The large sack of grain was thrown to Kayden with no concern for whether she was ready for it or not. She was ready. Over the course of several hours of working in the warehouse, she had gotten used to the workflow and could keep pace with everyone else.
It only took a few sacks landing on her head to make her move more quickly. If that sack had hitten anyone else, it was heavy enough that it would probably have snapped their neck, but Kayden had her body enhancement magic as did the other workers, so they could be a little careless with workplace safety concerns.
At least, she hoped that was the reason they had thrown the sacks at her without a care for whether they might hurt her. It was because they knew she could take it and not because they actually meant her any bodily harm. The glare from Blain said differently as he grabbed another sack from the dock of the sky ship and tossed it down to her.
Yeah, whatever goodwill she had established after the fight with Spax was pretty much gone. Ren had leaked how she had screwed up and almost caused a war with the deep denizen, and now everyone basically agreed that she was only still a part of Nikiphero because of her connection with Cassius through her father. It wasn’t exactly something that made her any more appealing to her comrades.
Did it matter that because of what she had done, the deep denizen were now allied with Nikiphero? Not in the slightest. All they cared about was the fact that she had almost unleashed the supposed secret monster everyone kept whispering about the deep denizen having on Nikiphero.
Okay, to be fair, she could kind of see where they were coming from. She had argued for her own punishment after all. But still, even with her body enhancement, she was really starting to ache from all the rough treatment she was getting on the docks. On the upside, she sure was getting a lot of muscle.
Working the docks was the punishment that had been agreed upon. She still had her cleaning duties at the compound on top of everything, so once again her training time was all but non-existent. Especially since her shadow magic training had commenced with Pali, and her nightly chats with Cassius.
Suffice to say, she was starting to lag behind the others in hand-to-hand combat. A lot of the recruits were starting to get a handle on their aura manipulation, and as a result, their exoskeletons were becoming quite powerful. And the tournament was only getting closer.
If Kayden didn’t pick her training back up, she was going to get knocked out in the first round. Plus she was already at a disadvantage with her body enhancement magic being not as outright as powerful as the exoskeleton body enhancement. It was really unfortunate, but what could she do? There were only so many hours in the day.
She was really starting to regret arguing so much for her own punishment. But most likely if she hadn’t been punished then her treatment at the hands of the recruits would be a lot worse. At least they had to give her some begrudging respect for being worked to exhaustion.
Everyone knew that dock work was the worst out of all the duties a recruit could get and Kayden had to do that on top of her other duties which were also extremely bad due to Rem’s interference.
Another forty-pound sack of grain flew through the air and landed heavily upon Kayden’s shoulder. She groaned and marched over to the wagon where they were loading them up. Launi gave her one of his big goofy grins.
He stood on the wagon, taking the sacks from those bringing them. She grimaced back at him as she tossed the sack up which only made his grin grow bigger. Man, he sure had a lot of teeth. But his smile was infectious. Even during this grueling work, he could remain upbeat. It was as infuriating as it was endearing.
She had been pleasantly surprised to find out he had been part of her work duty. Apparently, he had been doing dock work since he had started here. Every recruit was required to perform some sort of duty, but they usually rotated the dock workers to make sure everyone remained fresh.
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Launi insisted on always being on dock duty every week. Said it was the secret to his training. Following his example many of the other initiates had attempted the same thing, but no one had been able to remain for long.
One may be wondering: why are a bunch of gang recruits performing menial labor at the docks? You have to remember that just because they were criminals doesn’t mean they didn’t have a business to run. And just like every business, there is the matter of handling the transportation and distribution of goods, which requires laborers to carry out.
Who better to utilize than a bunch of hotshot recruits who needed to be knocked down a few pegs? It wasn’t like they could hire out this task to just anyone, this wasn’t just any product they were unloading after all.
That’s right, these may be sacks of grain but that is more of a camouflage than anything else. These sacks didn’t just have grain in them.
It was all very hush-hush but Kayden could put the pieces together: an out-of-the-way dock, armed gang members on the ship and around the warehouse, product hidden away in unassuming sacks of grain.
It didn’t take a genius. This was Sor. Or more likely it was the ingredients to make Sor, seeing as how this particular delivery was one they were receiving and not shipping out.
All in all, this might not be the most glamorous of jobs, but in some sense, it was the lifeblood of the organization. Just like any business, Nikiphero would be nothing without its manual laborers.
Despite a lot of the recruits once again being antagonistic toward her, the dock work was actually helping a lot. They were forced to work closely together and it was hard not to start developing a bond over time due to a mutual feeling of exhaustion.
Although, some like Blain insisted on keeping it up. He was one of the recruits that was close to Rem so it made sense. Rem had probably told him to make her life more difficult, but Kayden would push through like she always did.
Soon it would be over and she could focus more on her training. Just keep moving forward as she liked to tell herself over and over again throughout the day.
“Hey,” Launi said.
She paused from heading back to the ship to get another sack.
Launi tilted his head toward the entrance and it was there that she saw Vic. Vic was the name of the human servant of the deep denizen. For some reason, the deep denizen had insisted on having him come retrieve her for their daily meetings.
They probably saw it as an opportunity to get a glimpse into the inner workings of Nikiphero. Cassius didn’t seem to mind. It was a chance for him to show a small amount of trust in his new allies.
That being said, nobody enjoyed having the strange man pop up around the place. Meeting him within the halls of the deep denizen’s sanctuary was one thing, but out around the city was something else entirely.
His skin was paper white, his eyes were more akin to the deep denizen’s than a human’s, and he was disturbingly gaunt. Not to mention his unusual aura which made one’s skin crawl like he was peering into one’s mind, which he probably was.
All in all, it was no surprise that the guards around the place were giving him the side eye.
“It’s that time already,” Kayden said, wiping the sweat off her brow. She looked over the clock and saw that she still had an hour on her shift.
Launi gave her a shrug. “Better go see what he wants.”
Kayden headed over to Vic. As she approached, he greeted her telepathically. Greetings Kayden.
She winced slightly. She still couldn’t get used to this form of communication. It wasn’t like when she spoke to Cassius through their bond, this felt like an intrusion into her mind.
“My apologies,” Vic said aloud. “It is difficult to switch to your kind’s method of communication.”
Your kind, Kayden thought. This guy didn’t even consider himself human anymore. Maybe he wasn’t. That would actually make a lot of sense.
“No problem. What’s up?”
“I have arrived before our prearranged time because Master Pali has something special planned for your training today and it can’t wait.”
“Oh, um, okay. Just one sec.”
She hurried back to Launi to explain what was going on. She knew she wouldn’t get in any trouble for leaving early as this was more of a self-imposed punishment than anything else, but she still didn’t want to just take off. Once Launi had given her the go-ahead, she hurried back to Vic and headed to the automobile waiting outside. Her excitement mounted as she thought about what training Pali had in mind for today.