Somewhere within the Strzelecki Ranges, a group of new, unranked members of the Demon’s Hand mercenary group were conducting a simple, open-ended job request that all new members must contribute to before being able to commence their progression through the fighting or official ranks. Within this group, there were two unranked officials and three unranked fighters. The group’s job was to find minerals and other precious items. They were also to look for a suitable location to set up a mining site for future operations. The prize for finding an appropriate site would be a rank upgrade and a full set of weapons created by the demon himself. And for officials, it would be an offer of a junior rank level 1 official position in the Freedom Settlement Council. One official in the group was only a level 1 unranked official, and the other was a level 3 official. The other three members of the group were all level 3 unranked fighters; one of them was female.
In her early 20s, she had long dark hair tied up into a bun. Her short and sturdy figure complemented the shape and form of her battle dress. The two men with her were identical twins, both with long blond hair and the looks of 80s surfers. Their skin was tan, smooth, and glistening in the sun’s morning light. And then, finally, there were the two officials. They bore a resemblance to your average neckbeards in their looks. The group had taken this job now, as the territory they were heading to was supposed to have relatively high-level monsters, but the group would still be well within their safe leveling range, set up as a guideline for all new members of the mercenary group.
“I was told by one of the iron rank members that there was a rock pool in this direction.” “We know that already, Lewis Walker.” “I’m not Lewis, I’m Dave. He’s Lewis. Why do you always get my name wrong, Mary?” Dave said as he pointed at his brother. “I don’t really care. It was your choice to come here, and it makes no sense. If our goal was to locate a mining site, why would we choose to go to a place that someone has already searched?” “Wouldn’t it be nice to have a wash? We’ve been out here for a week now. What’s your opinion about the situation? Do you two think we stink or what?” The two older gentlemen looked at each other, then back at the younger man. “Yes, we stink. But I think we men should find a different place to wash downstream and let the young lady here have that place to herself. Don’t you, Harrison?” “Yes, Joel, I think you’re right.” “Fine, fine, I won’t argue. We will go downstream.” The four men turned and left just before they reached the waterfall.
Mary watched as the men left. She felt like she needed a wash after getting covered in mud from fighting that odd-looking bug monster that kept throwing stuff at them.
“Why did they even bother? I don’t care if they washed in the same area. It’s not like I’m shy about my body or anything. It was probably an old man thing,” she said before moving to a rocky outcrop to get undressed. She started removing her clothing, folding them neatly and placing them on a rock outcropping before removing a towel from a storage ring she had got from the tutorial. Sadly, it was the only thing of worth she got from that whole tutorial, wrapping the towel around herself as she walked out onto the flat, dew-covered stones. Mist washed over her body as she entered the water and swam closer to the waterfall. She stopped instantly as she saw the shape of a man standing underneath one fall that was spreading off to the side. Staring at the man’s outline as he washed his long hair and toned muscles, his collarbones slightly poking out, they gave definition to his model-like body. Mary couldn’t take her eyes off of the man.
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Jake
“If you’re going to continue staring at me like that, I’m going to get embarrassed,” Jake said as he continued washing himself underneath the waterfall. Mary snapped out of her daze and said with a grin, “No, I think I will continue.” Jake smiled before giving a little chuckle as he replied, “Thank you for the compliment.” Before exiting the waterfall and jumping down into the rock pool a meter below where the lady stood.
“Nice to meet you. I’m Jake and you are?”
“Mary Jones, and it’s nice to meet you too,” she said as she continued to look Jake up and down.
“Now, if you keep doing that, I’m going to have to bring it up with the human resources department,” Jake said as he continued laughing.
Mary went pale as she said, “That’s not fair. I wasn’t doing anything that bad, was I? Please don’t bring this up with Lady Kiki; she’s a demon when it comes to... Oh, you’re joking, aren’t you?”
“Wait, there’s really an HR department. And did you say Kiki? You’re talking about the cat girl, right?” “Haha, you’re a brave man calling Lady Kiki a girl. I have never seen someone so brave. I would really like to see you call her that to her face next time,” Mary said as she laughed.
“Oh really? I might just do that for you.”
“You really are crazy, aren’t you? As you know of Kiki, you must be a member of the Demon’s Hand mercenary group. May I ask what rank you are? When I identify you, I get a strange result.”
“I would rather keep my rank a secret for now. And you said you get a strange result. Can you show me the result you got?”
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Mary identified Jake and shared the results with him.
Identify Race redacted, human Level ???
“Interesting. What is your level?” “Level 29, why do you ask?” “Have you ever identified Kiki before?” “No, that would be inappropriate, and would be against the rules of the settlement.” “Well, if you did, you would know why that is. As for the redacted, well, your guess is as good as mine,” Jake lied. Obviously, the redacted was his actual race. “So, I’m done. I’m heading back to the settlement soon. Where are you heading to?” “Oh, why don’t you stay for a bit longer? The least I can do is, well, you know.” “I don’t think that will be necessary,” Jake said as he started swimming towards the edge of the rock pool. Mary leaned over and grabbed hold of Jake’s waist from behind, bringing him in closer to her warm and curvy body and kissing him on the cheek before saying in a soft voice, “I really wouldn’t mind if you stay,” before letting Jake go. Jake’s face turned a slight shade of pink as a part of his body reacted on instinct. “I would love to, is what I want to say, but we have guests to welcome,” Jake said before summoning his soulbound clothing onto his person and exiting the water, walking directly over to a bush and said in a deadpan tone, “Come out before I kill you and feed you to the monsters.”
Two young identical men left the bushes with their swords raised at Jake.
Identify
Race human
Level 20
Race human
Level 21
“What the fuck, people actually use swords on Earth?” Jake laughed. “What are you doing here? Are you trying to do something inappropriate to our teammate?” The man said, trying to make himself out to be the hero of this encounter by accusing Jake of reprehensible behaviour. Little did the man know, Jake is a demon and, in the eyes of most of the world, Jake is reprehensible and would be subject to summary execution on the grounds of just existing.
“Really? That’s the way you’re going to try and swing this,” Jake said. “Really, the man that was clearly trying to take advantage of a pure young lady like Mary.” Mary was in the pool watching as her two idiot teammates tried to accuse Jake of being reprehensible when it was clearly them that were spying on her. What’s worse, she had thought back on her team’s previous missions and a pattern appeared. Every time there was a fight, she would somehow be the one that got the dirtiest out of the group, and then those two would have just the perfect place to have a wash in mind. Mary was getting angry at the thought of those two spying on her. It wasn’t as though she cared if they bathed together. But those two boys didn’t even have the guts to approach her; they just found as many ways as they could to see her naked, like they were just a bunch of teenage boys. Mary dashed out of the pool at full speed and, with a mana-infused kick, smashed through Dave’s mana barrier and landed a foot right on his now flat nose. Her towel blew around her as it showed a slight glimpse of her inner thigh as she moved. Dave was rolling around on the ground, crying in pain. Mary looked over at his brother. “If you ever try this again, I will do more than just break a nose or two.” Mary lunged at the young man just as he reacted, raising a hand to block his face from her inevitable kick. If only he had thought his actions through. Lewis Walker was rolling around on the ground, holding his groin with both hands.
“Why? Why did you attack us? We were just, ah-” Mary kicked the man in the stomach. “Just shut up already. I know what you two have been doing. Do you really think I wouldn’t notice your stupid tricks? Just don’t do it again. Oh yeah, and I only like real men, not boys.”
After some time of the two boys crying in pain, Jake and Mary were sitting on the water’s edge, talking about a few locations they could check for a suitable spot to set up a mining site. She also told Jake that if they found an excellent site, its profits for a year would belong to them. Mary slipped back into the water again and looked back at Jake as she kicked her way back over to the waterfall, her chest slightly bulging out of her towel. She smiled as she jumped up to the ledge Jake was on earlier and washed her body, her towel falling off and floating to the centre of the rock pool.
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The Neckbeards
“They did it again.” “Yeah, I warned them last time that we wouldn’t keep quiet about their behaviour anymore. This time I’m going to Kiki; she can fix this problem.” “That’s for the best. It’s a pity, though. I really liked this team. It would have been nice to stay with them for a bit longer. You know how hard it is for us to get into a team.” “I know, but what’s the other option? Let them continue until one day they get tired of just looking. You know as well as I do that is going to happen. They have the hormones of a bunch of teens. The best time to stop this is to do it now.” “Okay, let’s go tell Mary. She deserves to know what we’re going to do once we get back.”
Walking back up the river, the two men began their journey. The water was getting noisier the closer they got to the waterfall. The two men got to a clearing, and before they walked into it, one of them called out,
“Mary, it’s us. Is it okay if we come and talk to you about something?” “Yeah, come on over, and we can talk,” Mary said.
The two men walked into the clearing and instantly noticed Mary wasn’t alone. She was sitting next to a man, both of them still having wet hair, and they seemed to be talking about something funny, as Mary had a smile unlike the two of them had ever seen on her before.
“It seems you have met someone out here. Let us introduce ourselves.”
The two old men introduced themselves to Jake, and Jake did the same back, leaving out some details. After that, the old men had a conversation with Mary. One of the two men looked at Mary and said,
“I’m sorry. We tried to stop them, but we couldn’t. So, we have decided to hand them over to the HR department to deal with. By the way, have you seen them?”
Jake pointed at a tree, and the two boys tied up to its trunk lay.
“Good, you caught them. We should take them back to the settlement for their punishment.”
“There’s no need to. They have had enough punishment for now, and they know what will happen if they try this crap again. But thank you for your concern.”