REGIONAL COMMUNITY
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/Teakwood/[DISC] Ghost Hero Altrius
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N###> Ghost Hero spotted near Whitegrave Street. [Attached is a blurry picture of GH's silhouette on an empty street.]
L#####> That's close to where I work.
S######> Did you see him closer?
N###> The picture is not mine. I don't think so, she would be screaming her head off if she saw Ghost Hero.
P####> When I saw how much people believed in this stuff, I lost my hope for intelligent beings.
N###> Chill, you ass. It's just urban legends no one is that infested about it.
S######> If anyone got more info on it, DM me, please.
P####> S Not that guy. Saw him on another GH thread. Dude obsessed.
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"Yes, boss," Wade answered the call, but not before hiding himself in a corner of a drug building.
"There is a picture of you!"
"It's barely a picture of me. You can take a picture of me right now all the way from your high luxury room and it will show my face clearer."
"Someone saw you. Even if the picture is blurry, someone saw you near my office wearing the costume!"
"Yes, Mr. Cyntral, I'm sorry. To be fair, it was super dark in that alley and I had to wear the helmet, so I can't see my surroundings that well."
"Hmm... I can't have someone working for me doing this sloppy of a job, Wade. Not this job."
"Wait wait wait, you're firing me?"
"..."
"Just one more chance, please, I need it. You said it before, I'm the perfect man for the job. I swear no one will get to you, ever."
"Alright, but one mistake and you're off the job."
Being a freelance merc was hard. People would jump out of the ship as soon as they got the opportunity. For Wade, that opportunity could be the job of spreading Ghost Hero rumors.
If he finished the contract well, there might be a position for him within Cyntral Corp. Scouted into the Corporation itself may be too far of a dream, but Wade knew about Zele Trading Co. Getting in somewhat early will be great. He will get a great position once Zele's influence grows.
But if he failed, it would be hell. In the best-case scenario, other smaller gangs could recruit him. Worst case scenario, Eric put a target on his back. If it got that far, there's no help left for him.
If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
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Zele trading company can be found in the fancier part of the city. Ironically, buildings around there are relatively shorter than the usual skyscrapers.
Zele's building is a combination. The first floor is their storefront where they sell luxury items made from rare monster materials. The second floor is used as their office. Dusk uses the last three floors to house the workers of his company.
"I'm home."
"Welcome back~"
"Mar? Pion? What are you doing here?"
"I'm here too, Dusk."
"Newl?"
As a little consideration from his employees, only Dusk, his sister, and three other girls lived on the 5th floor. Pion, Mar, and Newl were the first three entries inside Dusk's [friend list] excluding Vinne.
The man himself kept denying the accusation but most of Zele's workers knew that one of the women would end up being Mrs. Zele, maybe all three of them would.
Work had been booming for the last couple of days for them. Their clienteles were the rich living around the area. For that, Dusk who was the representative needed to accompany them each time they shop. Just to make him more miserable, he also still had his normal work to do.
"Mar, Vinne's not home yet?"
"She's training after school~ That group your sister is in always do it two or three times a week."
"Is Del with them?"
"I think so? Usually, he trained them. I talked with him before~ He's weird!"
"Well, if he is with them there's nothing to worry about."
"Let's eat, you two."
Pion and Newl emerged from the kitchen with a variety of homemade cooking. If Mar had helped them it would have been catastrophic. If Dusk had helped them it wouldn't made any sense.
"You've been down lately, so we make your favorite foods."
"Thanks, Newl. I guess works have been a bit too much."
"No, my dear fool. It's not the work, it's those talks about you that bother you."
"I guess that's true..."
"AH~ Don't get depressed again! Let's just eat!"
What had been the fuel re-igniting the ghost hero rumors was the report on the monitor lizards' stampede. Leaks got out to the public. With all the information laid out, the names associated with it the most were those of Ghost Hero and Zele.
"Ghost Hero defeated the lizards' boss, a salamander. Dusk Zele leads the defense of the city. Using his skill, Zele killed hundreds of them at once."
Most of what the rumors spreading were the truth, but it was something weighing heavy on Dusk's mind. The only reason the attack stopped was the defeat of the salamander, which the Ghost Hero did.
While he helped a lot in holding back the stampede, he couldn't take the credit for being the lead. His original force that he was supposed to be leading was fighting somewhere else. While he barely helped the extermination team before he used his skill on Newl.
It wasn't an imposter syndrome. He acknowledged that his role in saving the city from the lizards was massive. However, he simply can't forgive the rumors that conveniently excluded the extermination team and Del's roles.
His name paired with the Ghost Hero's also stirred up talks about him and his girls being the next hero party. Dusk simply thought differently, to him, someone like Del would be a better fit for the role.
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Del was silently brooding over how the job he had taken due to Eric's begging sucks. He had killed many things and left their bodies to rot before. Never in his wildest imagination, he would find himself prodding the rotten body of a dead person.
On an urgent call, the team visited one of the poorer sides of the city. In the kind of area where drugs, homelessness, violence, and prostitution spread wide, one dead woman's body shouldn't have been anything special.
There was only half of a woman's dead body to be exact. Except for her head, the left side of her body was nowhere to be found.
"That's a monster meal, alright."
"It is a big monster."
"I agree with Del. Whatever it is has to be at least a car's size to have such a clean bite off of her."
Erika, Del, and Lemmy were sent to the site. They needed to race with the clock because the incident was happening right in the middle of the city. Who knows where the culprit of the attack could go.
The three split up to cover more area. Char who stayed behind worked as a relay center. He received information from the team and the spirits using his [Spirit Guidance]. He relayed the information after processing it back to the team, instructing them on most possible places.
They searched high and low but came up empty-handed. With nothing to show for it, the search for the first day ended. In the first place, WHERE A MONSTER THAT BIG GONE AND HID?