- The Initiative

"Single file please everyone! Single file!"

A crowd of people were lined up, heading towards the front desk to the Hunter's Post, where nearly a dozen receptionists stood taking orders, counting heads, and tallying up their points.

Other than the long lines of people, several groups of Hunters stood over their tables, laying out plans and strategies for their attack.

These groups were the remnants of the Race.

Lia currently had her hands full from where she was, rushing between different receptionists, whose papers had run out, their tally markers had worn down, and were being swarmed by the lines of hunters. .

Seeing as she was the cause for all this commotion, Lia thought it best that she would be the one to help deal with all this, however, it proved more than she could handle.

In truth, this wasn't much better than how the Post had looked before, however, that didn't mean all was the same. Lia had solved the issue of payment with a one time prize bonus, and these Hunter's had gobbled up the bait.

In the end Lia knew that they wouldn't be satisfied with just 250 gold pieces, especially the losers of this little competition, but she also had a plan for that as well when the time came.

For now, her mind was elsewhere, dealing with the receptionists and their documents, rushing to get each one stamped by Carlena or one of the other Head Receptionists.

"Lia, this one needs sighing!"

"This one too!"

"Can you take this to Carlena for a look over?"

"I need more papers!"

Lia rushed to reach all the cries, hoping that her meager help would satisfy them. Every time she looked at the long lines of Hunters, she couldn't help but question herself whether she had done anything good in the first place, and had merely traded one problem for another.

But that didn't matter now. She couldn't keep her mind full of these thoughts, thoughts that would hinder her movements, cloud her mind, and ultimately prove less help than she was trying to be.

She would be fulfilling her worst fears.

Just as she was delivering the blank sheets of papers to the woman who asked for them, she felt a hand grab her shoulder, softly, but sternly.

"Lia."

She turned to find Carlena standing behind her, her face filled with some hints of concern and worry.

"Oh, Carlena. Thank goodness, these papers here need your signature, and these need to be looked over -"

However, Lia didn't bother questioning what the look of worry was for, and she quickly set off filing Carlena's hands with papers. But as she was speaking, she was interrupted by Carlena's concerned voice.

"Lia, are you sure you're okay? You look like you're about to pass out."

Hearing this, Lia took a minute to glance at herself in one of the table top mirrors, and she was shocked to find an image of a worn out looking girl with little sleep, and filled with exhaustion.

The woman looked little like Lia. In fact, she resembled nothing of the bright and cheerful girl who could turn serious in a moment's notice.

But…

"I'm fine Carlena. Don't worry about me, I'll be fine. I've just got to finish up here and then I'll get some rest."

Lia ignored the image of the worn out girl in the mirror, and firmed her resolve to help where it was needed.

"Rest? Girl, there's nearly a dozen more people in each line. You won't get enough rest for hours."

She sighed as she too looked over the number of Hunters still in line, waiting to tally up their kills.

"So be it."

Lia righted herself up and straightened the papers in her hand, before attempting to bid Carlena goodbye.

"I've got to get back to work so excuse me please - "

"Wait."

The stern voice of Carlena halted Lia from moving, as it reminded her of her mother who would scold her as a child when she snuck into the kitchen to steal cookies.

"Lia, Randolph is in the main office. He says he wants to talk to you."

"Randolph?"

She thought for a moment over the reasons Randolph could ask for her, but she just wrote it off as a formality.

"Alright, I'll go see him. But the rest -"

"I'll deal with that. It's better for me to just be here now, rather than have a middle man between us. Go, I'll handle things here until you get back."

Without another word, Carlena took the papers from Lia's hands and moved off to help other receptionists.

Lia barely had time to utter any words of thanks, as he rushed off to find Randolph.

'I wonder why he would call me?'

***

"Ah, there we go. Nice and comfortable."

Kal looked over Cain's handy work as the latter stood up from his position on the ground where the boy he had captured an hour or so before sat, bound and stripped of weapons.

"W-What do you want?"

The boy was shaking profoundly, and if Kal wasn't certain it was fear, he would have been questioning whether it was really cold outside.

"Well for starters, let's introduce ourselves."

Cain took this moment to introduce both he and Kal to the boy, who they found out was named Ryzler. A pitiful archer who was taken from their base camp by Krill to serve on this little meetup of theirs.

"S-So, why keep me alive?"

Ryzler, after hearing a recount of the story and his memories from before he was knocked out returned, asked with shaking lips.

All he could remember was hearing a sound - a voice that wasn't Krill's nor the woman he was meeting up with. In fact, the sound came from the forest.

But just as Ryzler looked down to the canopy below him, his eyes met the glowing pupils of Kal's who, in the blink of an eye, had shot up from the ground below towards him.

His vision turned black before he even knew it.

Squatting down so their eyes were at the same level, Cain spoke with a calm voice, as to ease the kid's fears.

"Simple. We want your help in figuring out what your boss was planning."

"But…don't you already know that?"

Cain raised an eyebrow, surprised that the boy had been awake longer than he thought.

'He must have overheard our little conversation?'

He thought, looking to Kal to transmit the message, but stopped when he realized that he too had understood what the boy was getting at.

"I guess I thought too little about you kid. That's good. Cause you're going to need it when you take over your old boss's gang."

The kid, hearing the praise, for a moment raised his head just a little bit in pride, but stopped when the rest of Cain's words registered in his mind.

"Wait. What!"

"You heard me."

"But, but, but -"

Cain rolled his eyes knowing that the boy would continue, he grabbed the top of his head, and forced their eyes to meet.

With a red flash of his eyes, the boy fell back asleep, as Cain grabbed his body, lifting it over his shoulder.

Turing to Kal, who stood with his arms crossed, watching silently from the shadows, he spoke.

"Best we get moving. I don't want Lia to realize that I'm not with her right now."

"Hasn't she already figured that out?"

"For the most part, no. I've been keeping up with her through telepathy, but where we're going I won't have the time."

Kal pushed off from the tree he was leaning against, and moved to Cain's side.

"Fast and simple?"

He asked, walking with Cain off into the shadows of midday.

"Fast and simple."

***

The door creaked open, slightly ajar as Lia peaked her head through the open crack.

Randolph didn't notice her form where he sat in a grand open room, the walls lined with weapons and tools, chests and trinkets, objects and items, some of which Lia couldn't name.

Behind Randolph was a large window, iron bars separating pane from pane, casting an eerie look of a prison cell over the ground, where his face was shadowed by the midday sun.

Lia felt small looking at the large open room, as she heard the shuffling of Randolph's papers and forms. She felt small. Smaller than a mouse.

And she didn't know why.

Opening the door, fully leaving it ajar, Lia glanced at Randolph who put down his papers to look at the door.

"You wanted to see me?"

"Ah, yes Lia. Come sit here, it's more comfortable than standing."

He gestured to one of the three chairs in front of his desk, leather and cushioned. Truly it was better than standing while talking.

However, as Lia sat down, she couldn't help but feel like she was a school child, sitting before the headmaster for doing something wrong.

It made her feel even smaller.

"I-Is there something you wanted?"

"Hm? Ah, no, no. There wasn't anything that I wanted from you, I just needed to get your opinion on something."

Immediately Lia let out a sigh of relief, the air in her lungs leaving her chest.

'Thank goodness. I was so worried there.'

"But.."

However, her hopes and security disappeared soon after with Randolph's next words.

"...now that I have you here there is a matter I would like to ask you about."

"Oh? And... what's that?"

Randolph reached for the ground besides his chair, the desk obstructing her view of whatever it was he was reaching for.

She didn't need to wait for long though, as Randolph placed a small knapsack on the table, the contents bumping into each other as he did this.

It sounded like wood.

"This is the bag your friends turned in. I assume they did so to collect a reward?"

Instantly it clicked for Lia where she had seen the bag before, and what the objects inside might have been.

Goblin necklaces.

"Uh, no. No, Rian and Lukali turned those in for the competition. They wanted to try and have a go at it."

"They left you behind?"

"Well…I'm not exactly allowed to leave now am I?"

Randolph didn't respond more than a simple nod, and all at once the feeling of being interrogated fell on her again.

It was suffocating in many ways.

Taking a moment, he reached into the bag and moved around the contents, mumbling to himself about the quantity.

In total there might have been somewhat twenty necklaces they had collected, and Lia had already confirmed with Carlena that these did count as body counters, unlike many of the other Hunters from the main room, who had brought back the heads of many of their kills.

'They're killing time more than they are monsters. Taking that much time to go back and forth after and between each kill will take up to much time. I'm glad I told Rian and Lukali about this beforehand."

In truth, she wasn't upset they had left her behind. She trusted Rian to look after Lukali, and ever since the morning of when they became an official party, Lukali had been changing. And for the better too.

He was more confident in his words, held less things back, and looked more like a young man than a small…

'...man child? He would probably be mad at me if he found out I called him that.'

She thought, chuckling to herself.

However, her thoughts were interrupted by Randolph, who exclaimed in glee when he finally found the item he was looking for.

At first Lia didn't see how this was what caused their conversation to take place. It was a necklace like all the others, but it wasn't the same in some ways.

But she couldn't figure out why.

Seeing her confusion, Randolph placed the necklace before her on the edge of the table in order for her to get a better look at the design.

"This…"

She was still somewhat confused, which Randolph saw, and decided just to explain.

"This necklace here is made of purple and red wood. Unlike the others that are made from oak and pine."

"So…?"

She drifted off in confusion, her mind jumbling and tripping over different thoughts.

"This necklace is different from the others, not only in color and design, but in power."

"Power?"

"Goblin necklaces are nothing special. Maybe a Shaman's would have some magical properties, which is extremely rare. I've heard of a Hunter about two cities over, who found a goblin Shaman, and discovered a necklace that boosted the magical output of a person by 1%. Small, but it was bought for nearly five hundred gold pieces."

"That's…that's a lot."

"It is. Which means that necklaces like that are rare, extremely rare. In fact, finding one could make you enough that one could retire from being a Hunter."

Lia had this nagging feeling in her mind, as she looked between the necklace and Randolph, who continued looking at her, nothing on his face giving anything away.

"So what does that have to do with this?"

She asked, gesturing to the necklace.

Taking a moment to pick it up, he examined the necklaces with great and careful care, his eyes narrowing every now and then.

"This necklace may be one of those rare few."

His words immediately set Lia back, shocked and bewildered.

"Y-You mean one of those -"

"Yes. One of the magically capable ones. But this one is different from the one I mentioned."

"How…how so?"

Lia almost felt afraid to ask.

"The one I mentioned boosted magic by 1% for the wearer. Yours boosts magic by 10%."

"T-That's good right?"

She could hardly contain her anticipation as she looked at the necklace.

"It is. However, it also boosts stamina and speed by 5%. Ranking this up on a cost level, I would estimate you could have nearly 2,000 gold pieces in your pocket by tomorrow if you chose to sell this item."

"2…2,000."

Lia stared in shock at the necklace, but even more so when she realized that it was only 2,000.

'Didn't Wallace offer me like 10,000? Damn it…'

Now she was really cursing herself for letting that money go.

'Cain was right.'

Suddenly, a thought crossed her mind.

"Wait. How did you know it could do that?"

"I've been around enough magic items to know a thing or two about them. And since Posts have items we use to measure magical properties in things like this, I was able to confirm my suspicions. It isn't everyday we find something like this Lia. So I'll be blunt."

His tone turned serious as he crossed his fingers together, looking at her from behind his hands.

"This came from a goblin right?"

"Um…yes."

Lia didn't want to lie, but she also didn't want to tell Randolph that it was Cain who gave her that item.

'He threw it at me like it was nothing. Was this his plan? Or…does he really not care about anything like this. Is he that powerful? He doesn't need it more than seeing it as a small trinket.'

Snapping her from her thoughts, Randolph continued, his voice full of seriousness and left little for any doubt.

"A goblin shaman, to have this ability, would have to be very powerful and adapt in magical arts."

"...yes?"

"So, considering you were able to defeat him, I would say it's your lucky day."

"Your…your not just talking about the money I could earn…are you?"

"No."

He shook his head, tossing the necklace back in the bag, tied it up, and handed the entire thing to Lia.

"What I'm saying is that no mere Rank C could have done that. So…keep this up, and by the time you leave here you might just be Rank B."

"Rank B?"

"Yep. You truly do continue to impress me, kid. I still can't believe I met you in a tavern getting pushed around by four fools. And to think, now we would be halfway done with your trip here, knee deep in an investigation, the entire Post now knows about you, and you've even helped me on a huge goblin Raid. Bigger than the one we had planned, haha."

He chuckled to himself as he whipped tears forming at his eyes. Apparently the absurdity of the situation brought small hints of tears to his eyes.

But Lia didn't join in on the laugh, as she was busy focusing on something else entirely. A thought that passed through her head.

'Just how strong is Cain?'

She never heard the answer back, as her mind was empty of any voice.

And somewhere, deep within the mountains and the forest, a lone man smiled, his red eyes gleaming in the darkness.

"You have no idea kid."