Faust sat in the Town hall’s reception with an empty look on his face. Where could they be?

He had checked Amelia’s shop, ran all over the Novice Village with his ridiculous agility, and now he was just sitting here dejected.

While he thought, the main hall’s doors opened and a pitiful boy walked out. Faust raised his eyebrow as he recognised Todd for the second time that night.

Todd dragged his feet, shoulders and head held low, he glanced up at the people passing occasionally, but quickly turned away. He was a head shorter than everyone, a mop of black hair on his head covered most of his face.

He was almost invisible to them. The people that did see him looked on with little interest.

Until Faust began snapping his fingers. People turned slowly to the sound and then stopped talking. They all knew him by his bright almost red hair. They looked between themselves wondering who he was calling.

"Todd," Faust finally said.

The boy had been trudging forward uncaring till he heard his name. His dark, droopy eyes widened. Faust motioned for him to come, which he did very reluctantly.

He sat on the lobby bench beside Faust, giving some distance like he could run when Faust attacked.

Faust resisted rolling his eyes and patted Todd’s shoulder, ignoring how the boy flinched. "I haven’t seen you in a while."

"Um, yeah, it’s been a while... I guess," Todd murmured. His voice was barely audible.

"What?"

Faust pretended he couldn’t hear Todd until he was forced to speak much louder. Faust made the boy recap his entire journey, interrupting him whenever he wasn’t loud enough. It was a fun little exercise that had Todd glaring at him after five minutes.

Oh. You do get angry. Well, unfortunately, you have something I need.

"So you have a good tracking ability?" Faust hummed.

"I wouldn’t call level 1 good." Todd lamented. "Everyone has at least four skills and some have it at level 2."

"Who’s Everyone? And why should I care what skills he has?" Faust said with mock confusion.

Todd’s eyebrows twitched. "Can I... go?"

"Am I forcing you to be here?"

"...No"

Faust rolled his eyes as Todd remained seated, staring at the ground.

"Todd, I need your help," he said finally. Before explaining with little detail that Nirvana was missing and maybe in danger.

"Doesn’t Freya have a tracking ability?" Todd asked, shifting in his seat. "It’s not that I don’t want to help.... But hers should be a lot better than mine."

Freya, more commonly known as Spider, only had that good tracking ability if her Chimera transformation gave her those traits. But Nirvana would know how to deceive Spider’s sense of smell.

By introducing a factor she didn’t expect to be looking for her, then maybe Faust could find her. He explained to Todd that Spider was also having trouble finding her.

"I don’t think I’ll be much better," Todd said. "I’m also kind of busy."

Faust raised an eyebrow. "Doing what? We’re on break before the fourth wave."

Todd glanced at his wrists but didn’t say anything. Faust took a guess at what he had on his mind.

"Have you killed any monsters?"

Todd looked up at him and shook his head. "I carry stuff for Danny’s cohort." He saw the surprise in Faust’s eyes and quickly added. "They pay me! With like essence and they gave me this dagger after the second wave."

They have Spatial bags, what do their need a Carrier for?

He pulled a normal Jackal dagger out of his spatial bag. It wasn’t even a +2 weapon.... Faust resisted the urge to cringe.

"Does this Daniel guy have a Schema or anything?" Faust asked.

"Oh, yes," Todd said with a strange pride in his voice. "He’s in the top 100. Most of our group is top 1000."

Our?

"And yet they couldn’t spare you the last kill on anything?" Faust asked. "Isn’t there a party function? Don’t parties share exp?" 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

"I’m part of the party," Todd said almost dejectedly. "The system gives me some exp but it’s not enough yet for level 3."

He’s still level 2?

Most people were level 3 at this point. It wasn’t even that hard with the event. Faust cupped his face as his frustration boiled over. This guy was killing himself.

"How does your tracking skill work?" Faust asked after a moment.

Todd’s voice grew low again as he sensed Faust’s irritation. "I see their footsteps from within thirty minutes ago. But I need to have seen them within the last hour. I haven’t seen Nirvana in days."

Faust clicked his tongue, thinking. "I might be able to handle that."

He pulled Todd up and walked to the center of the reception. The wooden floor and the velvet rugs were a bit dirtied now with the number of people coming in and out. People parted ways for them.

Faust stopped where he remembered for sure that he and Nirvana had been standing. It was when he had noticed her humming along to Greg and Thalia’s stupid song.

Her small smile was bright in his memory.

Earlier, he had the crazy idea to try and replicate the moment Nirvana had been standing here. But as space and time boiled under his Schema he quickly stopped it, sensing it might do something very bad.

Right now the spot he tried it in was looking a bit hazy. Like an oil painting.

I really hope that won’t come back to bite me in the ass.

He chose a new spot for a new experiment. Instead of replicating Nirvana, why not replicate the image of her. She had been here once. Light bounced off her body. So...

Instance Replication!

It didn’t work. Faust sighed. Then he turned to Todd. "Okay plan b. Let’s just upgrade your skill. There should be an extra function to the skill that allows you to rely on something else."

"I only have one skill stone," Todd muttered.

Faust took one out of his spatial bag and threw it at Todd. The other boy fumbled it for a moment then frantically turned up to Faust. The way his black hair jumped from his eyes was weirdly funny.

"I-I didn’t mean you have to give me a skill stone!" Todd exclaimed.

Faust waved him off. "Bruh, look at how tightly you’re holding onto it. If you want power just say so. Pretending you don’t just to feel better is... it’s like living in a box that keeps getting smaller and saying ’well mansions are too big for just me anyway.’"

Still rooted to that spot, Todd stared at him. After a moment, he clenched his teeth. "It’s not that I don’t want to be stronger. I don’t want to worship strength like you guys."

With his hands on his waist, Faust gave the boy a fake smile. "Just use the stone before I take it from you."

***

A/N: One more ch in a few hrs