Bab 20: 4.5 Sequence Break?

"Stranger?" Dammit not again!

"I just remembered something," I coolly played off, hiding the utter bafflement I was currently feeling as I waved her concern away. "We can continue with your tour."

Shizu gave me a skeptical eye, but eventually flashed her usual smile as she seemed to buy my excuse. "If you say so!"

I let out a sigh of relief. Seriously, when will all these surprises even stop? It wasn't helping that I seemingly skipped over fifty levels of progression by somehow taking a Level 60 Side Quest by accident. Wait, why am I even blaming myself for this? Shouldn't I be blaming Guidance for allowing me to even take a high-level quest as a Level 2 in the first place?!

"Yeah... She's the one at fault here..." The amount of grief I was gonna throw at her once we got in contact again would be amazing.

"A-Anyway, Stranger, is there anything you'd like to know about our fair capital?"

I was once again taken out of my thoughts as Shizu voiced out her question. We were still walking toward god knew where, but our pace was starting to stall again. For some reason, I could feel her hand shaking in my arms despite her comfortable grip. Huh... It was probably nothing.

"It's beautiful," I honestly answered. "Your hospitality is what's really taking it to the next level though."

My tour guide's eyes lit up as she replied, "For real?"

I smiled, "Yeah. A city is only as beautiful as its people after all."

I couldn't help but mentally pat myself on the back with my answer. Way to go, me, for stealing that quote from some random book that you don't even remember anymore.

"W-wow.... That's rather... deep."

The wonder in Shizu's eyes felt rather piercing as her golden irises shone with twinkling starlight. I was honestly frozen in place, anchoring my tour guide down with me as we just stared into each other's eyes.

"Uhh..."

"I don't know who you are, Stranger, but I have a feeling you'll be doing great things," Shizu vaguely... complemented?

"Thanks?" I responded in kind, not really knowing what to say.

"I think you already know what I'm talking about, but I suppose you're just humoring me, huh."

My head spun on its metaphorical heel as I took in what she just said, or rather, what she just implied... assuming that I could even divine what she even said in the first place!

Ahh! I don't wanna think about this anymore! "Aren't we forgetting something, Shizu?"

At my words, the green-haired enigma seemed to snap herself out of her stupor as she covered her open mouth with her hand. "The tour!"

"Yep."

I resisted the urge to shake my head as I willingly subjected myself to being dragged by the feet to who knows where once more. I didn't care anymore. I had a hard limit on the amount of mysterious implications and hints that I could stomach before my brain stopped functioning properly.

And where the hell was Guidance?!

⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛

By the end of Shizu's pretty little tour, I had barely managed to keep myself together as practically a majority of what she just said flew right over my head. I couldn't even remember what or how many places we managed to go through. All that my mind was giving me was that they were all weird, and that I was better off not remembering them for the sake of my mental health. I could still recall that [INSIGHT] thing popping, however, and I didn't know if it was a resource or some kind of debuff. All I knew was that I now had four points of it, and that I had no idea on what to do with them.

"Enjoy your stay, Stranger!"

I waved Shizu goodbye as I found myself back at the weird gravity-defying fountain again. I was pretty sure I had just completed that mind-boggling side quest, and I knew that that chime sound would pop up again sooner or later.

{CHIME!}

Yep. Right on schedule.

[Side Quest: Princess Escort! COMPLETE]

Yay... Why wasn't I feeling happy that I somehow completed this thing?

[REWARD: 50000 Kattleynan Leafs]

I blinked as I mentally read my reward. Kattleynan... Leafs?

I raised an eyebrow at the exorbitant amount of rewards that I just got. Well, relative to my level, at least. The name itself was kind of... peculiar to say the least. I mean, Leafs? It certainly sounded bad just from a grammar perspective, but who was I to refuse free handouts?

A few seconds later, the window dematerialized itself from view. In its place, what looked to be paper money floated in front of me. It was a neat stack of cash, assuming that it was cash, and I was just about to reach out and grab it when Shizu suddenly jumped me from behind.

"Oohh! You didn't tell me you had a few Leafs on you!"

I grunted in a bit of effort as my knees buckled to support the young woman now straddling herself on my back. Her breasts were uncomfortably pressing themselves onto my back, but a decent mix of self-discipline and actual annoyance brought me back down to reality as I shuffled my feet to balance myself.

"G-get off me, Shizu," I grumbled with a bit of a pout. "You're not exactly light here."

[*SLAP!*]

"Hey! Don't call me heavy! I'll have you know that I'm perfectly toned and fit for battle!"

I blinked as I felt the stinging sensation of redness bloom across my left cheek. In an instant, my once tour guide had somehow gotten off my back and was now standing in front of me with a cute pout of her face. I didn't want to question how such a thing happened, but I could only shrug as I let the sudden attack roll off me. Hindsight was a bit of a jerk, but that didn't mean I'll take the punishment lying down.

"I can see that, but that doesn't meant you're not a grown woman clinging onto the first man she ever met."

My words seemed to have an effect as a mad blush formed on the green-haired girls face. Not that it stopped her from meeting my smirk with hers as she placed her hands on her hips. Aaand my eyes were starting to go to places I didn't want them to go. Damn it. I just wanted to get my rewards. Was that too much to ask?