The job for today was to look for a lizard, specifically a ‘green-spined’ one that was supposedly endangered, thus the nature of this request. Bianca would have to work outside the laws of the kingdom in order to complete the objective. She was just the right person for it. Actually, anyone belonging to an illegal organization would be the right person for it, though. Her client - the notorious Dr. Mabuz - had arranged to meet with her at his own shop, which she did not disagree to. She remembered doing a job for him once with his guildmate Roman before, if she remembered correctly. Something about getting ingredients too and that was for some mushrooms or something. They had to go to the forest just outside Oak Town for that, and she had feeling that she would have to go to the forest for the ingredients the doctor needed this time as well. She was glad that she was working for him again, for some reason. As crazy as he may seem, Dr. Mabuz was a pretty wise old man and she liked the way he talked. Bianca had a coffee before leaving her guild. She took a coach ride to the shop because it was too hot to walk there. She was not feeling like walking to the shop too when she would have to be going into the forest later and do a lot of walking then, while trying to look for the ingredient. It was already stated in the job sheet that she would have to be going out of town to find the ingredient, just not specifically where.

“Hello,” said Bianca as she walked into the shop. It was empty, probably because it was so early. Nobody would come here at nine in the morning, she assumed. Dr. Mabuz stood at one of the shelves that held his creations, arranging some things. He turned to her immediately when he heard her say ‘hello’. With a strange smile, he lowered his head slightly like a bow. She did the same, assuming it was a sort of greeting for him. He did not say anything after that. Instead, he let her stand there awkwardly for like a minute or two while he finished arranging his things. She looked around his shop while standing there. She did not want to disturb him working so she waited for him to finish instead of rudely telling him to pay attention to her since she was here to do a job for him. Dr. Mabuz sighed in satisfaction while staring at his handiwork and then turned to Bianca once again, this time saying ‘hello’ to her as well. He already knew what she was here for, so she told her to come inside, and took her to his little counter where he sat probably. Bianca smiled and followed him. He then brought out a picture of a lizard that had a green spine. This was the lizard that she was supposed to find.

The doctor then started to explain many things about this lizard. She felt like she was taking a zoology class or something. He shared so much information about the little guys even though Bianca did not need to know much since all she needed to do was find it and get its tail to bring back to him, but she did not stop him from telling her about the lizard. The way he told her about it made it even more interesting than it normally would have been, and that was the cool thing about Dr. Mabuz. He knew how to make people interested in what he was talking about, and he seemed to always know everything about what he was talking about. Bianca did have some questions about the lizard here and there. Mostly questions that she needed to know, like where it could usually be found in the forest, what kind of stuff it ate, so that she could bait it or something. But then she realised finding bait would be too much work. She could just look around the forest, since Dr. Mabuz said that there really was no need for a bait. She had also already filled her in on where exactly she was supposed to find these lizards. It was the same forest as last time. She had not been there for almost half a year, if not more. She also started to wonder where Roman was. She had not seen him for the longest time and it felt like he was gone or something. Not gone as in dead, but gone as in like, she did not even know how to describe it.

Dr. Mabuz then concluded his little presentation on the green spined lizards and told her that if she needed to know anything she could ask. “I’m good,” said Bianca, grabbing the picture and taking a good look so that she remembered what it looked like. The doctor had everything she needed to know about them and now it was time for lizard hunting. Well, more like lizard tail hunting. She wondered what she was going to use to cut the tail off. She made a mental note to go to a store to buy a knife. There were many stores near here. In fact she could just ask the doctor for one. “Uhh, doctor, may I borrow a knife?” she asked, thinking it would be awkward to ask it from him but he immediately said ‘sure’ which made her go ‘oh’ in her head. He went into a room behind his counter and brought out a knife, which she accepted. In Oak Town, it was not strange to see a woman dressed ready for war with a flower in her eye, walking around with a knife in her hand. Yes it totally was not. So she did not ask for anything to hold the knife in. After she told the doctor that she would see him soon, she left the shop to find a carriage again. She was going to take a carriage to the gates at least.

She found a carriage just outside of Dr. Mabuz’s shop and that was good because even if she was not going to be stared at for holding a knife, she was going to be stared at for having a flower over her eye and she did not want that. She was going to have to walk a long way too if she walked from the shop to the forest, so it was good to cut the walking distance in half. That would save her a lot of energy too, since it was very hot out at the moment. At least she could be away from the heat in the forest. It was thick enough for the leaves and branches of the trees to block out the sunlight. That was something she was looking forward to. Even sitting in the carriage made it feel like she was sitting in an oven. She pulled the tiny curtains slightly so that there was a small gap she could see through to the outside and for air to enter and leave as she breathed heavily. It was not so early anymore after all. She could see that the streets were starting to fill up with vehicles, and the sidewalks were full of hurrying people. She did not want to be seen through the gap, so she pulled it back a bit so the gap was pretty small now and it was even dizzying to look through it now. She turned so that she was facing the front now, with her fingers laced on her lap. The carriage took a left turn and she thought she should take a nap, although that did not seem like a good idea. She did not want to feel sleepy later on.

It took about twenty minutes for the carriage to reach the gates and Bianca got off of it, grabbing her knife and then bringing out some cash to pay the carriage driver. The driver accepted with a nod and drove off. She turned to face the outside of Oak Town. She then started walking towards the forest where she would find the green spined lizard. She hoped that she found it quick so that she could go back early and do other things. Hopefully, it was not going to be as difficult as it seemed. Finding the lizard, that is. The moment she stepped into the forest, she realised how hard it would be to find an animal that belonged to an endangered specie. “Fuck me,” she mumbled, after realising that. As she walked into the forest, she started looking. She was pretty sure she was not going to find them near the outside of the forest, so she walked into it deeper, and that’s when she started walking faster. She did not have to worry about scaring it away because she was silent in her movements unless she found it like face to face or something. Then she might scare it away because it would see her and run, probably.

Bianca did not stop walking. She kept walking deeper into the forest, and when she reached pretty deep in, she started walking in circles to make sure that it was there. “Damn,” she spoke to herself, starting to feel more like this was a difficult job. Of course it had to be because it was ranked C anyways. If it was as easy as the first one she did with Roman for the doctor in the same forest. That job was not even that easy, to be quite honest. They had to look all over the place for the ingredient as well. And now this was no different. At least she did not have to be bored while doing it the last time since she had a partner and she could talk to him and stuff. She had in fact gotten used to doing jobs alone. She had not had a partner in forever and she did not need one. She felt like she did jobs better when she did them alone, because if she had a partner, there was the chance that the partner was completely useless and since she had trust issues, she needed to establish some kind of trust in them beforehand and that was a lot of work. So doing things solo was how she did things these days. Especially taking on jobs. But she did feel like having someone to talk to once in a while. Maybe she should buy a companion. She heard of the latest companions on the market and she was pretty interested in that cat.

It seemed that not many people were interested in it for some reason, or something. She did not know whether or not it was worth spending a million jewels on a companion, that came with special magical abilities of course. Well if normal pets were being sold at that price she would definitely just turn away without even considering them for a second. But for companions who could pretty much use magic? She did feel like getting one. In fact, she was considering the most expensive ones on the market. Not because she wanted to be a show off and carry her companion around or something. If she was going to get a companion, she was going to get the best one. There was still the chance of an even better companion coming into the market, but she knew that the most expensive ones were one million jewels. That was the highest price there was and she had a feeling there would not be any companions having a price going higher than that. Well at least for a long time. Finally Bianca found the lizard. It was like a miracle. She actually did not think she would find it for like another two hours. But thank god. What was funny was that it was actually sunbathing on a rock. This made her feel like giggling, but she executed it quite fast and then cut off its tail. She then pretty much held it all the way back to Dr. Mabuz’s shop where she collected her reward and left.