stood up and stretched, before putting his clothes on. Rin toyed with that platinum varol in her hands. One platinum varol, equal to 10 gold coins, was the exact amount that Rin made in a month's worth of work. A few of these would be enough to pay for the month's bills, and around fifteen of these would be enough to pay for a semester at a university in one of the cities up north.

"Alright, sugar tits, see ya!" The adventurer said as he walked out of the room, leaving Rin alone on the bed.

[… I need to clean myself up, ugh.]

After taking a drink from one of the potions she usually used, the one that prevented pregnancy, Rin left the room as well. During the day, Dren almost seemed like an entirely different city. People's faces were brighter, their wide smiles contrasting terribly with the slightly broken-down architecture around them, remnants of the time before the Split.

As she was still working, Rin kept her hair painted white and her tattoo showing. This was the source of all of the glares she was currently receiving. That was how people in this town coped with allowing sex work to be a thing.

They just pretended that the prostitutes were otherworldly beings sent to steal their spouses or something.

It would have made Rin laugh if she hadn't gotten sick of these looks from the very first day that she started this job.

She walked back to the Silver Rose and found it to be as busy as ever. She moved past the front desk and into the lounge where all of the other workers were, and Felix quickly waved over at her from the back. He was sharing a couch with two other workers.

Felix walked up to her with a victorious grin on his face.

"Guess who got a date this weekend…"

She could already guess what had happened.

"Oh, by the Divine dude, we have, like, one rule. One. Rule. 'Don't date clients'. And you're actually about to break it?"

"But he's such a sweetheart!" Rin rolled her eyes but couldn't hold back a smile. "Seriously, every second he was like 'hey, is this okay? Does this hurt? Do you need a break?' My heart melted!"

"Wish the people who asked for me were half as nice."

"Alas, you are very, very, unlucky."

"Hey, at least try to cheer me up."

"You want me to lie to you?"

"Maybe."

"I'm too good to do that, dear."

"How the hell did I end up with you?" Rin asked the world and Felix answered.

"Because no one else can tolerate your, uh, eternal brooding."

"Felix," Jay called out from the right side of the lounge. Rin hadn't even seen her walk up. "You're on duty."

"Oh? Who is it?" Felix asked.

"That one over there."

Jay pointed to a young green-eyed blonde girl wearing a white dress who looked like she had too much money and no idea what to do with it all.

"Aw, she's cute." Felix shrugged.

"I'll give you a minute to get ready."

"Thanks, boss." Jay walked away and Rin couldn't help but ask:

"How do you do it?"

"Do what?"

"I mean, you're as gay as I am but… I dunno, nothing ever gets to you. I mean, when you have to do girls, I mean."

"Eh, whenever I get paired up with a fair lady like that one, I try to find some common ground. Usually just vague shit like places we both like going to. Anything that'll remind me that, you know, she's just a human being like me. Of course, it does help that the girls who come here tend to be nicer than the guys, but yeah. At the end of the day though, it's just a job, and all we're doing is providing a service. We don't have to enjoy it, I just choose to make the most of it," he said with finality and waved at Rin, walking away to attend to his client who blushed as soon as she saw him.

"Well, shit," Rin mumbled to herself. She was going to go find a place to sit down and wait to be called, but as she turned to do just that, something caught her attention.

She squinted when she found two familiar figures in the distance, entering the brothel's lounge. Then, she saw them properly.

"What?" She whispered.

Both of the adventurers from last night. They were here, dressed in far more casual clothing. The older man was in an oversized white shirt while the woman looked boyish with a sleeveless brown top and black pants.

[What the hell are they doing here?] Rin scratched her head and subtly moved closer to listen in on them.

"You ever been to one o' these, Cara?"

"No." The woman spat back.

"No wonder you've got such a large piece of rotten wood up your ass." He belly-laughed and spread his arms. "Cara! There's no point in being involved in our line of work if you can't enjoy what different cities have to offer! Just being in a place like this would get you locked up for a year over at Cradle."

"Let's just find him and leave."

The two adventurers searched the room, not even bothering to notice Rin. When they spotted Jay, they walked over to her.

"What can I do for ya?" Jay asked with crossed arms.

"We're looking for a young man, an adventurer like us, his name's Aldin. 'E come through 'ere?"

"Hold on, let me check." Jay went into her room and quickly walked back out with a large brown book in her hands. "I keep everyone's records here. Alright… Aha." She looked up and squinted, searching the room. Then, when her eyes fell on Rin, she stopped.

"Hey, Rin."

"Y-Yeah?"

"Do you have any idea where your client went?" Jay asked and Rin cringed when she remembered how… Less than amicable their parting was.

"Was I supposed to keep track of him?" Rin asked.

"No, no. Just asking. Well, shit. Sorry, but it doesn't look like she knows where he went." Jay stated and Cara grumbled.

"That's fine." She massaged her temples and looked at the older man. "If he doesn't want to come back, that's on him. Should we go?"

"Hm… Maybe we could wait for a little." Rin didn't miss how his eyes left Cara and scanned over some of the passing women. From the looks of things, judging by how she put her hands on her hips, neither had Cara. "You know, 'e might come back."

"Fine." Cara turned toward Jay. "Anywhere I can grab a drink?"

"Right over there." She pointed at a small bar to the back, behind her own room.

"Alright, come get me if Foley comes back. Either of you." Cara said, referring to both her partner and Jay. The boss raised her brows all the way up to the roof, almost impressed by the audacity of being ordered to do something in her own establishment.

"Will do." Her partner said. "In the meantime, though, heeeey!" The older man snagged a woman by the waist and instantly pulled out a coin pouch.

"Don't put your hands on any of them before you pay up," Jay said, taking the pouch from his hands. "Come with me, we'll sort out what you can get with this."

"Alright, alright. My mistake." The older man let go of the woman and followed behind Jay. Rin was left alone. She was about to go sit down again and wait for someone to pull her aside the same way the man had with the other girl, but instead, though, she looked back. Cara had already sat on one of the few stools placed in front of the bar. Her image communicated one very simple message, "do not talk to me".

As Rin stood there though, feeling a drop of sweat roll down her forehead, she thought about it. There was a strange feeling in her gut. She saw the men and women around her, some of them forcing smiles, some of them producing them genuinely, and she wondered about her own place here.

It just hit her, so suddenly.

She needed a change, and this was a chance for that.

[Should I…?] She thought. [What am I even hoping for?] It was almost like a part of her was hoping to stop this train of thought, but once it started there was no hope. Vague images of herself with a sword at her side and her own, real, proud smile on her face as she walked through this town filled her mind. It wasn't like she knew the first thing about being an adventurer though.

All she knew was what her brother had told her. She could almost see herself talking to him some years ago.

---

"Nah, you're full of shit." Rin was sitting in the middle of her home. The scent of vanilla was in the air and her mother was promising to make dessert. "There's no way you saw a fucking dragon."

The boy she was talking to let out a loud cackle and shrugged.

"Yeah, I promise, it happened."

"No way!" Rin tried to shove the boy, but he didn't even budge. "Okay tough guy, what did it look like?"

"It was big."

"No shit."

"It had dark scales."

"And it shot fire out of its mouth?"

"What the fuck do you want me to say?" He laughed. "It was a dragon. Literally, picture a dragon and that's what I saw."

"Can't believe mom and dad raised a liar."

"Fuck you."

Rin chuckled and leaned her head back. Between all of her studies and the fact that she had no idea what she wanted to do in a few years when she graduated from high school, it was easy to get lost in melancholy. But these little moments, well, they helped.

"So… What else can you tell me?" Rin asked.

"Okay, well, you know how there's Dren, this shitty place we know and love, right?"

"Yeah."

"And you know how we're right beneath Libera, and that place is right beneath the Crescent River, you follow?" He asked, referring to the great city of Libera, one of two large human cities in the world, and the Crescent River, which divided the north and south of the world of Ilyrum.

"Yes, I went to school, I didn't know you needed me to confirm that but there you go. Is this some weird test?" She replied.

"Okay, it turns out there's another city to the left of the Crescent River."

"Yeah, uh, what was it called again…?" Rin tapped her knee as she thought about it. That city was barely ever spoken about. It didn't have the historic permanency of Cradle or the cultural golden age that Libera was in the middle of. It was referred to by some as the Forgotten City. Not as some metaphor because it was lost in a disaster or anything, no, literally because it was forgotten by most people.

"Cardana."

"Oh, right."

"I went there."

"Wait, seriously?" Rin was actually impressed.

"Yeah. In all honesty, it wasn't half bad. The place is in the middle of this, how do I explain it? It's like the Divine ripped a mountain off the earth and just dropped that city there. It was strange. I can't say I've been to any place like it."

"Damn."

They remained in silence for a little bit as clanking sounds came from the kitchen behind them.

"Hey," Rin started, "you know, you haven't actually told me anything about your job, like, itself."

At that, her brother closed his eyes and leaned back.

"That too much or something?" Rin asked.

"No, no. It's uh, it's mostly good." He replied. "Just… I dunno, at a point, it can weigh on you a little."

"Huh." Rin nodded slowly.

"But, mostly, yeah. It's alright. I don't regret it at all."

----

Rin blinked. She had spaced out, looking at the woman's back. She breathed in. She needed to do something. This job had worked to help her mother pay the bills since her brother had passed, but she wasn't about to do this for the rest of her life.

[I have to try. Even if I don't really know what I'm trying for. I just can't keep doing this.]

Her legs started moving her to the bar of their own accord. Everything except the open seat next to Cara fell out of focus. And then, it happened almost like a dream. As if she was seeing herself occupy the spot, watching Cara's eyes move to her. Cara saw her tattoo and quickly looked back to her glass.

"Sorry, not interested," Cara said firmly.

"Oh, no, I'm not here for that," Rin replied just as fast. Cara lifted a shot glass to her lips but stopped before the liquid could enter between her lips.

"Then what exactly are you here for?" She asked.

"I… I wanted to know if uh, the Adventurer's Guild is hiring."

The look Cara threw her way would have had Rin rolling her sleeves up any other day.

"Seriously?"

"Y-Yes."

"Are you a mage or something?"

"Well, no."

"Have you done any limit breaking?" Cara reached over and gave a squeeze to her right biceps that probably looked soft, but Rin nearly teared up from how strong her pinch was.

"No." [What the hell does "limit breaking" even mean?]

"Then what the fuck are you talking about?"

"I-I mean, I could learn."

"You don't go to the Guild to learn. Get the fuck out of here with that," she replied.

And, just like that, she was shot down.

[Well, shit.] Rin looked away. [Okay, to be fair, what was I expecting?]

"… o the academy for that."

"What?"

"I said, sigh you go to the academy for that." Cara beckoned the bartender over and wordlessly asked for another shot.

"What's that?"

"Divine save you, kid. The academy is where you go to train up to be an adventurer. If you don't know enough to apply for the guild straight-up, you go there."

"Oh…" Rin thought about it. "Wait, so, I go there, and I can become an adventurer through that, what, school?"

"Yes." Cara threw back another shot and burped. "Anyone can go. It's in Libera, just get a passage, pay the tuition cost and you're in." There was something strange about the way Cara said it. Almost like it wasn't a system she respected or one that she expected Rin to actually use.

"Wait, if anyone can do it, why don't they then?"

"Because if you drop out then, unless you had a scholarship, you effectively just wasted your money," Cara stated. "Which is pretty fucking likely, because being an adventurer isn't just waving a sword around all day."

Those words didn't even register in Rin's mind. She already had more questions to ask.

"How much does it cost?"

"I dunno, kid, like ten plats."

[Holy shit...] Rin thought.

"Yeah," Cara replied as she saw the look on Rin's face. "So, you should probably calm down."

"Why?"

"No chance you'll make it in time for this semester."

"What? Why? When does the semester start?"

"Three days."

Rin nearly fainted.

"I'm going somewhere else, you're ruining my drinking." Cara declared and disappeared. Rin sat there, stunned.

Ten platinum varols. An incredible sum, undoubtedly.

[How many do I even have?] Rin often saved up what she earned, but this amount was something else.

"Can I get you anything, Rin?" The bartender asked with a friendly smile.

"A thousand silvers?"

"Sure, how about I give you my house and my husband while I'm at it too?"

Rin couldn't help but laugh. Still, a thought appeared at the forefront of her mind.

It was a small seed of hope but it was there. She remembered how the adventurer from earlier had tipped her a full plat. Now, although that was a rare occurrence, the wealth of the customer wasn't.

Rin often, very often, serviced the richer members of society. If she performed well enough...

[Shit... Could I make something happen?]