Looking at the application, Lucielle saw that the notification said that a Gate had been found for her. That was the advantage of rank E Gates; if it were a F rank Gate Lucielle would probably have needed to wait at least three to four days in line to find a Gate because the number of Slayers, but for rank E Gates, the wait was not nearly as long, since the number of Slayers who reached rank E was far fewer than the number of rank F Slayers.
[The Goblin Fortress
Rank: E
Raiders: 10
Basic Information: The Goblin Forest is a Gate located in a randomly generated forest. Goblins are weak monsters, but care must be taken, but they are known to travel in packs.]
The app's notification gave only a basic description of what the Gate looked like. If a Slayer wanted to find more information, they would just need to look for the name of the Gate in the GSC application itself, but this was not something many Slayers did.
Unfortunately, after receiving their awakenings, many Slayers became arrogant because of how relatively easy it was to earn money from raiding Gates, thinking that regardless of the challenge they would be able to overcome only by using the great strength they had received from the gods, and that was the greatest cause of death among the Slayers.
Usually this type of arrogance disappeared quickly among the older and higher ranked Slayers, since after several years raiding Gates and going through countless difficulties, the few Slayers that survived would know the value of prior information better than anyone else. This was the reason why the GSC always organized older Slayers with younger Slayers, since the older Slayers would serve as good leaders for the moments of need that would arise within the Gates.
Lucielle had previously studied almost all rank E Gates, so she had many tips from the Slayers who had already invaded this particular Gate, in addition to the best strategies for different types of situations. The only thing she lacked by comparison to rank F Gates was practical experience, since she had never raided any rank E Gates, unlike the rank F Gates of which she had probably experienced hundreds of times.
Accepting the call, Lucielle saw that the invasion would take place in a few hours, so she got up off the floor and went to take another shower, since she didn't think she would work up quite such a sweat after a her training. After taking a shower, Lucielle placed all the equipment she would probably need in this Gate into her backpack and placed the most essentials in a small pouch that she left attached to her right leg.
Looking at herself in the mirror, Lucielle saw a young woman with long pink hair with two jet black horns jutting out of her skull, with a delicate face that carried a disinterested expression that she had trained so as to not show her emotions to her potential enemies. As for her clothes, she wore a simple shirt with a green camouflage texture, in addition to a small tactical backpack just for essentials and a small bag tied to her leg for her to keep more vital items within.
This was something Lucielle always did. She adapted her own clothes to the Gate she was raiding, since any extra advantage was a step closer to defeating the enemy. Such preparations were not very common among the younger Slayers, but among the older and more experienced it was practically a rule.
On top of the basic necessities Lucielle kept in the backpack, since she didn't know how long they would take to kill the boss if they really could, Lucielle had some energy bars in addition to utensils to make collecting resources more practical if more were needed.
Always prepared, Lucielle left the house and walked GSC Central to take the bus that would transport them to the Gate. For Gates starting from rank D, GSC no longer provided buses for the Slayers, since at that point the money they received in each raid was already enough for people to buy a decent car, so only the location of the Gates were sent to them and the Slayers were expected to arrive at the Gates on their own.
For rank E Gates, those highly gifted in that rank were already able to buy their own car, but as some did not yet have one, GSC provided buses for everyone and they all had to gather at the headquarters so that the whole group could go together to the Gate without any setbacks getting in the way. Looking at the application, Lucielle saw which bus would take them to the Gate and went towards it.
At the entrance to the bus, the driver was smoking a cigarette unconcernedly until he belatedly noticed Lucielle. He quickly straightened his spine and scanner to read Lucielle's code. "Good afternoon, ma'am. Can I read your QR Code?" He asked politely.
Lucielle, for the first time, was treated well by one of the government officials as she was now seen as a rank E Slayer. In the driver's mind there was no chance that she was a rank F Slayer, since for a rank F to go to a rank E Gate would just be suicide, so he was sure Lucielle was a rank E Slayer.
"Here it is," Lucielle said as she flashed a smile at the driver while providing her phone screen to be scanned. The scanner beeped, signaling that her code was valid, and Lucielle climbed onto the bus and noticed she was the first to arrive.
Not that it mattered to him, since after choosing a random window seat, Lucielle put on her headset and listened to music while laughing at the difference in attitude the drivers had at the various different shuttles.
While she was constantly ridiculed by the drivers who carried the rank F Slayers, if they thought she was rank E they immediately started to treat her like a Queen. Gat was the only Slayer above rank F who didn't seem to care about his own treatment.
Without Lucielle noticing, someone got on the bus and looked at her with a confused expression. But since Lucielle was not paying attention, the person kept walking and sat in a seat the back of the bus.
In a few minutes all 15 Slayers who would be raiding the Gate arrived on the bus and the vehicle left silently, since with that day's engines, using combustion fuel was no longer necessary, making the bus move as quietly as a small car thanks to electric motor.
Lucielle shifted her eyes to the landscape as the bus departed the city. This Gate was outside the city like the last one she raided but they exited out of the west exit of the city, taking them into a large forest with purple leafed trees everywhere instead of the immense desert.
Lucielle looked at the big, colorful trees and just enjoyed the scenery while reviewing what strategies she would use and what excuse she would use this time to be able to walk away from the group and kill monsters alone so she wouldn't have to share the experience with anyone.
Soon, the bus approached a large portal with a rim made of unknown and extremely resistant black metal surrounding that strange purple plasma which teleported the Slayers into the Gate.
Some scientists from various planets had tried to study this strange, apparently indestructible metal, but this proved impossible due to the colossal resistance put forth by the material.
Several governments on a few different planets had even tried destroying the portal with nuclear ordinance, but even explosions of that magnitude caused nothing more than a slight scratch. Excavating the earth around the portals yielded no results either as well, as when all the earth was removed the portal remained suspended in the air.
The only time the portals had ever been significantly damaged was when countless high ranking Slayers came together to make a massive joint attack against a portal that had appeared in an uninhabited country. After all the attacks, a large portion of the country had been devastated and rendered uninhabitable. After all the attacks had landed, only a small chip was found in the structure but the missing chunk was never found. After that incident, humanity discovered that the portals were not indestructible, but that they still did not possess enough strength to destroy them.
Upon leaving the bus, all the Slayers gathered around the portal and the person who faced Lucielle when she got on the bus finally recognized her. "Wait a second... Is that you Lucielle?!"