Chapter 35: Chapter 34

When I arrived at the Courier’s building the next morning, I was surprised to see a crowd of people in front of the doors with one of the upper management standing on a chair. As I got closer I heard whispers of confusion and speculation regarding why work had ostensibly been stopped for the day.

 

After a few more minutes, at about four, they started to speak, “Alright everyone listen up. You are all likely confused by what’s going on. First things first: none of you are in trouble, no one is getting fired, and pay is not decreasing. However, as some of you have probably guessed, we are temporarily stopping our services in the majority of the city. Jobs will still be available for transportation between University buildings and to select sections of the city- but the majority of the routes, especially those to the outer rings, are being put on hold.

“This decision was made in order to protect the students and faculty of The Academy in the face of issues that have been cropping up . I won’t sugar coat it as all of you are adults, recently there have been reports from both the merchants in the area and some of our own of attacks and robberies. The guards are aware of the situation and have started to work on finding the group responsible. Your first class today will have more information.

“In the meantime, work will be voluntary. For the duration of these events, you will be marked as having completed a route and can come to collect pay as usual. For those of you who enjoy the running, as I said, there is a more limited selection of routes and in addition, we will be hosting daily races through University grounds for those interested. If you have any questions, feel free to ask any of the administration. Hopefully this will be over soon and we can go back to normal.

“Please give us a few minutes to open the bay doors for you.” With that they stepped down from the chair and went inside, leaving people speculating more than before their speech. 

 

After a few minutes, the bay doors were opened as promised and a line was formed to the counter of people waiting to collect their payment. A few of the more gung-ho members grabbed the few remaining packs and went off as usual. The line moved fast- they were likely prepared for this- and I was out in under ten minutes left with a lot of time and energy. For a little while I considered joining the race, but I didn’t want to show off my capabilities that publicly- or deal with most of the people in the Couriers. I did know someone that might know something more than what we’d be told- Charlotte.

 

For the first time in a while I arrived at morning training first. I didn’t have to wait long before the person I wanted to talk to arrived- making Deryl the last to show up for probably the first time. Charlotte seemed happy to see me and called out, “Ripple, where have you been? I heard from Deryl something about going hunting, but I didn’t have the chance to ask for more” while running at me.

 

“He didn’t? Well, I signed up with the Independent Vigilantes Guild and got sent to deal with a Goredeer near River Mill down south. To be honest, it was kinda underwhelming…”

 

“Is this world simply too fragile for someone with your strength?” She asked in her typical teasing tone.

 

“It’s not like that. I took a day to prepare, carefully hid in a river to mask my scent, waited for long enough for it to be in my range- and then it died in one strike, It wasn’t even a particularly good strike. Heck, I chipped my sword on its vertebrae!”

 

“Well at least you didn’t get overwhelmed and were able to make it back safely.”

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“I guess sorry for worrying you, mom.”

 

“That’s rude, if anything I’d be your older sister.”

 

“Why are you the older one?”

 

“I have almost a head of height on you, and a bit more on the front as well.”

 

Our bantering continued for a few more minutes before being interrupted by Deryl. I explained- with more detail this time- how the hunt went, which got me a “should’ve gone for a Mountainworm.” He did agree that both Charlotte and I needed to train more and more importantly- get some experience. I also mentioned the limiting of the Couriers service due to safety concerns and asked if either of them knew anything.

 

Somewhat surprisingly, both of them did have some information. Deryl had gotten a briefing in a meeting that explained there were suspicions of a crime ring from another country that had been working its way into The Academy and was responsible for the thefts, killings, and kidnappings- however few there were right now- that had been going on outside of the city. This was obviously everything with the exception of the two possibly monster or demon caused incidents. Charlotte had a similar story. What was new was that there already was a decent amount of investigation into this organization, but all the cases were thought to be independent up until recently. 

 

There hadn’t been much progress made on the abnormal cases as both sets of victims were very difficult to identify and had their mental nodes messed up during the attack- resulting in near useless readings from them during autopsy. The cause of death was determined to be some sort of long, wide weapon on account of how the cuts had signs that the weapon’s blade didn’t cover the whole front edge, leading to a cutting then bludgeoning situation. As for what the weapon might look like: no ideas.

 

As she went on, I was starting to doubt if I was allowed to know any of this with how freely Charlotte was spewing potentially sensitive information. In the end, Deryl got tired of listening and had us start training for real.

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