Chapter 22
He looked for Luna. No sign of her on the bed. Her backpack lay by the wall, her sleeping bag rolled up on top. But chestnut hair streaked up from his own sleeping bag as it lay on his bed.
Swallowing all sound, he got up. As silently as he could, he stalked to the bed. What was she doing in his sleeping bag, again?
Luna lay curled inside his sleeping bag, only her hair slipping out. She never slept indoors, much less in his sleeping bag. He pulled the bag a bit to see if it was really Luna inside.
She slept there naked, tied up in silver chains. Her eyes sprang open. She turned red, twisted her body in an instant, closing the bag, vanishing inside.
“Sorry,” Alsen snapped, stepping back. His heel hit something, making him stumble. He managed to keep his balance, only stumbling a few steps back.
His sleeping bag twisted and bulged, Luna moving wildly inside. “Give me some privacy?” she shouted.
He realized what he stumbled upon. Leather straps, belts, and sheaths, filled with all kinds of daggers and knives. Also, Luna’s shirt and other clothes. “Why are you tied up in chains inside my sleeping bag? And what’s with all these daggers?”
“Those are my weapons, duh,” she shouted. “How about you go fetch something to eat before I get ready?”
“And the chains?” He lowered his voice. No need to shout back. “You told me you were an ex-werewolf. Why are you tying yourself up to sleep then? Because I didn’t do that.”
“Unfortunately.” She peeked out of the sleeping bag, still blushing, panic plastered over her features. “Look, can we leave this discussion for when we’re not hungover?”
“No,” Alsen shouted. “We damn well can’t. What aren’t you telling me?”
She sighed, looking away. “I don’t have any werewolf powers anymore. I can’t shift, transform, silver doesn’t burn me, and I don’t have the strength, nor the speed, nor the toughness, nor anything else.”
Nice try, but he wasn’t letting her off the hook. “…but?”
“But… Dreamwalker didn’t remove the wolf’s soul. He used it to repair mine, so it’s somehow fused into me. It hasn’t done anything. It doesn’t do anything. But it might do something in the future.”
“…and?”
Her face turned even redder. “And the silver chains might slow it down enough to give you a chance to run. Maybe.”
“Why would he want to harm me?”
“It’s what he does. You’re a guy sleeping in my vicinity.
In the wolf’s eyes, that’s a lesson to be taught to me.
He spent pretty much of my life telling me that if I ever slept with a guy, he would shift into me at night, and tear him to shreds straight in the bed.
” She clicked her tongue. “He never did it, but mostly because of the lack of opportunities.”
“Can you actually feel the wolf inside you?”
“No,” she admitted. “There’s nothing. No voice inside my head, no pull on the full moon, no unnatural hunger or thirst, no powers, nothing. But old habits die hard.”
Pity flashed through him. He felt no hint of a lie. And sleeping tied up could not have been pleasant. If she did that for her whole life, then she might well not have been able to sleep in any other way now. “I’m sorry… I would just appreciate it if you didn’t do it in my sleeping bag.”
She flashed a smile. “You could join me in here.”
He rolled his eyes and went to wash. The water in the prepared bath pot had gone cold, but he was heated enough already.
He washed while she collected her things. Before he finished, Luna was dressed up, all the straps and belts and weapons gone, hidden underneath her oversized blouse.
Once he got ready himself, they had breakfast. His headache returned, so he didn’t feel like talking. Luna produced more than enough noise by herself. He ate bread and some porridge that tasted like regret. Luna had four sausages and nothing else.
After the meal, they headed to the adventurer’s guild. The next round of drug experimentation would happen in the evening, and until then, they might as well hang out at the guild.
The adventurer’s guild sat near the market district. The same sagging structure with the faded sign, still looking like it might collapse if someone leaned on it wrong. Maggie, the receptionist, wasn’t at the counter. A young man with ink-stained fingers had replaced her.
“Morning,” the receptionist said without looking up.
“Morning,” Alsen replied, heading into the lobby.
Luna spared the receptionist a nod.
The guild was busier than last time. A dozen adventurers occupied the tables and corners, most of them in small groups.
Gear and weapons leaned against walls and table legs.
The hum of conversation filled the space, a mix of planning, arguing, and the kind of competitive bravado that seemed to define the profession.
Then Alsen stopped.
Across the guild hall, near the far wall, a woman stood over an ornate vase. She had dark hair cascading past her shoulders, a stylish robe fashioned in green and pink, holding her hands above the vase. Pink light shone from her palms, scanning the vase.
She was a mage.
Alsen forgot to breathe.
And not because of the spell. That was a mana-analyzing scan, one Alsen actually needed himself.
The light vanished. She turned, lowering her hands, and spoke to an armored man beside her. The man didn’t look happy with what she told him.
Alsen couldn’t tear his gaze from her. She had sharp features, intelligent eyes, and the kind of posture that suggested she’d be equally comfortable in a library or a fight.
And she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
“Alsen?” Luna’s voice came from somewhere beside him.
He ignored her. He was staring, he realized. Right now, he had a few moments to go greet her and introduce himself. If he didn’t do it now, she might as well leave for an adventure and never return.
But… he looked like a vagabond right now. He hadn’t had the time to shop for appropriate clothes, to take a bath and get a haircut. The entire first impression had to be carried by his charm, of which he didn’t have much.
Damn it.
He focused on the System, pulling up the skill. As he slowly walked toward her, he allocated points. The first passive of the Diplomat specialization:
Skill name: Master of First Impressions
Required level: One
Description: First impressions are lucky.
Usage: Passive.
Then, he allocated three pathing nodes, which gave each plus seven to charisma in this specialization, and finally, he took the level ten passive, which gave plus forty-five to charisma.
He locked the points in, instantly raising his charisma from ten to seventy-one.
His vision shifted. Instead of walking through the temple turned adventurers’ guild, he observed as if from nowhere a man in an immaculate suit. The man had a rough stubble over a jawline sharp enough to cut diamonds, short brown hair, and piercing blue eyes.
He stood by a mirror, arranging his suit, ensuring every detail matched perfectly.
‘Out of all the impressions one can make, none is as important as the first one,’ the man’s voice resonated through his head.
‘For upon the first impression, we all form the initial opinion of the other person. Just as we are quick to judge, we are stubborn. We refuse to change our opinions simply out of unwillingness to even imagine we could have been wrong. Many call this a shortcoming of a human mind.’
He turned, smiling at Alsen with a roguish smile. ‘I call it an opportunity. There’s no use in bemoaning how the world functions. It’s much more practical to acknowledge the world for what it is, and to take advantage of it.’
Alsen’s vision snapped back to normal. He made half a step while watching the vision. The world around him didn’t move the tiniest bit, the vision having clearly taken no time.
With a pleased smile, he went to say hi.
She noticed him before he reached her. Her eyes shifted from the armored man she’d been speaking to, and found Alsen mid-stride. He watched those eyes perform a quick, efficient scan, glancing over shoes, clothes, posture, and face, the standard initial assessment.
He stopped at a comfortable distance. Close enough to talk, far enough to not be threatening. The System’s passives worked on the level of an instinct, so he acted with as little thinking as possible.
“That was a splendid mana-spectrum analysis,” he said, nodding toward the vase. “With an extremely tight resonance on the lower frequencies, with an interesting power bleed.”
The shift in her expression was immediate. The polite, guarded neutrality cracked into something sharper. Interest. “You could see the resonance bands from across the room?”
“I could feel them. I have something of a feel for magic.”
She studied him for a moment that lasted longer than it should have. Up close, she looked even better. Her eyes were dark brown, almost black, and they held a quality of focus that reminded Alsen of himself when he was deep in research. The kind of attention that could peel layers off a problem.
“I’m Alsen,” he added.
“Arleria.” She said it like a fact, not a greeting. “And the bleed is intentional. I use it as a secondary probe to test for concealment wards. If the item is shielded, the bleed bounces differently than it would off raw material.”
So, that was how magic item identification was done.
The initial scan found the magic, the bleed got through, and provided details, using a typical flaw of a spell as a feature.
“That’s elegant. I’ve been trying to develop my own magical item analysis scan, but I have been erring in stopping the bleed, rather than taking advantage of it. ”
Arleria raised an eyebrow. “Develop?”
“I come from a land where I was the only mage.” He flashed a smile. “So, all my spells were developed on my own.”
Her other eyebrow also rose. Just slightly, but he caught it. “That’s either very impressive or very foolish.”
“I tend to be both.”
She almost smiled. Almost. The armored man beside her cleared his throat, loudly enough to qualify as a statement. Arleria half-turned to him. “Derell, this is Alsen. He’s a mage.”