Bellerophon had been up at arse hours JST grinding after yet another unproductive writing session when he received a flash mail from Harusame. He'd half expected to see an insult of some kind after the dolt had thought of one way after their last adventure together, in the shower or in bed, but instead, it was invitation to handle a quest. A roundabout invitation, albeit, but nevertheless, he felt obligated to accept.

After all, he didn't want to do this one solo, either, and though Harusame could be a touch insufferable, he wasn't entirely incompetent.

So, there they were, gating into a fairly nondescript night field after having bypassed Auron's whole spiel by receiving the dumbed-down cutscene version via the Quest Shop. Bellerophon stifled a yawn as he looked around for a decent spot to settle down.

"Sorry about that one, it's really..." He stifled another yawn. "Late. Anyway, there's a nice spot under a tree over there. How about we sit behind it, hidden from the Chaos Gate, so that nobody who isn't actually looking will find us?"

Harusame was right - the area was deserted. Further motivation for Bellerophon not to bother with his facade too strenuously. Harusame already knew enough bits and pieces from their previous interactions to be able to tell that Bellerophon is kind of a shithead, and Bellerophon knew enough about Harusame to know that he wouldn't be getting a loyal fan out of this guy, anyway.

So, why bother?

Instead, he wandered off towards the tree he'd himself indicated in order to settle down, just out of view for any newbies that might come over for the same reason they did.

"... With any luck, we'll be able to get through this easily. I don't even know if I want to find the Temple in this place, I'm dying in here."

"Seriously speaking? I was trying to write for most of the day, but several deleted documents and my real-life paper bin being filled and emptied three times later, I got on to take my emotions out by grinding very violently." Bellerophon yawned, this time without any attempts to stifle it. Maybe that'd allow him some yawnless time, if he'd just let himself have a nice, big jaw-cracking one.

"Then I'll do the same. I'm not making the trek there solo, that's for equipment nuts. I'm getting a weapon from this one, anyway... and I've specced into dark spells, so it'll be pretty useful."

Sleep deprivation had definitely been getting to him - not only was Bellerophon quite frank, but he was also rather loose-lipped. Why would a hero wannabe like him spec into dark spells, anyway?

... That's a reasonable question for anyone who hasn't seen him in action. Bellerophon was quite pragmatic. There was a decent chance that he was already planning to use this "quest freebie" weapon in tandem with dark spells in order to make his early leveling progress butter-smooth, with a dark weapon combined with dark spells making his damage output even more potent.

Twice as potent, in fact.

"Why are you up at this hour? I thought schoolchildren should be well in bed by now. Aren't your parents going to yell at you?"

He was even loose-lipped enough to occasionally lapse into his native Hakata-ben.

"Me? I'm a famous author! The one, the only, Akira. Asahina Akira." He thumbed at himself, doing his best to sparkle, but failing. The expression on his face was best described as 'a very tired man's attempt at a handsome smile'. Though his in-game avatar did not accurately reflect the bags under his eyes, nor how ruffled his hair actually was after all those writing failures earlier, it did reflect one thing - his facial expressions - very, very acutely.

And right now, he didn't have the best of control over his facial muscles.

"So I'm already something of a big boy, you bloody legend. Big enough that editors cream their panties thinking about working with me, up until I give them the boot for being so into my stuff that they forget to do their goddamn job."

He pointed a finger at Harusame, an action very much against common Japanese etiquette.

"What about you, mister working adult with a day job? What do you do for a living, stock shelves? Get asked to 'look in the back' every time something's not in plain visibility and get yelled at by people who've missed the memo that melon ice cream was a limited item for last month and this month it's beef dumplings? Sucks to be you. I'd probably be doing that too, if I worked that kind of job..."

He yawned again.

"... Or maybe you're an average salaryman. If that's the case, double the condolences. Try not to die on the keyboard."

Now, where were those damned doppelgangers...? He'd completely lost the plot, track of time, and everything else.

"That's right! Me, the hafu sensation," Bellerophon mellowly allowed, not one to take any particular offense to that. Sure, there were lots and lots of people who got weird about his heritage. He's never been one to get particularly down in the dumps about it.

Why, back in school when his naturally blond hair drew undue attention from local delinquents, he had instead chosen to take the lemons of life and turn them into bloody lemonade, and traumatically removed the aforementioned delinquents' teeth with a tome of War and Peace that he carried with himself everywhere specifically for the purpose.

Damned book wasn't good for much else, anyway.

Of course, he'd also made sure to endear himself to teachers while at it and looked as neat as he could, so that he could not be pursued for his deeds. How could this nice polite boy from a good family possibly be the culprit behind an all-out brawl that left a shattered kneecap, several concussions, a broken finger, and two dislocated arms in its wake?

And so, after a point, he was generally left to live his life in peace. It was always easy to find him in the library, but for some reason, most people preferred not to.

Once he'd graduated, he had, of course, left that delinquent life behind. As schoolchildren were replaced by university students and youthful piss was replaced by adult understanding, far fewer people took him as anything but yet another half-European in a slowly-but-certainly more multinational country.

"I wish you were right! If I got an editor like that, I'd be well on my way to a proper publishable epic by now," he lamented, getting up to face the shadows stepping towards them. "But I am no coward, I'll have you know! We'll face each other at a cafe, and I hope it's not too long of a drive to Fukuoka for you, because---"

He lifted his staff.

"---You might just oversleep the train stop if it is! GiRai Rom!"

The storm enveloped both of the shadows as he moved away from Harusame, both of them having somehow agreed on the same tactic without ever communicating that. Bellerophon's own copy had opted for a silent Ani Kruz where both of them had just now stood, but the dark sphere had missed its mark - the delay between the beginning of the cast and the spell actually landing, coupled with both Bellerophon and Harusame's trajectories of movement, meant that the doppelganger had completely whiffed it.

The doppelgangers, being casters both, would feel no need to move - their originals were still in casting range, so Bellerophon's shadowed copy, raising the dark, twisted clone of his grimoire-tipped staff aloft, returned to casting immediately.

Bellerophon, however, was also no slouch, already aiming a fireball at his shadow-copy.

"GiVak Kruz! Counteroffer, however - there's a 24/7 yakiniku place I know about! Meet me there instead! If you do, I'll pay!"

He hadn't managed to dodge the lightning bolt that struck him just after, but that was fair enough - in this exchange of blows, he had, so far, emerged superior. The only issue? He was kind of concerned that Copy-Harusame would start healing his compatriot.

So, he switched targets. The faster the healer was gone, the better, so Bellerophon sent a thunderbolt in his direction, lightning rumbling down from the sky like heaven's punishment.

"GiRai Don! I'll sponsor your trip home, too, if you're getting here from far away."

"I could throw a man, would throw a man, and have thrown a man. If you're thinking about mugging me, I'll just choke you out and call the cops, sunshine!" Bellerophon irreverently twirled his staff as his own clone launched a GiVak Kruz right at him, getting smacked directly in the Health Points. It was only thanks to Harusame's Repth that his health bar wasn't screaming in red-hot agony in the party UI yet.

Bellerophon's SP, too, was suffering quite a lot - he only had enough for one more upcast, and after that, maybe a normal single-target spell, and that was that. He had to make sure to hit his copy.

But he couldn't wait for it to start casting, or else, his own cast would finish just a little later, and there was a considerable risk of him simply eating dirt right before his spell could go off.

"I'll mail you the address and walk over there. Don't keep me waiting. GiVak Kruz!"

His copy had started casting just after him, and if their stats were any less than identical, could have finished casting before him.

But it didn't.

Bellerophon's spell went off a fraction before his copy, his fireball landing directly on target, shredding his shadow-clone into black smoke, fading into the ambient darkness of the night field.

The quest completion marker alerted him to his success before the death animation had even finished. How prompt.

"... But you sound like you know a little more about me than I expected. Do I spy a secret fan?" Bellerophon grinned at Harusame, sheathing his staff. His SP sat at a jolly nothing with a ribbon on it, and though it'd probably recover should he wait a little, there was no need. They had already agreed to skip the Temple and head back.

"If you've any of my books, feel free to bring them over for an autograph. I'll even use my good pen."