I exited from Dorrendale and passed by the destroyed city of Gaia, stepping over some of the scattered debris outside of the city, when I saw somebody sitting behind some trees. They were wearing a black cloak... almost looking like something an assassin would wear.
I approached them slowly, readying my skills to shoot at the man before I alerted him. "Hey. Are you Ipa?" I asked him. He turned around and peered up at me before turning his head again.
"Yeah. Buzz off, I'm waiting for a high-value target to come to this field." He said.
"Yeah. I'm that high-value target. Anima, the one who contacted you with [Clairvoyance]." I told him. Ipa seemed surprised while turning around and dodging backward. He brandished a small, curvy dagger close to his face and looked at me with dull eyes again. They were blue, almost a cerulean color, but had a dull shade within them that darkened them past that. His hair was eccentric, with brown hair and pink highlights on the ends.
"So, you really trust an assassin like me? What the hell is wrong with you?" Ipa asked me.
"I want revenge against Joro. I was told to contact you to see if you'd help me. So, would you help me?" I asked him. Ipa put away his dagger and put his hand on his hips while staring out into the field.
"I don't know who told you I'd help you... who sent you to me? How do you know my name?" Ipa asked me. He was very... careful with his actions.
"Oh come on. Don't worry about it. I know you were close with Joro and I know you are currently an assassin, so I want you to work with me to take down that piece of shit." I told Ipa.
"Luckily for you, we have the same goal. Alright, I'll team up with you. The name is Ipa, and you are?" I shook Ipa's hand as he greeted me. I told him my name and he nodded, taking me to his base in the middle of the forest.
It was an empty shack with nothing inside of it besides a piece of paper on a wooden desk near the back. "And what exactly is this?" I asked Ipa. I had to make sure this wasn't an ambush, but I didn't think he'd be the type if we both had the same goal.
"It's a Mana Marking, something you put on your friends if you don't want to hurt them. Like a mark to show we're in the same party." Ipa told me. I nodded. All he was doing was drawing on a piece of paper. It seemed like he wasn't lying, but I wondered why he wanted to kill Joro after working with him for so long.
"What's your story? I mean, that getup... the hair..." I asked, but I realized how impolite that sounded as it came out of my mouth. Luckily, Ipa didn't even show an inkling of caring at all.
"Joro and I used to be brothers. We were sent here together to be Heroes for this world, but Joro didn't click so well with the nations. He got into political warfare within other nations and was banned from a lot of them. We have these things called skills when we're summoned as Heroes... and Joro picked a skill that made any magic attack have maximum potency. Then, he started killing others to learn their skills and I had to back out, otherwise, I would be hunted as well. And the hair? I can't really explain that, I was born with it. This getup? This is my outfit as a Hero." He told me.
He didn't seem to know I was a Hero... but if he told me, then I don't care. "I know, I'm a Hero as well. Except, I won't tell what skill I picked. All I can say is this." I summoned a health potion out of my inventory as I was talking and threw it toward Ipa. Once he caught it, he had a look of surprise on him.
"Wow... does this skill have a downside?" He asked me. I was confused, what did he mean by that?
"Depending on the conversation you had with that shiny shithead up in that tree, he sometimes gives skills with a secret rule or consequence when you use it. With my brother's skill, the magic attacks only have maximum potency when directed at humans. My skill doesn't have a consequence, but you should be careful with those potions." Ipa told me. I nodded. I don't think I talked bad to Yggdrasil... but it was interesting he saw all of the same things I did.
"Do you have any sort of plan?" I asked Ipa. He gave me the slip of paper and placed it on the forearm of my real arm. Once he saw the slime arm, he turned to look up at me.
"Are you a slime in disguise or something? What's up with that?" He asked me.
"I can't say, but no, I'm a real person," I said, pulling on the skin on the real arm. Ipa nodded and the Mana Marking was planted on me. It wouldn't rub off either. After it appeared on my arm, I had a notification in my interface that Ipa and I were now in a party.
"You might not like this part, but we need more people working toward the same goal as us. We need to expand our horizons. I'm built for stealth combat since I'm the Dagger Hero, and you can't do good damage since you're the Magic Hero... so we need more people to cover our weaknesses." Ipa said.
"Oh... so this is the part of the world when I go to increase the numbers in my party... hey, Ipa, how in the hell are we going to do that?" I asked him.
"Easily. I'm popular, and when I put on the guild board that I'm looking for members, they'll come flocking in." Ipa said. I looked at him unamused.
"I am not going to that damn guild board, I don't care about how it works. Just tell me when you pick somebody out." As I complained, Ipa put his hand on my shoulder and dug his nails into it.
"They're members of our party, not mine. You will judge with me. Let's go." Ipa took the lead as we walked back to where I came from, in Dorrendale, to look for new party members.
As much as I hated guilds, the only reason I listened was that Shima and Daria deserved justice, and by killing Joro by any means, I will achieve that justice.
"Ipa! Are there any cars in this world? Wait, are you from Earth as well?" I asked him, catching up with his pacing toward Dorrendale.
"Of course I'm from Earth! All Heroes are! And no, they don't have cars yet. The closest thing they have is a sewage system that barely works." Ipa told me. I could also invent technology so long as I learned material crafting, right?