Daigo left and closed the door behind him, I quickly closed all the screens and walked outside.
Daigo stood there while folding his arms and said “Let’s go”, he led the way and while we were going down the stairs I asked “Did your cousin help out?”
“Nah, this one is just a normal hiring; no help” He answered vaguely.
Daigo took me outside to the left wing of the mall, where a very small crowd of Guards gathered beside a black minivan.
Some Guards were leaving the scene, cussing at whoever was recruiting Guards there.
“4,000 yen for a raid?!” One Mercenary-Guard shouted and turned to another Guard that walked beside him saying “Do you believe these people; first, they force us to contribute to keep themselves safe and now, they are lowing the price!”
“I had to pay 6,700 yen for that fuckin' general contribution; which was half of what I earned for 5 days of raiding a Gate with some Tower” The other Guard bitterly complained too.
“Don’t fuckin' waste your time going there, those bastards are fuckin' greedy” One of them halted for some seconds and said to us, as we walked pass each other.
Daigo just nodded to the guy, we walked pass them without stopping.
The Guard just clicked his tongue at us and continued his walk.
When we reached the small crowd beside the van, more Guards left the gathering as the recruiter continued to speak on top of his lungs to the Guards that remained.
“…12 Guards will do, we just need 12 Guards to conquer a small Gate and the pay will be 3,000 yen; we can’t go any higher” The recruiter said audibly, dressed in a plain brown T-shirt, a grey jean trouser and a face cap.
“Cut that shit, who gives a fuck if it’s small? It is a goddamn Gate; 3,000 yen is shit coins for that kind of danger” One Guard shouted back.
“That what we have. The Gate is a Grade E and it is not a Fort, it is one of the weakest ones that has manifested in the last 4 months so the danger isn’t as deadly as you think it to be.” The recruiter responded.
“Shove your grammar up your hole and fuckin' increase the pay” Another Guard protested.
“I’m sorry but 3,000 yen is all we can offer you” The recruiter said firmly but softly.
More Guards cussed at him, then left but only a handful remained which included Daigo and me.
“You guys will take the offer; I presume?” The recruiter said to those of us that remained and only two out of 9 of us nodded, a particular guy spat on the ground as he looked recruited with content but he did not leave. Which meant he was in, but didn’t still like it.
“Now, let’s make this quick, I want us to reach immediately entered the Gate when we arrive there. Now the Aggressors we will face are White-face Zipper Spines and Arrow-nose Goblins, and there are less than 100 in number all together. That’s all” The recruiter debriefed us, which was one of the shortest debriefs I have heard.
“Now, since questions are out the question” He said and smirk at his own silly joke, before continuing “All we need to check your Guard ID card and we will move out”.
He checked all of us cards, loaded us into the minivan and turned on the van to drive us to our destination.
At the back of the minivan, I said ‘Open Profile’ in my mind and it appeared.
Profile
Name: None
Nature: Evolve Human
Level: 2
Title: Ratty
Stolen story; please report.
Hit point: 100
Damage per hit: 2
Arcane Energy: 6
Arcane Skills (None)
Arcane Physiology (None)
Power Status
Trophy
I have been checking out the System out for a long time hours and there were some things I haven’t tried out before Daigo came to look for me and one of those things is ‘Arcane Skills’.
I also realize that there isn’t a fixed command to select and activate objects in the System, all I need to call out the name of the object with intent.
I could say ‘Execute Profile’ , ‘Profile’, ‘Open Profile’ or ‘Display Profile’, it doesn’t matter; all will activate ‘Profile’ as long as I say it with intent.
‘Open Arcane Skills’ I said in my mind.
A message screen popped up instead.
Message Box
[No acquired skills]
[1 skills available in Codex]
‘No skill, but one is available in the Codex’ I thought to myself.
I closed the Message Box and opened up Codex.
Codex
Buy Exchange
[Shape-shift Lv.1]: [10 Coins] [15 Coins]
Sell
[Acquired Arcane Skills and Weapons can be sold here]
Like the message box said, there is only one skill and I immediately chose to buy it.
Alas, there was another Message Box
Message Box
[Level is too low to buy any item]
So I close the Message Box and Codex, since I’ve navigated through some of the components of the system already, so I knew where to go regarding level.
“Open Evolution Pod” I mistakenly said aloud and it drew Daigo attention.
“What?” He asked in slight confusion, but I quickly responded and brushed it off as nothing.
‘I should be care not to speak out when I need to use my inner voice’ I thought to myself.
I returned my focus to the Evolution Pod Hologram.
Evolution Pod
Level Up
[Level 2: 100 Elixir]
I didn’t execute this before because the kid told me to be careful when change setting and using resources like coins in a game because I could end up making a grave mistake if I act to hasty.
Thankfully, the last Message Box said I needed to level up to buy skills, so I immediately demanded ‘Level up’.
The contents under Evolution Pod immediately change to – 20:00; which began to count down. So, it is very likely a timer for the Level Up.
I closed all the screen and rested my head for bit.
The fact that everything I previously deemed as an illusion, might actually not be and if it isn’t what I think it to be then I got to somehow fix myself but in 20 minute I will undoubtly sure if it is or not.
When we got down at our destination, a Gate with the height of 6’9 feet and 6 feet in breath greeted us. It wasn’t heavily guarded like the bigger Gates were but soldiers and Enforcers stood guard with a couple of light-armoured vehicles mounted with soldiers carrying arcane-sniper rifles on them.
They formed a perimeter around the Gate but there was a bit lax, seeing that some of were doing other things like chatting.
The recruiter took us to the right side of Gate, to an open tent where a man in suit sat in front a desk.
“Sir, I have 9 Guard here with me” The recruiter said, to the man in suit.
“Only 9 out of 12, I guess we can make do with that” The man said, looking at the recruiter with approval on what he delivered.
“Do any you know how to handle an assault rifle?” The man asked us.
7 out of us raised our hands and said yes. The man turned to the recruiter “Get 7 of them M12 arcane-assault rifle with 2 magazines of each person and call the Tower to send a reinforcement of at least 5 of our Guards ASAP”.
“Sir, may I why we need to arm them?” The recruiter asked in a very low tone, that we could barely hear while looking at us with caution.
At that moment, a Message box popped up and a jolt of a weird kind of ‘good’ electric feeling circled through my entire body.
Message Box
[Level up!]
[Reward: 5 Status Points]
I ignored it for later and listened to this important conversation.
“They are more than a 100 Aggressors in there, the initial population was a glitch in the surveillance system. The approximated population of both goblins and zipper-spines is 300. Based on the terrain inside the Gate, there might be other Arcane-beings but their population will be extremely low to cause any significant threat” The man in suit said indifferently.
“Ok, sir” The recruiter just said and left.
When he left, the man in the suit turned his head to the armed guard beside him and said “Take these men to Taiko”.
The guard was not an Evolve, so I will assume he was employed as a private military contractor (security) by the Tower that the man in the suit work for based on the gears he wore and he looked experienced.
The security contractor nodded and told us to follow him to the other side of the Gate, where a group of 8 male Guards with an emblem of three white arrow head by the side of their shoulders, most of them sat on crates and chatted.
The security contractor had the same emblem on his shoulder too, which meant it is the crest of whatever Tower they all work for.
The security contractor walked up to a particular Guard that sat down, the Guard had a full beard and wore a sun shade.
The security contractor stated who we were and told to stay put until they were ready to conquer the Gate, then he left us there.
Taiko and his men completely ignored our presence and continued with whatever they were doing, and so did we.
I quickly pulled up Codex and tried to by the Shape-shift skill but I got the same warning of my level being too low, this was the outcome I hoped for and definitely didn’t bring me closer to the truth of whatever is happening to me.
