The Fearless D-rank

Bright neon lights drown the light of the stars and moon from the streets of the slums, the crowds of street vendors and recruiters make it hard to even hear yourself think. The buildings are littered with broken windows, exposed bricks, and hole-riddled walls. Remnants of the war. The alleyways packed with D-ranks who didn't meet the Guild's requirements. Here if you can't join one of the Guilds you'll end up just like them. The Guild's control the distribution of blood to the lower ranks, from the capital.

The desperate ones will do anything they can to get their hands on some, anything's better than the alternative.

"So Nick, who's this guy we're looking for again?" I hear my partner Drake ask.

Drake wore a tattered grey collared shirt and denim jeans with tears and holes worn into them. On his shoulders rested his rusted arbiter, almost matching the color of his standard cut short brown hair. An arbiter is a thick armor-plated machine that takes blood from its user to enhance their physical abilities, he had one for each arm. I wore a similar one on my right shoulder, overlapping my own tattered shirt. Though not as rusted and worn down as Drakes. Drake was a close-range fighter, says that weapons only complicate things. I myself carry a two-handed long-sword on my hip. It has a thin curved blade, connected to the side of a small motor, where the guard would be on a normal sword. With a lever coming down from the motor like the brakes on a bike.

"I'll fill you in on the details once we've left the market. Gossip travels fast," I reply

Drake and I are currently on a job for our guild, the Hunters Guild. The Hunters Guild is responsible for keeping the peace in the slums. Also acting as a militia against the un-ranked. Currently, we're investigating a series of disappearances in the merchant district. Once out of earshot from the market square I start to explain the information given to me from the Guild.

"Three traveling merchants have gone missing in the last few days, their gear left behind in the room they were staying in,"

"Any signs of a struggle?" Drake asks.

"Not from what the Guild had been told, but we'll know once we get in there,"

Shortly after leaving the market square to buildings went from cramped, to spread apart. They were more damaged than the previous, making me wonder how they're still standing. The tallest among them was the Merchant Guild's housing complex. Standing at six stories tall, in stark contrast to the two to three-story buildings littered around it. A cobbled-together concrete wall surrounded the tall structure. At the entrance stood two guards, looking at their dented and scratch arbiters the could be low or high-tier C-ranks. As there was no rust to be found on any of their equipment. Their attention stayed locked on us for the duration of our approach to the complex.

"What's your affiliation?" asked one of the guards.

"Were with the Hunters Guild, were here to investigate the recent disappearances," Drake responded, pulling out his tags branded with the Guild's symbol. That of a wolf with large pronounced fangs.

The guard nodded toward me, moving the collar of my shirt to the side so I could grab the chain the guard's gaze quickly shifts from my hand to the side of my neck. His eyes fixated on the ill-treated scars on my neck.

"What is that on your neck?" the second one asked

The first quickly elbowed his fellow guardsman, whispering something in his ear causing the second to go completely silent.

"Do you still need to see my tags?" I ask, yet to have pulled them out.

"No that will no longer be necessary, you two can go through the gate now," the first responded waving to someone behind the gate.

The gate made a loud whining noise as it opened, sounding as if it's rusted hinges would give out at any second.

"Which floor are we checking first Nick?" Drake asked, passing the guardsmen. I could hear them whispering to themselves.

"The first disappearance was on the second-floor Room 132, so I was thinking we should check that one first to identify any trends between the three rooms,"

"Glad they paired us up for this one, Nick, you make these jobs so much easier. At the very least there's less resistance with you around," Drake said with a smile.

Once arriving at the room we couldn't find any obvious signs of a struggle, it was going to take a far deeper look than I originally thought. The carpet wasn't torn, there were no dents in the drywall, and the glass wasn't any more cracked than would be considered normal.

"Drake, is your nose still as sharp as the last job?" I ask.

"Of course this thing is my secret weapon," he responded, rubbing the tip of his nose with his grin stretching from ear to ear.

"See if you can find any traces of blood in the carpet,"

Though they might have cleaned this room multiple times since the first disappearance, I was confident in Drake's ability to sniff out my hunch. After a short minute of Drake sniffing around the room, he stopped at the corner by the window.

"I think I found it, there was a ton pooled in this corner. It soaked through the carpet so bad, they would've had to replace the walls and floor to hide it,"

We did the same check in all the rooms, the placements were different. But the results were the same, I mass amount of blood pooled somewhere around the room. We went behind the building to go over our findings and give Drake's nose a much-needed break, but someone was waiting for us. He wore a tattered suit, with a pin clipped to his blazer. On it was the Merchants symbol of a backpack and coins.

"How's the investigation doing, not too fruitful I take it," the man says while fighting back a smile.

"No actually quite th-" I quickly stop Drake mid-sentence

"And who might you be?" I ask the man.

"I'm the manager of this complex Albert Vescer, but within these walls, I go by the manager,"

He turned to face use his expression turning stone-cold, his presence didn't feel like a D or low C-rank, he could be as high as B-rank. I could hear Drake's armor rattling, under the pressure of the manager. Though in the face of the Manager's cold demeanor, I couldn't feel any fear. Something told me that no matter what he did he couldn't touch me if he tried.

"Ah so you're what my men can't seem to stop talking about, The fearless D-rank of the Hunters Guild,"