Chapter:10

Han Ji opened his eyes, there was a slight feeling of fogginess in his head.

He blinked the sleep out of his eyes and yawned.

'Morning Labyrinth..' He thought to himself as he stared at the wall for a while.

Trying to clear his mind.

He remembers that he performed well in front of all of his INSTRUCTORS.. except for Chad since Han Ji does not has much of a talent for fighting.

But he knew that it wasn't even that bad, he can hold an opponent out for enough time for his friends to show up to save his a*s.

'Anyways not everyone is great at everything.'

he thought and stood up from his bed,

He grabbed his jacket and headed out.

As his daily routine went, he left for Tom's diner to meet up with his friends-cum-instructors. and grab some breakfast.

Meanwhile back at Tom's diner.

"Man....so bored.." Bella said and placed her head on the table.

The whole squad was sitting there waiting for Han Ji.

"What do Italians do when they are bored though?" Asked DRC out of curiosity.

"Hmmm..." Bella was thinking of a reply trying to remember things she used to do in her free time but then.

"Probably, sell drugs and hide dead bodies?" Leo commented with a mischievous grin.

"Pffft.."

"He ha." Both of the boys cracked.

While Bella gave them a blunt look.

"I mean he's not wrong too," she said laughing softly herself, as both the men laughed harder.

"Ha..ha.Advanced humour..." DRC commented.

Indeed these two were the founders of the squad and became besties because both shared a love for 'Advanced Humour.'

"Yes, Monsieur!" with that both of them collided fists.

A regular person might look at them and think.

'Are these two alright in the head?'

But Bella was used to there this idiotic behaviour.

Chad sat there silently looking at them with the same poker face.

"Hey, guys!" they heard the voice of their only Asian friend.

They followed the direction of the voice and saw Han Ji approaching them with a smile on his face.

"Yo!"

"Salute!"

"Hey."

They all replied with a wave, while Chad just gave him a nod for greetings.

"How're ya doing?" DRC asked with a smile.

"Good, just craving some caffeine," he asked.

"You are not the only one," Leo added.

"Indeed." it was DRC.

"We have already placed an order for coffee."

Bella stated, the words of the devil just after she stated that Tom arrived with a tray that had 5 cups.

"Here's your order guys! Oh hey, Han Ji." Tom greeted Han Ji warmly.

"Hey, Tom." he greeted back.

He placed the coffee cups in front of them.

"What would you like to eat?"

They all then turned at Leo, except for Han Ji.

He looked confused for a moment and they started looking at Leo suddenly.

"Today is the day when we eat what is chosen by a friend and it's your turn, Leo" Bella added.

"Um...Oh yeah, I forgot well..."

The moment Han Ji heard that Leo will be the one to choose their breakfast.

His saliva ran dry, and pearl-sized sweat drops formed on his forehead, even though he never had anything french except for French fries.

But what he has heard about French food, he already knows that it won't be something he'll like to be his first meal of the day.

'Is he going to order frog legs...?'

He thought and nervously swallowed his dry saliva.

"Um...grilled sandwiches will do, "Leo replied with a soft smile.

Tom wrote it down and gave him a slight nod, "Give me five minutes." he said and left.

And at that moment it felt like everyone was feeling the same type of relief and let out a sigh when they heard the words escape his lips.

That included Chad too.

"Huh? what happened?" he asked them with a raised brow.

"Nothing bro, We're just happy that you didn't order something like Croissants or Beignets."

he replied with a straight face.

"What?!" He exclaimed.

"For real, One might get diabetes from your food.." she replied again with a sly expression.

"Heh!?" Leo exclaimed with a broken expression and looked at chad expecting a little bit of validation.

While Chad gave him the same looks as both of them.

"Yeah, I almost thought you might order frog feet," Han Ji replied.

It was then the whole squad looked at him.

They all stared at him with wide eyes.

He stared back.

Then Han Ji realised something.

'Oh, sh*t I think it was the wrong thing to say..' Han Ji thought as he looked at the trio staring right at him

Everyone hates one thing and that is to leave a bad impression or let their impression get ruined.

"Pfft... Haha!!"

"Haha!"

Both DRC and Bella laughed out loud, while Chad smiled.

But Leo stared at him with a blunt face, and Han Ji weakly formed a nervous smile.

"Haha...God d*mn, man you also got advanced humour...Haha!" DRC said and showed his fist to Han Ji.

Han Ji looked at him with a confused expression.

'Advanced humour what the hell is that now? I don't even know how I ended up saying that, everybody was complaining about his food so I just went with the flow..'

"Eh he, Yeah k-kinda?" he replied nervously and bumped his fist with DRC.

"That was, a good one," Bella did while pointing a finger at him.

"Thanks.." he whispered.

"You guys can't appreciate, My beautiful culture," Leo commented and turned around while crossing his arms.

He was half-annoyed and half-joking.

'D*mn it he violated me there.' Leo thought while scratching the back of his head.

***

Their food arrived and they were eating slowly.

"Hey, Han Ji," Leo said in a more serious voice than usual.

"Hmm?" he hummed with a full mouth.

"Today...we're going for a raid," he added.

This time he wasn't surprised as the first, since these guys who were feeding him, and training him needed money for themselves too.

he would have rather been surprised if he found that these guys didn't need to go on a raid, even after all that.

"Oh... so um..while you guys are gone I shall train by myself right?"

he asked.

"No..." He replied and took a bite of his sandwich.

"Huh?" he exclaimed.

'What is that supposed to mean?'

"What do you mean?" he asked

"Well, what he's trying to say is--" DRC was saying but was cut off by Bella.

"--You're joining us on the raid," she replied.

***

"We'll take Han Ji for raid tomorrow."

"No!"

"Aw! Hell Nah!" Both DRC and Bella interfered.

"What!? Why guys!?"

"What the hell do you mean by 'What'?"She said with a big frown on her face.

"Man you high on something or what? you wanna take that guy on a raid."

He looked at him with an angry expression.

Chad stared at him bluntly and nodded his head.

"Guys Come on what's wrong with it?"

"What's wrong!? Pfft!" DRC scoffed at his best friend.

"A lot of is wrong here first, 1 you wanna take a boy on raid who has barely been in here for 2 weeks, he might possess some talent but he still needs to practise and we don't know how good he can perform under pressure, 2 he still suck at hand to hand battle, what if during raid we end up in a situation where we have to throw hands, do you think we will be able to save his a*s and fight at the same time?" she said.

Both DRC and Chad nodded.

"Look Bella, I know he needs improvement, but how can someone improve without experience."

Leo said trying his best to convince her.

"Bro, That doesn't mean we have to take him on a raid it will be like asking a freshman salutatorian to take an exam for a college degree," he replied slight hint of sarcasm in his voice.

"Dude comes on, first listen to me it might change you all guy's minds."

"Why?" Bella said while crossing her arms.

"Just once ok?"

"But--" She tried to interject, but she was cut off because DRC's hand was on her shoulder.

Even though, DRC wasn't agreeing with this idea presented by his best friend and squad leader.

He was one of the people who believed that in a discussion if a person thinks their words had a point they had the right to express it.

"Tsk," she muttered and looked away.

DRC looked at his best friend,

'Thanks, Copain.' he mouthed.

"Ok as I was saying, look, guys, we're not going to our main raid, we're going on a lower Stage for him to have a warm-up, and don't you think being able to get a gun in starting with a knife is lucky? I think he probably has fate on his side"

z2

DRC looked at him with wide eyes.

Not just cause Leo's point made no sense plus He ended up stopping his other friend in the middle of her sentence.

'Is he high on something?'

"Dude, You make almost 0 sense there!" DRC replied.

"Yeah, Even if we go to a lower stage still Han Ji will be at risk and we will lose even more resources if failed, not just that your second point is completely senseless, even If he got good equipment, he literally ran into two hounds and a god d*mn skin stealer too! and you call him lucky?"Bella added

At this point, both of them were convinced that their usually rational and smart leader was just trying to take this new friend and student on the raid.

Because he liked him.

"Let him, grow more at least, dude if you really wanna go that bad on a raid with him wait at least a few more days."

DRC added.

He let out a sigh,

"I guess there is no other choice left...I want to take him with us... because he's one of us.."

***

"What?! Are you guys sure?"

"Yes," Leo added.

"We have already discussed it through."

It was Bella.

"Yeah, we think you need some real experience to grow further as a tracer," DRC added and sipped his coffee.

While Chad just nodded softly.

Han Ji was surprised.

Even though he has improved he knew one thing for sure he still needed a little more improvement before going for a raid.

"Woah-Woah-Woah, guys you all sure? I-I mean, do you think it's gonna be alright? what if I just got in your way?"

"Dude, Don't worry we all are veterans!"

She added and nudged him.

"Yeah, plus we are going to an easy stage, it is more of a warm-up stage," DRC added.

"Oh umm.. alright...?"

Han Ji said his voice lacked confidence.

'Sh*t I didn't expect it to happen so soon..'

***

Right now Han Ji was in his room with Chad and DRC.

"Ok, my guy here is the stuff you'll need."

DRC said and handed him the backpack he had been training with and a black jacket that had a lot of pockets on it and a suspiciously long neck, it was twice the size of regular a turtle neck.

The fabric looked somewhat synthetic and pretty durable too.

"A brief description; The Jacket has an inbuilt camera that sends live footage of the majority of your activities to L.A.B, just in case you get lost so we can contact them and they can track you down easily, or if you try something illegal, Aside from that, it's waterproof, fireproof, defends against some bites and can act as a face mask too,"

'Man sounds like a convenient thing.'

DRC added and then reached into the pocket of the jacket and pulled out a black watch.

This time Han Ji didn't let his guard down his been tricked once but it won't happen again.

"This watch can help you locate safe bases and your comrades and keep a track of time, so you may not forget to rest and end up being--"

"--A Forsaken?"

"Correct," he replied while lifting a finger.

"..and in your bag.."

He took the bag from Han Ji and emptied the content on the ground.

"Here you have a headlamp, 2 water canteens that can hold up to 2.2 litres in each, 7 cans of packaged food, 3 energy bars, toilet paper roll, medical kit, a gas mask, handheld radio and a sleeping bag."

'Hmm... this inventory is smaller than I expected but good for me.'

Then Bella arrived and gave him a belt that had a pouch on the left side, a holster and a slot at back.

"Here, this belt has a pistol holster, an ammo pouch and a Sheath holder for a machete."

She said and handed him the machete.

"Uh...thanks but, I don't know much about how you use a machete." He said softly.

"Ah don't worry, machetes are just a last resort unless you're like Chad, but if you're with us you won't get a chance to use it," she said and tapped his shoulder.

'Ok, I guess?'

Basically, she was trying to say that if we got into a situation where Han Ji has to use machete, it will be most likely over for him

He smiled nervously and placed the machete on his belt slot and wore the belt.

He could feel a slight weight on the pouch, he tapped it to find that it already had a lot of ammo.

"Thanks again." He said.

Slowly he packed the backpack with some help from DRC.

"Yo!" He heard the voice of the squad leader.

Han Ji turned to look at his squad leader approaching him slowly.

"I got your shoes," Leo said and approached Han Ji with a pair of black combat boots with an extra thick soul.

"Oh, thanks man,"

Han Ji replied with a smile.

He placed them in front of him.

"Try 'em on," DRC said.

"Sure thing," he said and took off his sneakers.

The size was almost perfect just slightly loose but, it rather felt comfortable.

Han Ji walked to make sure he was comfortable but then suddenly he noticed something.

He stopped and looked at his foot then tapped it up and down on the ground.

Then he tried to jump, there was one peculiar thing.

They made no sound.

"So you noticed they, are completely soundproof, made from some rare material found in the Labyrinth."

"Rare?! Like expensive?" He asked.

"Not to us," Leo replied with a slight smile and wink.

"Agreed" Bella added.

"Faxx'." It was DRC.

'What do they mean not to us? are these guys rich or something?'

Han Ji was feeling even more nervous now he would never think about losing something like these shoes.

"Oh uh thanks dude," he said.

"Ah no need to thank us! Is there anything else you wanna take with you?"

Leo asked.

"No-- wait.." He said and reached into his old backpack and pulled out his journal.

Since Han Ji has developed this habit he can't help without writing at least an entry daily.

"Let's go guys!!"