I grinned, and he remained neutral, trying to pry something out of me, I assumed.

"Nice try, feds, I ain't snitching."

I tugged down my eyebags with both hands and stuck my tongue out at Pearl, just to see if I could break that stiff noble act he had going on. Nothing, he didn't even blink, yet just kept swirling his wine like some background NPC who's secretly waiting for the main quest prompt.

Honestly, I don't know if I wanted to laugh or throw the glass in his smug face.

Before I could go full cross-eyed goblin mode and start kicking his feet under the table, I heard my name.

"Cory!" someone yelled

And when I turned, there she was, Hailie, who was wedged in the middle of an eight-person group like some rare collectible card everyone wanted to take a look at.

Olga was at the front, smug as ever, and the others were waving me at me also.

And Jesus fuck, she used my real name, I haven't thought about this… My bad actually, I haven't warned her but like- Now they know CJS69 real name is Cory, fucking hell. Oh god…

But, too late now… Probably won't be an issue.

Haili was waving both hands over her head like she was on the cover of a travel brochure, eagerly waving me over.

I dragged myself off the stool, shot Pearl a glance, he didn't even twitch, just kept sipping like the most British gargoyle ever, and went over.

The circle parted for me, and Olga gave me one of those shoulder claps that nearly knocks the wind out of you.

"We're going to assault a dungeon nearby," she said, matter-of-fact. "Should take about four hours. We want to bring your healer friend, she seems like a fine lad."

I blinked, "Hailie? You're sure on this?"

"She's a Priest," Olga said, as if that answered everything. "Reliable class, good level, I don't see why not, don't worry, I'm here to make sure she gets what she deserves if loot comes on the table even when she's an outsider, who knows, maybe she'll get some new healer gear?"

I turned my eyes on Hailie, who looked like someone had just handed her front-row tickets to her favorite boy band. She was practically vibrating.

"Really? You want me?" she asked them, voice soft but so charged with excitement it made my chest clench.

"Of course," said one of the fighters, a guy with a scar running down his cheek that looked way too deliberate to not be cosmetic. "Every party wants a healer, even though this one's a low level dungeon and we wouldn't get scratch, better safe than sorry, right?"

Olga smirked at Hailie. "And ya got the energy for it, lad."

Hailie looked back at me, and for a second it was like the rest of the group blurred out. Her eyes were asking me something without words like she needed me to approve this whole idea.

"Four hours, huh?" I scratched the back of my neck. "That's a bit of a haul."

"It'll be worth it," Olga said. "Fine loots for lower level teammates, good experience for your friend, gonna be a solid run, I can tell ya that much."

Everyone nodded, like good little backup dancers.

I looked at Hailie again. Her lips were parted, hands clasped in front of her, waiting expectantly, desperate almost.

And I, the selfish min-maxing goblin I am, took the coward's exit.

"I've got… stuff on my plate," I said, waving vaguely at my inventory screen like it was filled with urgent spreadsheets. "Need time to organize. But Olga can handle you, you'll be fine. I'll be here when you're return."

Hailie's face fell, even thoug not much, but still enough to make my chest ache like I'd kicked a puppy.

Then, just like that, she snapped back into sunshine mode, smile bright enough to blind me. "Okay! We can message each other anyway!"

"Right on," Olga said, giving Hailie a nod like she'd just knighted her.

Still, I couldn't hold back from giving a small warning to Olga,

"She's green, she never heal much before, and she doesn't really know how to avoid danger, so be careful, okay?"

Olga raised an eyebrow, like she wasn't sure whether to believe my words, which make sense, at level 20, people surely would've gotten a hang of their thingies already. But ultimately, Olga just shrugged with a confident smirk.

"Don't worry. I won't let those bastards lay a finger on this lad."

That sent the whole squad chuckling, everyone patting Hailie's shoulders or giving her thumbs-up like she was their little mascot.

And Hailie? She glowed under it, she was eating that attention like candy, smiling so wide I thought her cheeks would cramp.

Meanwhile, I stood there feeling like the overprotective, bitter babysitter who just got fired.

When they finally moved out, waving back at me, I just lifted a hand and let out a sigh that tasted like relief and guilt mixed together.

I watched them wave goodbye, watched Hailie vanish into the sea of chatter and torches, and finally dropped myself back on the barstool.

"Suppppp" I waved at the dude next to me, Pearl again for some reason.

Pearl ignored me, ignored him, perfect equilibrium.

Truth is, I was relieved. Babysitting Hailie was sweet for maybe half an hour, after that it was like grinding rep with a faction you don't even care about: endless backseating for her to figure out how to heal, telling her it's okay to kill these mobs cus they're not humans and doesn't feel pain, telling her to stop trying to plant trees in the walkway… God, these roleplayers, man.

I'm a achievist, not a chaperone. Let the normies waste time "bonding" and "enjoying the journey," while I've got speedrun splits to maintain.

Still, I wasn't really lying when I said "I got a lot of my plates thatn need organizing."

I started sorting through the puzzle pieces that didn't fit, that I haven't really been paying attention to quite yet.

- The Null Shepherd, the toughest enemy, usually spawned directly by the admins as crowd control, appearing in a normal Cleric quest… Why?

- The fact that I owed Ann for saving my life with our teleporter, but Ann never contacted and ask anything.

- Who Tanya is at all, like, what's her relationship with Ann? Why does she squat my username? Why was she at the Sonder's mansion having sex with Eirlys? Why can she use a male avatar?

- The Titan of Ashen Bark casting multiple skills in quick succession despite it never doing that before. Olga's party was the only party left standing after that, it wiped out a large part of the playerbase that night.

- Now that Destiny and Lion's Parade (2 out of 3 largest guild in the PC version of Darkmoon Adventure) appeared, what's with the #2 largest guild, Omnitetris? Did they never migrate over here after the PC version shut down? Or they did and just never took off and remained a small guild?

- Is Pearl suspicious about me?

- Less important but: In around 1-2 hours, the top contributors of the raid will be announced, so I wondered if she is on the top, considering I only participated in two thirds of the phases.

I think Eirlys can give me some good insights about the Null Shepherd thing and the Titan of Ashen Bark, since those are game mechanics… And the Pearl thing plus Guild thing is not that important…

So that leaves Ann and Tanya… What the hell are these women up to? Y'know, since they both fucked me silly, I reckon I need to give them appropriate attention.

I was halfway down that rabbit hole when a notification pinged, a message from someone in my friendlist.

[Ann: Are you free at the moment?]

One mystery just kicked down my door, very well.

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