Aside from a few since-deleted projects which Jessica would only admit to under threat of torture, she had never used her meager voice acting skills. Now, at long last, she was about to squeeze some value out of her adolescent obsession.
“I bear a package from Her Majesty, Queen Samara, intended for the eyes of Captain Aster only,” Jessica said from atop her stallion.
Riza supported her with a serious nod.
The quartet of guards manning the door to the keep looked astonished. Jessica, with her generic servant dress and war stallion, did not look like the typical courier.
“How’s we s’posed to know the package you’ve got’s from the queen, eh? Could be witchly poison in there for all we know,” a hook-nosed guard said.
Jessica pulled out a wooden box wrapped in paper with a red wax seal pressed over it. “It’s got the royal seal.”
“Oh! It’s got the royal seal does it? How do we know you didn’t stick it there yourself?” said a guard with a metal cap.
“Enough of this foolishness!” Jessica said, her voice resonating through the trees. “By the authority of Queen Samara, I demand you cease this comedy skit and let me in at once!”
The hook-nosed guard covered his ears. “Alright, alright. Calm down. Can’t be too careful these days with all the trouble.”
A little quest marker went off in Jessica’s brain. “Trouble? What kind?”
“Biggest thing’s the SSLA, but we’ve also got monsters about. Morkals and the like.”
Riza suddenly looked interested.
“Morkal is— I mean, there’s a Morkal nearby?” Jessica asked.
“Not this side of the wall, that’s for damn sure. But I have it on good authority there’s one making dangerous brews and whatnot nearby. Likely in kahoots with the SSLA.”
Another guard folded his arms. “On whose good authority?”
“On Bill’s, that’s who!” the first shot back.
This silenced the other three guards who nodded solemnly at Bill’s good authority.
Jessica was more interested about Morkal. The monstress hadn’t mentioned anything about a body all the way up north. Not that Jessica had asked. And it was probably safer for Jessica not to know where all of Morkal was in case she ended up at Mystiferia’s mercy again.
“And what about the SSLA? Who are they?” she asked.
The guard’s hook nose turned up in a sneer. “The Slave and Serf Liberation Army. Bandits who think reading books, talking fancy, and using big words means they can get away with breaking the law. Rumor has it they’re working with a morkal to build machines of war like outta the old days of the Demon King. King Capra’ll lick ‘em though.”
Based on the acronym, Jessica was 99% certain there was an adventurer at the root of things. If Tushita was about living out fantasies in an isekai world, there had to be at least one tankie larper off doing his own thing. Not that it seemed particularly urgent. Morkal wouldn’t be working with someone like that and the mischief a turbo-online teenage edgelord with no knowledge of science or engineering could get up to was minimal.
Jessica hopped off Burnish and handed his reins to one of the guards before helping Riza down. They were about to walk inside when the metal-capped guard stopped her.
“Your slave has to stay outside.”
“She’s not a slave,” Jessica explained.
He pointed at Riza’s neck. “She’s got a collar on.”
“It’s decorative.”
“So what is she?”
Riza piped up. “I am in bondage to—”
Jessica slapped her hand over Riza’s mouth. “She’s collecting volunteer service hours. For a scholarship.”
The arcane power of a word like ‘scholarship’ confounded the guard into letting them in despite mumblings about how she was going to dirty up the place. Once inside, Jessica had no trouble finding Captain Aster. The fort was essentially just a three-story log cabin with holes to shoot crossbows from. On the top floor were racks of weapons and maps with markers set out across a table. Leaning over one of these maps was a tall man with brawny shoulders, a buzzcut, and a face marred with shaving scars.
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“Captain Aster, I presume?” Jessica asked, still employing her voice acting skills.
He looked up at her and grunted. “I am. What do you want?”
Riza hid behind Jessica, at which point the captain’s eyes unwrinkled and he looked slightly embarrassed.
“Apologies for the curtness. It’s been a hard week and I didn’t know you were an adventurer.”
“I am indeed an adventurer. My name is Jessica and this is my voluntary companion, Riza,” Jessica said.
Captain Aster’s eyes flicked to the steel collar around Riza’s neck. “I see. Well, how can I assist you, Jessica? If you’re looking for a quest I am sorry to say we have none. The SSLA is a… tricky situation. We can’t ask adventurers to go deal with it because it would involve fighting another adventurer.”
Jessica made note of the singular ‘adventurer.’ The careful way Aster was speaking suggested this was a deliberate word choice.
“I was sent by Her Majesty, Queen Samara to deliver a package for your eyes only,” she said, setting the paper-wrapped box on the table beside the map.
Aster’s eyes flew open. His pupils dilated.
“Out! All of you, out!” he yelled at his subordinate officers who hastily fled for the stairs. Jessica was about to follow them when he added, “You and your voluntary slave can stay, miss Jessica. I know an adventurer would not misjudge the contents of this box.”
Jessica nodded gravely, her pulse quickening at the thought of what might be in it. If it was a weapon to wipe out the SSLA, that might entail killing an adventurer. She had come to realize this was the ultimate taboo in Tushita, despite Hayek’s attempts to break it.
Captain Aster took the box gently in his hand and sliced the wax seal with a knife. The wrapping unfurled like a gossamer flower to reveal a lacquered blue box with designs of swans and roses. He opened the sliding lid inch by inch until all of Jessica’s senses were contained in the quiet shuffling of wood on wood. From this box he pulled a long piece of cloth whose purpose Jessica could only speculate on until it reached the end where it bent into a crook. The Captain smooshed it to his nose and drew a breath like a drowning man saved.
“Oh my Sammy! Your scent puts to shame all the perfumes of Punamets? and incense of Al-Mazra'a,” he said in-between long sniffs.
Sammy. As in, Samara. Queen Samara. Jessica’s nose wrinkled. The package she had been sent to deliver was the queen’s stocking. She couldn’t tell what was worse, the delivery, or Aster’s insinuation that Jessica would understand because she was an adventurer. Wanting this to be over quicker, she fished around in her bag for the delivery receipt.
“Right. If you could sign this we can be on our—”
“I knew as an adventurer you would not judge me. That you would understand,” Captain Aster said, cradling the stocking.
“Yeah, no, completely. I just need—”
“I envy you adventurers. Not for your access to powerful magic or your exciting lifestyle or your harems…”
Jessica whistled and mimed writing something in mid-air.
“What I envy is the experience of being reborn into a world where you know no one. Where no one will pass judgement on you for your needs and desires. Where your fantasies can be explored to their fullest.”
“My biggest fantasy is to have you sign this delivery receipt.”
“Oh... yes. Give it here.”
Jessica had to pin the receipt down to the table as Captain Aster signed it one-handed, his other hand pressing the stocking to his nose. She could see the receipt said something generic about textile supplies for the Fort Neusa garrison. Her job completed, Jessica was about to leave when she remembered she had some useful information for the captain.
“By the way, I expect you will soon hear news about a bandit associated with the SSLA attacking a market up the road and escaping with a slave. Queen Samara has tasked me with tracking them down and bringing them to justice. However, due to the sensitivity of the investigation, we ask that you keep your men out of the way. If any inquire, let them know royal investigators are on the case,” Jessica said, flashing some finger guns for good measure.
Captain Aster didn’t seem to hear much past ‘Queen Samara’ but gave Jessica a thumbs up.
“Thank you for your service,” he said.
Jessica saluted and departed.
Outside, she accepted Burnish’s reins and walked the horse out to the King’s Road with a promise of more peppermint candy. She helped Riza up after her and then they were off.
The marketplace she rescued Riza from was easy to avoid due to the way the valley bent outward. All they had to do was keep close to one cliff face and they were free. What did prove a challenge, however, was the fatigue of riding virtually non-stop since that morning. Especially since this was her first time riding at all. Jessica knew she was in trouble when they were still an hour or two shy of the prairie and she let out a world-destroying yawn.
“Ahhhhhwawawaaahhh. Num num. I’m about to pass out on top of this horse.”
“You are so large you would die,” Riza said.
“I know. You need to keep me awake,” Jessica replied.
“How?”
“Conversation might help. Tell me about yourself, Riza.”
This stumped the lizard girl who could only offer some facts Jessica already knew, like that she came from the Sapikola tribe and that she was a warrior and the last of her people and that her favorite food was snow crabs.
“How about how old you are?” Jessica asked.
“How old? Ah, you mean how many summers I have. Twenty.”
“How old is that relative to uh… human people?”
Riza let out a scratchy laugh. “Animalar have similar lifespans to humans. Our bodies are quite similar, after all. Besides the tails and ears.”
Riza’s scaly blue-white tail popped out from where it lay tucked against the saddle and wagged in front of Jessica’s face. Jessica brushed it out of the way with her hand so it wouldn’t block her view and Riza gasped. Her face looked like Jessica’s after a bottle of soju.
“Sorry! I didn’t know your tail was so sensitive or I would’ve—”
“Hehehe. You can do it again if you’d like.”
“Duly noted, but no thank you,” Jessica said, her mind filled with the serene, platonic zen that accompanied avoiding a trip to university HR.
“Are you sure? I have heard it is quite—”
“Fortunately,” Jessica said, her voice shooting up to a half-yell. “I have a friend for you to meet once we return to Elsifeya Castle and I am sure you two will have so much fun together and she can play with your tail all you like. How does that sound?”
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