"It's Lyngvi!" Lyria covered her mouth. "He looks so cool here!"

"Read it closely."

Lyria did as Luna instructed. "He's... actually a famous singer in the real world? Wait! I get it now. The singer Vi in the real world is the same Vi in this world! No way..." It was too much for Lyria to take in. All her life, she had been a huge fan of Vi. She never thought she would have the chance to meet him in person. It was a dream come true.

"Imagine allying with their guild!" Luna squealed.

"I know!"

They both looked at Astrid who was busy sorting out her items for selling. She was mumbling to herself about prices and quality.

"Hey Astrid..." Lyria suddenly appeared at Astrid's left.

"We have a little request for you..." Luna appeared at Astrid's right side.

"Please ally with Knights Alliance!" They both said simultaneously and clapped their hands together.

Astrid raised a brow. "Wait what? What do you expect me to do? Just go up to them and ask?"

"Isn't that what Sed did?"

"Sed is part of Black Rose, whose guild level we might not even reach. It's rather unusual for an unknown guild to just ask a guild the same level as Black Rose to form an alliance. Why not just make friends with them? Keep talking whenever you see each other. Maybe they'll ask for an alliance."

"Oh yeah! Let's do this!" Luna threw a fist up in the air.

Lyria sighed. "I wish we bumped into them often though."

"If you can take note of the places they frequent, then you can keep 'accidentally' bumping into them there," Astrid said without taking her eyes off the items she laid out on the table.

"That sounds like stalking."

"You can think of it as 'increasing your chances' rather than stalking."

Luna was all pumped up and raised two fists up into the air. "Alright! I'm going to train hard and catch up to Tank's level, so he'll notice me!"

Lyria placed her hands on her cheeks while blushing. "Me too! I'll work hard to become a great priestess so I can support Vi."

Astrid finally turned her head and faced the two maidens in love. "I'm glad to hear that you're all motivated. Perhaps we should discuss our training schedule right now."

"It's not going to be a crazy tight schedule, right?" Amelie asked.

Astrid's grin turned into a creepy one. "That's right. It's not going to be easy. We're going to train hard and participate in that competition like a decent and respectable guild."

Luna was suddenly afraid. "Astrid's grin is scaring me!"

Amelie raised her hand. "Can we get day offs?"

Astrid thought about it. "If we manage to get ahead of schedule, then sure. Our best chance of gaining levels and guild points at the same time is doing dungeons where there are a few bosses. At our current level, there are only two dungeons we can enter with good chances of survival. That's Minotaur and Cerberus."

"We just got killed at Cerberus!" Luna exclaimed.

"At full party, we can slowly clear the dungeon by luring monsters one by one, but that will take too long. We need to go at a faster pace if we want to reach the guild point requirement in time for the event. We'll grind at Minotaur."

"I'll go prepare my blue potion stock for tomorrow," Lyria said and disappeared into the next room.

"I'm good with Minotaur," said Luna. "At least Amelie doesn't get mobbed as much in that dungeon."

"I'm Chris!" Amelie shouted. "Get it right!"