◆Laurim◆
“So what are you doing with these monsters?” Tusmon was surprised to find a small horde in one of the For Hire’s member cubes where the Fiends were allowed to use them for any work they wanted.
“I’m training them!” Laurim answered happily, actually showing pride in something for once in her life, without her usual nervous cadence.
“For what exactly?” the detective’s intrigue was piqued, but he was still wary of the idea.
“Uhh, to be service animals!” The Zoo gave a definitive answer, though certainly not the one he expected. “They’re SquireMonks—Squirrels and Monkeys mixed.”
“Hmm, sounds like a class in one of those games,” Tusmon rubbed his chin. “What makes you think they’d be suitable for such a thing?”
“Well, if you give them nuts, they’ll do pretty much whatever you want,” she explained and then demonstrated by feeding the creatures. They went from rabble rousing to an orderly line as soon as the bag was ruffled. “And if you do it enough times, they become really loyal, and will do favors even without being rewarded. From there, they basically become friends, and treat you like part of their tribe.”
“We find that they especially latch onto the elderly, caring for them as their own. There are a few trials going on right now with them as live-in helpers, and well, they’ve been a lot of help. These ones are still pretty new, though, so it’ll be some time before we can trust them with people.”
Laurim then suddenly turned into an egg and popped out as a SquireMonk herself. She began leading her fellow monsters in drills and exercises, teaching them what was important to look out for and behaviors that were unacceptable around humans. They seemed to be communicating shockingly well. But at the same time, Tusmon’s ability to talk to her had broken down, so all he could do was wait and watch until she was finished before continuing the interview.
◆Rezin◆
“Shouldn’t you be heading off to work now?” Chiulu inquired after finishing up the registration questions. But Rezin had kept on playing his game with no hint of moving. He had done so during the entire interview as well, but The Bureaucrat hadn’t minded. She knew of his shyness and anxieties, so it was fine to keep him more comfortable, but it seemed to be quickly dissolving into laziness and dodging responsibilities.
“Eh, but I am working,” The Nobody gave her a confused look. “I guess it’s hard to see, but I’m doing a few things. I’m actually working on a job right now. Turns out that after enough practice, I could start inflicting my Curse on people even from far away. I just need to have met them, and be able to picture them clearly in my mind, which is why I have this.”
Rezin pulled up a photograph that had been laying on the floor next to him. “This is a platoon from the Regend military. They’ve asked that I help train their minds and wills against fear and sudden distractions. Every few minutes, I pick one of them, and make them experience a hallucination. Either something they’re terrified of, or something they wouldn’t expect.”
“It’s actually beneficial that I’m not there and don’t know what they’re currently doing. If I purposely tried to pick moments, they could figure it out and prepare, but this way it’s completely random to them. I do have set days and hours when I can do it, however, so I don’t interfere with actual work or missions for them. They’ve found it helps a lot in their training.”
“And the second thing I’m doing is testing this game,” the boy gestured his controller to the screen. “This is actually the game my company is making, and I’m doing run-throughs looking for bugs or any other issues I can find. Would you like to give it a try? More testers is always helpful.”
“Sure, I guess,” Chiulu sat down on the floor next to him and hesitantly took the controller. “I only really play casual stuff on my phone, though. So I don’t have much experience with these types.”
“That’s fine, and actually that could be even better,” Rezin was even more interested. “Just do what you think should be done, and go where you think you should go. It will be a good read on what someone with little experience thinks the pathing should be, and it will make it obvious whether the controls are intuitive for anyone to figure it out.”
After just a few minutes, Chiulu had a pretty good handle on everything, though she still struggled with general movement, but that seemed more based upon her general lack of coordination. “Oh no, did I break it already?” She recoiled when a wall in the game shattered to pieces.
“Wow, I didn’t even know that secret was there!” The Nobody was blown-away. “I knew there were a few hidden areas still left to find, but I never would have looked there.”
“Wait, what the hell?!” The boy practically jumped to his feet a few minutes later. “You just skipped most of the level and teleported to the boss room, how’d you do that?”
“I have no idea,” the woman was obviously stumped.
“That’s crazy,” Rezin sat down again and stared Chiulu directly into the eyes, something he almost never did. “Have you ever considered being a game Quality Assurance Tester? You’d be amazing at it!”
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◆Jaid◆
“So you’re really not going to lambast me for the prison break and joining up with the Fiends For Hire?” Jaid frowned, obvious that she’d been expecting Tusmon to lay into her for her life choices during their entire interview.
“No I’m not,” Tusmon rested his against the old shed that they’d been using as a stakeout point, just outside of a mercenary camp. “I’m sure you had your reasons as to why you turned your back on the Central Peace. And I imagine they’re rather similar as to why my group cut ties. While they do some good, they’re a flawed organization. So if you believe you’ve found the place you belong, where you can do even more, then no, I won’t judge you.”
“But now that we’re finished with the registration, can you finally tell me why we’re here?”
“This is a mission from Phon,” The Paladin admitted. “And it also fits surprisingly well with both of our histories and interests. The job is to hunt down and gather intel from a former CP Vice-Rep who participated in the failed coup. Now she’s a wanted criminal, even turned into a Lesser, who’s been on the run ever since.”
“The full details of the coup were never uncovered, such as who orchestrated the entire endeavor. Phon believes that this former politician should have access to critical evidence in that regard. Really, I only need to get access to her phone, but since you’re here, detective, I’d ask that you see if you can use your Curse to uncover anything.”
“I have no issues with that,” The Investigator was amenable. “So she’s here, then?”
“Yes,” the knight nodded. “She’s become this mercenary group’s live-in benefactor. Essentially, she’s hired them as her personal guard. I don’t know who else might be hunting her down, but she’s clearly afraid that someone is coming. So we’ll extract her and deliver her to the police.”
“And the mercenary group?” the detective raised his eyebrow, curious about Jaid’s intentions in that regard.
“Technically, they’ve done nothing wrong,” the woman admitted. “They’re a group in good standing with the local government, and bodyguarding contracts are fairly standard. Even if she is a wanted criminal, the group can simply claim that her status either wasn’t disclosed, or she used a fake identity. It’s common practice for mercs to not ask too many questions. So ultimately, we’ll leave them untouched if they don’t retaliate.”
“Can’t say the same for their compound, however. Since we’ll do whatever’s necessary to take her into custody. Normally, you would need a warrant, and when I was in the CP, I’d need direct authorization to even so much as approach this place. But it’s certainly not the same in the Fiends For Hire. Since we’re labeled as criminals—which I’ve begrudgingly come to accept—our hands aren’t tied.”
“So I’ll use my unbound hands to end this quickly. I’ll take care of obtaining the Vice-Rep, and I’ll bring her to you. Actually, I have a good idea that will keep you out of the way while also kicking things off. Take me hand, if you will.”
Tusmon didn’t even hesitate when taking the knight’s armored hand, but he likely did regret not asking for further clarification. The ground vanished beneath his feet, and he and Jaid went soaring up into the air, standing atop the shoulder of a giant clone. Once they were stable, the main-Jaid let go of him and looked down at the now small-looking mercenary camp.
The Paladin raised her sword and pointed it at the guild hall, wordlessly instructing her larger self of where to attack first. Giant Jaid took a few steps forward, shaking the ground beneath her feet, surely alerting the mercs that something was off. But before they could scramble outside, the behemoth bent over and reached out her hands.
She grabbed either side of the camp's grand hall, and ripped the roof right off the building, chucking it aside like the lid of a box. The main-Jaid then leapt off the giant’s shoulder down towards the middle of the building, directly into the fray of mercenaries. But as she fell, she split apart, generating dozens more clones. They became a torrential downpour of knights, raining upon the unwitting fighters who’d been enjoying their meals and tankards.
As soon as the clone army hit the floor, every merc in sight was subdued a second later. Even the Lessers among them had no chance of fighting back. Each one was subdued by a clone or two, as more and more spawned and then zoomed around to the rest of the compound. The titan-Jaid ripped the roofs off the remaining buildings, her eyes serving as scouting drones, providing intel to the rest of the horde.
In just a few blinks, the politician in question had been captured, and the entire mercenary group was secured and restrained. It hadn’t even taken a full minute from the beginning of the operation to its completion. And at the end, the Soldier of Ruin reached down and grabbed their captive with her massive hand, making the politician look like nothing more than a brittle toy.
A Jaid clone returned to the giant’s shoulder to accompany Tusmon, and the titan turned around and began marching away. Once they were out of sight of the mercenary camp, the rest of the clones faded away. Then the knight and detective began their interrogation, their captive right in front of them, still locked in the behemoth’s hands as the giant marched them forward—a casual stroll to the nearest police station.
◆Victori◆
“So basically all you do is stalk people on the internet all day?” Chiulu tried to get a better understanding of Victori’s job when they got to that section of the interview.
“I mean, I guess,” the woman could only shrug. “Though it’s more websites and groups of people rather than specific individuals. But there has been more of that lately with the election preparations. I know way too much about some people now. We use that data to track trends and get a better idea of what content we should be producing, or to gather reactions to world events, and just keep a general census of the populace.”
“That’s so cool!” The Bureaucrat gave a response that The Kingmaker clearly didn't expect. “You’re basically like an intelligence spy. And they have no idea you’re doing it. Can you show me how it’s done? I have some old coworkers and businesses I still have grudges against and want to see if they’re failing in life.”
Victori’s eyes widened at Chiulu’s hidden dark side, but instead of trying to dissuade the behavior, she merely answered with, “Yeah sure,” and began walking the woman through her usual steps. And by the time they were finished, Chiulu was reveling in the destroyed lives of others or had left anonymous reviews for places she wanted to see tarnished even further.
With that out of the way, Victori went into a bit more detail about her responsibilities as a campaign manager. But that didn’t elicit as much of an interested response and was breezed through quite quickly.