"Um… Mr. Parker…"
"What is it, Sara?"
"What is the guild leader of Dungeon Squadron doing here…?" The teenager asked nervously, glancing at me and Darion.
We were all inside a room only those in the upper echelon can reserve inside a building called The Recruitment Center. As the name suggests, it was a building recently built serving as a sort of training and recruitment facility for superhumans. It utilizes the latest technology of the 21st century using Torqinite as an energy source for the building. It has established locations all over America. Right now, we were sitting in separate chairs, a wide glass coffee table in the middle filled with papers, a laptop, and two cups of coffee. A latte for me and an expresso for Sara.
"When Darion heard of you, he was interested in your latent potential and wanted to assess your skills himself. He'll be here to give you the rundown on what his guild does compare to mine. Think of it as picking which scholarship you would choose between schools."
At the end of my explanation, Sara nodded her head feverishly.
"I'll start first, old man." Darion said. I shrugged my shoulders in response and Darion took it as a go-ahead. Darion put both of his legs on the glass table and rested his chin on his arm, staring at Sara.
"I'll be honest. I want you to be a part of Dungeon Squadron. With your talents, Dungeon excursions would be twice as fast. What do you think?"
Darion was blunt and straight to the point. It seemed to have caught Sara off-guard as her lips flapped like a pufferfish.
"I…um… that's it…?"
Darion squinted at Sara. "I said what was important. Now, your answer?"
Sara bit the corner of her lips as she thought. Her eyes settled on me, but I looked away. I didn't want to influence her decision in any way. After a couple of minutes of deliberation, she responded.
"Thank you for the offer, but I'll have to refuse." She stated. Darion blinked at her slowly and sighed.
"Well. I tried my best. It's all up to you now old man. I'm outta here." Darion got up from his seat and was out of the room, the door slowly closing behind him.
Sara was finally able to relax as she hung her head backward, a hand placed on her face. "He makes me nervous even though we are the same age…"
"Well, since you declined his offer, I assume you'll be joining The PeaceKeepers?" I asked, my tone hopeful.
"I've talked to my parents about wanting to be of use to society by joining a top-rated guild like The PeaceKeepers, and they said that they'll support me in whatever way they can." Sara raised her hand with a smile etched on her face. I gladly took her hand and shook it.
"Welcome to The Peacekeepers. I'm sure you won't regret this decision."
****
The automatic door opened as its sensors noticed my presence. I quickly strolled on through and was greeted by the lobby attendant of my guild building. It was just your regular old office establishment; except I own this whole place.
She bowed down as I walked past her, the glasses on her nose threatening to slide off her freckled face. "Good afternoon, Guildmaster."
I waved at the lobby attendant. "Hey Sally."
"Jones is waiting for you in your office."
"Alright. Thanks for the heads up." I bid Sally goodbye and entered an elevator, pushing a button to take me to the fourth floor where my office was located. As I ascended, a quiet western tune was played. Since I knew the song, I hummed along.
Ding!
As I made my way to my office at the end of this hallway, I decided to look out the glass windows. It was a cloudy day, sunlight barely shining through the swarm of clouds. The forecast said there's a high chance it may storm later in the day. I should get an umbrella after my business here.
I was finished admiring the view and was already in front of the brown door. I gently grabbed the doorknob and pushed the door open.
"Ah, Mr. Parker is that you?" Said a male voice. It was my personal assistant Jones sitting on a blue velvet chair. He put down the documents he was reading and greeted me as I closed the door.
"Hello Jones. How've you been?" I eagerly shook hands with the man and sat myself down on the black leather chair. The room was nice and tidy. Two bookshelves were on the left and right side walls. In the middle were two sofas and a table sandwiched in the middle. Behind me were small windows with white curtains.
"I've been good. Just had a great lunch at the downtown burger joint. How was the recruitment, may I ask?"
"She happily joined after refusing Darions request. I'll leave it up to you to get her up to speed."
"My pleasure sir." Jones smiled. The man walked toward my desk and placed two folders.
I picked up a folder and flipped through the contents. "What is this, Jones?"
"The one you are going through right now is information Mr. Reed sent over."
Mr. Reed wanted me to look through this? It's gotta be important then.
The first page had the words Russia typed in bold. It was information about what Russia has been up to these days regarding their superhumans.
"Hm… another A-Rank was discovered, and three C-ranks have just jumped to B-Rank…" I mumbled. Their forces have been increasing each day. This is not a good look for us at all. We only have one A-rank, and that's Sam. We may get another one soon, but that's a big if. It's considered rare for people of that high rank to grow in a short amount of time.
I flipped to the next page, this time it was China. Let's look at what we got here…
"HM?!" I couldn't help but raise my voice in alarm. "THEY HAVE THREE A-RANKS?"
"Mr. Parker, you shouldn't yell inside the building. Your strength will shatter the windows…" Jones quipped.
"Sorry." I mumbled. I could feel my face turning red from embarrassment.
Scanning through the documents, all it contained were estimations of ranks and what guilds were created over there. Some of the most famous guilds in the world originated in China. A guild named Murim was listed as one of the most powerful guilds in China.
"Hm? Jones, what's Murim?"
"I haven't the faintest clue, Mr. Parker." Jones said nonchalantly.
Tragic. I'll search it up later then.
After an hour of reading, it was now time for the last folder.
"Ah. That one is from Mr. Chambers himself."
Chambers? So, this is from Leo, huh? What did he send me this time…
On the front of the black folder was a word in big red letters;
"Jones, thank you for your work. You are dismissed."
Jones flinched at my stern tone but bowed his head. He picked up his paperwork off the table and left the room. I made sure that there was no one listening at the front door and that there were no wiretaps in the room. After confirming it was clear, I propped open the folder.
…That's it? This is information that we have gone over at the last meeting with The Six Hunter. Except for that last part which is gruesome…
I was on the verge of shutting the folder until something on the bottom of the page caught my eye. It was typed in a small font, easy enough to overlook. What it said was…
Access to confidential information? It would make sense for someone of that stature to have special ways of possessing data that shouldn't be made public. It would explain how Darion and I got ambushed…
A thought flashed before my mind. A thought I wish was further from the truth. "Do we have ourselves a traitor? No, that can't be."
I shook my head at that conclusion.
Shadow Oni is all over the world. The leader could be anywhere other than America. But wait… who says there was only one leader? There could be multiple of them… and they could hold a spot in power in every superpower country…
"I'll ask Leo personally about this later. No use in mulling over it on my own. It'd be best if I had someone to talk to."
Beep!
"Huh? Oh, it's my phone." I grumbled. Checking on my phone, I had gotten myself a text message from Sam. A quick read later, I answered back.
Looking out the window, a light drizzle has begun to form. I got out of my seat and went on to stretch after sitting my ass on the chair for hours.
Alright, let's go see what the strongest man in America wants.