16 I am a Hero

Snow sighed as she was sitting in her cubicle for the seventh time. How long has it been since she talked to Mr. Rogers, it honestly felt like yesterday when she had to go through the horrifying experience of being interviewed extensively by both Emily Clairson, Jonet Jackson, and Mr. Roger's at the same time. She shivered.

Hopefully, she didn't need to go back again. Instead, she was at the Dragon Express being overworked as usual. With the new influx of Hunters being added into the system, she had been constantly busy.

The number of Players found throughout the world was astronomically higher than anyone could have ever imagined. Which caused a large commotions throughout the magical community. So far, count to date, over one thousand players have been registered and continued to rapidly grow in size.

Snow wanted to kick herself for bringing up more work to herself, but she knew that was the best and safest way to keep track of the Players themselves. So many things have changed in a blink of an eye as the magical world was quickly incorporating the Player's into their system.

Already, Dragon Express was having a few necessary training courses that the Players needed to take to understand their new world and the rules set in the modern world. Everything else that the players had to figure out with their own body and mind .

"Snow!" Lily called out her name entering from the back door as she walked towards her cubicle with indifference. "Mr. Jay is calling for you."

"What? Why?" Already, she can sense that Mr. Jay might push more work onto her.

"I don't know. He wants you to come to his office." Lily sat down, rolled towards her desk in one fluid motion that it attracted the other Hunter's gaze that was present. They stared at her long lustrous leg as a dirty grin erupted on their face.

"Alright." Snow got up, tapping her paper a few times before neatly setting it aside. Pulling out her Move To Next Receptionist sign, she placed it on her desk. She then walked over towards the same door that Lily came out from.

The moment upon entering, a few paper fluttered down from above her head, landing into her hands. She gazed down, curious about what new task that Mr. Jay was going to throw at her. In large bold letters, the front cover read:

Teacher Assistance on Magical Power for the Players.

Then she flipped through and saw many more.

Investigation on Player's Death.

Party forming in the enchanted forest.

Dark energy clearance with a Party.

She confusedly looked at the papers in hand, wondering if Mr. Jay wanted to post these commissions up on the board itself.

"Mr. Jay?" She looked up from the paper and towards Mr. Jay.

As usual, she saw him knee deep in a large amount of paperworks that seemed to appear out of thin air as it landed neatly with the piles of other stack papers that were scattered all around him like towering skyscrapers.

For a moment, Snow felt bad for him for being behind, but just as quickly as the feeling came it disappeared the moment he spoke.

"Your assignment." Mr. Jay didn't even look up once as he was too busy scribbling away.

"Wait, you want me to teach?" Snow was confused at the task that she was given. Mostly because she was a receptionist. Not a teacher. What was worse was her stupid fear in talking in front of group of people would rear up its ugly head again and she wished such assignment was given to someone else. "Heather can do better at this than me."

"She's has her own assignments."

"Then what about my work? We need extra hands, I'm already swamped with the extra things that I have to do." She quickly threw out more reason in the hopes that he would rethink over such problems. "I'm already behind by updating ten new hunters into the system."

Mr. Jay stopped writing, he looked up towards her as he squinted her eyes.

"I already hired more receptionists to handle the extra work. So instead, you will be doing the evening shifts while the morning shift you will be doing your classes."

"Then I need to be paid better." She threw such words at Mr. Jay almost fearlessly, because she knew that such things would make him heistate. A small inkling of her usual smile appeared on her lips, knowing that it was a checkmate.

"Done. Your salary will be doubled."

Snow's jaw dropped. She couldn't help but wonder if she was hearing things. Was he a doppelganger?

Without realizing it, she formed a small ball made of ice magic and flicked it towards Mr. Jay's forehead to check if he wasn't a doppelganger. Mr. Jay furrowed as he snapped the ice ball out of the thin air and crushed it.

"Ms. Snow. I am only saying this because the higher ups said so. If it was my way, I would have sent you off without an increase in salary." With a scoff, he rolled his eyes at her. "Better yet, would you like me to retract that statement now?"

"No." Snow unconsciously stated back from pure shock. He was the same Mr. Jay he knew, but when she rethought about what he had said, she frowned.

"Mr. Jay if you had gone with such a route and overworked us without pay, you will be automatically filed for a lawsuit." Snow gave him a glamorous reception smile that kicked in. "I would gladly be the first person to sign my name to such cause for overworking us like a slave." She retorted.

She knew that Mr. Jay couldn't say anything further to her statement, mostly because it was true. With relief, she waited for his final decision.

Dead silence followed after.

Maybe she had pushed her chances a bit too far in her endeavor to escape from the task at hand.

"Ms. Snow." Mr. Rogers had carefully said, "Your pay will be doubled and you will have access to the time chamber throughout the courses. Now, if you will excuse me, I have a few more things that I got to finish by tonight." He shooed her away, dipping his head back into the pile of papers that appeared out of thin air, once again to increase his workload.

Snow turned around and left.

Upon exiting, her legs wobbled. Her hands were gripped tightly as it finally loosened. She felt like she was all out of steam from the false bravado of herself that she put up in front of Mr. Jay. Still, she had increased her pay and was allowed to use the Time chamber. Which was an unexpected blessing.

She had always wanted to be able to go inside the Mana field chamber that helped speed up her magical growth and getting into one of these chambers were nearly impossible without being in the top clearance. For someone like her to be allowed access wasn't something that happened often.

Still, Mr. Jay didn't waver from his decision. It upsetted her, but she knew that there was nothing else to do but to go through with this teaching starting tomorrow morning. Luckily for her, she had a bit of time to get herself mentally ready.

Walking over towards her desk, she sat down with a bit of a slump.

"Did he get you too?" Heather asked, a large grin on her face. She slid over as she wrapped around Snow's shoulder.

Snow shook her head.

"Wait, he didn't double your pay?"

She shook her head yes.

"Oh, okay. You scared me there for a second." Heather sighed, hugging her even tighter with one

arm. "I would have flayed his balls if he had said no! It would have been considered such a possibility." She huffed.

"Agreed." Lily spoke, she was scribbling up some papers before cutting in on their conversation. "My time is valuable, you know. More work without extra pay is slavery."

Snow couldn't help but agree. She wasn't willing to be overworked and being underappreciated. Mr. Jay didn't take care of his employees as much as they liked.

Heather vigorously nodded as well. "Though what kind of assignment have you gotten anyways?"

"Simple info gathering. I'll be leaving on a little trip for a month." Lily gave them a sly grin, which made Heather annoyed. "Going on a long cruise down south."

"That's a vacation, not work."

"Exactly, my work vacation."

Heather rolled her eyes at Lily's statement.

Sometimes Snow wondered if Lily purposely showed off to get on their nerves. Most of the time she succeeded. Other times, she ignored her.

"Anyways, what about you Snow?" Heather asked, curiously.

"I was thrown with like four task." Snow barely could get the words out of her lips, before she snapped out of her moment. "Teaching, two investigation, and possibly some kind of clearing mission."

"You were handed with four assignments?!" Heather was shocked to hear so many assignments given to her. "That's crazy!"

"Tell me about it. I was hoping for something easier."

"Ah," Heather understood instantly what she was talking about. She knew that Snow had a bit of a stage fright in front of a large amount of people. "Well, I would like to help but I too got a handful to deal with to be done in the next month. Sorry, Snow." She let go, allowing Snow to correct her posture.

"It's alright." Snow had finally given in at the task at hand. She couldn't run away, she knew it was all wishful thinking, but what was done was done. The repercussions for not finishing these assignments were a lot heavier than one could wish for. If she back out on a given task, she would lose a large amount of pay as well get a black mark on her reception status. Such a mark was detrimental for her job and she didn't wanted that over her stupid fear.

"I'll figure something out."

"I'm glad you're taking steps to get over this." Heather reached over her hands and held it. "I'll be cheering for you."

"Thanks."

They were about to split ways, when the door was rudely pushed open.

Everyone snapped their attention to the front and a group of new Players entered. Snow noticed that Dairen wasn't usually present, realizing he might have gone out to do a side job around this time.

"Oh my god. What is this wretched place? It smells like dog." A girl with a high ponytail spoke out loud with an arrogant attitude. "Is this the right place?"

"Yea, Eleanor." A man in his thirties with high cheek bones, curly blonde hair walked brashly as if he owned the place. His striking blue eyes stared back into the crowd, watching every single one of them with wonder. One could say he was handsome if it wasn't for his attitude.

Snow couldn't help but wonder if they were thugs by the way the group waltzed in. She couldn't help if they were going to start flipping tables and spitting at the rate they were going about this.

"This icky place is? You sure this is right, Mike?" Eleanor twirled the edge of her blond hair as she blew her gum. With a pop, it broke and smeared across the side of her lips. "Boring. I thought it would be cleaner and much more expensive than this.

"Whatever, let's just get this done and over with." Mike glanced around and caught Snow's attention. A bright smile erupted on his face as he walked over.

Eleanor snorted, shaking her head. She trailed behind him as the rest of the gang did the same. They all went to one of the two other opened receptionists as they got in line to get their ID's.

Heather pulled away from Snow, winking at her as she left.

Snow quickly put on a work smile as she sweetly spoke. "Welcome, sir. How may I help you?"

"You look very beautiful today. I was wondering if you have any free days this coming week. I would like to take you out for a coffee."

"I'm sorry Mr. Customer. Any personal business isn't condoned at work." Snow quickly stated. She wiped out a stack of paper and slid it to him. "Here is the paperwork to fill out your application."

Mike reached over, frowning at her rejection.

"You can call me Mike."

"Well, Mr. Mike. Here is a pen," She slid the pen towards him and motioned him towards the back towards the sofa. "Please fill these paperwork out and bring it back to me when you are done."

He turned his head towards the sofa and back at her. "What if I need some assistance?"

"Then I am here to assist WHEN you have a question."

"I do have a question." He replied, leaning forward. "Tomorrow at 10?"

The end of Snow's lip twitched as she felt her mask breaking. "I'll be teaching class at that time."

"Then what about 3 pm?"

"I'll be here working."

"Late night dinner?"

"I'm sorry, I'll be working possible overtime because Mr. Jay decided to give me a large number of assignments for tomorrow." Snow tried her best, but it seemed Mike wasn't going to let her go without a yes.

"What would it take you to say yes?"

"That is a question you should ask yourself first," Snow replied and once again motioned him to the sofa. "Let me get the rest of your friends before the day ends."

Mike got up, but Snow could tell that he wasn't done. She ignored him with a sparkling smile as she gave the papers to the next person.

This was something that happened to any one of the girls here at Dragon Express and she was used to it. The best solution for her was to quickly motion them along. Eventually, she knew that they would give up.

It didn't take long before Mike finished writing as he came over with the stack of paper in hand.

Before Mike could say anything else, Snow wiped out a crystal ball.

"Please put your hand on the crystal ball, so we can put your fingerprints and paperwork on file." She snapped her fingers, the paper fluttered out of Mike's hand and swirled around the crystal ball as it melted into it.

Mike was fascinated by magic as he leaned over in excitement. He reached over to place his hand on the crystal ball, forgetting to ask her out again.

With a brightening flash, a pure white light erupted from the crystal ball blinding everyone.

Snow covered her eyes in shock because she had never seen this happen before. Eventually, the light receded.

It took a moment for her to adjust to the blinding light and her eyes to focus. She rubbed it a few times.

In front of her, large bold letters appeared with the word: Hero.

Fuck.