Secret Agent Chapter 093 - Impressed (Patreon)

Zack Adder furrowed his brow. Cori’s hands were trembling and her eyes were wide open as she glared at the laminated information card she held.

And he was distracted by an untimely notification.

*ding!* The skill [Lip Reading] has been acquired!

“It’s an information card for gathering Belladonna primitiva out in the forest,” he said.

Cori’s hands stopped trembling, and flipped the card over. Before she had been looking at the side which depicted the plant, now she was looking at the directions on the back, explained with illustrations and minimal written text.

She rubbed her thumb over the card, attempting to smudge it, but failed. Her thumb merely slid over the lamination, and the only smudge left behind was from the natural oil of her skin.

She looked up at Zack, her earlier relaxed and cavalier attitude long gone. Now she was purely serious.

“No, Jack, I mean what’s the card made of. I had thought you meant to use paper…”

She made as if to fold the card, bending it beyond the limits of the lamination, and Zack deftly plucked it from her fingers. Cori blinked in surprise.

Zack blinked, too. That had gone far more smoothly than he had expected. His hand had lashed out so quickly…

Well, he was level seven now. And he had a B growth rate in Dexterity and a C growth rate in Speed.

If Cori was only level one, like it seemed most people in the city were, Zack supposed it could make sense.

“If you want to test the material, use this.” He put the information card away and pulled out a smaller laminated test strip. Cori made to snatch it out of his hands, and he let her, but…

Her hands moved so slowly.

She yanked the card away, glared at him for just a moment, and then turned her whole body away, even hunching her back slightly as she bent and twisted the test card.

“Before you tear it,” Zack advised, “test the water-resistance.”

Cori dipped a finger just barely into her glass of water, so far untouched, and swiped it along the laminated surface. The water beaded up on the test strip and rolled off, onto the bar top.

Then she dunked the entire test strip into the water, and pulled it out. Zack noticed Vince watching Cori and narrowing his eyes, but he simply prepared another short glass of water, for drinking purposes, and brought it over.

Cori was completely absorbed in testing the strip and didn’t notice at all.

In and out she dipped the strip in the water and watched the water roll off, leaving the paper and stripes of ink and paint beneath the lamination untouched.

Zack set his hand on the bar between them, palm up.

This, Cori noticed, and she jerked the strip back and away from Zack, and looked up at him with maximum [Allure].

“Can’t I keep this?” she pleaded.

But Zack Adder’s [Resist Allure] was tested daily by Roxy’s fire, and was not found wanting.

“No,” he said.

If she kept it, she’d probably go get it analyzed somewhere.

Zack somewhat expected others to copycat his information cards, if not the exact card designs then the concept of them, but lamination was another point on which his cards could compete in the free market.

He would prefer if this plan worked out, rather than failing because he fell for some batted eyelashes and teary eyes.

Cori gave up with a sigh and placed the dripping card in his hand, and left her hand pressed to his for a long moment.

There was a thump from behind them, and muffled high-pitched swearing, but they both chose not to react.

Zack slid his hand out from under hers, and wiped the moisture from the test strip on a cloth napkin, and tucked it safely back into his pocket.

Cori sighed, and then… for just a moment...

Smiled viciously. Triumphantly. It was a toothy smile, and there was a tension about her eyes as they opened wide.

Predatory.

Vince cleared his throat, and like a mirage, Cori’s expression vanished.

“Well, it seems I might have been a little late in making your acquaintance, Jack.”

“I feel the same, Cori,” Zack replied. “So, the orphanage repairs?”

“I’ll look into them for you,” she replied breezily. Vince took away the glass of water she had dipped the strip into, and Cori picked up the fresh glass and took an elegant sip.

Zack ignored his own not-quite-empty glass of beer and did the same with his own glass of water.

“There are a few other things,” Zack said.

Cori turned to him with a professional mien, but there was a glimmer in her blue eyes. “Oh?”

“The Kingdom and the Church,” he said quietly. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Vince veer off, turning away from their conversation, and knowing he had been overheard, he continued even more softly.

“I want to know more about what they’re up to before it becomes public. The Training Day fiasco, for instance. And this business with a [Hero]. The news broke today, but clearly the summoning was a while ago.”

Cori narrowed her eyes and glared at him. “What makes you say that?”

That wasn’t a denial.

“Because I heard about it last night, in fact, and I heard some information from a certain [Scout] about the thurgenrats swarming.”

Cori’s expression hardened.

“Do you know the members of the [Hero’s Party]?” Zack asked.

“You don’t?” Cori countered. “They were consecrated this morning, and the announcement went out.”

“I was busy,” Zack replied breezily. “But Lady Elizabeth Hawkeye is the [Scout] of the [Party]. Am I right?”

Cori pressed her lips together in a thin line, and nodded.

“So you heard something from her.”

“Not about the [Hero] directly, but it makes more sense now that I know a [Hero] was summoned. Just putting two and two together.”

“What?” Cori’s stern expression broke and she looked at him quizzically.

“Huh?”

“Putting two of what together?”

“Er, you know, two plus two equals four, putting two and two together…”

Crap.

Was that not a saying here?

“Anyway,” Zack bulldozed past his verbal slip-up. “I’m interested in what they’re up to. I might have gone out and hunted thurgenrats earlier, if I had known what was going on, and that the walls were so flimsy…”

“They’re not flimsy,” Cori interrupted sharply, but Zack continued.

“And, frankly, the Training Day was a waste of my time,” Zack said.

And this wasn’t entirely a [Lie].

He only ever got about an hour of training at each station, and he simply could have paid for that at the Adventurer’s Guild.

Seventy lindra for an hour sounded steep…

But quest payouts were really high right now. And he’d have been gaining contribution points at the same time.

And he would have avoided the trap, too.

“If I had known it was going to be so crowded…” he trailed off, leaving the rest of the statement as an unstated implication rather than an outright [Lie].

“Okay.” Cori looked him directly in the eyes. “I can share what I hear about the Kingdom and the Church.”

“And any big business news.”

Cori blinked, and then frowned slightly.

“You’re asking a lot.”

“Didn’t you say I was just so interesting? If there are any business opportunities I can turn into a side hustle, I want to do so.”

“‘Side hustle?’”

Crap. Again.

Zack [Stifled] a blush, and then…

[Calm Down].

His head cleared, and his perception increased. The sounds of the restaurant, the feeling of the stool underneath him, the position of his body, and his loose tongue…

He took a deep breath, held it, and let it out slowly.

*ding!* The skill [Poison Resistance] has been acquired!

Zack’s now-clear mind raced and the world seemed to slow down, for just a moment.

But he almost immediately realized what had happened.

Alcohol.

Technically, it was a poison.

And not just technically in a categorical sense, but it seemed the system that governed [Skills] considered it to be such.

He realized he had been detecting alcohol as a poison since he arrived here at the bar: the strong alcohol in his Froonung porter, and the scent of alcohol on Cori’s breath from her wine.

His mind cleared even more as the [Poison Resistance] skill took hold, and when he pressed on it, his mind cleared even more, and faster.

Cori eyed him suspiciously, but with a clear mind Zack was better able to [Act]…

And he chose to do nothing.

Trying to cover it up or make an excuse or explain it would just draw more attention to it.

Instead, he tapped his leather armor.

“This was pretty expensive, and I don’t even have my own spear or sword yet. If I can make more money, I want to.”

Answer the question you’d rather have been asked.

Cori was still suspicious, but she went along with it.

“So you’re looking for jobs, too?”

“Well, maybe fast ones,” Zack equivocated. “Once the Rose Theater starts up performances again, that’s going to take up most of my time.”

“And Sienna’s too young for milking…” Cori muttered. Zack raised an eyebrow slightly.

So she was tracking that, too, huh?

Sienna was still a juvenile, and wouldn’t be a fully grown adult snake for another year, when she’d reach her adult length of a little over two yards. Right now she was between three and four feet long.

“Well, just if you hear anything,” Zack said.

“In that case, you need to keep me apprised of anything else you get up to,” Cori rejoined. “[Taming] a taipan, shooting up the Adventurer’s Guild ranks, and those cards…” She eyed him sharply. “Next thing you know you’ll be the lead actor in William’s next play.”

“Not a chance,” Zack replied sincerely. “I’m not [Skilled] enough for a lead role.”

“Hmph, today you’re not. Take your eyes off a man for a week and he’ll change completely…” She recited that last sentence as though it were a proverb. “So, scheduling.”

“Scheduling?”

“Yes.” Cori looked him directly in the eyes again. “When’s a good time of day to meet up with you? Not for long, necessarily, but I’ll want to meet with you at least every third day, to start.”

Zack considered introducing her to the idea of dead drops, but decided against it.

“When the Theater starts up again I’m going to be occupied from noon to the end of the day. And in the mornings I’ll be busy at the orphanage.”

Cori’s gaze sharpened even further.

“Busy? Doing what?” Her eyes drifted to his pocket. “More of those cards?”

Zack hesitated just a fraction of a second before answering truthfully. “Teaching the orphans to [Read].”

Cori’s gaze whipped back up to his face, eyes wide.

Zack furrowed his brow. “What?”

“Every other day, then. How about late morning, an hour before noon? I know of a particularly good tea parlor. Your treat, of course.”

Zack… smiled. “That works.”

He didn’t have high hopes for the tea—it wasn’t his drink of choice—but that wasn’t the point anyway.

Their negotiations done, Cori reached under her seat and pulled out a small handbag and counted out precisely enough lindra to cover her meal, and not her drinks. Then, she winked at him, hopped down out of her seat, and left the restaurant.

Zack looked up at Vince, who had arrived to clear away Cori’s spot and ready it for another customer.

“How much is it, total?”

“Forty-five lindra.”

It was a bit steep, but it was the start of a new relationship. The lion’s share of that expense was Cori’s thirty-five lindra in drinks. Zack’s own porter and the special were only ten lindra all together.

Zack had two full days left, and then rehearsals for reopening the Theater.