Starlight Necromancer

Chapter 91 - Rachel

The receptionist gave the guild cards back to everyone, and then lightly smiled at them, "My colleague will be here any moment now. Please wait over there." He said in a professional tone, and the newly established party made their way over to the waiting area, while Lynol looked at his guild card, staring at the small symbol that appeared next to his adventurer-tier, showing that he was a party leader.

"Do you three really think I would be the best for this job?" He asked, without raising his head, and the others immediately looked at him as if he was kidding, "Guy... obviously you are. Come on, man, don't doubt yourself now. We said it, right? You basically were the party leader already."

"Rather, I was surprised you didn't think so. You're the only one in this group that has a calm head on his shoulders all the time, y'know?" Octer pointed out, before slightly glancing at the martial artist standing next to him, "And by the way, I'm kinda confused why you were about to suggest Foster instead of Kyla or I..."

"Do I really have to say it? I was a solo adventurer all my career, you hopped from party to party, and Kyla just doesn't seem very responsible in a position like that." Lynol pointed out bluntly, "Just look at her." 

"You wanna fight?"

Ignoring the cleric's glares, Lynol continued, "And did you not hear Foster's stories? He used to work for a large organisation, and had a lot of people working under him. He had a lot of responsibilities, and took care of everything."

"About that..." Foster said with a wry smile, "I was never really responsible. All I did was drink, fight with people around town, and act like a big dog in front of my underlings. I had people take care of everything for me, mostly." He pointed out, "I'm really not good with stuff like that at all... but I had to because the strongest guy in the place couldn't just be Underling-C all the time."

Lynol and Octer stared at their friend, while Kyla looked at him sort of confused. She still didn't know that much about what Foster used to do before, she had just heard bits and pieces about his... tendencies. The moment he heard the explanation, Lynol looked at Octer, "You know what? I think that was a good choice after all."

"Right?" Octer said somewhat nervously, slowly turning back toward Foster. But when he did, he had already walked away, "What's he-" Octer let out surprised, when he saw where Foster was walking right now. Instead, he just groaned slightly, and leaned back against the wall with his arms crossed.

"Hello there." Foster said with a slight smile on his face, as the woman in front of him slowly turned around, "Hm? Oh, it's you." She said, with a slight smirk on her face. It was the healer that had treated Foster with detoxify a week ago.

"That it is. And this time, neither drunk, nor stinking like the sewers." Foster pointed out as if it was an achievement, "I can see, and smell, that. You're here to pick up your guild card, right?" 

"Yup, just did. We're going to meet with a potential handler right now, but if you want we can talk more about things I do or don't smell like later. Over that dinner we talked about last time?"

The healer looked at Foster with a light smirk, "Not many people have the guts to ask me out after showing themselves to me like that. But well, I don't dislike it." She replied, "Fine. I don't have time tonight, but I can do tomorrow. You're new around here, right? So... let's do this nice place I've been wanting to go to for a while."

Ripping off the corner of a piece of paper in front of her, she quickly wrote down the the address of the restaurant in question, pressing it onto Foster's chest, "Oh, and maybe try to wear something else beside a martial arts uniform, alright? We're meeting there at sundown." With a smirk on her face, the healer started to walk away, while Foster looked at the address on the note that she gave him, and proceeded to wait for her to leave the room, before he smugly walked back over toward his friends.

"...I know I asked the same thing last time, but man... what just happened?" Octer asked confused, and Foster grinned at him, "What just happened? What just happened is that I now need to find a place where I can buy a suit. Or well, something close to it, I guess." He pointed out, folding up the note and putting it into his bag so that he wouldn't lose it.

"I still don't know how you did that... the first time you met her you were practically blackout drunk... but dude, even then, she was flirting with you."

"I don't know why, it's just natural charisma, I guess." Foster replied with a grin, but his braggery was quickly interrupted once they were approached by another guild employee. She looked at the group with a slight, professional smile, "You must be the party looking to find a handler, correct?"

"That's us." Lynol replied immediately, quickly introducing the group, before the guild employee nodded her head, "Perfect, then please let us go. She is already waiting for you in the waiting room."

The group, for now moving on from the conversation that they just held, swiftly followed the guild employee through one of the doors, walking through a hallway until they reached a small private room. The employee opened the door, and waited for everyone to step inside. Once there, they saw the person that might end up being their handler.

She was a young woman, maybe a few years older than Foster, with dark gray skin, as if she was a walking corpse. She had short white hair with a purple tint, and her eyes seemed to practically grow in a deep, bright purple as well. It was obvious, but this person wasn't human, although Foster hadn't seen anyone else that looked like her around. He might just not have been paying any attention.

With a slight smirk, she stood up and looked at the group. She was pretty tall as well. In height, she was somewhere between Lynol and Foster's.

"I'm Rachel. But you can call me Rae. Or not, I don't care." She said bluntly, before raising her brows, "Although, I was told there would be three of you. My guess is... the shorty there is the extra?"

Kyla looked around confused, before she realized that she was the shortest person in the room, "Hey! I'm not short, I'm just... compact!" She exclaimed with a deep frown, before Rae scoffed, "Right. Anyway, is that all of you? Or will there be any other surprises?" She asked, dropping down on the couch that was standing here in the room.

The first to sit down in front of her was Lynol, as the party leader, "This is all of us right now, yes. We will most likely look to expand our party when necessary, however." He explained quickly, while the others sat down around him as well.

"As you should. Seems somewhat unbalanced right now." Rae said bluntly, "Anyway, if you guys want to work for me, you better show that you're worth the trouble."

"Please, slow down. I heard you do not have much experience as a handler, but the relationship between adventurers and handlers are those as equals. We are not applying to work for you, we want to meet you so that we may work together." Lynol said immediately, already not wanting to deal with this. Rae scoffed, and shook her head, "Aight then, you guys ain't it. You can go." Moving her hand to signal them to leave, it was clear that she wasn't interested. Seeing this, and not wanting to deal with people like her, Lynol stood up and looked at his party.

"You heard her. Let's go. We don't need to deal with this." Lynol pointed out, before his eyes landed on Foster. He expected that he was going to sit there, just as annoyed as Lynol, but to the fresh party leader's surprise... Foster was just sitting there, with a slight grin on his face.