None of the soldiers seemed aggravated due to the treatment they recieved. Perhaps it was due to military discipline.
"They take too long. Back in our country we never had a line of people waiting like this to speak with us...", Ashley whispered.
Granted, there were not many people in the country to be waiting, but Trevor agreed that this system was far too inefficient. The more people that needed to be serviced, the more people who should be servicing. If this principle was ignored, then everything would break down into a chaotic mess where only those at the top were serviced.
However, at the end of the day there were some things that only rulers should have a say over. Important decisions and guests.
Trevor then wondered 'What if when our country becomes larger, if we were to have each of us dealing with one subject at a time... four rulers, one mind... things would certainly go faster than this... the only issue is that we would all be talking at once... I suppose that wouldn't work... maybe Garett can invent some sort of sound allocating device... I will speak with him later about it. We could always simply have loyal subjects take over the positions of leadership, and collaborate as a company... I could run as the CEO and direct the others, showing them how to react to given situations... well, I will consider that more later on, when we have grown to a larger size.'
After a while of waiting, the room had become completely full. There was no longer any room for people to come in, and every single person was touching the shoulders of another.
People started bumping into each other just trying to stay in the room.
"Oi, be careful!"
"Sorry! There are so many people in here!"
"Oof!"
"Ugh..."
Trevor saw in the shadows of the thin curtain that another figure had entered the priority line.
'Tch... at airports, they have one person attending the priority line, and one person attending the regular line at the same time, but here they don't even take anyone unless the priorities are cleared... at this rate, the non priorities will stagnate and never make any progress.'
It reminded him of how his stepmother would often consider her own children as priorities, and him as a non-priority. Unless her children had everything they needed and wanted, he got nothing.
Suddenly, because it was too clustered, someone fell over into the curtain that separated the rooms, knocking it down with a loud clang of armor and revealing the good looking man with a finely trimmed beard and a muscular build sitting on the other side.
The women serving the priority customers jumped back and let out some high pitched screams when this happened.
"Kyah!"
'Stupid bitches...', Ashley and Samantha simultaneously thought.
"Oi oi... what is this? Why have I, the Colonel of the seventh platoon of the third legion of the empire, been disrespected in such a manner? Surely you all don't think that it is acceptable for this riff raff to make such a scene in front of me like this?"
The man stood up with a condescending face and a stern expression, showing his displeasure.
"I am extremely sorry, Colonel! I will ensure that this man is punished for disturbing you!"
"Please do so."
The man who had fallen over was then seized by the guards standing at the entrance and taken away.
"Wait!!! Please!!! I had no intention of disturbing you!!! I only needed to ask the Legion Commander if he could spare some coin from the next raid for my family!!! Think of my children!!!"
"A shameless soldier... no wonder he had the nerve to disturb me."
The Corporal spit in the direction of the man being taken away, before sitting back down and resuming his relaxation.
"Well? Aren't you all going to fix that curtain!? I don't want to have to look at these eyesores in front of me!"
Two of the guards standing near the edge hurriedly fixed up the curtain, and that was the last they saw of that man.
Garett merely rolled his eyes.
'A pompous jackass who thinks he can do anything because of his position... well, I know four of them. Myself included.'
----
Two hours had passed, and out of the 60 men who were waiting in the non-priority line, around 5 of them had been seen by the legion commander. Countless priorities had filed through at this point, and the patience of the antiheroes were running low.
'What is that guy doing in there?! He's taking longer than it takes me to get ready!', Samantha thought.
The antiheroes were all about to just leave, but Trevor wondered what he should do. Should he just wait here and remain patient, or should he instead leave? Or perhaps he should simply force his way through?
'Think like a pessimist... assume the worst case scenario... If I just leave, then that would mean giving up on the mercenary plan... can we afford to do that? What other possibilities are there for infiltrating this country? We could simply pass through as tourists, however we would only get commonly known information that way... we would have to gain information on military endeavors on our own... is that plausible? Mmm... not as good as being on the inside... even if we were to get caught, we would be able to defeat any pursuers or fast travel away, so that shouldn't be an issue. Then, what about using force? No, if we were to do that and push our way through we would likely not be accepted as mercenaries... they would want us out of their country as soon as possible- assuming of course that they didn't try to kill us for offending them and brand us criminals. Not that we would be in any danger of being killed, but it would foil the entire plan, as we would have to either kill them or flee. What to do...'
Trevor looked back and forth between the other three.
What could he do?
Disguising as a group of higher ranked soldiers to get in? No, there's no way that would work. They were here in order to become an official mercenary band, so if they were already soldiers that wouldn't even make any sense. Even if they could do so, there was always the risk of being found out.
Perhaps...
Aha!
What if they were to cause a bit of chaos temporarily in order to clear out the group?
No, wait. There was an easier solution.
"Sarah. Sorry for waiting so long to ask, I didn't realize that this would take so long. Would you clear these people out? You're the perfect one to do so."
Samantha smiled like a wife would to a husband who had just complimented her cooking.
"I thought you would never ask."
-----
A group of soldiers flooded out of the waiting room.
"I forgot what I was doing..."
"Why was I going to see the Legion Commander again?"
"Huh? I should go eat something..."
After all the soldiers had flooded out and a few minutes had passed, there was nobody left in the room aside from the antiheroes- in their elven disguises of course.
"W- where did all those people go?!", the man standing guard asked, confused.
"Who knows. More importantly, we are the only ones left here now. May we speak with the legion commander?"
"Ah, but of course. Right this way."
Soon after the man allowed the four elves to see the Legion Commander, the group of soldiers once more flooded into the tent.
"Ah! Why did I leave!! I needed to give this survey report!!"
"The proposal on the next endeavor! How could I have left without giving my presentation to the legion commander! This could cost me a promotion!"
"The corporal will have my head if I don't deliver this message by the end of the day!!"
This flood of people who had just left completely confused and shocked the man standing guard who was filing people in, however it was too late. He had already let those foreigners in.
'Why did all these people just up and leave?! Only to come back! Have they all lost their minds, or perhaps their sense of duty?'
Ashley was too bored to laugh, but on the inside she whispered quietly.
'Later suckers'