The room seemed to fade as Lisa spun the recap, painting a picture of high-stakes cinematic drama.
According to Lisa’s grand narrative, the tavern had descended into absolute, high-velocity chaos the millisecond Kaelen hit the floor.
The patrons were scrambling over the overturned tables, shouting in terror.
Lisa had stood over his body, barking orders at the top of her lungs: “Is there a healer in this venue?!
He’s losing too much blood!
We’re losing him!”
Lisa paced across the room, gesturing dramatically.
“People were sprinting in every direction, bringing anything they could find to stop the torrent of blood.
Brenda was freaking out like someone was about to meet the Grim Reaper or something.
She literally ran to the kitchen and came back holding a tiny plaster and a single ball of cotton!”
Lisa threw her hands up, mimicking her own past frustration.
“I looked at her and asked, ‘What on earth is that for?!’ And Brenda, completely hysterical, shouted back, ‘You said to bring anything!’ So I barked right back at her, ‘That’s not what I meant!
What could that tiny thing even do against a fatal hemorrhage?!’ Brenda shrieked, ran back, and dragged a whole spool of heavy bandages next!”
Pixel hopped up on the edge of the bed, her eyes gleaming as she picked up the narrative thread, taking her turn to shine.
“Oh, but Master, that wasn’t even the peak of the crisis,” Pixel’s telepathic voice wailed dramatically in Kaelen’s head, ensuring the entire room could feel the ‘epic’ weight of the story.
“Karen was completely losing her mind!
She was screaming at the top of her lungs, ‘Darling!
Don’t die on me, my love!’ She was thoroughly terrified that you would fade away due to extreme blood loss because there wasn’t a single medic or high-tier healer within a five-mile radius.
She was the only option left!”
Lisa nodded solemnly, completely playing along with the cat’s ridiculous hyperbole.
“It’s true.
I looked at Karen and demanded, ‘Heal him!’ But Karen was panicking, crying out, ‘You know I have no control over my power!
I might end up blowing up this entire room, or worse, injuring Kaelen even more!
I can’t risk his life!’ But I grabbed her by the shoulders and said, ‘We need to take the risk!
You’re the only one who can save him.
You just have to trust in yourself.
Anything is possible for someone who has faith!
Please, he needs you right now!”
Pixel struck a heroic pose on the mattress.
“Then, Karen took a massive, trembling breath.
She closed her eyes to concentrate, summoning every ounce of her latent magical reserves.
Suddenly, BOOM!
She cast a massive, legendary spell!
Blinding green lights flashed violently around the entire room, illuminating the dark timber beams, magically re-aligning your bones and fixing your face in a glorious burst of divine energy!”
Kaelen stared at them, his eyebrow twitching slightly at the sheer, cinematic intensity of the recap.
Suddenly, Brenda cut them off, waving her hands frantically in the air to halt the performance.
“Uh…
what are you two even talking about?
That is not how it went down at all!”
The grand, epic illusion shattered instantly.
“It was just a mild concussion, nothing much of a big deal,” Brenda said, completely deflating the high-stakes narrative with a blunt shrug.
“The only reason you bled so much was because the glass projectile hit a specific nerve inside your nasal cavity.
It looked way worse than it actually was.”
Karen’s entire face turned a violent, hot red.
She nodded rapidly in agreement with Brenda, her hands shaking as she nearly dropped the apple knife.
“Y-Yes!
And I also definitely didn’t say all that…
that ‘my love, darling’ stuff!” she squeaked, burying her face in her collar as her cheeks flushed bright crimson.
Pixel and Lisa simultaneously snapped their heads toward Brenda, shooting her a pair of completely pissed-off, dead-eyed glares.
Brenda had just systematically ruined their absolute peak comedic entertainment for the second time in ten minutes.
“Oops…” Brenda muttered, pulling her shoulders in as she realized she had breached their joking protocol again.
She offered a small, sheepish smile.
“My bad.”
Clearing her throat to steer through the awkward silence, Brenda continued the real data log.
“Anyway…
after you passed out, Lisa calmly asked Karen to use a basic stabilization catalyst to stop the nasal bleeding.
After a few failed attempts where the sparks just fizzled out, about sixteen times.
Karen finally got the frequency right and the bleeding stopped.
But the scratch was still open, so I brought over a standard plaster and we put it on your nose.
Then we carried you up to this room, changed your bloody clothes, and put you safely into bed.”
Kaelen nodded slowly.
“Oookay, now that story is actually plausible.”
Then, a sudden, devastating realization crossed his internal processing unit.
Kaelen’s thoughts ground to a screeching halt as his executive composure completely evaporated.
His head snapped toward Brenda, his face turning a brilliant, burning shade of bright red.
“Wait…” Kaelen asked, his voice cracking slightly in pure, unadulterated embarrassment.
“You said you changed my bloody clothes?
Who…
exactly…
changed them?”
Pixel and Lisa didn’t miss a single beat.
They looked directly at him, smirked in perfect unison, and said: ” It was yours truly…Karen.” The source of this chapter is g.com.
BOOM.
The absolute weight of that mental image caused Kaelen’s internal processor to completely overheat, his head practically bursting off from sheer embarrassment.
Across from him, the thought made Karen turn so staggeringly red that her eyes rolled back into her head, and she literally passed out flat onto the bedsheets for a brief second.
Brenda, completely missing the comedic timing once again, raised a hand to correct the record.
“Oh, no, no, it wasn’t her.
It was Jacob, one of the male waiters downstairs in the tavern.”
Instantly, Lisa and Pixel whipped around and shot a freezing, icy, absolute bloodshot look straight at Brenda.
If looks could execute a system wipe, Brenda would have been deleted on the spot .
They had him right on the ropes, and she had to go completely ruining the payload.
Kaelen, however, let out a massive, trembling sigh of pure executive relief, his chest slumping as his heart rate returned to normal parameters.
Pixel slowly turned her head away from Brenda, letting out a heavy, patronizing feline sigh as she telepathically addressed the room.
“Man, this girl really cannot take a joke.
No tactical awareness whatsoever.
How utterly hopeless can one human system be?”
Brenda looked at the cat, her jaw dropping.
“Did…
did that cat just insult my intelligence?
Hey!
I can hear you in my head, you know!
I was just trying to be helpful!”
Pixel simply turned her back to Brenda, flicking her tail with supreme, aristocratic status.
“A true professional knows when to let the simulation run its course, tavern girl.
You clearly lack comedic metrics.
And if you wanna be helpful next time, try to hush it.”
The heavy tension inside the room dissolved completely under the weight of the tiny cat’s ruthless commentary.
Lisa burst out laughing, her polished armor clanking softly as her shoulders shook.
Even Kaelen couldn’t help but let out a genuine chuckle at Pixel’s absolute lack of respect, while Brenda stood there blushing, pouting, and looking completely defeated by a feline, while the warmth and laughter fully locked.
Lisa finally caught her breath, her expression shifting back into a focused, executive grid.
“Alright, now that Kae is finally awake, let’s get down to business,” she said, leaning forward to look at Karen.
“Karen, do you have any form of ID on you?”
Karen blinked, her glasses sliding slightly down her nose as she shook her head in a definitive no.
Lisa let out a sharp breath.
“Just as I thought.
We need to get you guys some IDs immediately, or the government will get on our necks wherever we go.
You need official identification if you want to live peacefully in this world, let alone operate across different districts.
Thankfully, when you register at the guild, you get an adventurer ID which acts as a permanent travel pass.
Hurry up and prepare yourselves—we’re heading down to the guild base right now.”
Brenda’s pout instantly vanished, her helpful tavern-girl programming booting back up.
“Okay!
I’ll make you guys some breakfast before you head out.
I wouldn’t want you going to a major registration protocol on a hungry stomach!”
She paused, smoothing down her apron as she added, “Not to mention, it’s a really long process, they say.”
As Brenda hurried out of the room, Karen nervously adjusted her sleeves, looking at Kaelen and the cat.
“So…
what do you think the guild is actually going to be like?”
Kaelen leaned back, his eyes narrowing as he envisioned a high-tier asset deployment zone.
“I bet it’s packed with elite, high-ranked adventurers.
Master-class tacticians, legendary warriors, and top-tier infrastructure.”
Lisa’s posture instantly stiffened, a massive drop of sweat forming on the back of her head as she laughed in a flustered, awkward cadence.
“Well…
I wouldn’t actually put my hopes that high, Kae.
Have you forgotten already?
I told you before, the Silver Sieve is a guild of many different kinds of people.
It’s a mixed bag.”
Karen’s fingers twisted together anxiously.
“Does that mean we will have to go on incredibly dangerous missions right away?
The kind where we risk our entire lives?”
Pixel immediately seized the moment to maximize her psychological warfare metrics.
She crept forward on the sheets, her eyes widening into chaotic slits as she projected her telepathic voice directly into Karen’s mind.
“Oh, absolutely, Karen!
We are talking about life-threatening operations from day one.
Infiltrating the Demon King’s vanguard army, navigating fields of absolute despair, and dodging high-velocity death spells!”
Karen quivered in pure fear, her shoulders shaking as she shrank back.
Kaelen, catching the rhythm of the prank, let a fiendish, villainous smile spread across his face, his eyes glinting.
“And on top of that, Karen, we will eventually have to fight the Demon King himself.
A ferocious, cataclysmic battle that will completely test our structural limits.”
The terrifying mental image was too much for the poor elf; she began to tremble violently where she sat, her eyes spinning in pure panic.
Smack!
Lisa’s armored hand came down directly onto Kaelen’s head.
“Do not scare the poor girl like that!” she barked, turning to give Karen a reassuring pat.
“Technically, no, Karen.
We won’t be fighting any demon kings anytime soon—that’s a task strictly reserved for high-ranked, S-tier professionals.”
Just as the conversation stabilized, the door swung open.
Brenda marched back in, balancing a heavy wooden tray loaded with hot tea and a plate of fresh morning snacks.
“Breakfast time!” Brenda announced with a wide, bright smile.
She took one confident step into the room, but the hem of her long, flowing dress caught perfectly under the heel of her shoe.
Her balance vanished instantly.
“Oops—!” Brenda shrieked.
In a magnificent display of zero physical coordination, Brenda tripped forward.
The tray flipped completely upside down, sending the hot tea splashing violently across the floorboards while the snacks launched into the air like high-velocity projectiles.
Brenda hit the floor with a soft thud, her face turning completely red with absolute embarrassment.
“My bad…” she whispered from the floor, looking up sheepishly.
“I slipped.
I guess…
I’ll just have to go prepare more tea.”
A few moments later, the group stood out in the crisp morning air of the city district, halted directly in front of their target destination.
The wind caught their cloaks perfectly as they struck a synchronized, ultra-dramatic pose right in the middle of the cobblestone street—looking like a legendary squad straight out of a high-budget anime cover.
Lisa stood at the front, looking like a battle-ready commander.
Her hair was pulled back into her signature high ponytail, and she wore her heavy, seasoned leather armor layered over reinforced chainmail, her trusty glowing blue sword resting confidently at her hip.
Right beside her, Karen had completely ditched her simple white robes for proper traveling gear.
She was now wearing a practical, dark-green tunic with durable leather bracers tightly buckled around her forearms.
A heavy, hooded traveler’s cloak hung over her shoulders, and she clutched her glowing wooden staff tightly, her round glasses glinting in the morning sun as she tried her best to look fierce despite her natural shyness.
Kaelen anchored the other side of the formation, wearing the rugged tunic and dark trousers given to him back at the tavern.
His mysterious, deep-black rogue cloak was draped loosely over his frame, the hood slightly casting a shadow over his face.
Perched arrogantly right on top of his traveler’s pack was Pixel, who narrowed her eyes and puffed out her furry chest, trying to maximize her own tiny, legendary familiar presence.
Floating high above the street, a massive canvas flag rippled in the wind, proudly displaying the sharp crest of the Silver Sieve Guild.
Together, they stood in a neat row, their eyes wide as they shifted from their dramatic poses and gazed upward in absolute, total awe.
The guild base was an absolute architectural monolith.
It was massive, constructed from reinforced white stone and dark iron beams, towering over the surrounding commercial buildings like a high-level boss fortress.
“Incredible structural scale,” Kaelen muttered, his internal designer checking the metrics.
“The layout is pristine.”
“Told you it was huge,” Lisa smirked, stepping forward toward the massive double doors.
She placed both hands against the heavy oak wood and pushed them wide open, her voice echoing with pride.
“Welcome to the Silver Sieve Guild, gang!”
The moment they crossed the threshold, the sheer energy of the interior hit them like a visual wave.
The infrastructure was stunning—the high vaulted ceilings were decorated with intricate gold trim, the stone walls were lined with historic weapons, and the polished mahogany furniture gave the entire layout a premium, international-grade aesthetic.
The main hall was buzzing with a diverse ecosystem of adventurers.
To their left, a rugged warrior clad in heavy plate armor was carefully carrying a small, iron-barred cage containing a tiny, snapping baby dragon.
“Give way, please!
Active payload passing through!” the adventurer called out, navigating past a crowd of fresh recruits who were huddled around tables, frantically signing induction papers.
The entire atmosphere felt like a high-velocity, living anime sequence.
Suddenly, a clear, cheerful voice cut through the ambient noise from the main reception counter.
“Hey!
Lisa!
Long time no see!
What’s been popping?”
Waving frantically from behind the polished desk was Flair.
She was a lovely, vibrant young lady with bright eyes and an amiable smile, known throughout the guild as a master pranker who could make the most ridiculous fabrications sound entirely real before dropping her signature “Gotcha!” laugh.
Lisa grinned, leading the squad over to the counter.
“A lot has happened, Flair.
The field data on my last mission was completely off the charts.”
Flair leaned over the counter, her eyes gleaming with curiosity.
“Like what?
Give me the metrics!”
“I almost got completely squashed to death by a behemoth elephant,” Lisa said flatly.
Flair’s jaw dropped in manufactured shock.
“What?!
Go away!
That is literally the rarest, most amazing encounter ever!
Did you try to tame it or just run for your absolute life?”
As Lisa opened her mouth to answer, Flair didn’t even let her get a syllable out.
She immediately leaned over the counter, throwing her arms up like a giant elephant stomping through a village.
“Oh my gosh, I can see it now!” Flair gasped, dramatically deepening her voice to sound like a theatrical narrator.
“The mighty, unstoppable Knight Lisa, clad in heavy iron armor, looking like an absolute boss…
until a three-ton behemoth elephant steps on her shoelaces!
You probably looked like a squished garden snail trying to carry a giant shield!”
Flair snorted, slapping her own hand onto the polished desk to mimic a massive stomp.
“Did you try to use your ultimate shield block technique, or did you just curl up into a tiny, sad little ball and scream, ‘Please don’t step on me, Mr.
Elephant, I haven’t even paid my tavern tab yet!’?”
Flair burst out into a loud, ringing laugh, thoroughly amused by the mental image of the imposing knight getting bullied by an overgrown animal.
“Yeah, yeah, I know you handled it like a pro!”
Lisa rolled her eyes playfully, a small smirk breaking through her tough exterior as she stepped aside, gesturing to the group behind her.
“Anyway, meet my new gang.”