Vivi couldn’t help but feel a little apprehensive as she walked across the amphitheater to meet Saffra. The beastkin had made a habit of being too harsh on herself, and so Vivi didn’t know how the girl would react to her first loss of the qualifiers.
Her worry turned out to be unnecessary, because when the catgirl emerged from the arena stairwell, she met Vivi’s eyes, wrinkled her nose, and sighed.
“I got lucky,” Saffra said.
Vivi wasn’t sure how to interpret that statement. “You did?”
“I mean, I didn’t have any real way of winning, so yeah. I’ve got a lot of advantages, but that guy had to be orichalcum. What’s a low-gold gonna do against an opponent four hundred levels higher than her?”
“I doubt even my master was closing those kinds of gaps in his youth,” Suyin mused. “And he was very good. Better than I am.”
Saffra looked surprised by that admission, but she asked, “So he was orichalcum?”
“Or a mithril skilled enough to seem like one,” Suyin replied.
Vivi hadn’t quite connected the dots, but thankfully, Saffra explained outright upon seeing Vivi’s slightly tilted head—her apprentice had gotten good at reading her.
“If he’d been two hundred levels lower,” she told Vivi, “then there’d be some chance of winning, if with a lot of luck and skill. So I would’ve felt way worse for messing the fight up. You can’t get that frustrated losing a literally impossible fight.”
“I see.” The reasoning made sense, though Vivi had seen Saffra blame herself for irrational things before, so she wouldn’t have been surprised if the defeat upset the girl. At any rate, she was glad the outcome hadn’t cratered Saffra’s mood. “You did well out there, despite the mismatch.”
Saffra shrugged and made a noise that wasn’t explicit disagreement, but expressed the sentiment regardless. Having taken the loss in stride didn’t mean she would start accepting compliments. “Is what it is. I don’t like it coming down to the last match, but I guess I also don’t care that much if I qualify. Anyway, you don’t need to reassure me or whatever. Let’s head back?”
Vivi returned them to the training facility with a series of [Blinks], and the day continued as before—on her part, a mixture of practicing the sword and experimenting with void spells. Suyin finished her qualifying matches first in their party, maintaining her zero-loss record across all three brackets. That would surely break soon; Titled would start appearing with some regularity in the mithril bracket, or at least the orichalcum. Suyin’s flawless streak should’ve ended already, in fact, if not for a certain arrogant dragon susceptible to deception.
Saffra won her fifth match as well, against what was probably a mithril, and it was close. To make the victory even more satisfying for her, she clinched the last exchange with a well-placed void attack.
Initial impressions told Vivi the third-tier invention was as strong as a well-designed fourth-tier spell, maybe even on the low end of the next, and that was despite being an early prototype. And more important than just raw penetrating power was how it interacted with skills, spells, and all else. Warriors weren’t used to their defensive skills—and sometimes their offensive ones—being negated in such a manner.
Though, the more accurate phrasing would be ‘thrown on the fritz,’ not ‘negated,’ because Saffra’s void spell used an extremely weak and diluted form of that energy. Regardless, the attack often bought a moment of confusion against even gold-and-higher foes, and Saffra knew how to handle herself—she capitalized each time.
The enormous relief radiating off the catgirl afterward was pretty endearing. Vivi suspected reaching the mithril qualifiers had been the bar Saffra had set for herself, as moving past that would be too ridiculous, so Saffra had more or less accomplished her goals for this side mission of the tournament. She’d ‘won’ as far as she cared.
As the cherry on top, Vivi’s fifth and last bout was against the large armored man Saffra had lost to earlier. She knew how unreasonable it was, but she maybe enjoyed returning the favor of delivering a mismatched duel and taking a round from him. Not that she went about it rudely.
It was as activities were winding down for the afternoon and Suyin was right about to leave that a problem introduced itself. Or rather, a problem introduced himself.
Xun Vey strode up whilst whistling a merry tune. He passed by as if he hadn’t seen their party, paused, then did a double-take and slowly turned on a heel. He grinned brightly and waved—specifically at Vivi. “Oh! What a coincidence. It’s you, Vianora.”
“I think you would get along well with a certain ranger I know,” Vivi told him.
A white eyebrow rose. “Do I remind you of him? Well, have no fear. Despite whatever his disciple has told you about this Xun Vey—and his reputation with the ladies—he has no missing heirs running around, he swears it. He is inimitable, one of a kind. I’m very responsible in that regard.”
Suyin joined the conversation with a frigid tone. “Indeed, this disciple has noted many times the precise scope of her master’s responsibility.”
He placed a hand on his chest in affront. Looking at Vivi with what were maybe supposed to be puppy-dog eyes, he said, “It’s always worse when the insults are so polite and carefully phrased. I taught her that.” He released a huge sigh. “I miss being called a philanderer to my face, much simpler. She pronounced it wrong for almost six years, you know. It was the cutest thing. ‘Fill-a-lander-er.’”
“Master!” Suyin hissed. She looked between him and Vivi rapidly, before her gaze—her glare—fell on the old man again. “I do believe we should be leaving now.”
“Such a swift departure would be rather rude, I think. I just got here!” He cleared his throat and wagged his finger. “Also, for the record, I’m no philanderer. Always one at a time for me, for all my flaws.”
“Is there something you need from me, Mister Xun Vey?” Vivi asked, reluctantly entertained by his teasing of Suyin. Though, a presumably young girl knowing the word philanderer and using it on her father revealed quite a lot about Suyin and her attitude toward the man, even if the word had been—partially—misused.
“As a matter of fact, there is. Can we step aside and talk, just the two of us?”
Vivi didn’t think she’d ever seen a look as suspicious as the one that appeared on Suyin Vey’s face. For Saffra’s part, she wore an expression that Vivi felt was becoming too recognizable—the girl was anticipating a show.
She considered declining Xun, but it would be impolite. “You’re not going to attack me again, are you?”
“I did ask permission last time. But no, talking only.”
She nodded, and they moved away, though not before Suyin said in an even more glacial voice than earlier, “I’m sure my master will act in an appropriate manner toward someone who has aided his disciple so greatly. One breach of etiquette is already far too much.”
Xun Vey chuckled in reply. “And this master is honored his disciple regards him so highly, even after all these years.”
Suyin glared holes into his back.
A short distance away, Vivi and Xun stopped and faced each other. The old man activated a privacy artifact.
“Not here to stir up trouble,” he told her bluntly. He plucked at his long white mustache with a faint amusement, most but not all of the mischief in his tone having vanished. “I have a request to make.”
Vivi almost took psychic damage from those words. Here it is. This is where I find out he’s secretly cursed by the Shattered Oracle, or knows about a hidden Cataclysm, or something even more ridiculous. It’s been too calm these last few days.
Yes, the consistency with which debacles appeared from thin air had traumatized her.
Still, she would hardly ignore him; he might be in trouble. “I’m listening,” she told him.
“I’d like to have a few drinks with you later this evening.”
Vivi paused at the unexpected request—she’d anticipated something much odder if not catastrophic. Her brow nearly furrowed. “Is there a particular reason why?”
The man hesitated, squinted at her, then laughed. Vivi could tell she’d missed something subtextually, but Xun was continuing before she could think too hard about what. “I want to get to know the woman who’s taken an interest in my disciple. I’m not implying anything about your trustworthiness—I let you flit off across the city with her, didn’t I?—yet I’d still rather share more than one short conversation with the unknown Titled that’s become a part of her life. It’s important not to start jumping at shadows, but I’m sure you know Fate likes to conspire, especially when it comes to people like us.”
It was an ironic thing to point out given her initial reaction: the fears she’d had.
Vivi’s gut instinct was to turn him down, since she was far from a social butterfly who liked going out and ‘sharing drinks’ with a relative stranger. The validity of his reasoning stopped her, though.
Some of her reluctance showed in her lukewarm response. “I’m very busy, recently.”
“A few drinks, that’s all. Not an all-night affair.”
Vivi pursed her lips. She briefly considered revealing her identity to get out of the obligation, since the Sorceress’s reputation might assuage his concerns, but no. It’s a couple of hours at most. A dad is worried about his daughter. And me being the Sorceress might make him more concerned.
“All right,” Vivi said.
“Excellent! I’ll keep the mischief to a minimum, you have my word.”
“A minimum?”
“You can’t expect none? A man’s nature is his nature.”
She sighed, already regretting having accepted. “Where do you want to meet? What time?”
They discussed the details, and afterward Xun Vey strode off whistling his merry tune once more.
When Vivi returned to the other two, Suyin inquired with that same suspicious tone from earlier, “What did he ask you, Lady Vianora?”
“He wanted to know if I would have a few drinks with him,” Vivi replied idly, not quite annoyed by the development, but perhaps apprehensive.
Suyin looked like she’d been shot with an arrow; she flinched and took a step back. Her expression morphed from shock to horror to outrage and then through each one again so fast that alarm bells went off in Vivi’s head. Even Saffra seemed startled for a moment… but then the beastkin adopted one of the biggest smirks Vivi had ever seen, quickly hidden by a hand over her mouth.
“I’ll gut him,” Suyin growled. Then she appeared to realize something, and she stiffened. “You… you said no? Right?”
Vivi replied automatically, not knowing what was going on. “I said yes. I might not stay for long, we’ll see how it goes, but…”
A stiff breeze could’ve pushed the suddenly pale-faced disciple over. She’d lost every bit of her color in an instant. Saffra’s shoulders started shaking as she broke into laughter, the fingers clamping over her lips not able to stifle the noise completely. She turned away to hide herself.
Vivi finally put two and two together.
“Not drinks,” she immediately said. Wait, that wasn’t how he meant it, was it? She remembered the old man’s reaction, and suddenly understood that he’d been trying to get a rise out of her by phrasing it like he had—and then he had found it amusing when Vivi failed to interpret the request the way it usually would be.
She just… wasn’t someone accustomed to being ‘asked out.’ Of course that wasn’t where my mind went.
“He wants to get a feel for the unknown Titled that his daughter is spending time around,” Vivi hastily explained. “Not anything else, I’m sure. It’s understandable enough I couldn’t turn him down. I don’t intend to spend longer than an hour or two, and I’ll be more than ready to leave if he makes a nuisance of himself.”
“I… I see,” said a ghostlike Suyin Vey. Relief had rushed onto her features, but she still looked shaken.
Saffra’s laughter continued, and Vivi eyed her traitorous apprentice. Suyin didn’t even appear to notice the commotion.
“I’m glad to hear that,” Suyin said faintly. “This disciple… thought she was going to have to explain why she would recommend against such a course of action. Her father is very troublesome. You have… you have relieved her greatly with the wisdom you’ve shown.” Swallowing, she pressed her fists together and bowed. “It was a productive day, Lady Vianora. I look forward to seeing you again tomorrow.”
“You as well,” Vivi replied, ears feeling like they were burning pink. And maybe for once they were.
Suyin walked off. Or staggered.
Vivi crossed her arms as she turned on Saffra.
“S-sorry,” the girl barely managed to get out. “Sorry. It just caught me so off guard. The look on her face…” A second surge of laughter wracked her before she got herself under an unsteady sort of control.
Vivi shook her head and turned away, waving for her apprentice to follow. “If you had an allowance, I’d be cutting it, for the record,” she mumbled under her breath.