"Currently there are only 3 assignment to choose from. They must have joined hands to give us these 3 missions to choose from to see your failure." Dexter informed me through the communication crystal.
"Why is that?"
"1st assignment, it is an easy mission to cull a riot occurring north of the empire. 2nd assignment is harder as it deals with tracking down a secret organisation and its members. Finally, the 3rd mission has you to deal with a grey zone in a village in the south."
"So, choosing the first assignment means being easily sabotaged by Jakes faction.
The 2nd assignment needs no sabotage as it is insanely hard enough, that I might even die during the investigation process.
Finally, I can assume the 3rd mission is currently impossible due to all the exorcist award user able to deal with grey zones being under the control of the emperor?" Dexter nodded in reply.
"Jakes faction already completed a mission in the north at stopping a rebellion, which means the north is under his control. So, I am pretty sure, whatever riot going there is currently orchestrated by his loyal followers staying there. Going there is as simple as walking into a lion's den.
The second mission is to help track down a secret order of assassins inside the empire. The emperor has been investigating that organisation for the past 2 years since their first public reveal. Taking this mission means that you would have to personally ask for the past 2 years' investigation report from his majesty, which can be tampered with to put you in more danger.
Or you can simply investigate it from the beginning, but it will take too long and will cause the support and faith in you to be lost over time. In simple terms, it won't be worth the reward or effort to investigate it from the beginning.
Not to mention the secret assassin order will have your head if they were to find someone bothering to uproot them.
The 3rd mission is hard in itself without having me to explain the dangers of it to you.
You have to choose a mission from these 3. And depending on your choice all future assignments you get will be similar to the nature of the first one you picked." Dexter explained.
I sighed at the troublesome situation I have been placed in again.
Choosing the first assignment means I will have all my future assignments focused on military ordeals. All military assignments are currently dominated by Jack's faction, so it is very easy for them to sabotage all my future missions.
The second assignment means in future I will have to deal with secret organisation and crime syndicates while having to deal with all assassination attempts they throw at me while tracking them down. The empire is very huge, and the number of organisation and syndicates hiding in its pockets are simply too numerous to count. This means all my future missions would have to go through the emperor who can simply give me a false report and sabotage it.
Then the last one- having to deal with the supernatural of this world. There would be no one to sabotage this as it is something like a natural disaster, and trying to sabotage it is foolishness as it could cause even greater calamity.
The supernatural of this world can be born into this world in 2 ways. The first way is from an award or magi. If someone has an award such as reanimating the dead or summoning the spirit of a deceased to fight for them or help them in a fight, then that is the first way. These kinds of award users are given a collective name called Necromancers.
Or someone who specialises in dark magi can also do it but much weaker, as dark magi's specialise in curses, weakening effects among other things. The magi's who specialise in this are called Occultist.
The undead summoned by a necromance or Occultist grows in strength with the person who summoned them.
The second way for them to appear in this world is when a magi zone arrives into a negative zone. And forms what is called a Grey zone.
Sometimes a phenomena happens when high magi particle density are gathered in one area, these marvels are called magi zones. No one is aware of the exact reason why, when, where and how they appear. These constantly change or appear randomly. If they are in one area today then it will shift to another area in a few seconds, hours, day or even months.
Areas visited by magi zones often turn whatever there is into a high-level beast plant or animal, instantly. Along with that they also often leave behind what is known is magi stones.
Magi stones are simply stones which contain magi particle, which a magi can use for various purpose, but the main usage being able to absorb the magi particle in it safely. If someone who had no talent had sufficient amount of magi stones then he could easily become a magi within weeks, remembering it takes a no talent at least 50 years of accumulation before he can become a rank 1 magi.
It is not exactly possible to find where magi zones are currently present, but it is easily possible to find where a magi zones used to be if collective beast plants or animals are in an area, followed by a numerous amount of magi stones.
Negative emotions, however, are different. If a group of livings beings were to die with massive negative emotions or if someone were to live in a place their whole life in deep negative emotions, then that area will slowly accumulate and absorb that negativity, becoming a negative zones. These zones are easily identifiable and as soon as one finds it, it is imperative to report them to the local authorities.
Negative zones aren't much of a physical threat, other than any living beings who arrive there feeling affected by the negative emotions such as depression, anger, guilt etc, and thus adding to the collection of ever-growing negative emotions.
However, the real danger starts when a high-density magi particle descends into a negative zones. As soon as the magi particles and negative zones meet they somehow interact and create an extremely powerful being known as Ghost, who becomes the owner of the grey zone.
All the supernatural beings born inside the grey zone are simply dangerous, as not only are they unaffected by all kinds of physical attack but anyone who dies in their hands turns into an undead.
Along with that anyone who comes into the grey zone adds onto the strength of the grey zone by feeding it their negative emotions.
To avoid this situation the empire often sends out a specific group of award users to cleanse negative areas or grey zones. They are termed as an exorcist.
Magi users can replicate what exorcists do but it requires the effort of more than at least 20 magi users who specialise in light magi, not to mention the amount of magi users or their strength needs to increase in proportion to the strength of the grey zone. But still, no magi users bother to do it, due to there being no benefit from vanquishing a grey zone. If it was clearing a magi zone then they could at least take some of the magi stones, but inside a grey zone there was simply nothing in there, that could benefit them.
And dealing with a grey zone often requires to take as few people as possible, as taking too many people will let the grey zone grow in strength by feeding off their negative emotions.
A person who has no magi talent or an award has no chance of getting past the undead let alone facing the true horror of a grey zones, Ghosts.
I looked through the 3 files in front of me containing the details of all 3 missions.
All 3 of the mission means death or defeat. I can't simply back out because of death as I have to complete these assignments, to show my worth to the court. Even the useless crown prince completed his first assignment, albeit it was a very easy assignment. If I back out it means I am even more useless than the crown prince.
I can't die as well, due to what might happen to me after death. The power I received from God is simply too useless in combat and defence, let alone helping me right now.
"I will choose the grey zone" I replied as Dexter's face changed drastically to shock. Choosing the other two missions mean definitely being sabotaged or worst-case scenario death.
However, inside a grey zone there can be no interference or sabotage, as anyone who enters there that is not an exorcist can simply sign their death warrant. The only thing waiting there for me is either, I complete my assignment there, or fail it or worst-case scenario I die. It was simple and saved me from planning against all kind of messy situation I might encounter from the other 2 mission.
This assignment perfectly fits my lazy nature simple and straight forward.