5 It's not as easy as it seems!

On our way to the mission board we stopped at the store so that Julie and Chris could pick their soul books up, and I explained to them the importance of it, and told them how to shape-shift, while warning them that this is a onetime use function.

Julie quickly chose to transform her book into a smartphone, while Chris liked the book, he just made it smaller, into a pocket book instead.

With that sorted out, we were now ready to grab missions, the mission board was huge, it's like a larger version of a whiteboard, one that you'd see in classrooms, just ten times the size, mostly horizontally though, as it'd be hard to reach otherwise!

The board was divided into mission requirements, leftmost side being solo missions or missions that required something, for example a deposit amount of credits rather than a limit on people, though the higher requirements usually needed a few peoples' combined savings if they weren't supported by a group that is!

We arrived at the 3-man section, and since I was first to arrive at the board today, compared to last life when I struggled with the line for hours first, this time there were multiple options of missions! some seemed easier than others, although they had worse rewards in exchange, I regret mentioning the mountain climbing mission, there's clearly missions suited better for our group here! While I was lamenting my earlier choice of words, Chris too had noticed

"Isaac, we could take this one, I figure it'd be better for our group than climbing mountains?" He pulled off a mission file from the board, it was a mansion search mission, it has a recommendation of 1-5 people, the description briefly said 'The lord of the lonesome mansion has lost his precious ring! it's the only remnant of his wife, and he can't sleep soundly when he doesn't know where it is, help him find it!', and the only clue is that he know it's inside his mansion.

"Hmm, it does indeed seem to suit us better, if we use time well, we should be able to finish it quickly" I replied awkwardly.

Missions usually had a time limit or people limit, this mission is one of the different cases, although we're still limited on time, the reward also becomes lower the longer we take, reward being nothing after a day, and after 3 days we even need to pay the lord for his losses before getting a fail-grade on the mission, this is the to make these missions more interesting from what I recall a note from the Admins said in the future.

That's why this mission has a people requirement of 1-5 people, with a maximum of 10 participants, it's to allow us to spread out and make the search efficient, I'm a bit worried if 3 people will be enough, but let's just give it an attempt!

"Alright Isaac, lead the way, where to we go after we take a mission?" Julie said, also agreeing with this mission choice.

Since it's decided, I grabbed the file and took the initiative and started leading the way to the mission counter.

The mission counter has always been a mystery to me, I handed over the mission file, and the girl behind the desk immediately placed it in a scanner, and then an archway raised from the floor, before a mysterious blue waterlike surface appeared in the arch, like a magical gate from stories.

"This mission has a recommended count of 1-5 people, you sure you wanna go in with only three?" the girl behind the desk kindly asked.

"We'll do our best!" Julie proudly proclaimed, she is shy around strangers, but apparently it's fine with the mysterious people behind the desks? huh...

"If you say so, then step through the gate, the mission timer will start once everyone has arrived." the girl explained while pointing at the newly opened portal-like archway.

I stepped in first, and was washed in a feeling of floating in an endless sea of nothingness, this feeling only lasted for a few seconds, it doesn't feel bad nor good, just mysterious, and then there's a strange shove, making your whole body shudder once before you're suddenly standing on solid ground, greeted by a completely new view!

My heart sunk as soon as I saw the mansion, this mansion is gigantic! it'd take us a week at least to search through!! No wonder she warned us about the people count...

As I was thinking about the size and where to start, Julie arrived next to me, her expression was amusing to say the least, surprise, shock, awe and confusion all at once, Chris that appeared a few seconds after that was a bit cooler on the surface, but you could still see a hint of emotion on his shivering lips and knitted brows.

"W-Woah, what kind of strange m-magic is that!" Julie commented, still shaken from the strange feeling, "don't worry Julie, I remember my first time too, you're doing surprisingly well" I silently praised Julie.

"T-This..." Chris was also surprised, but he was rather quiet about it, then he started sizing up the mansion.

"Isaac, it might've been a bad choice to only go with us three.... I-I'm sorry if we can't make it in time" Chris had also noticed the size of the mansion, and regretfully said to me.

"Don't worry Chris, as Julie said before we entered, we can only try our best!" I told him, as an attempt of encouraging him, and at the same time encourage myself.

...

We searched split up and searched for an hour before meeting in the main hall, without a single clue, we could only draw up the mansion on three large pieces of paper, one for each floor and then mark the searched rooms, there's possibly over a hundred rooms! with three people, that's around 30 rooms each, while searching 30 rooms meticulously in less than a day each is feasible, the longer it takes the less rewards we get! This is not as easy at it first seemed!