Karen stepped forward, happily handing over the wrapped boxes and the juice.
Kaelen’s eyes completely lightened up with unadulterated joy as he looked inside the parcel.
“Oh wow!
Two cakes?!
One strawberry and the other chocolate flavor?!” Kaelen exclaimed, his voice filled with endless gratitude.
“Karen, thank you…
seriously, thank you endlessly.
I was actually so incredibly starving, you completely saved my life.
I didn’t have a single coin on me to buy food, and I was honestly too terrified to knock on Lisa’s door to ask for an allowance since she’s in charge of our logistical finances.”
A sudden, comfortable silence fell between them for a second.
Kaelen stopped talking, his gaze catching Karen looking at him intently, her face completely pretty, soft, and innocent in the dim light of the corridor.
Her wide eyes held a warmth that made his own chest feel oddly light.
The moment was abruptly broken when a sharp, dramatic screech echoed from inside the room.
Pixel had suddenly woken up, stretching her white paws and yawning widely as she trotted over to the threshold.
“Oh, hey Karen,” Pixel’s telepathic voice drifted lazily into their minds, completely stripped of its usual aristocratic status.
“Oh!
Hey, Pixel,” Karen chirped, her shyness rapidly returning as she stepped back.
“So you’re awake…
I…
I guess I’ll take my official leave now and head back to my quarters.”
Kaelen held the boxes tightly.
“Okay…
thank you so much for the gift again, Karen.”
As she slowly started moving away, her shoulders slumping slightly in a wave of quiet disappointment, Pixel’s sharp eyes darted between the two teenagers.
The white cat let out a deeply frustrated, aggressive telepathic groan straight into Kaelen’s brain.
“Are you entirely serious right now, Master?!
Are you seriously not going to invite her inside to share a portion of this high-fidelity snack?!
Aaaaah, you absolute, total idiot!”
The sudden mental strike sparked a brilliant logistical idea in Kaelen’s mind.
He rapidly ran back to the doorway, calling out into the hallway.
“Hey!
Karen!
Wait!”
Karen froze instantly in her tracks, her breath catching as she stood completely still, waiting to hear what he wanted to say, though she was still too shy to turn around.
“We…
we have two massive cakes here,” Kaelen called out, his voice warm and eager.
“And it’s just me —”
“HISSSSS!” Pixel shrieked out loud.
“—I mean, it’s just me and Pixel!” Kaelen corrected quickly with a grin.
“We physically cannot finish all of these operational metrics by ourselves…
Why don’t you come inside and sit with us while we munch it all up?
We…
we might as well have a deep conversation to get to know more about each other, since we’re official teammates now.”
The shift in Karen’s expression was instantaneous.
Her face lit up with an absolute, radiant happiness that surpassed anything she had felt all day.
“Yes!
I would love to” she burst out instantly, responding before Kaelen could even finish asking the question.
Realizing how eager she sounded, she quickly flushed a light pink, but she didn’t hesitate.
She turned around and hurried back toward his room with a massive, beautiful smile on her face, a single, tiny drop of a happy tear even slipping from her eye as she ran back to join him.
For the next four hours, Kaes’ room was completely transformed into a sanctuary of pure joy.
Kaelen and Karen sat together, completely lost in a continuous stream of hilarious jokes, playful pranks, and epic adventure stories of their respective journeys.
They spent the entire night having a total blast, sharing deep laughs and building an unbreakable bond.
Well, they did a lot of talking, but it was mostly Pixel who did the eating—the chaotic cat managed to covertly consume exactly three-quarters of the entire cake selection while the two humans were far too busy having a wonderfully fun chat to notice her structural metabolic inputs.
It was, for both of them, an absolute night to remember.
The next morning, the sun broke brilliantly over the sprawling stone arches of Oakhaven, casting long, amber shadows across the grand entrance of the Silver Sieve Guild.
The ambient morning air carried a crisp chill, but the bustling plaza outside the massive mahogany doors was already thick with the low, continuous murmur of high-tier adventurers and guild operatives organizing their daily deployments.
Kaelen stood at the edge of the plaza, adjusting the straps of his tactical bag with rigid, calculated movements.
His eyes, sharp and analytical, swept across the structural layout of the guild’s exterior, automatically auditing the stone masonry for load-bearing vulnerabilities while he mentally calculated their operational efficiency for the day. Follow the newest chapters on novelping.com.
Perched securely on his shoulder, Pixel let out a faint, vibrating purr, the small feline shifting its weight to dig its claws lightly into the dark fabric of Kaelen’s cloak.
Beside him, Lisa adjusted her gauntlets, her posture perfectly erect as her gaze tracked the shifting crowd.
Karen hovered half a step behind her, fingers tightly gripping the hem of her cloak, her anxious micro-expressions signaling a complete lack of readiness for the bureaucratic chaos waiting inside.
The spatial tracking for Pixel is locked onto his shoulder, the atmosphere is set, and Oakhaven is firmly established.
As the Vanguard marched through the main lobby, Kaelen and Karen were walking side by side, conversing with a noticebly higher frequency than usual.
They were sharing quiet smiles, their posture completely relaxed and synchronized.
Walking a few paces ahead, Lisa noticed the subtle shift in their communication parameters.
A proud, deeply satisfied smile crossed her face as her analytical mind processed the data.
Finally…
she thought to herself with immense relief.
I am incredibly glad to see that Karen is officially opening up to Kaelen.
Soon, that timid, fearful girl will be entirely gone…
Thank you, Kaelen.
However, the duo was so deeply invested in their high-interest conversation that their environmental awareness dropped to absolute zero.
They completely failed to notice that a massive trail of freshly thrown banana peels was scattered all over the stone path directly in front of them.
Lisa, spotting the hazard, rapidly turned her head to issue a tactical warning.
“Hey!
Gang!
Be incredibly careful not to step on the—”
Too late.
Kaelen’s boot made direct, high-velocity contact with a yellow peel.
His leg shot forward, his equilibrium shattered entirely as he executed a flawless, involuntary aerial somersault before crashing straight down onto the hard stone floorboards right on his butt.
SLAM!
“AWWWWWOUCH!” Kaelen screamed, his eyes tearing up from the sheer structural impact as his dark cloak flew over his head.
From behind the reception desk, Flair took one look at his airborne trajectory and completely burst into a fresh fit of loud, hysterical, uncontrollable laughter, slapping her hands against the counter.
“Who…
who the hell put these hazardous metrics here?!” Kaelen roared in pure, unbridled anger, pushing himself up as his face flushed crimson.
“I swear, if I get my hands on whoever did this, I am going to—”
Before he could finish his threat, the heavy oak doors groaned open.
A massive, towering, seven-foot-tall elite adventurer marched right past them.
The man possessed a rigid, incredibly fierce expression, muscles like forged iron, and a heavy basket of bananas slung over his shoulder.
He was casually munching on a banana, casually tossing the slippery peels onto the floorboards behind him while feeding a small, aggressive-looking monkey riding on his shoulder.
The sheer, terrifying presence of the giant completely choked the words right out of Kaelen’s throat, his voice dying into a tiny, frightened squeak as he stared up at the human mountain.
“What exactly were you saying, Master?” Pixel’s telepathic voice drifted lazily into his mind, brimming with absolute, top-tier trolling.
“There he is.
Go ahead and execute your high-status revenge protocol.
I am waiting.”
Kaelen immediately cut his eyes away, whistling an aimless tune to the ceiling and completely pretending he hadn’t seen a single thing.
Flair wiped a tear of pure joy from her eye, leaning over the counter to deliver one final, crushing blow to his remaining ego.
“Oh my gosh, Class E-Minus!
Defeated by a fruit byproduct before the day even begins!
Truly an international-grade performance!”
The entire lobby broke into a massive, roaring fit of laughter, with Lisa and even Karen snickering quietly at his absolute lack of traction.
The Hidden Mission: 10:00 AM
Coughing awkwardly to salvage his dented branding, Kaelen stood up and marched the squad over to the desk.
Flair immediately straightened her posture, forcing her professional customer service smile back online.
“Alright, jokes aside, welcome back squad,” Flair chirped happily.
“Your official adventurer IDs have been successfully processed through the system!
Wait right here for me, I’ll go bring them out from the administrative terminal.”
The moment her boots clicked away and she disappeared into the back room, Kaelen and Karen pivoted toward one another, the heavy tension in their frames instantly evaporating as their faces lit up with shared excitement.
“I bet the cards have a premium, polished obsidian texture,” Kaelen whispered proudly, leveling his shoulders with a high-status architectural posture.
“With custom brass borders and a high-fidelity holographic stamp to signify my architectural status.
I’ll definitely look like a top-tier adventurer on it.”
“Master,” Pixel’s dry, unbothered telepathic broadcast sliced directly into their minds as she shifted her weight on his tactical bag.
“By top-tier, are you talking top-tier scary?
Because judging by your current baseline expression, I am entirely certain you will look twice as terrifying.”
Kaelen’s jaw twitched slightly, but before he could launch an administrative counter-strike against his familiar, Karen cut in.
“I…
I hope mine has a soft silver lining,” Karen added happily, her hands clasped tightly together as her eyes turned wide and starry.
Lisa shifted her weight, leaning her shoulder casually against the mahogany counter as she leveled a flat, deadpan stare at the duo.
“I’m sure all your IDs will come out looking just okay.”
While they were in the absolute middle of guessing the brilliant aesthetics, the back door clicked open.
Flair marched back out, but she wasn’t holding a sleek box of badges.
Instead, she laid out a large, heavily folded parchment document right onto the counter, alongside a small, locked iron box.
With a crisp snap, she unfolded the parchment, revealing a highly detailed tactical topographical map of the surrounding region.
Kaelen and Karen blinked in unison, their expressions freezing into a state of total, unadulterated confusion.
“Uh…
Flair?” Kaelen’s brow furrowed, his fingers tightening against the strap of his tactical bag as he leaned slightly over the desk.
“Where exactly are our processed identity cards?
What is the meaning of this map?”
Flair flashed a bright, immensely mischievous grin, locking her eyes straight onto Kaelen with high-status playfulness.
“This, Mr.
Kaelen, is exactly where your squad is heading today!
Your very first formal task as a team.”
“Wait, what?!”
Kaelen slammed both hands flat against the mahogany counter, the sudden, sharp impact echoing loudly across the immediate lobby floorboards.
His shoulders squared rigidly, his voice dropping into a cold, deeply irritated register that vibrated with architectural friction.
“Where are the IDs?!
We came here for our legal documentation!
Not for some stupid mission!”
“Unfortunately,” Flair sighed heavily, her posture dropping into a highly performative, exaggerated slouch as she gestured toward the back room.
“The primary ID printing machine was completely broken this morning.
It’s undergoing standard maintenance and will take another four hours to fully recalibrate.
So, I decided that instead of having you rookies lie around the tavern killing time, why not deploy you on a quick side mission to go flex your bones instead?”
A collective murmur of deep disappointment and frustration rippled through Kaelen and Karen.
“Why now…
this is totally unfair…
how does a guild even lose power like this…”
Lisa, however, stepped forward, her sharp eyes scanning the map parameters with cool, calculating focus.
“A special mission, eh?
Alright, fine.
We will officially accept it.”
“Come on, Lisa!” Kaelen whined, his shoulders slumping.
“Our deployment metrics are completely compromised!”
“Look at it from a strategic standpoint, Kae,” Lisa countered smoothly, turning her head to level an authoritative gaze at him.
“Consider this as high-value practical training.
Gaining live, firsthand experience in the field before our main ranking is logged is an excellent asset.
And besides…
this specific assignment carries a guaranteed baseline payout of a gold coin.”
The moment the word money hit Kaelen’s auditory grid, his entire tone instantaneously shifted.
His posture straightened, his eyes sharpened, and a confident, corporate smirk broke across his face.
“One gold coin?” Kaelen cleared his throat, adjusting his cloak with supreme executive status as he leveled his shoulders.
“Well…
fine.
Let’s execute the mission.
Not that I actually had anything better to do with my high-tier schedule anyway.”
Karen leaned in slightly, her voice dropping to a hesitant whisper as she looked between Kaelen and the desk.
“But…
going on missions requires registered adventurers, and we aren’t legally processed yet.
How can we take up any guild missions?”
Flair didn’t answer immediately.
Instead, she laced her fingers together, resting her hands on the counter as she leaned forward on her elbows.
A deeply mischievous smirk spread across her face—one thick with unreadable suspense and silent calculations, as if she were structurally preparing to drop an incredibly exciting fact that would completely upend their parameters.
With no official badges and their legal parameters completely up in the air, the Vanguard has just been handed a mysterious map instead of their identities.
What exactly is waiting for them at the coordinates marked in ink?
Is Flair setting them up for a standard rookie exercise, or is this unranked squad about to stumble directly into a high-velocity crisis?
Find out in the next episode of Vanguard of the Void!