Next Contract

Inian and Marc were exhausted from the party that they all had last night. They went back to their cabin to sleep last night and were questionably sore all over their bodies.

Inian groaned as he sat upon his rack. His body was aching over all over from last night. He couldn't remember anything that happened, though. He looked down and noticed his shirt was being worn the wrong way, and Marc had no pants on.

Marc groaned as he sat up too, and Inian raised his eyebrows at him. Marc looked down, "Hey, don't look at me, man, I can't remember anything from last night." Inian shook his head in disbelief that neither of them could remember anything. They got dressed and went back out onto the deck of the ship.

Waiting there were the four other members who were just as groggy and tired. They roamed on the ship. Beast was cleaning the same spot, Blyke was at the steering wheel, but the ship wasn't moving. Una was looking blankly at a map, and Oliver had just come back from the mercenary station.

"Okay, guys," Oliver began, "we have a new contract, but you all are not going to like it. They didn't have too many available, but this one pays well. It's just that we have to hunt down and bring back the core of a high-tier monster."

Una spat out the coffee she was drinking. "Are you kidding me, Oliver? We would need a Hiro cannon to take out a high-tier monster. All we have are the basic Glastro cannons. Those would just be enough to annoy a high-tier beast. Our swords could kill it, but that would mean we would all need to get up close and fight it!"

Oliver nodded, "I understand that. We can only kill it with our suits and swords; however, the payment for bringing back one high-tier monster core is two thousand gold coins. With that, we can do an entire upgrade for our ship and equipment."

The whole crew gasped at that amount. For one high-tier core, they could get 2,000 gold coins? They got 800 coins for the entire month of hunting low-tier monsters!

Blyke spoke up, "let's do it. If we complete this job, we can upgrade the ship and take on more difficult jobs with ease. I wouldn't mind an easy paycheck after this."

Beast nodded with agreeance. Una sighed, "fine, but I will kill you if we all die."

Oliver looked towards Inian and Marc. "you two are apart of this crew now as well, what are your thoughts?"

Marc quickly said, "I'm in."

Inian took a little longer to answer but agreed soon after.

"Great! Let's get a move on then!" Oliver shouted. The crew all went and performed the different tasks on the ship necessary to get it moving. Inian's job had recently been to scope out the area from the perch on top of the ship. He clambered up top and watched as the ship lifted off the landing platform and flew over the city walls.

He could still see the mechs patrolling along the outside of the city, ever watchful of monsters or enemy soldiers.

Inian couldn't help but have a bad gut feeling as they flew further and further away from the city. He has only ever seen a low-tier monster, and those were dangerous enough to fight hand to hand in the exoskeletons. He had no idea how dangerous it might be to fight a high-tier monster in an exoskeleton.

He tightened his grip around the rifle he was holding in his hand. If the sky train that Marc's father had been on had been destroyed by a Titan level monster, what kind of beast would that have had to be?