Chapter 113: Chapter 112 – Welcoming

Yuna followed the woman as she walked quickly through the night. The violet eyed woman turned her head back once in a while to check on Yuna. A few minutes later, the lady stopped in a wide park. It was the largest park in Junction, notable for the river that cuts through it. 

‘But why are we here? Don’t tell me their base is here.’

“Would you please give me your hand?” the lady asked. Yuna extended her aim and the lady took it gently. “This will only take a moment. You’ll wake up in five minutes.”

A wave of exhaustion washed over Yuna before her legs buckled and her consciousness faded. Before she hit the ground, the lady grabbed her and the world turned dark. When she reopened her eyes, she was in a white room. The walls were glossy and bright and there was nothing inside it other than the cushioned chair she was sitting on. 

‘Am I on an aircraft?’ 

Yuna could hear the faint hum of what sounded to be an engine. The room she was in didn’t seem to be moving, but that could have been because the aircraft was well built. Looking around, Yuna could find no entrance or exit. Whatever this place was, there was no getting out.

‘Alright,’ Yuna thought. She took in deep breaths to calm herself. ‘There might not be a way out but that doesn’t mean I’m trapped. I’ll just have to wait and see.’

She nodded and waited in her seat. The time ticked by as she sat there, trying not to imagine all of the potential ways things could go wrong. More time ticked by and Yuna began to doubt her initial conclusion. But a soft swishing sound of a door opening drew her attention. 

“How’re you doing?” an unfamiliar voice said. 

A tall man stood in front of her, his hair blond and his eyes an electric blue. He had broad shoulders and was dressed in a black suit that wasn’t buttoned. He had a blue dress shirt underneath it with no tie. 

“My name’s Tiar,” he introduced. “And what’s yours?”

“Yuna,” she replied.

“Yuna. Nice to meet you,” Tiar smiled. “Normally, Zoe would be the one that would greet you but she was busy today. She said something about a tomato or something like that.” He frowned as he looked off into the distance. With a blink, he snapped back into reality. “Well, it doesn’t really matter now. So, Yuna. Mind telling me what you do for a living?”

---

 

“Yuna is being questioned right now, boss,” Uriel notified Yuki. “Do you want to watch?”

“Not right now,” he replied as he typed away at a keyboard. “I need to finish with her file. Give me a few minutes.”

‘She actually came.’

Yuki had begun to suspect what Yuna was trying to do when she had asked him about bars and specifically wanting to enter the Hideout. His suspicions grew when she texted him asking for advice on how to appear stronger. The only reason why someone would want to look stronger would be to impress someone or scare someone. Adding those two together, Yuki came to the conclusion that she wanted to join his guild.

‘Still, I never had the impression that she ever wanted to join something like this. How did she even find out about us?’

That was the one thing Yuki was perplexed on. In order for someone to know about the Valkyries, they would either need a direct invitation or word of mouth. Yuki rarely handed out invitations and he for sure never gave one to Yuna. Word of mouth would be difficult because open recruitment had barely started. Only those with connections or those who thoroughly scour the dark web would have heard about the recruitment.

‘So how did she do it?’

One possibility was that Yuna was involved in shady dealings on the internet and discovered Yuki’s guild. But he doubted that. Yuna didn’t strike him as the type to be involved with those sorts of things. 

‘Then that means she has connections. Now I just need to figure out who those connections are.’

Yuki hit a final key on his keyboard and closed his laptop. “Uriel, do you have the dna sample?”

“Of course. I’m analyzing it right now,” she replied. “I’ll have the results within the hour. Going to watch the interview?”

“Just a few minutes of it,” he said. “Bring it up for me please.”

“Here you go~.”

A holographic screen blinked into existence in front of Yuki and he saw Yuna sitting in a white room with Tiar talking to her. Yuki had designed the room to test a person’s patience. The room was completely barren aside from a chair. The walls were smooth and the entire room was one color and evenly lit. Yuki made everyone that wanted to join the guild sit in that room in order to gauge how much patience they had.

“How long did Yuna wait?” Yuki asked.

“Five minutes,” Uriel replied. “About average for what you seem to like.”

“Mmm. Time until we reach our base?”

“Ten to fifteen minutes depending on the weather. Unless...you want me to inject some steroids into this puppy,” Uriel added hopefully. 

“No,” Yuki said flatly. “We’re doing an interview. And the last time we went into overdrive, everyone on the ship was flung around.”

“Aww.”

“We can try it again once I get some seats. Anyway, I was wondering. Why is Tiar doing the interview?”

“Zoe wanted to tend to her garden,” Uriel explained. “So Tiar volunteered to do the interviews for the day.”

Yuki sighed. “Was there no one else?”

“Well, he volunteered. You know how he is when he volunteers.”

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Yuki did know how Tiar is when he volunteers. He won’t back off until he’s given the job and will put his all into doing that job. It was a good trait but it could make him headstrong at times. 

“Hopefully Zoe can get back on the job soon,” Yuki said as he watched the interview. “Tiar can be a little over the top when talking.”

As he said that he saw Tiar throw his head back and start laughing so hard his body shook. It seemed that he had found something Yuna said to be hilarious. Yuna was giving him a worried look and slowly scooted a bit back into her chair. 

“But at least he’s a very good judge of character,” Yuki continued. Tiar was currently flexing in front of Yuna as he boasted loudly about his workout regimen. Yuki stared at him through the screen. “Uriel, can you ask him if he’s close to finishing?”

“He said almost,” Uriel replied. “He’s still trying to get Yuna to do a little talking.”

Tiar hadn’t stopped talking even when Uriel forwarded Yuki’s question to him. By releasing pulses of electricity, he conversed directly to Uriel without using his earpiece. 

“I see,” Yuki said. He waved his hand and the holographic screen disappeared. “How are the results going? For the sample?”

“I’m recalibrating my estimated analysis time frame,” Uriel notified. “I ran into some unforeseen difficulties. Yuna’s dna is quite interesting.”

“As in?”

“I’m not sure yet. I’ll tell you once I finish with the analysis. I don’t want to give you false or incomplete information.”

“That’s thoughtful of you,” Yuki said as he walked out of the cockpit of the hovercraft. 

“It’s really more for me than you,” she admitted. “It’ll make me look bad if I do something wrong.”

“I know,” Yuki repeated with a smirk.

---

 

“Alright, we are done!” Tiar announced cheerfully ten minutes later. “It was fun talking with you.”

“You too,” Yuna replied slowly.

‘But I barely said anything,’ she thought.

“Boss, we’re done here,” Tiar said, holding his finger to his ear. He said nothing as he listened intently. “I pass her. You can make the final judgment though. I’ll be heading out now.”

He turned and walked to the wall directly in front of Yuna. Placing his hand on the wall, Yuna heard a beep and a door slid open with a small swoosh.

“How about me?” Yuna called out to Tiar. He turned his head with a confused expression on his face. “Do I stay here? Or can I go out?”

“Oh. No, you have to stay,” he replied with a little sad smile. “I know it’s boring in here and all but it’ll only be for a few more minutes. It’s for security reasons. I’m sure you understand.”

He walked out and the door slid shut leaving Yuna sitting in the cushioned white chair in the middle of a completely barren room. She blinked.

‘Alright then. I hope it’s a few more minutes.’

True enough to his words, the humming of what Yuna assumed were engines stopped. A few minutes later, the door that Tiar exited through reopened and a completely unfamiliar face walked through. It was a male elf that seemed to be dressed in some sort of uniform.

“Yuna, come with me,” he said. He waited at the door for Yuna as she made her way to him.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“The guild’s headquarters,” the elf replied. “Come.”

He walked out and Yuna followed. The door shut automatically behind her and the elf led her through the aircraft to the exit. The ship looked newer and more modern than the one Yuna had ridden during her troll assignment in the Libra Forest. The exit to the ship was wide and looked more like the entrance to a cargo ship than a passenger ship. 

Looking around outside of the ship, Yuna found that she was in the middle of an empty field. It was night time and the air was calm. Crickets chirp in the darkness and the stars twinkled in the sky. But Yuna didn’t care about those things. What she didn’t see bothered her the most.

“Where’s the base?” she asked. “I don’t see anything.”

“Of course,” the elf smiled. “Why would a secret base be out in the open?”

He walked to a specific part of the field and lifted his right arm. In his hand, a magic circle flared into life and illuminated the grass around him. Then the circle glowed brighter and brighter until the ground underneath Yuna began to rumble. The ground rose and a wide entrance opened up from the earth. The inside of the entrance looked metal and was lit up by electric torches that gave off a dim light.

The elf marched right in and Yuna quickly followed him. They marched down the stairs until the area opened up into a room that made the LIA’s headquarter look poor and old. The entire room was clean and shiny with ornate decorations. Holographic screens were projected on the walls with numbers and words that Yuna couldn’t make out. Those walls looked to be made out of polished marble. There were a few people wandering about but none of them paid Yuna any mind.

“Wow,” Yuna whispered.

“Welcome to your home away from home,” the man said with a smile. “Newbie.”

 

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