The wind was a freezing roar in Aiven's ears, a stark contrast to the stuffy, ink-scented air of the office he had inhabited for years. He gripped Virelle's shoulders, his knuckles white, as the rooftops of the logistics district blurred beneath them into a sea of grey and brown.
"Virelle! Lower!" Aiven shouted over the whistle of the gale. "Find an empty space, somewhere quiet!"
Virelle looked down, her silver hair whipping around her face like a silk storm. She didn't look bothered by the speed or the altitude. "Always worrying about 'fuss,' Master. You should learn to enjoy the entrance!"
Despite her sass, she complied. She banked sharply to the left, angling their descent toward a patch of neglected parkland on the outskirts of the residential district where the grass grew tall and the only witnesses were a few stray cats and the occasional sleeping drunkard.
They touched down with a grace that Aiven certainly didn't feel. As Virelle let go of him, his legs felt like jelly, and he had to take several deep breaths to stop the world from spinning.
Virelle immediately drifted back, crossing her arms and puffing out her chest. Her prismatic orb chimed a sharp, defensive note. "Before you start," she began, her violet eyes flashing with preemptive defiance, "I am not accepting any scolding. I did what had to be done. That man was a blight on your dignity, and I simply… removed the obstruction."
Aiven looked at her. He took in the way her jaw was set, ready for a fight, and the way she seemed braced for him to be angry. He thought about Mr. Hendel's face—the arrogance, the belittling comments, and the way he had treated Aiven's grief like an inconvenience to be docked from a paycheck.
"I wasn't going to reprimand you, Virelle," Aiven said quietly.
Virelle blinked, her defensive posture faltering. "You… weren't?"
"No," Aiven sighed, running a hand through his messy ash-black hair. "What's done is done. Reprimanding you won't fix the wall, and it won't put the books back on the shelves. Besides…" He looked up, his grey-blue eyes meeting her violet ones with a rare, tired sincerity. "No one has ever gotten that angry on my behalf before. I… I appreciate it. Truly."
The change in Virelle was instantaneous. The prickly, jagged aura around her vanished, replaced by a soft, shimmering lavender glow. Her eyes widened, and a faint flush touched her cheeks. She looked away, her fingers twiddling with the hem of her detached sleeve.
"Oh," she whispered, her voice losing its edge. A small, genuine smile tugged at her lips. "Well. It's about time someone appreciated my services. You are my Master, after all. It would be a poor reflection on me if I let a commoner treat you like a footstool."
Aiven let out a dry, weary laugh. "I just hope he doesn't sue me. I'm pretty sure 'Property Damage by an Elf' carries a heavy fine."
Virelle let out a confident snort. "Sue you? After I threatened to turn his head into a crater? I highly doubt he'll be speaking to any authorities soon. He's likely still on his knees wondering if the sky is going to fall on him."
"I hope you're right," Aiven said, adjusting his sword belt. "But regardless, I'm officially out of a job. If we want to stay fed and keep a roof over our heads, we need to do some proper quests. No more trash duty. We need something that pays, and we need it today."
Virelle spun in the air, her excitement returning in an instant. "Finally! A proper hunt! Grab my hand again, Master, I'll fly us straight to the Guildhouse. We can make an even grander entrance through their roof!"
"Absolutely not," Aiven said, reaching out to stop her before she could lift off. "That is exactly the kind of 'attention' we're trying to avoid. From now on, we keep a low profile. We walk there like normal people."
Virelle made a face, her nose wrinkling in disgust. "Walk? Through the mud? Like… pedestrians?"
"Yes. Like pedestrians," Aiven insisted. "You can float if you have to, but keep it low. No soaring, no glowing, and definitely no explosions."
Virelle let out a long, theatrical groan, her shoulders slumped in mock despair. "You are a very cruel Master. Denying a lady her wings… it's practically a crime."
"Just for ten minutes," Aiven said, already heading toward the street. "Come on. We have work to do."
As they began the walk toward the central district, Aiven kept his head down, acutely aware of the silver-haired girl drifting silently beside him.
"Virelle," Aiven began. "We need to talk about what happened back there. I need you to tone down the violence. If you attack people every time they're rude, we won't be seen as heroes. We'll be seen as a threat."
Virelle tilted her head. "Tone it down? I was being remarkably restrained. I'm simply teaching people to respect my Master."
"It's not respect you're earning, Virelle. It's fear," Aiven countered. "And fear is a brittle thing. It causes harm in the long run. It makes people want to hurt us before we can hurt them. It creates enemies we don't need."
"No one can hurt my Master with me around," Virelle said firmly.
Aiven stopped walking and turned to face her. "Virelle... please. I don't know the limits of this world. If someone like you can exist, who is to say you're the only one? There might be others out there just as strong. We don't need to pick fights with the world."
He looked down, his hand instinctively going to the hilt of his nicked short sword. "I've already lost someone dear to me. I've seen how quickly everything can be taken away. I don't want to lose anyone else. And I don't want to lose you because we were too busy being 'outrageous' to see the danger coming."
The sass drained out of Virelle. She hovered there, looking at Aiven's weary face. She saw the genuine fear in his eyes—not for himself, but for her.
She let out a small, defeated sigh. "You are far too soft-hearted, Master. But... I suppose I can try your 'pedestrian' way for a while. If it keeps that look off your face, I will listen."
The Guildhouse doors creaked as Aiven pushed them open, releasing a wave of heat and the smell of roasted meat and pine-oil floor wax. It was busier than yesterday. Adventurers of all ranks crowded the hall, their gear clinking as they traded stories or sharpened blades at the communal tables.
Aiven led Virelle toward the massive bulletin board at the far end of the hall. It was a wall of weathered parchment, each sheet held in place by a heavy iron pin.
Virelle hovered just a few inches off the ground, her violet eyes scanning the board with a look of profound boredom. She drifted toward the top-right corner, where the parchments were marked with a bold, crimson 'B'.
"This one," she said, tapping a quest that detailed a cull of 'Sky-Shredder Griffins' near the outer rim. "It says they're terrorizing a village. It looks mildly exciting, and the reward is fifty gold pieces. That's more than twelve silver, isn't it, Master?"
Aiven let out a nervous chuckle. "Fifty gold is a small fortune, Virelle. But we can't take it."
"Why not?" she pouted, her silver hair shimmering with agitation. "I can delete a griffin before it even sees my shadow."
"Because I'm a 'mere' F-Rank," Aiven explained, his 'clerk-brain' automatically reciting Guild bylaws. "The rules are strict. As an F-Rank, I'm only allowed to take E-Rank quests solo. If I want to take a D-Rank quest, I have to be part of a party that includes at least one registered D-Rank adventurer. Anything B-Rank or higher is locked behind years of proven service or a major contribution to the guild. The receptionist wouldn't even let us out the door with that paper."
Virelle groaned, the sound like a melodious cello. "Rules, rules, rules. Your world is built on very annoying pieces of paper."
Aiven ignored her, his eyes searching the lower sections of the board. He needed something that paid enough to cover rent and food but was officially listed as D-Rank. He thought he could probably find a D-rank adventurer somewhere to form a small party. His eyes landed on a quest: Subjugation of Rock-Shelled Lurkers – Sector 4 Caves. It was a D-Rank mission, paying five silver per head.
"This is the one," Aiven muttered. He reached out to snatch the paper off the board.
Before his fingers could touch the parchment, another hand appeared from the crowd, swiping the quest scroll in a single, fluid motion.
Aiven blinked, his hand frozen in mid-air. He turned to see a human woman, likely in her early twenties, with a shock of fiery red hair tied back in a practical top-knot. She wore light leather armor that looked well-used, and her knuckles were wrapped in thick, stained bandages—the mark of a hand-to-hand fighter.
"Sorry," she said, her voice husky and confident. She didn't even look at him as she rolled the scroll. "This one's mine. Need the coin for a new pair of boots."
Beside Aiven, the air temperature dropped ten degrees.
Virelle's prismatic orb stopped its gentle humming and began to vibrate with a jagged, violet light. Her eyes flashed with a murderous intensity. "How dare you," she whispered, her voice like a sharpening blade. "A random peasant girl plans to snatch the quest my Master was eyeing? Do you value your fingers, or should I—"
Aiven saw the look in Virelle's eyes and felt a cold spike of panic.
"Virelle! No!" Aiven hissed, stepping between her and the red-haired fighter.
He shot Virelle a desperate, pleading look. Virelle's mana-flare faltered. She froze, her hand halfway raised to cast a spell, and then slowly lowered it. She let out a frustrated huff, turning her head away to avoid looking at the "thief."
Aiven turned back to the red-haired woman and gave a small, apologetic bow. "I'm sorry. Please, take the quest. We were just... looking."
The woman paused. She looked at Aiven—tattered, dusty, and clearly stressed with an F-rank badge—and then shifted her gaze to Virelle. She didn't look scared; instead, her eyebrows shot up in genuine curiosity. She took in Virelle's floating hair, the translucent sleeves, and the fact that the girl was currently hovering several inches above the floorboards.
"You two are a strange pair," the redhead noted, a smirk playing on her lips. She tapped the scroll against her chin. "An F-ranker and a... what are you exactly? A High-Mage? An apparition?"
Virelle didn't answer, her arms crossed tightly over her chest as she ignored the woman's existence.
"She's my partner," Aiven said quickly.
The woman hummed, her sharp green eyes sizing Aiven up. "You're an F-rank, right? You want this D-rank quest, but you can't take it because you don't have a D-ranker in your party." She held out the scroll. "Tell you what. I'm a D-Rank pugilist. I'm solo, and I'm bored. You two look like you've been through a meat grinder and survived. Want to form a party? We split the coin three ways, and you get to bypass the rank restriction."
Virelle opened her mouth, her eyes widening. "Absolutely n—"
"Deal," Aiven said, cutting her off before she could protest.
Virelle looked at Aiven as if he had just suggested they walk into a volcano. "Master! You cannot be serious! We don't need help from a common brawler!"
"We need a D-ranker to take the quest, Virelle," Aiven whispered back, his voice firm. "And we need to look like a normal adventuring party. This is exactly what we need."
The red-haired girl laughed, a loud, boisterous sound that drew a few eyes. She extended a bandaged hand toward Aiven. "Name's Rysa. Let's go see the receptionist and make this official before your 'partner' decides to turn me into a frog."