When the doors of the Cryptid hunting agency opened and Uriel's hunting group came into the hall no one thought much of them. Even the receptionist barely lifted her eyes from the paperwork in front of her without much interest, after all the appearance of a young group of hunters all wounded and disheveled was nothing out of the ordinary, it was just a regular work day for her.
It was only when Miss Dragonfang, the one appointed as team leader, finished writing the incursion report and handed it over at the front desk that the receptionist reacted. She quickly started skimming through the sheets of paper like it was nothing, then she lifted a brow and leaned closer as if she had just misread something and, finally, she started sweating cold.
"Hey, Miss Dragonfang, this is a public document, you can't lie in your report like this!" The receptionist said in a scolding voice, but when she looked at the former lieutenant's face she realized it wasn't a joke.
"Just do your job properly." Miss Dragonfang wasn't one to play games. Actually, she was, just not on this particular moment and especially not after the sour experience she went through.
"Yes!" The receptionist replied as she stood up to look for her supervisor. The report she had just read was completely out of her expectations and she wasn't qualified to deal with something like that. Not only this group managed to survive the appearance of an eclipse which was one of the most difficult cryptids to deal with in the lost city, but also they claimed to have slain the shapeshifter, an extremely vicious creature only the highest ranking hunters in the whole city were aware of.
When the supervisor showed up he respectfully greeted Miss Dragonfang first and then proceeded to assess the students trying to figure out their participation in the incursion. Phlox was obviously a bit older and was easily identified by the supervisor as the former corporal in Miss Dragonfang's army unit, then there was Luna, the short student who successfully performed a surgery on a fallen comrade to save her life, followed by Sam the 'Lightbringer' who already enjoyed from a great deal of fame in the city after being the one responsible for saving so many lives during his first incursion and just after receiving his trait. He then shook their hands amicably one by one showing the utmost respect for the group of young students that outperformed everyone in their generation. When it was Uriel's turn to be greeted, though, the supervisor left him with the hand extended and ignored him completely.
He obviously knew the contents of the report and was aware that Atomic had been killed by the creature they now knew wasn't a shapeshifter but a skinwalker, he also knew that Medusa was wounded and probably receiving medical attention in the hospital. Then Uriel had to be the evolved who was to scared to participate in the fight and abandoned his comrades.
This was far from the truth but the report had been altered to keep Uriel's trait and participation a secret because he himself requested it. Unfortunately, perhaps due to Miss Dragonfang being in a rush to get things over with, she minimized his participation too much and it had the unintentional effect of causing the supervisor and the receptionist to think he acted cowardly in the face of danger. Something like that wasn't a crime, but it was highly frowned upon by other hunters as it was one of the most common causes of complete incursion parties getting wiped out.
"I hope you don't mind, ascended Dragonfang, but I'll need to confirm the quality of the Flux orb you obtained from slaying the skinwalker." The supervisor said in an apologetic tone, but she didn't mind it and handed over the orb that was left behind after the corpse of the creature vanished.
The supervisor placed it on top of a machine that had a small round shape with a hole on top and, as soon as the orb was inside the machine activated by itself and the orb started shinning, much like a bulb being tested on a socket.
"This orb clearly came from an entity level cryptid!" The supervisor exclaimed in satisfaction calling for the attention of the rest of the hunters hanging out in the lounge.
No one could have predicted the amount of attention their incursion would receive. And how could they know, when the army never made any information about the skinwalker that haunted the lost city public because it might discourage hunters from participating on incursions.
Hunting beasts was easy, monsters were a bit tougher but they could still be handled with power. Entities, though, were an entirely different matter because they all had distinct behavior patterns and even among them, the skinwalker was deemed as the most dangerous one.
There wasn't any information on how strong it was but that didn't matter because it was so cunning it had been able to outsmart everyone who ever faced it, managing to turn people against their own companions and wiping entire incursion parties and army units alike.
It was only after they turned in their reports to the cryptid hunter agency that they dared to make some information about the shapeshifting creature public, and that was only thanks to the Flux orb they showed as evidence that the creature had truly been vanquished. Now, instead of keeping it a secret, they intended to use the event to feed the government propaganda picturing the ascended in Miss Dragonfang's group as brave young heroes that accomplished an impossible feat.
Miss Dragonfang herself wasn't amused by this, she didn't have any participation in that fight and felt she didn't deserve any positive attention. If anything, she felt the only thing she deserved was to be nagged at by one of her superiors in the army for her failure, but now she wasn't a part of the army anymore and it only made her feel worse because now she had only herself to blame.
In spite of Miss Dragonfang's moody demeanor, hunters gathered and surrounded the group asking them to recount the events as detailed as possible. The vanquishing of an entity level cryptid always caused a commotion, but this time their reaction was extreme since it was only a group of ascended the ones who pulled it off.
Sam was acting shy when blatantly hit on by a woman a few years older than him and men were lining up asking for Luna's cellphone number, yet the only one who seemed pleased was Phlox who didn't show any concern for the fallen comrade or the hardships they endured during their incursion.
Uriel too would have enjoyed the attention and some of the perks that came with it, if not for the fact that he asked everyone to lie for his sake in order to keep his trait a secret. He couldn't afford any attention, if anything, he wanted to be completely invisible to the government and the army alike. Nevertheless, it hurt him when people bumped him or pushed him to the side to speak to his companions, though not nearly as much as it hurt him when the receptionist told him he wouldn't get a share from the bounty assigned on the skinwalker.
"What do you mean I'm getting a smaller share than everyone else!?" Uriel shouted his complaint to the clerk behind the counter. It was the same woman that humiliated him days ago when he was registered as a hunter.
"I don't make the rules, you took no part in the killing of the skinwalker and that makes you unsuitable to receive any bounty for it. You should be grateful that your team allowed you to get an equal share of the credits you gained from recycling. If a trash like you was on my team I would have kicked you out right there and abandoned you." The clerk scoffed at Uriel because on their reports he had abandoned his team during the fight to take cover.
It wasn't that his share wasn't equal to his companions, but Uriel wasn't entitled to a single credit from the huge bounty on the skinwalker.
"Calm down, Sage, we won't get any credits for that either. I think it's only fair that we give the full amount of the bounty to Atomic's family." Said Miss Dragonfang thinking on the young student that fell valiantly fighting against the sly creature.