"Xia Nan!?"
"Why are you here?"
When that clear voice from across the card table reached his ears, and he saw that familiar face peeking out from behind a little mountain piled high with chips...
The memories connected to it surfaced in his mind all at once.
Kalanfu'er, the halfling, and the [Fate Coin]...
"Alton?"
Xia Nan recognized the figure before him, one he had not seen in a very long time.
—Alton.
A Lightfoot Halfling, and also a devout believer of the [Goddess of Fortune], Tymora.
He remembered that when he first met him, never mind being a Professional, he had only mastered a single Combat Skill, [Whirlwind Slash]. [Tooth Hunt] was something he learned from the Barbarian Fugan only after parting ways with him.
Back then, he had been nothing more than a bottom-rung Adventurer, usually taking simple jobs like gathering and escorting. He had become acquainted with Alton during a merchant caravan guard commission from River Valley Town to Kalanfu'er.
Although that mission had later run into some trouble, and several of them had somehow been dragged into a conspiracy planned by the local Sheriff, nearly becoming sacrifices for his ritual, in the end he had still relied on his own strength... and a tiny bit of luck, to defeat the enemy and leave the town alive.
Now, more than a year had already passed since the two of them last met. The former Kalanfu'er had been half destroyed by the aftershocks of a battle between two Transcendent-level powerhouses, and when he left Climbing Cloud Province, it was still being rebuilt.
And he, too, had gone from an unknown bottom-rung Adventurer to making a name for himself as "Grey Sword" in River Valley Town. After a series of events, he had successfully advanced and become a proper