Wow, Tess seems really down, seeing how she keeps avoiding my eyes. What now, you silly tall blonde? You keep bullying me by reading me like a book and then saying how you will take care of everything. So, what will you do now?

"Tess, just let me. I'll take care of everything," the moment I say that, I can see she realizes what I'm poking at and how much fun I'm having.

Right now, Tess really seems like an angry kitten.

“Feral one, you truly are ruthless,” Myrra, the first lynthari I met even before I entered the city, notices as well. She's a level 188 Elemental Warden, the highest level I've seen so far in the city.

“Nat, you know it's not our fault. They kept trying to force us into their dumb guild,” Lilly says in their defense.

“Ha! Blackrock was just a pawn, a small guild. It's one of the five big ones that wanted you guys and operates behind the scenes,” Myrra tells Lily and I listen to them in the back of my mind.

So, things went like this: Tess and Lily were imprisoned. We learned about it a bit later from the association of guilds, and then things went downhill. Normally, they would just get out, as I'm sure they were innocent, but one of the five largest guilds in the city kept meddling behind the scenes to the point where they could spend a really long time in there.

I'm sure during that time they would try everything to get Lily, because, of course, it's always the healers these guys are after.

This is what Hadwin and Sophie found out, and then I got the idea to use Myrra here, who left me her address in case I was looking for a job.

Exactly as I expected from her level and wealth, she seems important, and it took only a few hours to get to this point, with Myrra being really helpful.

“Well, it's the lynthari that rule the city. I didn't expect you to be so corrupt.” I tell her.

“Feral one, obviously they are corrupt. Only our young ones help with the leadership of the city, and they like to mess around,” Myrra giggles and her tail continues to swing from side to side as she shows me her sharp canines.

She seems to be enjoying herself, “Usually this wouldn't have happened, but you guys seem to have caught the interest of someone high up there,” she narrows her eyes, looking at Lily, "Is it because of her?”

“Nope,” I say.

At that, Myrra becomes even more amused, and even her ears perk up a bit. The entire time, I feel her mana in the surrounding area, touching each of us carefully, observing us. There is especially a lot of it around me, and even her eyes seem to glow slightly in the dimly lit prison cells.

When we start walking outside of the prison, a few human guards and a single lynthari that's present even bow to her, letting us pass without any problem. There, we meet Hadwin, who is here with Aaron, and Tess and Lily rejoin them.

“I'll be back a bit later,” I wave at them and then continue to walk by Myrra's side.

“Your friends are also interesting, aren't they?” she licks her lips.

“Why don't you tell me, why are you so interested in us, Myrra? In exchange, you can also ask me something,” I offer.

Walking through groups of people that are still out on the streets, she gives me a long, examining look before answering, “All of you are young, yet I can smell powerful skills from you. That much isn't that surprising, but I can even recognize that you are someone who only started dealing with mana not a long time ago. A few months, a year at most. Yet…” she doesn't finish.

A few lynthari recognize her and gesture a greeting towards her. Myrra returns that greeting with a smile.

“It's something new to me and let me tell you, I rarely get to deal with something new and interesting,” her eyes full of mana seem to pierce through me. She also probably has some skills or maybe a trait that allows her to know that much.

I just keep bumping into all these old weirdos who are so bored that they don't have anything better to do than just bully poor old me.

“Moreover, it's fun to observe humans once in a while. Humans live shorter lives, much shorter than us lynthari, so just watching them, living, expressing all these emotions is exciting. I especially like to watch humans like you, feral one,” she shows me more of her canines.

Myrra is tall, easily two or three heads taller than me, the same as all lynthari who tower over humans. And she is powerful. Her level isn't that high, but she did have a lot of time to master her skills and her power, and that's evident even to the naked eye.

She continues, “You seem so distant. So prideful and so confident. Almost regal. Like Champions of ancient times. It makes me want to see you broken,” her tail stops moving, she opens her eyes wide, and a shadow lands on her face, “I want to see you crawl, defeated, I want to see you begging for mercy after being beaten by your enemies. I want to see you cry.” her voice is full of emotion.

The tall lynthari takes a step closer, our faces nearly touching as she bends down, “And even more than that, I want to see you succeed. I want to see you prove that you are as powerful as you think you are. Oh, just the sight of you tearing apart your enemies with that distant look on your face and with your beautiful eyes,” she sighs while showing dreamy expression.

Dude.

System, what the fuck is wrong with you and with all these people within the tutorial?

I quickly leave as soon as I can. Thankfully, Myrra still seems somewhat amused and doesn't ask for anything for her help, but I'm sure it will come. It almost feels like I made a deal with the devil.

But there's one fun thing: she says she will leave it up to us to deal with all this stuff and if we don't push it too far, she will stop other older lynthari from interfering. Another condition is to not hurt lynthari, no matter what they do.

When I reach my house, everyone else is inside.

To be honest, this entire situation is kind of crappy, and I can't imagine what else Tess and Lily could do. Killing people from that small guild or guards would bring more trouble than it's worth. People who went after them seemed to do it with the intention of getting them into prison as they did, they just didn't expect to get beaten so quickly and easily.

“We are free to deal with the guild on our own, but touching lynthari is a no-no, no matter what they do. Minimal damage to stuff not belonging to the guild is also a must,” I say the moment I enter.

That immediately starts a conversation between Haddy, Tess, and Maya.

From the paper I saw before, there are three types of guilds. Simply separated as big, medium, or small. Angry kittens are small if even that. Blackrock is small, slowly becoming medium. The ones supporting are big guilds, and there are five of them here in the city: Luminous Order, Storm Brigade, Serpent's Eye, Obsidian Circle, and Veilwalkers. The one messing with us seems to be Serpent's Eye.

Each of the big five seems to have a guild master that is around the two-hundred-level mark. Guilds mostly consist of humans, and only very rarely are there any lynthari in there.

So, we should expect a guild leader of a bit over 200. A dozen or two guild elites at around 170, a few more dozen at around 150, and maybe a few hundred under level 100. For each big guild.

Yup, I could take them.

“Nat, I hope you didn't have to give up anything to that lynthari,” Hadwin joins me while others converse around the table. I'm once again sitting in the armchair that they now usually reserve for me.

“Oh, no worries, Haddy. She's just one of those weirdos that is more creepy than dangerous.”

“Good. Tess seems annoyed, but I really don't know what she could have done,” Hadwin changes the subject.

“We'll get her to beat up a few people to make her feel better,” I answer him.

At first, I was a bit annoyed with some jerks messing with me right when I started my training, but this doesn't have to be that bad. I can beat up a few people and examine the skill level of someone around my level. I haven't had much opportunity to do so, so I'm quite curious.

Could I take on an entire big guild by myself? Something makes me want to try just that. One Sparrow obliterator 5000 could be enough to wipe out an entire guild house. Or one ANTomic bomb. Would they be as flammable as ants?

Oh boy, let's quickly forget about that. I'm still nervous thinking about it. Leveling shouldn't be that easy, and the system surely won't let it go.

But that also makes me curious. I did deal with a few hundred ants, bus-sized ones. So, how could a much smaller guild compare to them?

The ants were extremely flammable, probably their weakness, and even though they were big, their physical stats weren't that amazing. What was amazing about them was their communication and the way they could fuel each other's skills, and I think that's where plenty of levels and skills went. Otherwise, the ants didn't feel as strong as their level might hint.

A single level 100 ant felt more like a level 50-70 monster. Just a bit big. As always, there are advantages and disadvantages to everything, and something tells me that the guild might be a bit more dangerous than a few hundred ants and that makes it sound fun.

“I think they're not only after Lily; they probably know that we did mess around to get more mana stones, for the bracelet and all the other stuff,” Tess says, and as I catch that, I focus back on the conversation.

“Tess, there's no need to plan that much. Just point me in the right direction, and I will fuck them up,” I tell her.

“No, Nat, I have a better idea,” Tess's eyes glow dangerously, “We will fuck them up.” She stands up, and a smile slowly appears on her face.

Oh boy, she is angry.

“We will beat the leader and his underlings and replace or have Sophie manipulate them. But before we do that, we need to collect more information: their numbers, strength, allies, and locations. We know that the lynthari won't step in, so we just have to deal with humans.”

“I like that,” I say to her.

The way these guys mess around with us feels annoying. It's not like I'm BFF with everyone here, but how dare some lowlife gangster think they can mess with something that I consider mine?

Obviously, taking over a big guild won't be easy. Beating them? Simple. Taking over and making it run as before just with some changes will be a challenge.

A few days have passed and our plan is still very simple. We'll beat up the leadership and see if Sophie can make them... more friendly towards us.

Unfortunately, even this isn't that reliable. I removed her construct from my mind before, didn't I? Well, It's something we'll work around after dealing with them.

So now, everyone is collecting information. We've spent nearly all of our remaining mana stones. Tess keeps watching their headquarters from a distance. Izzy and Sophie as well. Sophie also manipulates a few of the weaker members into telling us everything they know. About mind manipulation, healing skills, their guild — and oh boy, there's a lot.

We were worried that they might know about Sophie, but mind manipulation is something they don't even know is possible, at least not the guild members we asked. As for healing, they really are after Lily... again. Poor girl, always the target of kidnappings and the unfortunate people who try. Only a dumbass would run into her terrifying skill.

Oh, and one of the big five guilds, Serpent's Eye?

Yeah, they're assholes, total assholes. Even lower-ranked members know about some of the shady things the guild does. A little bit of blackmailing, the kind where they ask for money so nothing will happen to your shop. Some stealing of other people's prey. And a few much much worse things.

At first, I thought it was almost childishly villainous, like bad guys from cartoons, and that makes me wonder if it's also something the system changed. You know, creating an environment we are somehow accustomed to.

But the more I listen, the more I realize that all these acts are targeted to gain money, power, or both at once. It seems cartoonish but very human-like.

I also keep forgetting that this is a world where there are people capable of destroying an entire city on their own so the rules are a bit different. Plus, there are the lynthari, all-powerful and always watching with amusement, allowing humans to do nearly whatever within these unsaid basic rules, all in order to have some fun.

In the end, it doesn't matter. Everyone here is just a shadow, a copy of a person who is most likely already dead or maybe even never existed.

And they shouldn't have messed with what is mine.