The moment Alleluia and Ha-rin let go of each others hands the fourteen year old started walking away from the group of girls. His sudden actions were a definite surprise to the girls, especially the one who had shook his hand earlier.
After taking one or two steps he felt a hand on his shoulder and turned around with a slight frown on his face. Even though their gratitude was well-founded, in Alleluia's eyes it was completely unnecessary. He did it of his own free will, not expecting any sought of reward or compensation for helping them.
Ha-rin looked surprised at the young boy's actions and was a little taken back at the slightly angered look on his face.
Alleluia brushed the girls hand on his shoulder and spoke,
"You don't need to thank me. I did it because I wanted to. That guy, Martin, is well known for bothering people who he knows can't fight back. I just wanted to give him a little taste of his own medicine".
One of the other girls standing beside Ha-rin peered over her shoulder and titled her head forward to look down at Alleluia. The height difference indicated both a difference in age, and physical development.
She tilted her head cutely and asked,
"Why would someone like him be afraid of you? Do you have a backing in Lake Rail City?".
He nodded, "Something like that. If there's nothing else, I'll be going now. Excuse me".
The fourteen year old tried to walk away once more but Ha-rin extended her arm towards Alleluia, trying to get him to stop. The moment she thought her hand was going to connect with his shoulder his figure blurred slightly and all she grabbed was thin air.
All the girls blinked for a second before turning to each other and looking roughly 10 meters in front of them.
Alleluia's body had suddenly appeared close to a dozen meters ahead of them with his pitch black eyes looking expressionlessly towards them.
"Martin won't bother you anymore", he spoke without any sentiment in his voice, "Have fun in Lake Rail City during your stay. I'd suggest visiting Black Rail Central. Now, excuse me".
He put a lot more emphasis on his final two words than the rest of the sentence combined. His figure blurred once more and appeared another 10 or so meters away from them and turned a corner leaving the rest of the girls speechless as they watched the pretty fourteen year old leave without ever once acknowledging them.
One of the girls, the shortest one with a bob cut tied into two short piggy tails looked towards Ha-rin with a smirk.
"Ah? It seems our leader got rejected?".
Ha-rin had the decency to turn red at the statement and pushed away her shorter friend as the other members started whispering and making jokes about their leader falling in love with the random boy. Even if they weren't allowed to date, they could still enjoy teasing each other about the possibility of dating.
The leader of the group turned to the shortest girl and bopped her on the head causing her to hide behind the tallest girl of the group.
"Ah! Tsunami! Ha-rin is bullying me!".
Tsunami, the tallest girl of the group just looked down towards Han-na and patted her on the head as she pulled her into her embrace. The taller girl had a small smile on her face as she hugged the shorter girl and pulled her closer as she looked towards Ha-rin.
"Han-na is mine. You can't bully her".
Ha-rin sighed at the pair's actions and shook her head before pointing towards the center of the city. The direction was towards the Black Rail Central that Alleluia mentioned earlier.
"Anyway, we've only got a couple more days in this City before we leave to go back to the Western Coast. Mr Shu said that we're making out debut when we come back!".
The cheerful shouts of all the girls made many passerby's stare at them. They were all extremely good looking and every single one would be on the same level as a model or celebrity.
Seeing so many beautiful girls intimidated many of the young men who stared at them, so none dared to approach them. If one of them we alone perhaps they might try their luck in getting their phone number, is what they told themselves.
The memory of Alleluia was certainly a surprise to the girls but most of them thought the young man might already have a girlfriend. It was the most likely reason for him ignoring them, and also the most plausible.
All of them were surprised at the boy's speed though, however none even considered the notion of him being close to Knighthood. After all, no-one had ever become a Knight until they were at least 20 years old. Some geniuses managed to surpass this expectation by becoming a Knight at seventeen or eighteen.
But Alleluia was fourteen, maybe fifteen at the most!
Give it a couple years and maybe it might be different, but for now, the notion of that pretty boy being a Knight was few and far between....
Alleluia however, was currently heading towards another part of town. In the complete opposite direction of his apartment.
The thought of him becoming a mercenary was not an unpleasant notion in his mind.
The information network that mercenary companies possessed may lose out to the military's in terms of the speed at which information is obtained, but in terms of variety and depth, it was almost equal in that regard.
Mercenaries took on jobs ranging from missing persons reports all the way up to extermination jobs when dealing with underground organizations. They did just about anything for money although chose to universally not take on three types of jobs which went against their moral codes.
The first was assassinations. Killing anyone for money was a bad way to do business. A couple hundred years ago it led to an all-out war between two giant mercenary companies as one of them killed someone under the others protection. It practically divided the Continent in two with anyone siding with one side, would automatically be a target of the other.
And huge amounts of businesses either suffered or benefited from these actions.
The second was extortion or blackmail. Sending warnings to stalkers or threatening creeps who had leverage over others was acceptable, although outright extortion was considered bad business. Mercenary companies couldn't leverage the information they had over past clientele for money or more business.
Everything was strictly confidential.
And thirdly, no killing children. A mercenary company was once hired by the main wife of an influential family to kill her husbands illegitimate child in an orphanage once. It was extremely underhanded but they carried out the job anyway.
Once they arrived at the orphanage, no-one was willing to tell them who exactly the child was, so to preserve their secret and the secret of their actives, they killed everyone in the orphanage.
Eventually others investigated the report and found out about their actions and the job that this wife was hired to do.
Public response was very negative towards the actions of this main wife and the family lost all respect from both their peers and fellow family members.
Thus, the killing of children was forbidden by all mercenary companies, and all jobs relating to it were denied and reported to the correct authorities.
Only missions that were related to the exploration of the Wilderness were the ones that interested Alleluia, but making some money to prepare for such a big undertaking by doing other jobs certainly appealed to the fourteen year old.
He couldn't help but smile as he stood in front of this huge skyscraper, with a myriad of office workers and mercenaries leaving and entering the building every minute. Most mercenaries had weapon licences and it could be seen that the most used weapon by mortal mercenaries were guns.
Pistols, assault rifles, heavy machine guns, sniper rifles, marksman rifles, shotguns.... Countless types and designs of guns filled Alleluia's eyes as he stepped through the door.
It was surprising that someone of his age and height would come to a place like this, and one of the wandering clerk ladies came up to Alleluia with a gentile smile on her face.
"Hello. What can we do for you today?".
She originally thought that this young boy might come here to put out a job for others to receive. Or maybe even come and find his father or mother that was working here today.
Alleluia nodded and lifted up a small piece of paper with a large number of boxes, all of which were filled in.
He smiled,
"I'm here to become a mercenary!".