Vol. 1 Chapter 8: Slump

**Yuuki**

“Level 3 boss fight, in 3, 2, 1…begin!”

A simulated hydra appeared before us, ready to strike from multiple directions with its many heads. As a standard tactic whenever fighting such a monster, we immediately scattered, with me carrying the bag of our supplies.

“!!!” Temaire immediately drew the first blood by firing magic on one of the heads. The resulting explosion destroyed a third of its body, and severed four heads. However…

“Oi, stop hurling your magic, rotten croissant!” Alice called out to her. “This is a ‘guns only’ training!”

My childhood friend said nothing, and just withdrew from the frontline. While she walked to the rear, a hydra head attacked her, causing me to break formation to protect her.

“Watch out!” From my distance, I knew I couldn’t reach her in time if I don’t lunge towards her. So, to make up for the lost seconds, I jumped to protect our team leader.

But once the hydra head saw me, it changed its direction and focused on killing me first. My guard was down, and if it was a true situation, I would be hot goo a second later from its acid attack. A bullet from Rico’s anti-materiel rifle found its mark on the hydra’s neck…

“!!!” Though, instead of hitting—and beheading—it, the bullet only grazed its skin, enraging the monster more. The moment I fell to the ground, the hydra sent its powerful tail crashing on my spot.

“Adventurer Yuuki, dead,” was the automatic announcement of the simulation.

One adventurer is an ugly event, but not unusual. Nevertheless…

“Adventurer Rico, dead.”

Two adventurers in one run? Something’s clearly wrong with our tactics and strategy.

Provoked by that near-death miss on me, Temaire summoned one of her most powerful wind magic spells and obliterated the hydra boss in one go.

-----

As there was a group of new adventurers about to take the recruitment examination, we were asked to return to our quarters once the simulation training was over. The said ‘quarter’ was a single room at the third floor of the Adventurers’ Agency main branch in Manila, where there was a dormitory for stay-in mages.

“Temari, what the hell is wrong with you?” Alice confronted Temaire the moment we got out of the elevator. Her raging voice tore through the relative silence of the Adventurers’ Agency hallways, that a few tenants from the nearby dormitories had to peek to see if there was trouble.

“If you can let go of my dress, and talk normally, I might explain why.”

Embarrassed at her rebuke, the brawler let go of Temaire’s training clothes. When we got back to our place, I gave her a cold drink and pulled her to sit on a nearby couch to calm her down. On the other hand, my childhood friend said nothing, and went to her personal area. Since we were to ‘train until we get ourselves back into shape,’ Lady Yanari provided us with a temporary lodging. The room was complete, with living amenities (like a desktop computer, TV set and even a kitchen). As for the bedroom, we divided it into three ‘cubicles’ covered by dividers, one for each of the girls.

Of course, I get to stay in the ‘living area,’ though Temaire and Alice initially offered I choose between them to stay with.

“What’s up with her?” Alice muttered. “She’s the one who wants to party up again, yet she acts like she doesn’t care now! If this continues, she’ll get us all killed!”

“Just cool off for now,” I told her, massaging her shoulders. “I’ll talk to her later and fix the problem.” So I said, but really, I knew what made Temaire act like that.

Yep, she didn’t take my green adventurer rank lightly.

“Can you tell her to take our trainings seriously?” she requested, with her voice considerably gentler. “I mean, it’s only simulation, but if we can’t even beat that properly, how much more that Antarctic dungeon?”

“Yes, I will…she’s just irritated, I guess.”

“Mhmm…oh, yes…that’s the spot Yuuki…ughh!”

“Please don’t make weird noises,” I reminded her. “I’m just giving you a massage.”

By then, Alice’s mood returned to normal that she was already smiling. “What are you thinking, huh? You feeling you want to jump on me now, Yuuki?”

“Shut up!”

The brawler just laughed and enjoyed the massage, humming to herself while swinging her feet. However, in my mind, I had another problem. Seated across us on the other side of the room was Rico, cleaning her anti-materiel rifle.

“…”

I could tell from the ‘neutral’ expression of her face that she didn’t like her performance earlier. The old Rico could always hit her targets with uncanny precision that she was nicknamed ‘the Elf’ among the adventurers.

-----

When I noticed that Alice fell asleep, I turned to our scout…

“Rico.”

“Yuuki?”

“Are you okay?”

She sheepishly nodded. Then, she finished cleaning her gun, and placed the components back to its case.

“Hey, everyone has their bad days,” I said, carefully choosing my words. “Besides, we’ve been ‘out’ for years; we’ve gone rusty.”

“You’re not, though.”

Well, I couldn’t say anything to that. I mean, performance-wise, I kept my edge…though it was mainly because I had to keep my guard up. My neighborhood in Dasmarinas would ‘devour’ anyone weak enough to let themselves abused.

Rico then reached for pocket and showed me her adventurer ID. She asked, “What do you see?”

“Err…” Is there anything I should look at? “You changed your hairstyle? I mean, in your ID picture, your hair is a bit rounder. Nowadays, it’s more tomboyish and definitely cuter.”

“No!” she raised her voice, though her cheeks were red. “W-Well, yes…I did change my hair, but that’s not it! What color do you see?”

Now that she mentioned it… “Uhm, it’s still the usual platinum band. Though, wait…’Tsukushi?’ You changed your nickname to Tsukushi? Then this means…”

She nodded, “After OyasumiSe7en disbanded, I joined another party under that name. However, Oyasumi is my first-ever party, and I couldn’t adjust to my new teammates.”

I was silent; honestly, I found no words to tell her. The problem with adventurers not adjusting to their party was a problem as old as adventuring itself. People were raised differently; thus, all have different sets of values and beliefs. It didn’t help that the Adventurers’ Agency would be the one to ‘search’ your group for you; only a few gets the privilege of choosing their members, in particular, those who achieved gold and platinum bands.

The green, bronze and silver bands are thrown randomly at parties with available roles.

“…”

As for Temaire, two words: powerful connections.

And the Agency do it because they want to ensure the ‘survival’ of many groups by throwing in ‘experienced’ adventurers to guide the new ones. Contrary to Rico, OyasumiSe7en was my second party, but I’ve been there too. I couldn’t get along with my teammates in my first party…

Worse is that my stubbornness got one of them killed.

“…”

“Ah…I’m sorry, it seems I worried you, Yuuki!” our scout tried to smile to reassure me, but I could see the sadness in her eyes.

“No, it’s fine, if you want to rant or someone to listen, I’m here.”

Rico shook her head. “I’ll be fine. This is just a slump; I’ll recover from this.”

“Are you sure?”

“Mhmm…well, see you in a bit,” she stood up and headed for the door. “Do you have anything you want to eat? I’ll buy some snacks.”

“Whatever you want to eat,” I replied, flashing her adventurers’ ID. “But wherever you go, don’t forget this!”

-----

I didn’t know that Alice was already listening to us. Just as when Rico left, she suddenly spoke…

“There she is again,” the brawler commented. “Hiding her pain so we won’t worry about her.”

“Any idea what happened to her former party?”

“Nope,” she stood up to do some stretches. “When I met Rico once again, she has already quit that group. Though, I guess, she hasn’t applied to have her ‘Tsukushi’ name changed just yet?”

“No, she hasn’t. It was still on her ID.”

“I see…”

Silence echoed in our room as the Alice continued her body stretches. As for me, ever curious, I asked her, “I feel Rico is about to tell me something, but she refrained from doing so at the last minute.”

“Girl’s been like that ever since our reunion,” she quipped. “Yuuki, do I remember right? Rico is a shy girl, but she is a bubbly one to her close friends.”

“Yes, I have the same memories.”

“Hmm…I guess something bad must’ve really happened to her new teammates. And really, it has affected her performance, too.”

“I can see that. But more than our dungeon runs, I’m more worried about her as a person. I don’t like to see this kind of Rico.”

“Yeah, count me in as well. You have any idea how to help her?”

I fell silent. Honestly, my mind was blank; the desire to do something was there, but I couldn’t do anything if I got no information on the root cause of the problem.

My eyes fell inadvertently on Temaire’s personal area.

-----

“Why do you worry more about Rico?” my childhood friend stared daggers at me. “You don’t even care about your rank?”

“You know me, Temaire,” I replied, taking care not to piss her off. “Green band or platinum band, I can still put out the same performance.”

“That’s not the issue!” she insisted. “I don’t want my husband being made fun of by those pesky low-rates! I may not stop myself from slicing and dicing them to pieces if I see their disrespect to you!”

“I’m one with the rotten croissant, Yuuki,” Alice backed her up. “I don’t know you reverted your rank to green band. But you know lots of adventurers on our level are cocky bastards; the last thing we want is they insult our porter!”

Again, this was something I deliberately decided. I was more personally-driven in this ‘little goal’ of mine, than care about the opinion of others—especially who contributed nothing good to me. But of course, I couldn’t tell that reason to these two, or even Rico.

These ladies haven’t touched any games before. They’ll never understand the charm of doing a ‘speed run’ of levels because you already know what to do…

“Well, just consider this. With me changing my name to Yuuki, and ‘partying’ with you as a green band, you’ll be saved from explaining what happened to Yukie, as well as keep the consistency of OyasumiSe7en’s records.”

“I can always tell Maman to help you…”

“You can’t always invoke your connections, Mademoiselle,” I countered. “Records say we are an all-girls’ adventurers’ party that suddenly vanished in the middle of their Antarctic expedition. You’re the ‘only’ survivor, but we can always tell that we just scattered after a narrow escape. The problem comes after that. If we all reappeared with me as myself, people would ask ‘Yukie is a boy?’, thus, you’ll earn a reputation for being a liar. And fans won’t like their goddess lying to them!”

“You can hide that you’re Yukie!”

“Some bored reporter in his office will see in the news, ‘Ah! Yuuki the platinum band? Sounds like Yukie the platinum band! Why don’t I look into the background of this new character in OyasumiSe7en?’ Then this whole charade comes crashing down because of the nosy media people. And Temaire’s fans will say, ‘Our goddess lied to us! Down with tyranny!’”

“You sure have a rich imagination, Yuuki.”

“Muu!”

“Don’t give me that cute pout; I’ll pinch your cheeks if you keep doing that! And Alice, that’s what I get because I love reading stuff, a rich imagination.”

The brawler, however, was the one who pinched Temaire’s cheeks. Though they annoy each other, Alice was still attracted to cute stuff. My childhood friend slapped her hands away, though.

“Well, think of it like this. Sure, you can force the officials of Adventurers’ Agency to compromise. However, you can’t tell everyone else how to think; if news broke out that you scared the higher-ups so OyasumiSe7en can lie on the records of their exploits, adventurers would surely get pissed at the ‘un-fairness’ of your influence, and demand concessions.”

Temaire’s eyes were closed; she weighed her options carefully. Finally, seemingly convinced, she told me, “Alright then, I understand your reasons, but just to be clear, I still think you deserve the platinum band now. I mean, you’re the reason I got into adventuring in the first place! If the platinum band goddess is the ‘disciple’ of Yuuki, then why is his rank green band?”

A disciple goddess doesn’t make sense…even more so if the master of the disciple goddess is a mere ordinaria.

“…”

Well, as long as Temaire understands, then I’m cool with it.

“Anyway, Yuuki, what can I help you with?”

“You’re aware of what happened earlier?”

“I mean,” Temaire pointed to the dividers that kept the ‘privacy’ of her space. Though those things afforded its user the ‘isolation’ they wished, noise could still pass through the ceiling because the dividers couldn’t reach as high as to cover the whole gap. “And I’m a wind mage; I can pick up even the smallest whispers nearby.”

Makes sense.

“What’s up with Rico?”

“She’s in a slump,” Alice quipped.

“Yes, even I can see that.”

“Can you ask Lady Yanari for some information about Rico’s past teammates?” I requested Temaire.

“That’s classified information.”

“You can use your influence—”

“You just told me ‘I can’t always invoke my connections.’”

“Pfft!” the brawler nearly burst laughing, though she stopped herself.

Urk! Yeah, she got me there.

Temaire was clearly having fun using my words against me. Nevertheless, she said, “Hmm…I can do it; though, I think you should ask Rico herself instead of getting information from other sources. It is her past, after all; prying about it is like forcing her to have sex with you.”

What the hell is that example? The last thing on my mind was to become a sexual offender. Among all the members of OyasumiSe7en, I’m the oldest—for a human, that is. Well, Kikyo was an elf, so her years were measured different, but I was dumbfounded by her words. Not only of her ‘sexual’ example, but as someone whose whereabouts were tracked by this girl using unauthorized sources, she sure talks big.

“Hey, Y-Yuuki, don’t look at me like I’m some hypocrite!”

Veins popped on my forehead. “You sure you can hear yourself speak?”

“Muu!”

And once again, Alice—unable to control herself—pinched Temaire’s cheeks, much to the latter’s annoyance. Heh, I really love my teammates…

-----

***The convenience store near the main office of the Adventurers’ Agency…***

Rico made sure that no one among her teammates followed her, not even Yuuki.

“…”

Though she really intended to buy some snacks, the scout of OyasumiSe7en had no plans to return soon. After her dismal result at the simulation, she was really having her doubts if she could still go on adventuring.

Yuuki’s performance in the simulation remained in her mind. Though it had been three years since they disbanded, he still trained hard to keep his skills sharp. And what was even more discouraging was that Yuuki chose to ‘restart’ his ranking.

A formidable ordinaria, and he’s not afraid to go back to zero.

“…”

Compared to him, she was…

“Tsukushi, don’t scout too far from us! We’re only golden bands; we need you close!”

“You’re a platinum adventurer, Tsukushi! A target as close as that is easy for you! Yet, not only did you miss the target, you also failed to disarm the traps!”

“You’re the descendant of our proud lineage of Void assassins, yet you brought shame to us! Your new teammates got injured because you lost focus of your priorities. Reflect on your actions!”

Rico stared at her hands. Voices inside her head repeatedly reprimanded her for a subpar conduct, and she kept asking herself, ‘what was going on?’ Those people say the same lines even before she was an adventurer, yet, she was different now…

“Perfection! You should always strive for perfection!”

“Though we never kill people nowadays, you need to learn that one mistake can cost you your life. Live as if there’s no room for errors!”

“Live for yourself! Don’t count on others to save you!”

The scout wondered where she went wrong. As a member of her clan, Rico strictly followed those lessons taught to her by her family and relatives. Even when she searched for a new party to team up with, she never let go of her training regimen. In fact, during the recruitment, she showed them her skills, which greatly impressed her new group. Yet, a year after OyasumiSe7en disbanded, her skills suffered.

“…”

The scene from the earlier simulation played within Rico’s head. How Yuuki was ‘killed’ because she failed to cover for him. How she was killed because she was too focused on what happened to her teammate, she forgot their enemy was still fighting them. And Alice’s anger at Temaire for not taking the simulation seriously.

She can’t allow herself the same mistake. She can’t be a liability to her friends!

Rico took out her phone, and after activating its data subscription, opened her browser. She typed, ‘How to get out of an adventurer’s slump’ on the search bar, then hit the ‘enter’ button. At once, the results from an adventurer’s message board came up, and she clicked the link that appealed the most to her needs.

“I just stopped and let it pass,” said one anonymous adventurer. “My record suffered, because I didn’t pick up any missions, nor come with my teammates for quests, but I eventually recovered after a year.”

The scout’s eyes widened in dismay. She couldn’t afford to stop for a year, when she had just reunited with her friends from Oyasumi! So, she looked at another response…

“I bought this Nigerian prince’s potions to amp my performance. If I can do it, so you can change your life too! Click on this link…” Rico immediately blocked the post; it clearly was a scam.

“I was a single mother and adventurer that earned less for a day. However, I invested my money to this user’s business, and now I’m free! Want to know my secret? Click here—”

An adventurer and a single mother? We can’t even have time for romance! Definitely a scam!

Scrolling down the message boards yielded the same results. The adventurers who answered gave the same method; they all ‘rested’ for some time, just so they could recover from their slumps. Some were retained by their teammates, others got kicked from their parties and vowed revenge…but eventually founded another party with beautiful and sexy ladies…

Rico wondered if those stories were still true, for those were basically the plot of the drama/romantic-comedy, and slice-of-life manga and light novels she read before.

“…”

Nevertheless, she kept scrolling until she reached the replies near the bottom of the thread. While most were just scams trying to get an unsuspecting adventurer to click on their links, a few were about adventurers who…

“Resting is for the weak! When I was in a slump, I just took my gun and kept practicing in the dungeon until I got past it!”

“These soy boys just whine all day in the lobbies of their respective Adventurers’ Agency. If you really want to get back to your old self, pick up your gun and wing it. There are lots of dungeons under the radar of the Agency, and safe, too! Practice there!”

At once, something cleared within Rico’s mind, as if the heavy burden she carried up till now lightened. Inspired by the advice she got from the message boards, she quickly bought the snacks she promised to Yuuki, and went back to the dormitories.

Tomorrow is the start of the old Rico going back once again…