Rania had fallen into a deep slumber; the werewolf issue had finally been taken care of, and the villagers were safe. The Paladin was exhausted from the long travels, the immense stress caused by the dangerous situations she’d found herself in, and the sudden and excessive amount of social interactions with another guild member. Kenzo was great, but also hot-headed and quite violent she’d have to say, and clearly not used to being a teamplayer. Somehow the two of them had survived this trip in spite of their differences and she’d actually grown to like the mercenary, for he was capable, brave and very straight-forward.

A day had passed and she was awoken by the elderly lady who had offered her a room and a bed during her stay in the village. Rania was then handed a sealed letter with Blue Pegasus’ insignia printed onto it and instead of opening it alone, Rania quickly got dressed and ran over to where Kenzo was staying. It was still early in the morning, so chances were he wasn’t awake yet but Rania didn’t care–clearly this was an urgent matter! “Kenzo? Kenzo, would you please wak–ah, screw it!” Quickly realizing that throwing the man out of bed wouldn’t work, the bold Paladin kicked the door in and rushed over to his bedside, where she took a seat and wiggled around with the letter in front of his face. Instead of drawing the curtains, the mage then used her staff to cast a bright light over his face.

“Wake up already, we got mail! From the guild.” Now that she was in his presence she wouldn’t have to feel bad about opening it, since the letter was addressed to both of them. While the warrior took his time to become conscious, Rania had already begun reading and the message both surprised and intrigued her. “Apparently there’s some sort of a vampire problem in Dahlia City, and the Master wants us to take care of it once we are done here.”

”Ummmph! Wh-what the hell?” Kenzo stretched both arms as he shift his sleepy face around. There was some annoying light flickering around, coming after the nagging of someone. The blue haired mercenary tried his best to recollect his consciousness from his sleep as he was abruptly woken up. After a couple of seconds, he was finally able to focus on what was in front of him. To his right, a certain light mage was happily checking out a letter. The woman had apparently entered unannounced and nonchalantly, quickly making herself at home. For all the earnestness and kindness, she had, she certainly lacked some basic manners. Annoyed by the early waking, Kenzo threw the sheets away from his bed as he tried to get up. The male stood up while he wiped away the final traces of dry saliva from his chin. However, what would catch anyone’s attention was the fact that the male was now standing almost naked. Only owning his boxers for covering his modesty, the male made his way to the restroom’s door. Scratching his ass, the male threw an irritated gaze at the girl before finally addressing her. ”Damnit Rania… What’s all this fuzz about?” Unbeknownst to him, the thing that was most certain to surprise Rania was not the fact he was almost naked, or his crude morning behavior. Rather, the gaping hole in his chest was definitely going to become conversation topic for later.

As he brushed his teeth, he heard the contents of the letter. Apparently, their job-hunting monsters was still not over. From what his guildmate said, Alisa apparently wanted them to take care of some Vampires in Dahlia. ”Is she nuts?” Kenzo asked while he spit out the toothpaste. His voice was one of surprise. It was impossible someone like the Blue Pegasus Master didn’t know, right? After all, the first thing that came to Kenzo’s mind once hearing the words Dahlia and Vampire together was a certain infamous guild master by the name of Kaiser Bo. From what he’d heard, the matriarch of Daeva Eye was an extremely powerful vampire. ”Does she actually want us to hunt her?” The more he gave it a thought, the less likely it seemed to be the case for him. The sole idea of going against such a powerful guild was crazy, so there was no reason to suspect that Alisa actually wanted them to do that.

After he finally collected his thoughts, he’d put some clothes on. ”Alright then! See you downstairs. I’ll prepare Shadow for the trip. Off to Dahlia we go.”

-EXIT-

[430/420] 30% WC Reduction from Dhuilin (Applies to Rania too)

Kenzo’s reaction to the news was as expected; the mercenary was equally confused, although Rania had underestimated his morning grogginess–he was completely out of it. He complained vocally, stumbled out of bed half-naked and while Rania was most certainly not the shy type, she couldn’t help but arch a brow at the sight. That is, until she saw the massive, black hole in the middle of his torso. Her lips parted, but no words came out. Instead, the Paladin slowly lowered her hands with the letter in them and looked at Kenzo. “I don’t think she means Daeva Eye’s guild master,” she said, but her voice had gotten quiet.

“There’s a haunted forest bordering the city, Aldenwald.” Rania had heard the rumours, but never paid much attention to them. They must have been true the entire time. Dahlia City was a haunted, nightmarish place. Kenzo disappeared into the bathroom and Rania took that time to settle down and try to work out what she’d just seen. As a healer, she’d seen many things but nothing as blatant and disturbing as that. Was Kenzo not human? His physical strength definitely was inhumane, and he didn’t exactly look like one either with that strange jawbone outside his cheek, but the mercenary had acted so disdainful towards the werewolves that she couldn’t believe he was actually one of them, part of a darker race.

Before she could continue those thoughts, Kenzo came back out and was headed downstairs. She nodded at his words and eventually followed after him, deciding that she’d drop this topic until there was an appropriate time to ask about it further. For now, the couple had to ride to Dahlia and continue the guild’s work.