Victor had picked up a quest to help someone with testing the Hargeon sea water last day. He woke up early, washing his face and taking a quick shower before throwing in some casual clothes that he liked to wear during missions. Victor tried to comb his messy hair back, quickly giving up when it went back to the way it was. He sighed, ran a hand through his hair and walked out of his room in the guild, a tired sigh leaving his lips. He hadn’t gotten enough sleep last night having stayed up to read as many mystery novels as he could in one night.

He walked around the town for a bit, grabbing something to eat from a convenience store and then trying to remember where it was that this aquarist, Rina, had decided to meet him at. After a while of doing nothing but wandering around, he found her after a turn, her hands crossed over his chest and a displeased look in her eyes. He gulped. Ah, he had made her wait too long.

“Sorry! I forgot where we were supposed to meet,” he told her, genuinely apologizing and smiling shyly when the aquarist gave him a strict look. “You should have been here ten minutes ago,” she said, giving him an once over before grabbing a bunch of water samples off the floor. She handed it over to him saying nothing more as if she expected him to do everything by himself. Without a word, she turned and walked, having a confused Victor follow her to the large lab that she worked in.

Once they were inside, she tapped a spot on the counter, again, using no words to tell Vic what to do as he placed the water samples down. She eyed the samples to make sure that none of them were broken or spilled before disappearing behind a door and appearing again only a few minutes later with some tools that Vic had only read about. He had never truly had practical lessons before.

The lab was full of oddly shaped containers and test tubes. It definitely had the atmosphere of a real lab although he noticed that only one part of the room was kept clean without even a speck of dust. Another part, on the other hand, was dusty and messy. The equipment were also quite old and rusty at that side. He wanted to ask why it was so but stopped himself as he realized it was not his business.

Seeing as he was at a loss of what to do, Raina let out an irritated sigh, took a sample off the box and started showing him how they check for pollution levels and salt content. Victor had to stand there and listen to her, the same person who had given him silent commands, talk or rather rant endlessly about how people had to take care of the marine life and water even more. She made him agree to some of her points even though Vic couldn’t care any less about any of those.

He carefully placed a few drops of the sample on the tool he was given, the rate of salt content and pollution instantly showing up in magical writing over the water. What an useful tool that was for an aquarist, Victor thought, repeating the same process again and again with all the samples they collected while trying to keep his ears and mind closed from all the ranting an complaining that Raina did. He understood that marine life was to be protected and that they shouldn’t pollute their resources much but it wasn’t like it would be something that could change over night. People could preach about it all they want but the truth was that only a handful of people cared.

Once he was done testing for the salt content, he was made to test for pollution along with Raina whose ranting had doubled at that point. They spent the afternoon doing just that, testing waters, ranting, and ranting again. Once it was all done, he handed over the samples and other tools back to Raina while they chatted for a little bit about the survival of aquatic life.

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