"Eloquent as always," Jaq said with a sarcastic bite to his tone.

  "Well, I can always figure out if it's real or not by just punching them in the face," Beth replied to his snark with a shrug.

  "There's no helping you," Jaq said with an exaggerated sigh. "Was there anything you actually needed?"

  "To bother you," Beth replied immediately, getting a poke in the ribs from Sera.

  "I have been bothered," he said, entirely deadpan. "Now, leave."

  "One question first," Beth said, seeing him very visibly roll his eyes.

  "Yes, yes, go ahead," he said.

  "What do you have on hand in terms of weapons?" Beth asked. "And don't give me that whole rigmarole about being some poor commissary officer on a backwater world. I've heard it enough."

  "What do the young princesses deign as acceptable," he asked with a heavy acerbic bite.

  "What do you have that requires level one hundred? At least blue-quality," Beth asked.

  "My selection beyond Uncommon is rather limited," he replied, holding up a hand as she was about to bite back. "I will literally bring you everything I have that has a one hundred requirement that is at least rare. Then you can see why I always complain about my stocks."

  He disappeared through one of the three doors, Beth stutter-stepping to the side to peer suspiciously down the hallway he walked into, making a frustrated noise as the door slammed shut right behind him. Sera just shook her head, looking at Beth with a mixture of amusement and concern, though she was already getting used to Beth's mannerisms. They waited for a few minutes, unusual for Jaq, which gave Beth hope, but that hope was dashed when he re-emerged from a different door. He ignored Beth's narrowed eyes and frown, stepping up the counter and neatly placing down a couple dozen weapons along its length with a wave of his hand.

  "Show-off," Beth scoffed at his single gesture to place everything, walking down to the end of the counter to look at the items. "How much is all of this, just out of curiosity?"

  "Ten diamond for everything," he replied smoothly.

  Sera nearly gasped, exclaiming, "That's daylight robbery! These aren't level one thousand weapons, right? Has my Universal Standard suddenly gotten garbled!"

  "Despite the limits of my selection, it has several good pieces," Jaq replied, still rather calm, gesturing to a thin sword like a rapier to his right and Sera's left. She walked over to the blade and used her eye power to inspect it before exclaiming again, picking the blade up and giving a quick swing.

  "What?" asked Beth, stopping at a point she could remember easily and walking over.

  "Look," Sera said, handing her the blade.

  Silent Thorn

  {This is a failed product of a Grandmaster. Despite not achieving the desired strength, it still possesses a great power and the capacity to silently pierce powerful foes.

  50% increased STR

  75% increased DEX

  Minimum level 100.

  Silent Pierce.}

  "Whoa," said Beth, testing the blade with a quick thrust into empty air, which made absolutely no sound. "How do you have something like this down here?"

  "Our initial stock aren't all garbage," Jaq said calmly. "But it's for inspiring people. The idea is that people on a newly integrated world get the motivation to pick up the crafting professions and produce enough crafters to start handling their own needs within a number of years. Doesn't often work, but the theory isn't terrible."

  "What do you even want these for?" Sera asked, glancing at the weapons before looking back at Beth. Jaq remained stoic, but one of his eyebrows did climb slightly, which didn't escape Beth's notice.

  "I said I'd buy some stuff for home when I came back this time," Beth said. "I grabbed a couple things or have a couple things I can give to people, but I wanted to grab a few more things before going back. Hopefully, a pile of good weapons will be a nice distraction."

  "Nicer than a dragon?" asked Jaq with a slight sarcastic edge.

  "Well, uh…" Beth replied, glancing at Sera before looking back at the pile of weapons.

  "That's what I thought," Jaq said with a slight frown and shake of his head.

  "Anyway, whatever, that's my issue to deal with," Beth said, rolling her eyes. She tossed ten coins at Jaq, who didn't even bother to move, the coins disappearing from midair before they even got close to him. Beth wasn't able to mimic his fancy tricks, instead having to walk down the length of the counter and touch every weapon or weapon set to move them into her necklace.

  "Now. Anything else?" Jaq asked, clearly not amused. But then again, Beth had never seen him amused, so this attitude wasn't anything new.

  "Nah," Beth said with a shrug, turning and walking out while waving over her shoulder to Jaq's glower. Sera looked a bit stunned and a bit exasperated, looking between the two of them for a moment before giving Jaq a slight bow and hurrying after Beth.

  "He's incredibly powerful, you know," Sera said to Beth after they were out and back in the hallway.

  "Yeah, sure, and he's a grouchy old bastard," Beth replied with a shrug, getting an exasperated sigh from Sera in response.

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  "Beth, you have to have some respect," Sera said with a deep sigh.

  "Sure, I have some respect. I didn't call him a grouchy old bastard to his face, did I? At least, not that time," she replied, muttering at the end.

  "I'm glad we didn't go see my family yet. I can't imagine the number of fights," Sera said with a slight shake of her head.

  "Fights? I'm always ready for some fights. Though, I wouldn't want to have to go be a brothel worker for five years if I lost," she said, tapping her chin with a thoughtful look at the end.

  "Stop," Sera said, truly exasperated, giving Beth a light shove as they got back to the room.

  "Are we ready?" Beth asked as they entered.

  "Ready for what?" Neph asked eagerly, bouncing up as soon as she saw they were back.

  "To go meet some people," Beth replied with a sigh.

  "It's not just 'some people,' it's your family, Beth. It can't be that bad," Sera chided.

  "Well, not for you," Beth said. After thinking about it a moment, she said, "Well, actually, considering their reaction to you, maybe so for you…"

  "Beth," was all Sera said.

  "Fine, fine. We'll just go get this over with," she said with a sigh.

  "You sound like you're going to an execution, not to see your parents," Sera said with a roll of her eyes.

  "Tch, I just dislike all that bubbly family shit," Beth grunted. "It's not that bad, I just find it annoying."

  "Well, let's go, then," Blood growled, leading the way out of the suite with Neph hurrying to catch up. It was clear she had grown frustrated with the dilly-dallying and talking about it, so she just decided to do it.

  "Looks like we're going," Beth grunted, walking out last and closing the door behind her.

  They followed Blood, who strode confidently down the hallway to the elevators before leading them through the building and out front. The lobby still had a decent number of people in, more now than it had before, in fact. It looked like the early evening was quite a popular time for people to gather. Beth also assumed, based on the number of people in the lobby, that some groups only had one or two people who had bought emblems while the rest saved the coin. That did force them to gather in the lobby at the end of the day, as the facilities in the main building weren't for non-members, and similar facilities in the arena for food and gathering would either only be opened during fight days or for a price.

  Blood continued to lead as they trotted down the steps and out of the Hall. Sera asked, "We don't need the airship?"

  "Nah, it's like four miles or something," Beth replied. "And most of the stuff we'll run into won't even be level one hundred."

  "Ah, I didn't realize it was so close," Sera said as they trotted along.

  "Even moving at this speed, we'll be there in a minute or two," Blood growled over her shoulder.

  She wasn't wrong, as they met the highway, which looked to be in a little bit of disrepair, in just a minute. Beth assumed keeping the old roads maintained and the areas around them mowed and trimmed wasn't super high on anybody's priority list at this point. They trotted down the road, Sera looking at the asphalt curiously as they moved towards the development. Beth still thought of it as her neighborhood, but it was really a town itself at this point. The wall they had built some time ago had included a larger area than the original development, including most of old Mr. Jones' wood lot, and there were more people packed in. With their ability to produce power and fresh water, their defenses, and their increased housing and population, it really was a town now and not just some other place's neighborhood.

  "Who goes there?!" an alarmed and, if Beth were being honest, somewhat fearful shout stopped them at the gate.

  "It's us, you clods," Beth replied back laconically, getting a jab in the ribs from Sera.

  "I don't know who you are, but stay right there! Any closer, and we'll attack," the man shouted.

  "Is this guy for real?" Beth asked, looking at the other members of her group.

  "He's not an illusion," Neph added helpfully, nodding.

  "He sounds serious," Blood said.

  "I guess we should just…wait?" Sera said, slightly confused by it.

  "Hey, you!" Beth snapped at him, making him jump. "Do you have Identify?"

  "Identify?" he asked in a confuse voice, blinking at her. "Well, uh, yeah?"

  "Did you use it?" she asked.

  "I've used it before," he said primly.

  "We're not dealing with the sharpest tool in the shed," Beth said, shaking her head.

  "Somebody spends all their time polishing their scales," Sera agreed, sighing lightly.

  "Haven't heard that one before, but I get it," Beth said.

  "You know I can hear you!" the guy shouted from the tower by the gate.

  "Yeah, and?" Beth snapped back.

  "What the fuck is going on here?!" a voice Beth was rather familiar bellowed at parade-ground volume.

  "Sir, there's hostiles outside, just as I reported," the man in the tower immediately replied, shuffling in place.

  A moment later, Zack appeared in the tower, looking down at the four of them standing before the gate. Without saying anything, he slapped the guard on the back of the head, getting a pained exclamation from him, before activating the gate mechanism. The gates swung open quickly and silently, showing the road through the center of the town. Somebody had been doing some work on the streets, as the asphalt in the town had been ripped up and replaced with larger pavers, and there were areas in the street with trees and plants.

  "Like what you've done with the place," Beth said, once they were inside and Zack had descended from the tower after chewing the guard out.

  "So, the prodigal daughter returns," Zack said, ignoring her comment and eyeing the four of them.

  "Not like I haven't been back before," Beth replied with a shrug. "Where is everyone?"

  "I don't know where your sisters or your, uh, ex are, but your parents are in the community building," Zack said, gesturing over his shoulder.

  "And how is everything?" Beth asked, glancing up at the guard tower. "I see your recruits haven't really…improved in quality all that much."

  Zack frowned and kneaded a temple with one of his thumbs, saying, "I've always had to take what I can get, but that's nothing new. That's what military discipline's all about; taking these weak, soft layabouts and hammering them into something halfway decent."

  "Well, good luck with that," Beth said with a roll of her eyes. "By the way, this is Neph and this is Sera."

  "Good to meet ya," Zack said with a nod, giving the two new faces a nod but not seeming very surprised, or even interested, apart from that.

  "Well, I don't want to be underfoot," Beth said, glancing at the closed gates and the guard tower. "Unless you need us for something else?"

  "How are your wolf killing abilities?" he asked. He glanced at Blood then and said, "No offense, obviously."

  "Trust me, we do just fine," Beth replied with a small chuckle and shake of her head. "Why, do you have many wolves over level two hundred popping up?"

  "Well, no, not really," he said with a frown. "The breeding ground thing has leveled up, or whatever it does, but we don't get that many high-level wolves coming out of it. It is getting a bit harder to clear, especially when those sisters of yours don't show up for a while…"

  "We can go clear it a bunch, but it would mostly be a waste of our time," Beth said with a small shrug. "If you guys are really struggling, we can help, but if you're not that hard-pressed, I'd rather not bother."

  "Maybe just a couple clears?" he said, chewing his lower lip as he stared off into the middle distance for a moment. "If I calculate it, we haven't done enough recently to keep it under control, and those CRA bastards are no help. We need at least a dozen extra clears, if not twenty or so."

  "Firstly, I resemble that remark," Beth said, crossing her arms over her chest. "Second of all, we’ll go take care of it tomorrow. Shouldn't take more than an hour or two, depending on the level."

  "It's no joke in there anymore," he said. "The place isn't like the ant dungeon; it doesn't adjust the difficulty based on who's challenging it."

  "I didn't know the ant dungeon, or dungeons in general, did that," Beth said, sending Sera a pointed glance.

  "It happens," she said with a nod, though she had one eyebrow raised. "If you really have a variable dungeon nearby, you need to expand. A lot."

  "What's that supposed to mean?" Zack asked with a frown and a slightly scrunched brow.

  "When word gets around, and word will get around, there'll be people flocking to tackle it from lightyears around," Sera explained. "Set up some hotels or something like that and some restaurants and you'll make a fucking killing just from through-traffic."

  "Hmm, I don't know that we want that many outsiders poking around," Zack replied with a thoughtful look, glancing up at the guard tower with a quick frown. "It'll mean a lot more work. A lot."

  "It means wealth, influence, and, best of all, security," Sera replied. "Having huge numbers of powerful Wayfarers means nobody'll mess with you."

  "If we can keep them in hand," Zack said, flicking his eyes at the tower very pointedly.

  "Well, yes, that's true…" Sera said, trailing off at the end.

  "Well, be that as it may, I'll keep it in mind. You should mention that to her parents; they're basically our de facto mayors at this point," Zack grunted, nodding at Beth while he spoke.

  "And with that cue, we exit stage left," said Beth, giving Zack a nod and pulling the others along. Neph had been listening in curiously while Blood had been nosing around, ignoring the discussion entirely, or seeming to. Beth had no doubt the wolf had kept well abreast of what they were discussing.