“W-Wait!” As the group left through the hallway to get back to the front of the guild, a confused Rachel ran after them as fast as she could, which was actually surprisingly quick. She soon stood in front of the party of four, trying to block them from walking any further, “It was you four? You were the party that cleared the fail type?” 

“So what if we are?” Lynol replied, “After Foster tested you, I thought it might be worth it to listen a bit longer, but as it turns out, we would never be able to work together.”

Rae looked at the man in front of her with a deep frown, “Dammit, I already said that it was only something to test your guts, I wouldn’t have let you guys actually go in there! Come on, it’s fine, right? I’m not actually ‘that’ irresponsible!”

“Maybe you’re not irresponsible, but you’re just kind of a dick.” Foster said with a wry smile, “And just totally unprofessional, at that.”

The group stepped past her and was ready to leave, before Rae once more yelled out, “Ten percent! I’ll work with you for a ten percent comission! The regular rate is 15! So it’s a good deal for you guys as well, right?” Even though that was clearly the case, the group continued to walk steadily, not caring.

“I… I’ll work for free, for a month!” Suddenly, she made another offer, that seemed really quite interesting to the group. They stopped and turned around, looking at the handler in front of them. As the party leader, Lynol spoke up, “For free, for a month?” He asked, “Why would you do something like that?”

“…Because you’re a group of beginner tier adventurers that managed to clear a dungeon nobody thought possible for people at your level.” She said bluntly, and Lynol was slightly taken aback. He didn’t expect her to answer in such a blunt manner. She was looking at him like he was an idiot for now realizing the reason, at that.

With a sigh, Lynol looked at the others. Kyla clearly didn’t want to work with her, Octer was on the fence, and Foster overall seemed for it. He was just as annoyed as the others at first earlier, but he worked with worse people in the past, so this was nothing for him. Annoyedly, Lynol stepped past Rae and walked back toward the room they had been talking in earlier, “You wait out here, we’re going to discuss whether or not we want to go for that.” He said immediately, and Rae immediately nodded her head, ready to wait however long she needed to.

Foster closed the door behind him and looked at the others, and they all looked at him.

“What?” he asked, and Lynol shrugged, “You’re the one that wants to work with her the most out of all of us. So, what do you think?”

“Why’re you asking me, she’s the one that can literally read people’s auras.” Foster said, slightly nudging his head toward Kyla, who rolled her eyes in response, “I can figure out things like abilities and if someone is lying, but I can’t figure out someone’s personality yet.” She pointed out, before crossing her arms, “…But… her aura is pretty clean and a nice color, so I don’t think she’s a bad person. She’s just…”

“A dick.” Octer sighed, “In Foster’s words.”

Lynol scratched the back of his head, “If Foster is for it, and you say she’s not a bad person, I guess we can just take her up on it with a few extra conditions. But if either of you ever notice that something is wrong, let me know immediately.” The party leader said, deep in contemplation over what sort of extra conditions he should set.

“I…” Octer said, “I’m still not sure about this, though. She seems sort of… I don’t know, untrustworthy?” She pointed out. Immediately, Foster raised his brow, “Seriously? After all I’ve told you about what I used to do… she seems untrustworthy to you? Trust me, she’s an angel compared to me.” He pointed out, but Octer let out a deep, unsure sigh.

“Right, I guess you have a point. But this is really just a trial thing, right? We’re not gonna sign a contract or anything yet?”

“No, not yet. Maybe something provisionary to make sure she can’t screw us over during the trial, but nothing serious.” Lynol said, still thinking about something, “Should we ask her to help us search for new party members as well? And a more permanent place to stay? Handlers don’t usually do that, but we might be able to have her help us a bit more than normal.”

Foster raised his brows and thought about it for a moment, “Hm… labour exploitation… I like it.”

“Of course you would. So, are we all on the same page here?” Lynol asked, and once everyone agreed, he opened the door again. Rae was patiently waiting out there, like she said she would. The moment the door opened and Lynol made way for her to step inside, she came rushing in, although she seemed to hesitate for a moment at first.

Rae sat down on the couch, and Lynol looked at her with an intense stare, “First, we have a few extra conditions.” He said immediately, and before Rae could say anything, Lynol continued, “If at any point during this month we don’t want to make use of your services anymore, we will stop working together without you complaining about it.”

“Right, of course! I expected that anyway.” Rae replied without a moment’s hesitation, and Lynol rolled his eyes, “Mhm. Anyway. For this month, you will help us out in additional ways beside just the normal services of a handler, for example finding additional party members, or helping us find more permanent housing.”

Surprised at that condition, Rae raised her brows. It seemed like she didn’t particularly like that condition, but in the end, her will to make this work seemed to be higher than her hesitation, “…Fine. But I don’t have all the time in the world either, so those things will have to be on the back-end compared to regular handler-work.”

“Sure. We will figure something out in regard to your duties. Either way, our last condition is the requirement for full transparency. We need to know exactly why you want to work with us so badly, since I doubt it’s just because we somehow impressed you.”

Rachel let out a deep sigh, and crossed her legs, “I guess that’s fair. It’s pretty simple, really. I like money.”

“…Then why would you work with us for free for a whole month?” Kyla asked confused, since it seemed like Rae was telling the truth. With a quick scoff, she replied, “Because I’m not dumb enough to forego long-term profits for the pennies I could get with others if I didn’t pursue this further. I’ll say this again, you are a party of four that did something thought to be impossible at your level. You just got to Arcadum what, a week ago? Shit, if I didn’t expect you guys to hit it big in the future, I’d be a complete dumbass.” She explained clearly, not hesitating for a moment. It was something that made the party feel quite good, actually. Sure, they had heard it before from that group that was there when they left the dungeon, but in this context, where this was a risky thing to do for Rachel, it felt a lot more sincere, and not just like an empty compliment like before.

Lynol looked around and the others, and it seemed like everyone here was more or less convinced to at least go through with this trial. They quite literally had nothing to lose, after all. Lynol leaned forward over the table and stretched his hand out, “If that’s the case, let’s work together well to make that happen.”

With a grin on her face, Rae leaned forward as well and grabbed Lynol’s hand, as her trial period began that very moment.