“Well, it’s not so bad. It’s mostly just telling players that, no, the game isn’t broken. They just messed up the quest. Since I don’t usually have to solve that many of them, I often try to go a step above and explain to the player how to get their quest back on track. It’s one of the reasons I can goof off: my customer service reports are better than everyone else’s. ‘Cause I’m the best.”

“At some things, you really are,” Lucas agreed.

“And now I have to go to Fulda and go handle this player’s problem with his quest. He said he went to turn it in and that the NPC that should be there to accept the turn-in is missing,” Liu griped.

“Fulda?” the name caught Lucas’s ear. It was the town with the noble Rowland, the one whom Lucas knew was set to be attacked. “An NPC is missing in Fulda?”

“Yeah, I’m about to warp over there now. It’s not just one. There are three that have all gone missing, so I’m positive that there is a problem,” she explained, “but I’m pretty sure it’ll be easy to solve. They’re probably all just bunched up for some other event and will return to their places whenever that’s over.”

“Or they’ll never return . . . since it’s hard to put a corpse back where it should be,” Lucas grumbled. Lucas turned about and walked off without waiting for a response and without saying another word.

“Not even a goodbye . . .” Liu sighed as she watched him leave. “Oh well . . . New day, same Lucas.”

Lucas looked up as he walked through the courtyard, but he didn’t spot Linnaeus anywhere. Deciding to take care of his party first since Linnaeus was nowhere to be seen, he slowed down and turned to one of the guards. “Hey, Steve, I got a task for you,” he said after bringing up the Dungeon Menu so that he could get the guard’s name. He was worried that he had met him before but simply forgotten it.

“What do you require, sir?” the guard asked, his face showing a little apprehension.

“I need you to hold onto this,” he said, handing the guard Isabel’s Tears. “Give it to the Naga woman when she comes back to town with the group and then tell the party that I am heading to Fulda to handle a rebellion that is about to crop up. Tell them not to waste time on the way. I may desperately need them.”

“Just that?” Steve asked.

“Just that,” Lucas affirmed.

“Welp, at least the wife won’t have to worry about me leaving her with the kid,” the guard murmured quietly.