Published: February 1, 2026
The place Lizel was brought to by the man who called himself Gill was a tavern.
The interior was closer to a bar, but calling it a bar didn’t feel quite right when you could get a proper meal and there were a few tables as well. It was still bright outside so there were few customers, but it would probably get crowded soon.
“Gonna rent the back room.”
“Yeah.”
Gill called out to the man behind the counter and placed a few silver coins on it. Lizel himself didn’t particularly want to be overheard, so he had no reason to object.
The man who appeared to be the proprietress cast a brief glance their way.
“Hello, nice to meet you.”
“…Yeah.”
They were clearly an odd pair, but the man said nothing. Thinking this was quite a good place to have this kind of talk, Lizel followed Gill through a door beside the counter.
Inside was a small private room with a single four‑person table, but it looked comfortable enough.
“Mr Gill, you seem to have connections here.”
“I just come often enough. Master, booze.”
“Ah, I can’t drink, so I’m fine.”
“Huh? Hey, he says he can’t drink.”
“I can hear you.”
Watching Gill stick his head back out the door and trade words with the proprietress, Lizel sat down on one of the two chairs. It was the first time in hours he could properly rest his backside, and he let out a small breath of relief.
Gill soon returned, a glass in each hand, and held one out to Lizel.
“Here.”
“Ah, thank you very much.”
He had declined, thinking it would be rude to come to a tavern and not drink anything, but contrary to his expectations, the glass held some kind of carefully squeezed fruit juice.
He observed it for a moment, then quietly set the glass down without tasting it. Across from him, Gill swirled his own glass with a clink of ice, lips twisting into a smile as he looked at Lizel.
“Want me to taste it for poison?”
“If I were going to doubt it here, I wouldn’t have called out to you in the first place.”
Lizel smiled mildly, while cursing inwardly.
(So him calling out to me is part of the test set… can’t read him at all.)
Just as Gill had guessed, Lizel had intended to wait and see whether Gill would say anything about him not drinking before he so much as touched the glass.
Of course, he didn’t actually think anything had been done to the drink, nor that the proprietress was in on some plot to trap him. He didn’t think so—but the moment the possibility dropped to zero was now, at the very instant Gill made that remark.
He could maintain his own line of thought while also running a parallel track for a third party’s thinking. Lizel was unusual for being able to do that, but Gill, for noticing it, was unusual in his own right.
“So, what do you want to ask?”
“Then, for starters, how about an introduction from you, Mr Gill?”
“What do you want to know?”
“I’m not trying to probe into you. I just find it odd to sit down and talk with someone whose name is all I know. You can tell me your profession or your history with women, whichever you like.”
Sidestepping Gill’s searching gaze, Lizel calmly lifted his glass to his lips. As he had imagined, it was squeezed fruit, and the sweet acidity soaking into his tired body felt pleasant.
What Lizel wanted to know was Gill’s position. If he was going to receive information, the other party’s standing mattered.
He couldn’t afford to pick up the wrong kind of information, and it would change what questions he asked. From the looks of him, he was without a doubt an adventurer, but Lizel wanted to confirm that as well.
Gill sighed, as if giving up, and stuck a cigarette between his lips after warning he was going to smoke.
“Fine, you could find this out if you checked anyway… Solo adventurer, rank b. No particular woman, and no intention of getting one.”
“You don’t plan to, but it doesn’t cause you trouble either?”
“If that’s how I look, I’ll take it as a compliment.”
Snorting faintly, Gill lit his cigarette. He hadn’t expected Lizel to respond to the part about his love life instead of his profession.