Suzume's apartment door hadn't even closed before Yumi started cackling.

  Suzume had just come back from Saitama, when Yumi had asked if she wanted a ride back.

  "Did you see his face? When you dropped the guild paperwork? I thought his head was going to explode. Just—" She made an explosion gesture with both hands. "Brain confetti everywhere."

  "That's disgusting." Suzume tossed her phone onto the couch, where it bounced once and fell between the cushions. Perfect. Now she'd have to dig for it later while finding three-year-old pocky wrappers and shame.

  "Disgusting but accurate." Yumi sprawled across the same couch, somehow making it look elegant despite the fact that she was wearing jeans that had seen better decades. "You just told the Player Association to eat shit on live television. In front of your parents."

  [Oh god, my parents.]

  "They're never going to let me hear the end of this."

  Suzume collapsed into her desk chair, spinning slowly. The ceiling had that same water stain from her old dorm, the one that looked like a cat if you squinted and had recently suffered head trauma. How did water stains follow her between apartments? Was she cursed?

  "So." Yumi sat up, pulling her laptop from her bag. "Now what?"

  "Now I go to the forums and see if anyone needs—"

  "Not the rescue part. The guild part. You have a guild now. That needs, you know, guild things."

  "Guild things."

  "Money. Equipment. A headquarters that isn't your studio apartment that smells like cup ramen and regret."

  "It doesn't smell like—" Suzume sniffed. "Okay, maybe a little regret."

  "We need funding." Yumi's fingers flew across her keyboard. "Unless you've got a secret trust fund you haven't mentioned?" Yumi spun her laptop around. "Okay, so I'm thinking crowdfunding. Like that one site, HereFundMe, but for saving lives."

  "People don't just give money to—"

  "To the girl who told Takeshi Yagami to fuck off on national television? Who's literally the only person in Japan actually trying to save trapped Players?" Yumi's grin could've powered a small city. "Oh honey, people are going to throw more money at you than you know what to do with."

  She'd already set up the page. The header read "HELP THE DUNGEON RESCUE GUILD SAVE LIVES" in font that somehow managed to be both professional and desperate.

  "The description's simple," Yumi explained, scrolling down. "Your mission statement. Some numbers about survival rates. Pictures of you looking heroic and blood-covered. That one where you're holding the femur really sells it."

  "I look like I crawled out of a horror movie."

  "Exactly. Very authentic. Very 'I literally died for this cause.' People eat that shit up."

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Suzume watched Yumi add payment options, social media links, a update section for rescue reports. It was professional. Real. Like an actual guild might have.

  [This is insane.]

  "There." Yumi hit publish with the satisfaction of someone detonating a building. "Now we wait for—"

  Her laptop pinged.

  "That was fast." Suzume leaned over to look.

  "Someone just donated ten thousand yen."

  "What?"

  Another ping. Five thousand. Then another. Three thousand. Ten thousand. Fifty thousand—

  "Holy shit." Yumi refreshed the page. The donation counter was climbing faster than Suzume could track. "It's only been thirty seconds."

  "This can't be real."

  "Oh, it gets better. Look at the comments."

  "Finally someone doing something. Take my money."

  "For Rescue Girl! You saved my cousin in Shinjuku!"

  "Fuck the Association. This is what heroes look like."

  "My brother died waiting for rescue three years ago. Don't let it happen to anyone else."

  Suzume's throat closed up at that last one.

  "Two hundred thousand yen," Yumi announced. "In under a minute."

  "That's—"

  "Three hundred thousand. Someone just dropped a hundred K with a note saying 'Buy better armor, woman.'"

  Her phone buzzed from between the couch cushions. Then again. And again. The vibration got so intense it sounded like the couch was purring.

  Suzume dug it out, nearly dropping it when she saw the notification count. Instagram. Twitter. Messages from numbers she didn't recognize. Players she'd saved. People she'd never met. Her high school chemistry teacher, for some reason.

  "Half a million," Yumi breathed. "Suzume, you just made half a million yen in three minutes."

  "That can't be legal."

  "It's completely legal. It's donations for a newly-registered guild providing emergency services." Yumi was practically vibrating with excitement. "This is what I've been trying to tell you. People have been waiting for someone like you. Someone who actually gives a shit."

  "I'm not a hero—"

  "You're right. Heroes exist in stories. You're real. You bled for this. You almost died for this. That video of you walking out of that portal, covered in monster blood, carrying a human femur?" Yumi gestured at the screen where comments kept flooding in. "That's not superhero shit. That's human shit. Messy and desperate and real."

  "One million yen," Suzume said faintly.

  "Yeah, we're going to need to set up actual bank accounts. Business ones. Maybe hire an accountant."

  "I don't know how to run a guild."

  "Nobody knows how to run a guild until they do it." Yumi pulled up another tab, started typing. "First priority: equipment. Real equipment, not whatever you can afford from your maid cafe tips. Second: medical supplies. Third: maybe some actual armor that doesn't make you look like you raided a sporting goods store."

  "I like my tactical vest."

  "It has seventeen holes in it."

  "... It builds character."

  "More like tetanus."

  Yumi spun her laptop back around, typing something else.

  "Speaking of which, I should probably join your guild. Officially, I mean."

  "You're not awakened."

  "Don't need to be. Guild members can include support staff. Accountants, medical personnel, reporters who document everything for legal purposes." She waggled her eyebrows. "Very convenient for someone who wants exclusive footage of every rescue."

  "You just want to monetize my near-death experiences."

  "I want to monetize them legally. There's a difference."

  [Is there though?]

  Suzume's phone rang. She checked the caller ID and her stomach did something complicated.

  Kasumi.

  "Hey," she answered, trying for casual and landing somewhere around constipated.

  "So. A guild."

  "Yeah."

  "The Dungeon Rescue Guild."

  "Very creative name, I know."

  "You told Takeshi to fuck off on live television."

  "I told him I had work to do. The fucking off was implied."

  Kasumi laughed. Not her usual sharp laugh, but something softer.

  "You know every Player in Japan is talking about you right now?"

  "Only Japan? I'm insulted."

  "Korea's talking too. They think you're insane."

  "... They're probably not wrong."

  There was a pause. Suzume could hear traffic in the background, the distant sound of someone's music playing too loud.

  "I want to join."

  Suzume's brain stopped working. Just completely blue-screened like a Windows 95 computer trying to run the latest Cyberpunk.

  "I—what?"

  "The Dungeon Rescue Guild. I want in."

  Suzume couldn't believe what she was hearing.