Gun Girl from Another World

Sold

The next day, I go to Giri's guild office. I go alone, as Ayre had begged off, determined to wallow in bed. I offered to heal my friend, but the elf stubbornly wanted nothing to do with the day, even if it were for receiving aid. So, instead, I ordered a pitcher of cold water and a mug of fresh coffee brought up to our room and saw myself out once they arrived.

The guild halls are relatively standardized in their construction, or at least in their amenities. Every one we've been to has a bar area, reception desks, maps and a quest board. Sometimes they aren't arranged quite the same way, and the trophies mounted and posed about are always different, but those core services always remain in roughly the same, or sometimes mirrored, placements.

It makes it a familiar place, even in the middle of a foreign city, but that doesn't make it the same. Since I left Ayre at the inn, I decide to go ahead and have breakfast at the guild. It's a bit of a splurge when I have a storage space absolutely brimming with fresh ingredients, but, hey, getting all of those from Dabun has me feeling a little homesick.

The figure behind the bar is a heavyset man who has an attitude like he doesn't really want to be there. It probably doesn't help that I'm there early, either, a quiet time withheld for bull sessions with familiar faces rather than catering to newcomers, and even the silver badge on my chest doesn't make me one of them.

All in all, a far cry from Zeiya's energetic greetings and homey dishes, the service and sustenance reminding me of what I could expect from early morning diners back home: Technically what I ordered and with no concern for earning tips. That's fine, though. I leave him to chat with his buddies and eat my breakfast at an empty table to keep to myself.

After turning my dishes in, which at least earns me a thanks since I don't just leave them on the table, I make my way to the quest board to see what kind of missions are pinned to it. I need to see if any of them are out toward Ogre's Grotto, then we could knock them out on our way.

"Skeletons in my closet, kill skeletons that have taken residence in my dressing room."

I have to read that one over several times to make sure my eyes aren't deceiving me when I see it. If I weren't certain that figures of speech didn't carry over, I'd think that it was posted as a gag. Instead, it sounds rather dangerous. I'd bet it might even be keeping the poster from returning home.

I'm just about to reach for it when …

"Excuse me …"

A young woman with glasses slips by me to pull that particular quest off of the board. I take a good look at her as she does so and almost think of her as younger than me, remembering just in time that she's got the better part of a decade on me in this body. If she were a few years older, she'd look the part of a Hollywood librarian, but my sensibilities instead place her as "bookish college student one rager away from a career change."

"Is something wrong with that mission?" I ask as she tucks it into a folder she's holding at her side.

"Oh, we just received notice that it's been completed," she explains. "Apparently, the poster is an alchemist, and the skeletons were the vaporous result of a late night and poor ventilation."

She turns to look at me, adjusting the glasses on her face to help her focus on my features, and then her eyes narrow. "Hero Remmi Lee?"

I blink in surprise at being recognized, then remember how much I stick out and grin. "It's the hair, isn't it?"

"Yes," she unabashedly answers immediately, then blinks back at me. "Unless you're coloring yours to imitate her. In that case, I apologize for the mistake."

"No, no, that's me," I assure her quickly. "Is, uh, there something I can do for you?"

"Come with me to the reception counter, please. We have a message waiting for you."

I follow her back in confusion. Who would be trying to contact me with a message this way? Most messengers are skilled in locating the targets of missives, probably due to some sort of tracking skills. If you at least know the town and the person's name, a messenger could make the delivery.

The one case I can think of that would make sense would be guild business. Anyone who knows how Ayre and I do things could reasonably guess we'd show up here sooner or later, too.

It turns out to be the latter, surprisingly, when the glasses girl pulls out a short note marked as from Captain Anara. "A man in steel armor brought this in for you yesterday evening."

And that would have been Leuke. I can't help but notice she doesn't recognize him by identifying features … I bury my pout, thank her and accept the note. It's simply a request to meet them to discuss yesterday's questioning if they haven't already gotten hold of me by the time I get this note.

Well, they didn't get hold of me yet, so I guess the note turned out to be a good idea.

I fold the note up, slip it into a pocket and thank the girl again.

"It looks like I'm going to be needing to make another stop this morning, after all."

It's not a terribly long trip downtown to the city guard barracks, enough time that I grab a fresh smoked sausage from the newly opened stalls on the way there. It's salty and greasy in just the right way to finish off the last tastes of my eggs and beans with coffee I had at the guild.

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

I'm in a good mood when I arrive, and so are the guards. In a complete one-eighty from the last time I came to the barracks, I'm greeted with smiles and waves instead of cold shoulders. It's hard to believe that was only yesterday.

Yeesh, it'd been a long day. My mind tells me that I should be exhausted after it all, but instead, I woke up bright and early just like I always do, with no sign of tiredness in sight. I give a little stretch to celebrate. Being a teenager again really is amazing!

"Is the Captain in?" I ask of one as I pass.

"In her office," he replies around a cup of his own coffee.

"Thanks," I reply and head past. I approach the door and rap my knuckles against it.

"Enter."

At the one-word welcome, I turn the knob and push the door open enough to step into the room. "You wanted to see me, Captain?" I ask.

"Well, you're up early," Anara greets me a moment after she recognizes me. She taps some papers to get them straight and sets them aside. "Some part of me just assumed all Heroes sleep like Leuke."

"Let me guess," I venture as I shut the door behind me. "Sleeps like a log, snores like a bear, and doesn't rouse until there's food?"

She gives a good-natured snort. "Heard him, have you?"

"He seems the type to sleep very well," I reply diplomatically.

This earns another short laugh. "And you? I don't suppose I just happened to find a like mind, waking up at the crack of dawn for duty and responsibility?"

"Just youthful vigor," I chirp, giving a pump of my arm. "And four hundred stamina!"

Anara chuckles at that. "Really, I don't think I could have sat still if I had that much stamina, either." She stamps another paper and files it away. "Though you'd be amazed how fast paperwork drains SP, anyway." And she motions to the chair across from her own. "Have a seat."

"You should try more coffee," I suggest as I take the seat. "There's a blend that gives unlimited stamina for an hour!"

She gives me a suspicious glance at that. "A blend of what? Illicit alchemical compounds with a little coffee for flavor?"

I grin and pull a ceramic thermos from my bag and pour the contents into an empty cup near her. The liquid is a brown so deep that it's nearly black, and it steams up into the air. With that steam is a rich, nutty aroma anyone could identify.

"Nope, just coffee. Essence Arabica coffee."

She frowns down at the cup in distrust before sliding it to the side with her quill. "That smells wonderful," she admits, "but maybe later."

Anara returns her gaze back to my face. "I wanted to talk to you about the inquiries we performed yesterday. You were pulled away by other duties, so you weren't around to hear."

"Don't tell me," I open with a depressed sigh, my cheer fading, "Noya backed up everything Oshu said."

But the Captain breaks into a grin. "No. Just the opposite! She didn't even try to shuffle her answers around like the mayor did. And the only corroboration she gave was to times and places. In fact, the Lady Regent's story matches up with yours and Ayre's perfectly."

My eyes must be the size of saucers. "She actually sold her cousin out?!"

At my choice of phrase, Anara frowns scoldingly. "Please don't put it like that. Rather, her answers indicate she wasn't involved with her cousin's scheming at all."

My sigh at that is less depressed and more resigned as I lean back in the seat. "Yeah, she definitely kept a friendly distance from him. She was very careful not to discuss business in front of me, I think."

"That makes her smarter than Mayor Oshu," Anara agrees. "But it's also in line with all of the evidence so far. She's kept her hands neatly out of it."

"Any idea how much she hates me right now?" I ask. "I've still got to talk to her about the treaty with the Oni."

The Captain takes the change of topic even further. "An agreement's been reached with the Oni?! Oh, please tell me that it had to do with that imperial missive you got yesterday, and not any thanks to the mayor!"

"Not to worry!" I assure her. "The mayor didn't have anything to do with it!" I give her a bit of side-eye as I confide in her. "If anything, he did his royal best to get in the way as often as possible. But no, he should get no credit, and if he tries to claim any, feel free to tell anyone you know better."

"I'll do that," Anara agrees with a smirk. "Can you tell me what the deal entails?"

"I sure can," I chirp, my good mood returning, though I pause to give a caveat. "Oh, but it's still got to be approved by Lady Noya before it's official, of course."

"Of course."

And so that's what I do. I spend the next few minutes laying out the broad swaths of the mining agreement and what it will mean for the Oni, what they'll get out of it, and my long-term hopes for it.

"With any luck," I finish up with zeal, "as close as the Oni and Giri are now, in a couple more generations, nobody will be able to tell where one ends and the other begins, the Oni will have craftsmen on par with anyone else, and everyone will have all of the ore they could possibly want, all without destroying everything green in the process."

"Those are some long-term goals," Anara says after taking a moment to process everything I've said. "It's impressive that you are thinking so far ahead as to be doing so in terms of generations."

But I shrug it off. "Eh, that's just how long change takes sometimes. It's all gotta have time to become second-nature, and that usually takes at least a generation growing up in it."

"Well, for what it's worth," the captain offers, "I can't think of any reason Lady Noya would turn this offer down. The way you sell it, it sounds like it does everything everyone was looking for."

I frown at that. "That all depends on how invested she was in the strip-mining approach. I may have to convince her that this is just as worth it. The mayor thought she'd never sign off on the safety measures."

"I don't think you have anything to worry about," she assures me. "If I learned anything about our Lady Regent yesterday, it's that she's infinitely more far-sighted than her cousin. If nothing else, you're the one person she can't say no to right now, and she knows it. Using this moment to get something like this agreement passed is a good use of the opportunity."

"You may just be right about that," I agree thoughtfully. "In fact, if you're done with me, I should probably go see her before she has time to think of a way out of it."

Captain Anara and I trade farewells and I see myself out of her office. Just before I leave, though, I turn back and say, "Don't forget to drink your coffee!"

And I leave seeing her give it a speculative glance once more just before she reaches for it.