The Martial Unity

The seven of them conversed for nearly an hour before they needed to disperse, after all, they were all preoccupied with their own matters. Everyone but Rui and Kane had returned to the Martial Academy.

"Keep in touch, Kane," Rui told him. "I'll send you the details of the technique soon."

"I already have a bunch of techniques I've chosen to work on at the moment." Kane shook his head. "I'll let you know when I'm open to learning it."

"Sure, will do." Rui nodded. "See ya."

"Bye." They exchanged a handshake and a hug before setting out in their own directions.

Rui set out for the Martial Union. He had taken enough of a break in the past few days and intended to get back into grinding through missions. He needed to build up experience in the Squire Realm, experience that he was sorely lacking.

He was especially keen because he didn't yet have any genuine combat experience in the Squire Realm. He had sparred against some Martial Squires, but he did not have any experience engaging in actual combat against a hostile Martial Squire or a Squire-level beast. Something he intended to fix as soon as possible. However, missions involving other Martial Squires came at and above grade four, thus he had to upgrade so that he ran into missions of a higher grade.

Soon enough he found himself standing in the Mission library of the Martial Union. He immediately walked to the offense-class section of missions in the library. Out of all classes of missions asides from perhaps the hunter class, the offense class of missions was the class of missions that had the highest likelihood of actual combat. The mission involved actively attacking the target or targets of the mission.

As long as he ground and cleared the missions with impeccable perfection, the Martial Union would have no choice but to raise his grade as a Martial Artist. It was a simple but straightforward plan.

He immediately began browsing through the missions, running into a few interesting ones.

[Offense class mission: Elimination mission.

Clientele: Frindul Sentar

Target of the mission: King Fujilin Verine

Location of the target: Royal Palace of the Dermile Kingdom

Difficulty grade: 3

Mission Summary: The client seeks to commission a Martial Squire to eliminate King Fujilin Verine, the King of the Kingdom of Dermile. King Fujilin Verine is perpetually guarded by an elaborate security detail consisting of more than a dozen of the most competent Martial Apprentices of the Kingdom Dermile, each being no lesser than grade ten, causing the difficulty of the mission to reach grade three.

Mission commencement: Immediate]

"Wow." Rui's eyebrows arched. "I'm holding the mission bill for a commission to assassinate a king?"

He immediately plucked the mission bill out of its slot, smiling widely.

('This must be the first time I've chosen a mission this quickly.') Rui smirked.

He immediately proceeded to the register counter, duly filling up the paperwork needed to officially accept the mission. Soon enough, he was seated at a table with the mission bill in his hands. He had already gotten the gist of the mission, he wanted to process the background and all the details.

The first thing he learned was that the clientele was merely an ordinary butler that served in the government of the Kingdom of Dermile. According to the intelligence provided by the Martial Union, the butler was merely a personal servant of Minister Riunge Hurut. She was the Finance Minister of the Kingdom of Dermile, and also the true clientele that had commissioned the mission.

"Interesting..." Rui murmured, absorbed in thought.

The fact that she had her butler commission the mission under the latter's name instead of her own suggested a degree of caution and prudence. It was a sign that she did not trust the Kandrian Martial Union's data security. After all, if the official details of the commission contract were leaked somehow, she would be implicated.

Furthermore, the, albeit few, restrictions of the contract would not necessarily bear down on her since she was not the contractor, officially. Of course, the Martial Union would not let such technicalities slide, officially or not, it was still cleaner than being officially involved.

Of course, this wasn't a particularly unusual occurrence, but usually, these means were employed by criminals and other shady figures that had reason to hide from the Martial Union while still requiring the services of Martial Artists that the Martial Union liaised for.

There were risks to such a method, making someone else the official contractor meant handing over a lot of power and authority in regard to the matter. If the official contractor wanted, they could cancel the mission against the real client's wishes and the Martial Union would unhesitatingly cancel it.

The fact that the finance minister sent a personal butler meant that this wasn't an ordinary employee of hers, meant that this was someone whose loyalty could be trusted.

('Or someone whose loyalty is coerced.') Rui noted, before moving on. While he liked knowing as much about his client as possible, it wasn't the most important information.

The mission bill went a bit into the target of the mission as well. King Fujilin Verine was a greedy tyrant who had been draining the capital and resources of the already small and impoverished Kingdom of Dermile for his own personal greed. So much so that the GDP, the gross domestic product, had actually reduced noticeably due to his reckless and selfish expenditure of the capital he drained from his citizens.

His death would end that, and that was likely the motivation of the mission.

('Great.') Rui nodded. If he had to get his hands dirty, he would rather do it for a better cause rather than a bad one.

He quickly moved on to the details regarding the security and protection assigned to the king, which was actually the most important detail of the entire mission bill. While he was confident of winning regardless of what the Martial Apprentices were like, he still wanted it to be as clean as possible.