Emily trudged through the paved stone streets of the city, her winter cloak held tight around her. The muddy slush splashed against her knee high waxed leather boots. The new uniform was far more comfortable to her than the skirt and coat combination she'd worn the semester before. Skirts had never been something she enjoyed wearing, and weren't nearly as effective at keeping out the cold as a good pair of sturdy pants. New year, new uniform, but still the same old city. Or at least it should have been, but something felt off. Different. She couldn't quite put her finger on what it was, but even her parents said that something was strange this year.

The Void's End festival just a couple weeks ago had been as lively as ever, perhaps more than usual with the Winter Expedition cancelled early. It meant more people in lively spirits and plenty of adventurers and students flush with coins to spend on the spectacles and delights. By all accounts the festival had been an immense success. Apparently someone had gone around the festival, buying up recipes for exorbitant amounts, so much so that they could retire and afford their children whatever they might need. Many of her neighbors and even a few of her relatives had been amongst the lucky ones to meet the eccentric adventurer. Uncle Pete had willingly sold the woman Grandma Lulu's prized meat pie recipe, a closely guarded family secret.

Her family had nearly kicked her father's eldest brother and his wife out of the family for that, but Grandma Lulu had only cackled and congratulated her oldest son when he revealed how much the strange woman gave him. A hundred platinum! More than enough for her entire family to live comfortably for the rest of their days! More than most commoners would ever see in a lifetime! Uncle Pete had even shared the wealth, pressing some of the silvery white coins into each of his brothers' and sisters' hands. The nicely enchanted uniform she now wore was just one of the many things her family had splurged on. That and a nice compound in the Central District that could house her entire extended family. Already Grandma Lulu, Uncle Pete and his wife and kids, and a few of the older cousins had moved in, while Emily and her mother and father would be moving in in a week or so. That strange woman, a beastkin if Uncle Pete could be believed, had lifted her entire family out of the edge of poverty simply because of her Grandma's pie recipe. Idly, she sent them her thanks to the strange woman and her loving family again as she walked through yet another puddle, the well crafted boots and pants doing wonders to keep her warm and dry.

And her family wasn't the only one. Several of their neighbors had already booked travel to other safer cities in caravans once winter snows cleared. Old man Paul and the Takeshi family weren't even waiting that long, having left the city with a group of hardy adventurers just a week ago. Apparently they were sick of the harsh winters near the Forest and were headed to the warm Southern Duchy.

Despite the sudden changes in so many of her neighbors' fortunes, and even her own family's, that wasn't why things felt so strange. No, peoples' fortunes changed all the time in Forest's Edge whenever an adventurer found another strange artifact in one of the Forest ruins, or managed to take down a rare and valuable monster. Every single time it happened, the wealth inevitably spread out to random people who moved to new districts or even left the city, only to be replaced by newcomers seeking their own fortunes. No, a strange adventurer handing out wealth like it was candy wasn't all that unusual.

Walking through the Delving District, she couldn't help but look at the equipment on display, fantasizing about the wealth her family had just come into and what she could buy to arm herself with. She found herself gazing at a glowing sword priced at hundreds of gold coins for an inappropriate amount of time before she came to her senses. Her family might be able to afford it, but only a fool purchased such a weapon before they were ready for it. Besides, even though a flaming sword might seem powerful, such a weapon would only ruin night vision, limit what techniques someone could use, and worse, cauterize any wounds it made, ensuring any foes that survived the blow wouldn't have to worry about bleeding to death.

Shaking her head, Emily moved on. As she passed through the crowd of adventurers milling about the guild hall, she caught a flash of purple out of the corner of her eye as a horrible stench wafted over her, making her eyes water. Recoiling, Emily took a few steps back, making room in the crowd for a large group to walk past and head into the hall. In the lead were two women with a noble bearing and unnatural beauty, though that was far from the most eyecatching thing about them. No, more important were the furred ears on the tops of their heads and the animal tails that swished behind them. Beastkin!

Emily stared as the two beastkin women entered the guild hall, followed close behind by a large group of adventurers, some of them wearing dirty versions of the recognizable Academy uniform like her own. As the last of the group started to slip through the door, Emily saw a flash of dark purple again. Wait, was that Jun?

"321 gold, 37 silver," Todd said with a professional look on his face as he slid over five sacks of coins, two smaller than the others.

"Hold on," Gareth said, stepping forward. "That's only half the value of the bounties we completed."

Jun saw Todd's eyes dart from Gareth to Shiori and Inari next to her, then back to the Silver ranked noble. The guild receptionist swallowed nervously, his Adam's apple trembling. He opened his mouth to answer before another woman dressed in the Guild's staff uniform came over to join him.

"I'll take it from here Todd," she said, clapping the man on the shoulder. Nodding his thanks, the receptionist moved to the side as the woman picked up his notes and the pile of completed bounty notices, her hands blurring as she skimmed the documents. "I see," she said, looking up to meet first Gareth's, then Shiori and Inari's eyes. "To confirm Mr. Brightmane, you are submitting on behalf of your team a total of 3 completed Gold Rank quests and 11 completed Silver Rank quests. Is that correct?" The woman's eyes seemed to burn into the man, as if daring him to lie.

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"Yes, that is correct," Gareth said evenly, his spine stiff and his gaze unwavering.

"I see. Well the issue is that as you completed these bounties while under the escort of multiple higher ranked Guild members, a standard split has been applied of one half of the value of the contracts to be split among all of the higher ranking Guild members that contributed to those quests."

"There appears to be a misunderstanding, we completed these bounties without assistance."

"Mr. Brightmane, though you may be the son of a Morosian Duke and your team is a full Silver team in good standing with the IAG, you and your team are also students at Forest's Edge Academy with an assigned IAG Advisor who was present for these assignments. Further, while normally such a split is not enforced on Academy students, it was applied in this instance due to an ongoing prohibition on entry into the Forest of Kresh in this region by any teams below Gold rank. Your team was only permitted access on the condition that a Platinum ranked IAG member accompany your team. The split will be enforced." The woman stared at Gareth as if daring him to say something.

Nodding, Gareth swept the bags of coin up and handed them to Sara. "I understand, thank you for explaining the situation Miss…?"

"Deolos. Next!" Miss Deolos said, dismissing Gareth with a gesture. Nodding, the Silver ranked man rejoined his group as Lane pushed Aya forward, the girl clutching a stack of papers and a dirty bag. Falling in behind her, Jun and the rest of their team approached. One by one, they pulled out sacks, vials, and other objects as proof of bounty completion while Aya matched the slips of paper to each item.

"11 pounds of Winter Truffle, 17 Gloomrilla Paws, 1 vial of Mage Hunter Ichor, 1 Corrupted Ent Guardian Heart, 1 goblin shaman fetish…" on and on Aya went, carefully pushing each item and accompanying bounty slip across the counter to the receptionist.

The woman's eyes began to glow as she skimmed each slip and examined each item it was paired with, nodding and writing a few notes down in a ledger and marking each bounty slip before making the items disappear. Before long all that was left was a small pile of marked bounty notices, and Jun couldn't help but feel nervous. It wasn't the first time they handed in bounties, but never so many at once and at such a high rank compared to them. She knew before they went back to the Forest that their team would have to complete Silver bounties, but when Shiori pointed her at the Silver ranked giant spider and told her to kill it alone, she'd nearly run the other way. How could her mother expect her to kill a monster spider over a hundred levels above her alone?! Especially something called a Mage Hunter, when she was a mage!

The fight was tough, the toughest fight she'd ever been in. Far harder than all the battles against the goblins, anything she'd done in training, even her spars against Shiori or the masked warriors hadn't been as difficult or intimidating. She'd at least had the knowledge that Inari's healing would fix anything, even what should have been a fatal wound, before she could even truly panic. She'd rather fight 10 more of the Mage Hunters than deal with the receptionist's stare. Luckily for her though, Miss Deolos seemed entirely focused on Aya and the papers in front of her.

"Right, 5 Silver bounties, 11 Iron bounties, and 4 Bronze bounties. No confirmed bonuses completed. With the enforced bounty split, your total is 137 gold, 59 silver, 3 copper." Miss Deolos carefully deposited a trio of bags and 3 gleaming copper coins in front of Aya.

Learning from Gareth's failed attempt to argue, Aya simply nodded and grabbed the bags. "Thank you Miss Deolos, have a good day."

Following Aya, Jun and her team rejoined Shiori, Inari, and her friends before they left the guild hall and headed back to the Academy. She'd caught the looks her roommates shot at her and already knew they wanted to head to Grandma Deedee's bathhouse, but Inari also seemed to notice their looks and shut the adventure down before it could happen.

"Now that we're back from the Forest, let's head back to the training hall for some more practice, then you all need a bath and rest! Classes start back up tomorrow!"

Jun wasn't the only one to groan.

Despite the last few weeks, or maybe because of them, Kora couldn't help but snigger as Lana slipped back into Gally's office wearing the frumpy Guild staff uniform. It just looked ridiculous on her, all that white cloth covered in green and blue stitching with a large gold IAG sigil on her chest and bright yellow shoulder tassels. Whoever designed that monstrosity of a uniform deserved death.

"Shut up before I make you wear it," Lana hissed at her, only making her laugh harder.

"I'd like to see you try!" She smiled leaning back in Gally's comfortable armchair.

"Training hall after this, usual rules."

"If I win you have to keep wearing the uniform for the rest of the month."

"If I win you wear it for the rest of the month, and the hat too."

"Deal."

"Deal."

The pair of women smiled viciously at each other.

"Are you both done?" Gally interrupted with a deep sigh.

Kora glanced between her two friends and felt her smile fade away, replacing it with a serious frown as she nodded.

"Good, now that Lana's gotten those two out of the building, report."

Kora closed her eyes for a moment as she organized her thoughts."

"All of the students made it back alive and in one piece. Stronger than when they went in even. As soon as we got about a day's march for an Iron into the Forest, we established a camp and Inari and Shiori split up, each leading one of the student teams to complete bounties. I couldn't monitor both at the same time, so spent most of my time with the younger and weaker Iron students accompanied by Shiori."

Kora paused for a moment as Gally leaned in, an eyebrow raised. "And what did you learn about her? Capabilities? Goal? Origin?"

"Almost nothing. She demonstrated an impressive fire spell early on, estimated high Initiate or low Practitioner rank, at least 50,000 mana, but other than that, nothing. Shiori taught some rudimentary aura sensing to all of the students, but nothing new or unique. The catkin didn't intervene in any of the students' fights, though she did prevent me from intervening when the student she claims is her daughter fought a Silver Mage Hunter—"

"Her daughter?"

"A Silver Mage Hunter?!"

"—alone. And killed it."

Gally and Lana stared at her like she'd just grown a second head and Kora could only sigh as she felt a headache coming on. If that was all it took to surprise them, they were in for a rough night.

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