"Oh, someone in particular, you say?" Hawkin responded with curiosity, "could you tell me about them?"
"Yes, sir," Caxius began, "His name is Rayden, and he sticks out because he was able to make it to rank D alone at quite a young age without ever grouping together with other people."
"He is also rarely seen training, yet despite this has a class 3 light spirit which seems to be close to reaching class 2," he continued.
"A light spirit?" Hawkin seemed surprised by this detail in particular. His face adopted a curious look, and he rested his chin on his hand, somehow shaken by a not too rare occurrence. Light spirits can be easily found in all corners of the world, and the kingdom even had an entire brigade dedicated to light, divine, and other similar spirits.
Clearly lost in thought, the rest of the room let Hawkin take his time. About a minute later, he slowly exited his trance and made a suggestion.
"In that case, I'd like to meet this Rayden, and also see how he compares to the other D ranks in the area," Hawking announced.
"Very well," Halvard clapped his hands. "How should we gather him and everyone else?" he asked Caxius, "Would an announcement that a Knight is here recruiting promising talents do it?"
"No," Caxius shook his head. "That would probably only convince him not to come. He doesn't like crowds in the first place and doesn't seem to have a positive opinion of knighthood otherwise. About a year ago I asked him if he wanted to look into joining the second knight brigade, and he seemed repulsed by the idea."
Slight shock showed on their faces, but they quickly moved on to other options.
"Could we offer an incentive?" Francine proposed.
"No," Halvard shook his head. "There would be a few problems with that. For starters, what would we offer? Money? Materials? And even then, adding a participation reward for something that is a reward in and of itself just makes it seem suspicious." Halvard concluded.
"In that case, is our only option to make it mandatory?" Francine asked with worry.
"In all likelihood," Caxius nodded his head. "If it's mandatory Rayden will reluctantly go but I think so long as he gets there we'll be fine. However," he added, "It would be a fool's errand to demand our entire workforce show up."
"But we don't need everyone to come, so we'll just make participation for D ranks and above mandatory," Halvard explained, "and leave it that. Maybe we'll allow some of the better E ranks in, but remember this is a recruiting mission from Sir Hawkin, we want young, talented people, not old men past their prime."
"But sir, I'm sure at least a couple adventurers will be quite upset at being forced to come. What if they cause problems?" Francine once again voiced her worries.
"Our job is to gather the people Sir Hawkin wants, not to make them obediently get in line for him. I'm sure he has plenty of experience dealing with troublemakers," Halvard glanced at Hawkin for confirmation.
"That's fine, I can put any loudmouths in their place no problem," he responded.
"Excellent! Then I'll leave it to you to sort out the remaining details and get the news out to the rest of the guild," Halvard spoke to Caxius.
"Yes sir," Caxius bowed respectfully.
With that, Halvard got back to work while the other three left the room. Francine led Hawking to his room while Caxius went off to make preparations for tomorrow.
By now, it was evening, and Rayden had just finished returning his book to the library before setting out to get some dinner.
Once again Illie convinced him to treat himself at a nice restaurant before he returned back to the room he rented from the AG.
Passing through the mead hall on his way to the stairs, over the cacophony of conversation, the word "knight" popped out over and over.
Hearing the word again and again, he stopped and looked around, wondering if he should ask someone about it.
'You should! I wanna know what this is about it! Sounds interesting!' Illie insisted.
'No,' Rayden thought, deciding it wasn't worth it. It had nothing to do with him and would only sate his curiosity. 'I've already indulged you enough today.'
'So why stop now!?' they exclaimed.
Shaking his head, Rayden went upstairs to get ready for bed.
But as he brushed his teeth and changed into nightwear, he couldn't stop thinking about what he had done today. Was he happy with his life right now or did he want more?
He thought back to his hometown, a small village even further out in the kingdom. He thought about his family and whether he wanted to see them again. Accompanying all of it, however, was a dull feeling of melancholy.
Rayden didn't know whether he would enjoy a more exciting life, or if he would spend every day wishing he was back in his current one.
He ended up laying awake for almost an hour thinking about it before ultimately falling asleep still in want of a resolution.