The Villain's Sword Is Sharp

What kind of question was that? He was Isaac Dahl, the man who squeezed benefits out of people like you squeezed water out of a sponge! He was as changeable as a chameleon; he could adapt to near enough anything! However, if there was one thing he did better than adapting to new situations, it was planning ahead. He'd already considered all the likely outcomes of his scheme, including the possibility of being reported on the first day. That was why he decided to take preventative measures before that could happen.

After collecting somebody else's hard-earned mission rewards for the 5th time, Isaac returned to his comfortable chair by the entrance. He wasn't waiting for anybody else to enter; all the people who'd taken his first group of mixed-up missions had already come and gone. Instead, he was waiting for somebody to leave.

Freyja came off duty at 8 pm. Today she'd taken the afternoon shift at the task submission desk in the Adventurers' Hall and it'd been a day full of ups and downs. At first there had been trouble with some annoying groups and that silver-haired kid, but a good opportunity had presented itself near the end of the day. As she walked towards the exit of the hall, she was still thinking about what to do with that opportunity when a calm and crisp voice brought her away from her thoughts and back to reality.

"Hello miss, could we have a brief talk? Perhaps I can take you for a drink."

At first she thought it was another idiotic newcomer trying to court her. She turned towards the voice, ready to bluntly refuse, when she saw who the speaker was: a young man with short silver hair and piercing pale blue eyes. The words of refusal caught in her throat and she fake coughed,

"*Ahem* What did you want to talk to me about?"

"I know we had a bit of a falling out today, so I just hoped I could buy you a drink, we could talk and smooth things over. Perhaps you could even do me a favour."

Isaac tried to make the conversation sound as natural as possible for the people around them while also making sure Freyja knew what he was talking about. Just to make sure she got the right idea, he secretly slipped a reward token into her hand. Freyja was slightly surprised when she felt Isaac's hand grasp hers, but then she felt the shape of the item he gave her and instantly guessed what it was. She realised that this wasn't an invitation to a date and felt much better.

"Do you have anywhere in particular you want to go?"

"Somewhere with a good atmosphere. I prefer lively places with lots of people and noise; perhaps 'The Drunken Goose'?"

"Alright."

The pair quickly left the Adventurers' Hall and headed through the streets towards the Rank 1 district's entertainment sector. When they reached the sector – which included bars, tea shops, theatres, a red-light district and several other attractions – they walked down the main street. There were 4 pubs on this street, but they entered the one on the corner. Its sign had a grey goose dipping its beak into a pint glass of beer, underneath which was a name in bold letters, 'The Drunken Goose'.

Isaac opened the door to the pub, causing a small bell above him to tinkle. However, he couldn't even hear it over the raucous chatter and laughter which filled the pub. Thankfully it was just past 8 pm, so the place wasn't completely full: the people who came here for dinner at about 6 had mostly left, but the heavy drinkers who turned up at 9 or 10 hadn't arrived yet. Isaac found one of the few empty tables at the edge of the room and sat down there with Freyja. Neither of them ordered drinks, they just sat there and subtly looked around to check nobody was listening to them. Thankfully, the ambient noise would mask most of their conversation and stop anybody overhearing them, which was why Isaac chose this place.

"I assume you want me to stop me reporting the suspicious circumstances around your missions? It'll cost more than 1 reward point."

Freyja got right to the point. Isaac liked that.

"Every day you delay the report, I'll pay you 5 reward points. If somebody else notices and reports it, I'll make sure not to implicate you: if anyone asks why you didn't report me earlier, you can justify it by saying nothing I did broke the rules, giving you no reason to make a report."

Isaac's proposition was very enticing for Freyja. Just waiting for 2 days before reporting Isaac would earn her more than a week's wages. And that was if she decided to report Isaac at all; if she did her best to cover this up, she could keep earning 5 reward points a day for a very long time. On top of that, she would have a chance to build a good relationship with Isaac which would inevitably become useful when he grew stronger. She only doubted whether Isaac could keep her out of trouble if things went south.

"It's obvious that you're breaking the rules in some way or another. If I don't report something this suspicious and then you get caught disobeying the sect rules, it'll inevitably fall back on me!"

"I promise you I'm not breaking the rules. If you don't trust me, then there's nothing I can do: our deal won't go any further than this."

Freyja sighed. Of course she didn't actually believe him, but this deal was too good to pass up over some minor worries! She would just have to deal with her superior's suspicions later on.

"... If you're really not breaking the rules, then I guess I can help keep your secret. I won't report whatever you're doing to the missions for as long as I can."

"Good. Here's 5 reward points. Every day I'll meet you here at this time to pay you."

With that, Freyja nodded and stood up. She walked out of the bar, leaving Isaac to mull over his thoughts alone. He ordered a drink and sipped at it while thinking about how long he could actually keep his deeds hidden. Obviously Freyja wasn't the only one who looked at the mission files, and anybody who saw his would notice how unusually fast he completed missions. There were also people working the other desks who might see Isaac repeatedly going to turn in missions and think it looked suspicious. Any number of freak coincidences could also lead to him getting caught.

Unless Isaac paid off the entire department, he couldn't stop himself being discovered eventually. The question was, could he gather enough resources before then? To ensure that he did, Isaac decided to mess with a higher number of missions. That involved getting up even earlier in the morning to visit the mission board and change several mission numbers.

After deciding on this, Isaac knocked back the last of his drink and left the pub.

On his way home, he admired the thousands of stars dotting the sky and the bright crescent moon which stood among them. Out of the hundreds of billions of celestial bodies in the galaxy, only this one moon caught his attention. It reminded Isaac how difficult it was to truly stand out.

No matter how good you were, there was always somebody better than you. That was what people said, wasn't it?

But it wasn't always true. Just look at the moon: which of those 100,000,000,000 other celestial bodies could match its splendour tonight? Which was more impressive than it? Rather than accepting that there would always be somebody better than him, Isaac looked up at the moon and reaffirmed his belief: there would always be one person who was the best – somebody who stood unmatched throughout all of history. He desired to be that person.