Treasure Hunt (5)
There are three main ways to grind favorability at Soul Academy.
The first: spending everyday time together. During free periods, you walk up to a character, strike up a conversation, and wander the academy together.
The most efficient spot for that method was the cake shop, hands down. Cake with this girl, cake with that girl — you'd stuff the protagonist with so many sweets you'd wonder whether they were going to die of diabetes before graduation. It was, by far, the most efficient favorability-farming method in the game.
A method that's completely off the table for me now.
How on earth did the game's protagonist make friends just by saying hello? When I open my mouth, people turn into my enemies?! She had to have been running some kind of hypnosis app or something. Nothing else explains it!
The second method is clearing dungeons together. Fight side by side on a battlefield long enough, and favorability creeps up little by little.
Of course, that one's hard for me too. Who wants to walk into a life-or-death battlefield with someone they can't even stand talking to? Sure, I'm a genuinely useful human being to have in a party, so the math might be a little different — but honestly, I wouldn't bet on it.
And finally, the third: completing character-related quests. You raise favorability by progressing through quests tied to a specific character.
This, at least, is something even the current me can pull off.
The plan I've mapped out goes like this. First, I complete the relevant quest to build up a baseline of favorability — enough to loosely call us friends. Then come outings together, dungeon runs together, side quests along the way, grinding until the meter ticks up to Favorability 70.
Get the first button fastened right, and there's plenty of promise in it.
Which is exactly why I'm betting my life on this next step, and heading for Alsetin's Tavern — to get my hands on the item that triggers a certain character's quest!
"Miss. This seems rather dangerous."
When I stopped at the tavern's entrance tucked into a corner of the back alley, Carl spoke up, his tone dripping with concern.
'Not confident, are you?'
"What was that? Pathetic. So you're saying you can't protect me?"
"That is not what I said, but dangerous places are best avoided in the first place, Miss."
'If you're not confident, just say you're not confident.'
"Go on, make your excuses, but that's exactly what it means, isn't it? 'Miss, I'm a frail little weakling, I simply can't go in there~' — say that, and I'll give it some thought."
Unable to stomach the mockery any longer, Carl finally shut his mouth. Does he have pride as a knight or something? He'll shrug off every other insult, but call him weak and the reaction is instant.
'Carl...'
"Pathetic. Are you declaring yourself a weakling or not?"
"No, Miss. I will earn your trust by protecting you."
So that's your way of saying you won't talk me out of going in either, huh.
Tearing my eyes away from Carl's grim face, I gripped the tavern door. The moment I pushed it open, every gaze inside swung toward me.
Those stares were, for the most part, wary. In the game, nobody so much as blinked no matter who walked through that door — but turned into reality, it's a whole different story. I suppose it would be stranger if they weren't on guard, some little brat like me strolling into a den hidden in the back alleys.
As I stepped inside, a man seated at a table near the entrance let out a mocking drawl.
"Well, well. A noble lady. This ain't a place for milk-scented little things like you."
'Then is this...'
"Is this a place that only accepts trash-stinking losers like you? How troubling. I can't exactly become a charity case, can I."
"Miss?!"
The man's brow furrowed and Carl's alarmed shout landed at almost the exact same moment.
Hmm. I didn't intend to go this far, but the Mesugaki Skill is feeling awfully bold today?
"PWAHAHAHA!"
"Sharp tongue for a noble brat!"
"Even I can tell that guy looks like a total charity case!"
"Who're you calling a charity case, you little punks?!"
The tavern's patrons were all playing at laughter, but none of it was friendly. The man teased me back, all while keeping a careful eye on my face — glaringly obvious, that.
They had just marked me as a target of suspicion.
Well. Things went sideways right out of the gate.
"So what's a noble lady like you come here for, eh?"
A man drinking alone at a distance called out to me with a sly, oily tone. The instant he spoke, everyone else hushed — the man was clearly someone who held real weight in this place.
'I'm here because I want to meet someone.'
"Came looking for a nobody, did you?"
"I doubt there's anyone here worth the time of someone as oooooh-so high and mighty as you, Miss. Just a den full of strays and castoffs."
The message in his tone was unmistakable: leave before something ugly happens.
Ha. Does he think that scares me? He's the boss of a pack of strays and suddenly thinks he's somebody? I couldn't care less about a throwaway NPC like you?
'I want to meet Alsetin.'
"I'm here to see the owner of this rundown dive."
"Miss. Did you not hear me? I told you there's no one here for you to meet."
'I wasn't talking to you, though.'
"I wasn't talking to some old codger whose life's greatest achievement is playing king of the strays, was I."
"...I was trying to be civil."
The moment my words landed, the man rose from his chair, and as if they'd been waiting for the cue, everyone in the tavern stood up one after another. Each one with a blade tucked somewhere in their coat — definitely back-alley folk, that much was certain.
And at that very moment, a sigh drifted down from the floor above.
"Miss. Is this also a divine revelation?"
'Yes!'
"It is."
"Then I suppose I must gather my strength, after all."
With those words, Carl drew his sword. The bloodthirsty strays faltered and began backing away.
What? Carl hasn't done a single thing yet. Why are they retreating?
<He is bearing down on them with the mana he carries.>
Like an aura of killing intent?
Carl really is strong, no question about it. He can pressure common rabble like these just by being looked at?
<But I ask you, girl. Did Armadi truly command you to pick a quarrel with these men?>
'Yes! That's what I said, didn't I?'
<Hoo. To think I've served Armadi all this time and still cannot fathom her will.>
For the record, Armadi said nothing!
She's been stealing credit for everything I've done so far, so shouldn't she carry my blame too? That's just fair, isn't it?
As the standoff between Carl and the strays dragged on, a voice drifted down from above.
"Put your weapons down if you want to live, you idiots."
The voice belonged to a rough-looking man, the scar near his eye the most striking thing about his face.
The exact same figure I knew from the game. Alsetin.
The tavern's strays confirmed it was Alsetin and shrank back, lowering their weapons. He came down the stairs, and before so much as greeting me, drove his fist into the gut of the man who'd been leading the strays.
THWACK!
The sound rang through the entire tavern, and the leader of the strays dropped to his knees on the floor.
Into that dead-silent atmosphere, Alsetin walked with heavy, unhurried steps until he stood before me — and bowed his head deep.
"My sincerest apologies, Lady Alrn. My man here overstepped himself."
At the sight of it, Halbae let out a low sound of admiration.
<So this one knows how to use his head.>
'Why do you say that?'
<His own man put your life in danger — by rights, that is a grievance he could be pressed on, a blade held to his throat. Yet by punishing the man before you could even raise the matter, he proves his own innocence while making it nigh impossible for you to bring it up at all. To reach such a judgment in so short a span — that is not possible without a lifetime of experience behind it.>
So every single thing Alsetin did the moment he appeared was calculated?
Come to think of it, for Alsetin — a character who wields real influence in the underworld — it made perfect, plausible sense.
Good grief. Alsetin, reading the board in an instant, and Halbae, dissecting it in a heartbeat — both of them so far beyond me I can't keep up.
I am never going to survive politics in this world.
"I'm called Alsetin. I own this establishment."
'Nice to meet you, Alsetin.'
"Pleasure. Info-peddler."
Info-peddler?
I mean, sure, the man's whole trade is selling underworld goods and intelligence, but was there really no gentler way to put it? Spitting that out at a first meeting isn't exactly going to put him in a good mood, is it!
Look! The corner of Alsetin's mouth just stiffened a little!
We're going to be doing business together for a long time — I don't want to make a bad impression! Damn it!
"Alsetin, was it?"
'Yes. I know, but...'
"I heard you. Info-peddler. You got a problem with that?"
"...No. None at all."
Ugh. Whatever. Que será, será.
Benedict is right behind me — there's no way this guy's going to do something insane, right?!
"I hear you've come to see me. Let us go inside and talk."
'Lead the way, please.'
"Follow me."
Alsetin led me up to a room on the second floor and offered me a chair. Once he saw me seated, he closed the door, returned to his own place, and spoke.
"As I'm sure you're aware, I am a merchant who buys anything and sells everything. What business brings you to this place?"
'There's something I want to buy.'
"Info-peddler. You've come all the way to this shabby little corner — can't you guess what that means? Obviously there's something I'm dying to get my hands on."
Even under the Mesugaki Skill's barrage of insults, Alsetin's smile didn't waver by an inch.
Spreternatural patience — befitting a merchant of the underworld, I suppose. Usually, by this point in a conversation with me, people's expressions start sliding clean off the rails.
"Might I ask what that item is?"
'The necklace bearing the Burrow family crest. Specifically...'
"The necklace bearing the Burrow family crest. Ruby-set, with a locket that opens to reveal a portrait of the Burrow family. Dig through the underworld market and one is bound to turn up."
Inside Soul Academy live countless characters, and the difficulty of raising each one's favorability varies wildly. A character like Joy, whose life has been one smooth, unbroken road, is easy to grow close to. A character like Arthur, whose road is pocked with cliffs and sudden drops mid-journey, is extraordinarily hard.
And then there's Jackal Burrow.
The character the community players loved to call the Inferior Young Master is, as it happens, one of the easiest in the entire game to farm favorability with — so long as you clear a single specific condition.
That condition is the quest triggered by that very Necklace Bearing the Burrow Family Crest.
Up until that point, Jackal Burrow lives so deep inside his own smugness that even striking up a conversation is a struggle. But once you clear that quest together, he's the one who starts showing interest first.
I don't particularly like Jackal Burrow. His in-game performance is mediocre at best, his personality is insufferably arrogant — I don't hate him, but I don't like him either. That's precisely the level it sits at.
Under normal circumstances, I'd never have spared him a scrap of attention. But the situation now is different.
In a world where I don't know what horrors await me if I fail to produce two characters at Favorability 70, an easy-favorability character like Jackal Burrow is nothing short of a beacon of light.
Which means that, if only to survive, I absolutely had to get that necklace into my hands.
Absolutely.