Bastion's celebration loomed ever closer. Mason had secured entry to the event, along with an invitation that listed Luke as his companion. Jack, meanwhile, had been slipping through alleys to their hideout, leaving bundles of supplies in an abandoned house nearby. Evangeline insisted on the precaution: if anyone trailed him, they wouldn't trace the goods back to the group.

Inside the fortress, the Haven folk who had remained behind worked steadily on repairs. They patched cracks in the stone, reinforced barricades, and shored up inner defenses. Nothing obvious, nothing that would rouse suspicion if a scout wandered too close.

Through Jack came further news: Bartholomew had sent scouting parties deeper into the other section of the tutorial zone. His eyes were elsewhere. He was convinced Luke had fled in that direction.

So Luke's last few days had been reduced to two things. Waiting, and learning how to walk in high heels.

"Why the hell do I have to practice this crap?" Luke muttered, or rather, Lucy muttered, teetering in the heels with murderous irritation.

Evangeline, arms folded, pressed a folding fan into his hand.

"You need to be a charming woman," she said.

"Charming? I just need to stay at that damned party for a few minutes and then vanish!"

She sighed, long-suffering. "We need you to draw attention without drawing attention. If someone spots you in a corridor, you'll have to improvise. You'll need confidence, mystery, allure, charm."

"I'll just say, 'I got lost, I was looking for the bathroom.'" Luke collapsed into a chair, sulking.

"That's not how it works, idiot." Evangeline snapped the fan shut with a crack. "And if the soldier tells you to go back to the party, then what?"

Luke froze mid-thought. "I'll… improvise?"

The fan smacked against the table. "You need to be seductive."

"I'm not seducing anyone!" Luke shot to his feet, glaring at her.

"Lucy, you have to use charm to captivate. Lure a guard somewhere quiet, then knock him out."

"I'll just kill the guard and stash him in my storage item," Luke replied flatly.

"You'd kill an innocent soldier?"

He clicked his tongue, annoyance biting through the room.

"Being the good guy sucks…" he muttered.

Evangeline stepped closer, her gaze sharp enough to cut. "As a woman, you've got the confidence of a monkey."

She flicked a folded sheet of paper onto the table.

"What's this?" Lucy asked, suspicion in his tone.

"Lines I wrote for you, based on my kunoichi seduction techniques. Memorize them. I even noted when to use each one."

Luke skimmed the paper. With each line his face darkened, veins throbbing at his temple. "I'm not saying any of this. I'd rather die than say this."

"Your choice, Luke. But your life depends on it," Evangeline replied without flinching.

The absurdity of the exchange hung in the air, but the plan itself was no joke. They returned to reviewing it, voices low and serious. Step one: Mason would escort Luke into the banquet. Step two: Luke needed to escape unnoticed. The ballroom had only one exit, guarded and well lit. Whether he tried to walk out boldly or seep through the doors as mist, both options carried risk. Mason's role was clear: create a diversion strong enough to draw every eye, buying Luke the precious seconds to slip away.

From there, the path led to a marked spot on the map, the cleaning supply room. That was where Luke would shed the gown and disguise himself again, this time in a maid's uniform. Evangeline herself had stitched it together from memory, piecing details Jack and Mason provided. A disguise meant for survival, not vanity.

The fan still lay on the table between them, its folded ribs like the teeth of a trap.

Disguised as a maid, Luke would make his way through the fortress toward the mechanism at its center. The place had been sealed off long ago, hidden behind freshly raised walls. No one knew of it except Bartholomew and Kruger. His task was simple in theory: carve a hole through the barrier.

According to Evangeline, the wall wasn't particularly thick. Bartholomew had made sure of that, in case he ever needed access himself. Even so, Luke would have to breach it quietly, slip inside as mist, and infiltrate the mechanism room without anyone noticing.

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Once finished, he was supposed to retrace his steps, slip back through the same opening, and return to the supply room. There he would swap back into the dress, rejoin the party as if nothing had happened, and remain until it ended. Only then would he leave Bastion's fortress with the others. All of it hinged on drawing no attention.

Of course, they had backup plans. If reentering the party became impossible, Luke could abandon the disguise and make for the stairwell, climbing toward the upper levels in a desperate bid to escape. From there, he might even attempt to leap down from the fortress walls. But that was a last resort. He knew the truth: if it came to that, he wouldn't make it out alive. Erza Grimhart or the soldiers would find him long before he hit the ground.

***

Allison had just returned from the second fortress. She pulled something out of her storage item and set it on the table.

"We got the tool," she said.

They had asked the Haven's smiths and blacksmiths to put their skills to work, forging something that would give them a fighting chance in the mission. A part of Luke had hoped they'd fail, that the thing wouldn't even exist. Another part wanted it badly, because it meant he might actually have a way to pull this whole plan off.

"That's it?" he asked.

"This is a hand auger," Allison explained. "You press it against the wall and twist. It drills a hole. All you have to do is keep turning and applying pressure, like a manual drill."

The purpose was obvious: make a hole wide enough for Luke to slip through in mist form. Normally, boring through the wall with something like that would take close to twenty minutes. But Luke wasn't normal. With his inhuman strength, stamina reinforcement, and the skill Force Infusion applied to the tool, he figured he could do it in under a minute.

"Practice," Evangeline said, tossing the auger to him. "And wear the maid uniform while you do it… just to set the mood."

A vein throbbed at his temple. She was clearly messing with him.

'Wow, this is going to be amazing', the voice in his head chimed. 'A gala dress and then a maid outfit, all in one night. The gods couldn't have scripted a better punishment. Maybe throw in a sultry voice for your master? Or drop something on the floor like a clumsy maid: "I'm so sorry, master, please punish me however you see fit."'

You swore you'd be mature about this, Luke shot back irritably. You even said the gods don't care about gender. Looks a lot like you're just enjoying yourself.

Hey, can you blame me? You, in a gown and then in a maid uniform? That's a cosmic-level event, man.

Luke decided the only winning move was to ignore her. He pulled the necklace from around his neck, setting his storage item on the table.

"There's something I need to tell you," he said. "This necklace… it's a talking item."

He'd been putting this off, waiting for the right moment. If he was going to finish the tutorial, then Allison deserved to know the truth, that this place was actually a fragment of the first universe, long destroyed. After what he'd seen in the chamber of the second mechanism, it was obvious the main quest was tied to something left behind from that lost world. The more they knew, the better chance they had of surviving whatever awaited inside the castle.

"I've been wondering about that all along," Evangeline said. "I remember when I stole it from you, it wouldn't shut up the whole way back."

Allison frowned, staring at Luke. "Wait. What do you mean your necklace talks?"

"That's right, Allison," came a voice from the pendant. Artemis. "I'm a fully alive, fully conscious item. I've been with you all this time, basically a secret party member. Also, as the president of both fandoms, Luke and Charlie, and Luke and Allison, I have a few things to—"

Before she could say anything else, Luke clamped his hand around the necklace, silencing her with a death grip.

"It really did speak," Allison murmured, leaning closer, eyes bright with intrigue. "Seems like a pretty powerful item… like my necklace, a family heirloom."

She lifted Luke's pendant into her hand, turning it carefully between her fingers. The chain gleamed dully in the lamplight, but its weight was heavier than gold. Because it was soulbound, Allison's Identify skill revealed nothing. To her, it was simply a mystery sealed shut.

"Interesting," Evangeline remarked, arms folded as she studied it. "How did you even get something like this?"

"A special orb quest," Luke replied, keeping his tone casual. "Let's just say it was a gift from a divine order that tried to recruit me."

Allison set the necklace back on the table with care. "And did you accept?"

Luke's throat tightened. What was he supposed to say? That it had come courtesy of his adoptive father's servant, a demon god, dictator, conqueror of universes?

"I haven't pledged to any order yet," he said instead, deflecting smoothly. "But I did get this axe."

He drew out the minotaur's weapon and placed it beside the necklace. The blade caught the light with a dull menace, far too heavy for decoration. Supposedly, it was a gift from the Order of the God of the Forge. Yet Luke suspected it hadn't been meant for him at all, just another relic stumbled upon in the chaos of battle, claimed when he brought down the beast.

"Figures. The gods are just amusing themselves at our expense," Evangeline said flatly, her voice carrying the sting of certainty.

"To them, our lives don't matter. Tutorial or not, all they want are followers," Allison added, the distaste in her tone sharpening every word.

"Did you know Jerry, my raven, was a gift from a Divine Order?" Evangeline said suddenly.

"A gift?" Luke blinked. "That stupid bird?"

He hadn't expected that. If the gods could hand out items, then familiars weren't off the table either.

"I got a special mission orb," Evangeline explained. "It told me to kill an alpha raven inside the Wall Dungeon. When I did, I received the familiar rune for Jerry."

"And which order gave it to you?" Luke asked.

"Something tied to scouting. A god called the Black Raven, I think."

Scout? The word tugged at him. Wasn't that one of the classes a god had offered him too?

Luke's mind pieced it together as silence stretched between them. Evangeline's class was all about stealth. So was his. It didn't take much to see the pattern: this deity favored those who thrived in the shadows. Spies, assassins, thieves. Prime recruits for an order built on secrets.

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