Back on Earth the morning after Owen opened his eyes in the world of Pathwalkers, a group of six people sat around a circular table in a well-lit penthouse office of Cloudgate’s main building. Each of the members wore formal suits and dresses since this was a professional meeting of the heads of each department. However, none of them wore such clothing in their previous professions.
A wide-shouldered bear of a man sat at the head of the table. His neatly-ironed black suitcoat clung tightly to his shoulders. Bulging muscles caused wrinkles to form there. Sunlight from a nearby window glowed atop the dark skin of his bald scalp. The man stared at his watch while tapping the table with his forefinger.
As soon as his watch struck 7:59 A.M., he stopped tapping his finger and asked, “Why is Sora always the last one to arrive?”
To the man’s right, a blonde haired, blue eyed woman who sat with perfect posture from the moment she arrived twenty minutes ago calmly answered, “Sir Gregory, if you don’t mind me saying, his idea of being early is to be barely on time.”
Gregory’s eye twitched, but he otherwise refrained from speaking his mind about how true the statement was. Since Sora was a friend and comrade, there was no need to get any more irritated by the laidback rogue’s sense of time.
Right then, as the hands of the analog clock struck eight o’ clock, the mirrored glass door to the meeting room swung open. A young-looking man with observable oriental features aside from his height confidently strutted into the room. He held a cup of coffee in one hand, but the other was stuffed inside the pocket of his neatly pressed black pants.
“Mornin’ friends,” Sora greeted them with a wide grin.
Aside from Gregory, the others all returned the greeting. Gregory himself sighed and asked, “Would it hurt to arrive a little earlier?”
Pretending to be shocked, Sora raised his pocketed hand up over his mouth in dramatic fashion and retorted, “How could it not hurt?”
Veins bulged from Gregory’s forehead at the retort, but he refrained from continuing the conversation. The playful rogue always had comebacks for days.
“Seriously, though,” Sora said while setting his coffee on the table where his seat was, “there’s no point showing up early. Running a company isn’t our main job.”
A thin black haired man with a neatly trimmed mustache and deadpan eyes next to Sora nodded in agreement. Perhaps it was because he was the lone mage in the group, but he never liked following rules.
Noticing the man’s subtle nod, Sora grinned and said, “See? Even Noris agrees.”
Gregory pinched the bridge of his nose and forced himself to overlook the antics of their youngest member. Instead, he jumped right into the main topic of today’s meeting.
“Sora, today’s meeting was called because of the new Pathfinder Candidate.”
“Ah, yes. Fine young man, he is.”
“Very,” came a seductive voice from across the table. The woman who spoke had the appearance of a well-endowed woman in her thirties. Silky black hair long enough to reach her waist cascaded over the back of her office chair. Bright golden eyes full of life and vitality looked upward as she envisioned snagging another young man into her grasp. A tight-fitting white blouse and black skirt accented her voluptuous curves which she proudly showed off, much to the chagrin of the other two women and the men who were already romantically involved.
“Please stop, Sister Wuya,” Sora pleaded, growing anxious at the sight of the woman yearning for yet another of the candidates, “You’re old enough to be his grandmother.”
Stolen story; please report.
“So? That’s what makes it so interesting.”
The others could only sigh at the instant reply. In order to get back on topic, Gregory pressed a button on the table. Holographic displays showed the forty-nine candidates. The biggest one was Owen’s, since his situation needed to be covered first.
“First of all, Sora,” Gregory firmly spoke, “if you hadn’t procrastinated on choosing your seventh candidate for so long, we wouldn’t have to go through all this mess.”
Sora leaned back in his chair, shrugged, and replied, “Had to make sure he’d be a good choice.”
“You chose him right after meeting him, though…” the blonde sitting next to Gregory muttered in near monotone.
“What can I say? My wife thought he was a nice person.”
The blonde winced at the mention of Sora’s wife, but the gesture was so small it nearly went unnoticed. Nearly.
“Please stay on track,” Gregory chided. Once everyone focused on him, he said, “What’s done is done. Although we sent him those small compensation gifts after Sora sent out his message last night, the kid is woefully unprepared.”
“He’s a grown man, though,” Wuya commented, sporting a sly grin.
“Please, Sister Wuya,” Gregory said. Unfortunately, that was as far as he could berate her due to her status.
“Go on.”
Gregory sighed, but then casted a woeful gaze toward Sora as he continued, “Since Sora waited to pick him until the very last moment, Owen did not receive the same preparation as the others. My suggestion is that we give one of the other candidates a quest to show him the ropes.”
Before any of the others could speak, an elderly-looking gentleman sitting opposite the blonde leaned forward to partake in the conversation for the first time. The others focused on him due to his status as the most experienced member.
“As I see it, you have two options. One, you can hold his hand like all the others. Or, since we already gave him multiple gifts rather than one, just let him grow on his own. That’s how they did it back when I was a candidate. Perhaps we could see something akin to the legends of old. They didn’t even have a help system for candidates back then.”
Wuya smiled and said, “That could be good. He may just turn into an even finer specimen because of it.”
“Shouldn’t we do something, though?” the blonde girl asked, brows furrowed out of concern for the new candidate who would only suffer because of a certain someone’s procrastination.
“Don’t worry, Claire. I think he’ll be fine,” Sora nonchalantly added.
“How could you say that about your own candidate?”
“You didn’t fall for him like Sister Wuya, did~ you?”
“Of course not. How could you care so little about him, though?”
Sora crossed his arms, closed his eyes, and nodded to himself as he answered, “It’s called tough love.”
All of a sudden, Noris smirked and interjected, “Aye, tough love. My parents gave me that. Look how good I turned out.”
Claire’s expression soured as she said, “Exactly. We don’t need another Noris.”
“Hey, that’s rude.”
“Well, I agree we don’t need another Noris, but…” Sora trailed off.
“Oi, you bastard.”
In the midst of the playful banter, the woman who remained silent until now asked, “Won’t he be fine if he can take advantage of the new system we were able to put in place thanks to the technology of this world?”
Gregory rubbed his chin upon hearing the question. After mulling it over for a moment, he asked, “Speaking of, did you happen to finish the report on the quest system, Maira?”
Maira nodded. Her perfectly straight purple hair covered most of her face, but the others could tell she was proud of herself for finishing it a few days early based on the faint smile on her lips and pinkish tint arising on her pointed, green-hued ears. In some ways, she was more human than the rest of them despite being a different species altogether. They all appreciated her simple innocence.
“Alright,” Gregory said, “please hand that to me after the meeting and then we’ll decide how to handle his situation from there. We can reconvene in the afternoon. How does that sound?”
The other six managers of Cloudgate agreed in their own way, both silent and boisterous. Afterward, they all filed out of the meeting room in order to supervise their own departments and Pathfinder Candidates. When Gregory finished organizing his papers, he suddenly recalled something.
“I forgot to ask them if we should send him some clothes… erm… I guess it’ll be fine as long as he doesn’t enter a big city.”