Project Zackson

I woke up and lingered in my bed on this bright sunny morning. I got up after about 5 minutes and changed into my casual clothes, picked up my dagger, and headed out to the government guild.

I lived in a primarily Human part of town, most of the other races seemed to do the same. Even though the race war was over, I guess the races still had trouble getting along.

If I do remember there were 4 in total Human, Elfs which can be divided by Dark and light, Dwarfs, and beast-men or lost souls as some may call them because they are the main threat we slayers have to take down due to their aggressiveness and choice to not communicate with the other races.

When I arrived at the guildhall, I saw my party leader Jacob talking and laughing with the light Half-Elf in our party Stella.

"Hey guys," I smiled.

"Hey Max, how you doing," replied Jacob

"I'm doing good," I said as I sat down, "any new job request we taking on today."

He looked over to Stella, "Tell him what you heard."

She turned and said, "So I got word that there was an announcement coming up from one of those rich guys that own those big islands out in the Pacific, his names Mr. Zackson."

"You're pulling my leg here," I said, questioning what I just heard, "how does this announcement have anything to do with us slayers."

"Word is that it's going to be tournament games and training for low-rank slayers, I would say."

"Yeah, and you know us," Jacob chimed in, "were pretty low rank ourselves Ophelia and I are both F rankers, Stella's an E rank, and your 'just' a G rank."

I grabbed his collar and said, "you know this G rank can kick your ass."

"Wow, scawy. Quit joking around."

"Oh, yeah, wanna try me."

"Yeah, I'll try you real good tonight."

"Phhhhh, Ladies," Stella said, "calm down, this is no place for a catfight."

"Right, I was just joking Max, you're a good part of our team," said Jacob.

"Yeah Yeah, by the way, where is Ophelia?"

"No idea," said Jacob, "she should be here any minute. You know Stella?"

"No, I don-"

"May we have everyone's attention," came over the intercom, "our proud sponsor Mr. Zackson has a message, please direct your attention to the monitors."

"See, my Intel was correct," she said grinning. I turned and looked at the tv and on the screen seemed to be a man in his early 30s.

"Hello slayers of the San Fransico, Daily City, and Linda Mar residence," he said, "my name is Mr.Zackson."

"No first name huh," I said, although no one heard, both Jacob and Stella closely paying attention to the tv.

"I am offering all E rankers and below a wonderful opportunity," he continued, "a chance to improve their rank and skills by coming and training on my island located 52 miles off the coast of the Bay Area, and travel isn't a problem. I will be escorting those who choose to participate via boat on to the island. The boats depart at 6:00 pm, so I hope you make your choice with haste, thank you."

My immediate reaction was like a child being given candy, just the thought that I could raise my rank and improve my skills as an assassin made me feel overjoyed, I could start to make more money with this opportunity and gain more information abou-

"This seems too good to be true," said Jacob, "I've heard of the stories where camps were set up to help the Slayers improve their skills, but that was for C, B, and A-rank Slayers not the lower-ranked ones."

"That's because it's out of generosity from Mr. Zackson," said Stella.

"Yeah, this could be our big break from only doing low-rank quests to moving on to middle or even high ranked quests if we improve a lot," I added, but I really wanted to be more useful and earn more money.

"I don't know," said Jacob, "some of the other groups seem wary let's make a decision once O-"

"Sorry I'm late," Ophelia said, rushing to sit down "I was busy around the house, my parents had me take care of my little sister, they want to surprise her for her birthday and asked me to help."

"No, you're right on time," said Jacob. We came to a conclusion by a vote, choosing to take this opportunity given to us.