After her late night conversation with Will, Grace felt more conflicted than ever. Looking back it felt like her decisions had grown more and more pathetic—leaving the Party of Heroes to form her own group, going to Ferrera to avoid direct confrontation with the demons, taking long breaks between dungeon runs. She hadn't even made any attempts to look for the information on the demons that she had allegedly come to Ferrera to seek out.

And now it felt like she was at yet another turning point deciding the future of their party, and how they'd choose to face the state of the world they had found themselves in. With Will having lost his blessing, their party felt even more pathetic and helpless than ever before, but to admit as much felt like betraying the conviction to help people that had been burning in her heart ever since they had arrived in this world.

"Are you sure this is the right move?" Will asked as he followed her on the backstreets of Peral on their way to the trading company. "I mean we could just try training harder in the dungeons, or finding some elusive master to help us further our talents. Why involve ourselves like this?"

Grace sighed. "We need information, Will. We've been navigating blind off of the info Aver dumped on us when we first got here, but we're not in Aver anymore. There's no one here to protect us, so if we can't be overpowered, we have to be crafty."

"But the beasts…Aren't they associated with the demons? What if they get suspicious of us, and send someone to kill us while they know we're weak?"

"That's precisely why we're pitching ourselves as potential allies. At the very least they should want to test our loyalty before doing anything to us. And unless there's some hidden way of fishing out heroes I don't know about, even if they're suspicious of us they shouldn't know for certain we're not just regular adventurers."

"I know, but still…" He rubbed his hands. "It just makes me nervous is all. Feels like we're walking right into the lion's den."

"We don't even know if this trading company is associated with the demons. For all we know they might just happen to have lots of beastkin employees."

"..."

"..."

They both knew how thin that lie was, but Will had no desire to poke further holes in Grace's attempts to ease their tension. And Grace had no desire to make further excuses

***

"What's taking them so long?" Will whispered to Grace as they sat in the waiting room, the silence of the soundproofed room thick all around them.

Will was too suspicious to drink anything they had offered, but Grace was either nervous or fearless enough that she had been slowly working her way through her cup of tea.

"Perhaps their staff are busy, or perhaps it's merely a show of intimidation. Let's wait before we come to any conclusions."

The silence they fell into again didn't last long before the door cracked open. In walked a tall, elegant woman with silver hair. Tiny, reflective white scales shimmered at various places on her face and along her arms, making her piercing yellow eyes stand out all the more. Behind her came the Verouth cat girl who had served them tea not long after they first arrived in the waiting room.

Neither Will nor Grace had ever heard of a beast species like the woman in front of them, but it didn't particularly surprise them as they hadn't exactly studied the various beast species of Andar.

The scaled woman walked into the room a few steps then paused looking at her guests with an elegant smile. "Sorry for the wait, my name is Evera Silverscale, I'm the current head of this branch of the Besari Trade Company."

"I heard you want to help the Beasts?"

***

Evera walked into the room, Selicia tailing behind her, and immediately her eyes alongside her magical senses roved up and down the guests, taking in as much as she could about them.

The girl who was said to have an aura of the divine had slightly brown skin, black hair, and narrow eyes that seemed to be reminiscent of the racial traits of humans living in the far east of the continent. She had the aura of a leader, and sat straight and calm despite her pulse quickening at the sight of her.

The boy who was evidently some kind of follower or servant, though Evera picked up on a hint of romantic tension between the two, was fair skinned, with blond hair with a smattering of freckles. If the girl had truly come from the east it might have been remarkable to have ended up with such a boy, as easterners tended to be more secretive and reclusive, but Evera had heard that the group of summoned heroes were rather racially diverse as far as humans went, so it was yet another point towards them being heroes.

Evera paused a few steps away from the door, giving a polite space before she approached. "Sorry for the wait, my name is Evera Silverscale, I'm the current head of this branch of the Besari Trade Company." Of course she was the head of all the branches of the trade company, but she didn't feel the need to scare them quite yet.

"I heard you want to help the Beasts?"

The girl took a breath before she spoke, evidently calming her nerves so she could speak confidently. "Yes, my name is Alicia, and this is my companion Gill. We're adventurers from the Kingdom of Aver. On our travels we've seen some of the horrible ways that Beast slaves are being treated, and when we heard that there was a trading company here who had some affiliation with Beasts we decided to come inquire if there was any way we could be of help."

Selicia, standing behind Evera narrowed her eyes at the similarities to what they had said when they first entered the shop. Evidently this was a statement they had carefully prepared, if not rehearsed.

Evera sat calmly and confidently across from the pair, suppressing any tics she might ordinarily exhibit as she took on her usual pleasant but empty sales persona. Their names were probably fake. The fact that they even came out and said they were from Aver…was it just dumb confidence they wouldn't be discovered, or are they trying to hint at their real identity? "Is that so? And what exactly do you think you might be able to help my people with?" Evera deliberately said 'my people,' to imply she was a Beast, even though that wasn't actually the case.

Grace subtly rubbed her hands together to calm herself, putting on a polite smile. "We're not too sure ourselves, as we've just arrived in this country, and don't know much about the situation. That's why we decided to come and ask advice from someone more familiar with the situation than we are."

"Is that so?" Evera continued her facade of polite inquiry. "Then why don't you tell me more about you and your companions so I might get a sense of what capabilities you have to offer."

Grace narrowed her eyes, her heart beating fiercely in her chest. Dammnit, how much should I give this woman??? She took a deep breath, closing her eyes for a moment as she tried to sort the information that she could give from what she absolutely couldn't. "Of course," She said after a moment. "We're a party of six," Grace immediately started regretting being the first one to give information, but she couldn't very well stop now that she had made this choice. "According to the standards of Aver's adventuring guild we'd probably have the power of about a B-rank party, though we were still C-rank when we left."

"Oh? Your growth rate must be extraordinary to have advanced so quickly."

"N-no," Grace faltered, immediately realizing her mistake. Other adventurers don't grow this quickly dammnit! "We haven't been adventurers for all that long, so our rank was a little low as it takes time for them to allow you to climb the ranks."

"I see." Evera let her off the hook, not wanting to strip away their disguise just yet. "And what kind of work have you mostly been doing?"

Grace's heart ached at having to give up so much information without having gotten anything in return, but if she could form a connection here it really would be worth it, and she hadn't actually given up much about their party composition…yet. "Mostly dungeon work as it pays well. And, well…" Grace didn't know why she was about to give this up, but something told her that it was better to be honest in this moment. "We're not too used to killing people, so it's easier in that way as well."

Evera felt a smile blossoming underneath her firmly controlled mask. Oh this was good, she could use this.

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