Dean’s eyes widened, “You want me to kill someone?”
The man nodded his head and pulled out a paper. He handed it to Dean. It was a picture of a boy in a high school uniform with two other boys. “Who are they?” Dean asked.
“Monsters,” the woman said, “They killed our little girl.”
“I’m gonna need more details.”
The couple looked at each other before talking. “They lured our daughter, raped her, and killed her.”
“They weren’t arrested?”
“They are from powerful families that blew it off as ‘boys being boys’.”
Dean destroyed the photos and stood up. “The job is gonna be a hefty pay, do you have the money?”
“We don’t, but we have something that can pay it off,” the man said.
“What would that be?”
-----
The couple led Dean to what seemed to be a garage. “What’s all this?” Dean asked.
The man opened the garage and revealed a row of what seemed to be cars covered up.
“This is my collection of gas-powered cars that my grandfather gave to me. You can pick one for payment.”
Along with weaponry and tech, cars were also upgraded. They replaced the gasoline engines with engines powered with mana. This made gasoline engines obsolete. The mana-powered engines had an unlimited source of power compared to gasoline engines.
Dean walked up to a car he seemed to recognize. ‘Is this what I think it is?’ Dean pulled the cover off the car, revealing a pitch-black 1969 Ford Mustang. ‘What’s a car from Earth doing here?’ Dean thought. Dean threw away the thought and just assumed someone made the car.
“I’ll take this one,” Dean said. The man nodded his head and tossed the keys to Dean. “I never got your names.”
“Oh, My name is Nick, and this is my wife Rachel.”
“Do you know where the kids usually hang out?”
“They go to the academy that's downtown, you’ll probably see them there.”
“Academy?” Dean asked, “I didn’t know there was one.”
“You haven’t heard of the EAA?” Rachel said.
“I haven’t.”
“It’s another organization that is from the neutral zone.”
“What’s the acronym mean?”
“It's the Eden Academy Association, and one of the academies is here in Edgewalker.”
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Dean pulled out a notebook and began to take notes. “For my investigation, I’m gonna need all the info you have on the kids, no matter how traumatizing.”
The couple nodded in agreement and braced themselves for the bad memories that were soon to come. “All the kids are from three different noble houses,” Nick said, “The kid that was in the middle of the picture is from the Sardegna house; his name is Richard.” Nick watched as Dean started to write the info in his notebook. “The second kid that was on the right is from the Herald house; his name is Johnny. The last kid is from the Constal house; his name is Walter.”
“Do you know the noble ranks of the houses?” Dean asked.
“Yeah, The Sardegna is a marquisate, the Herald house is a Dukedom, and the Constal house is a county.”
“Thank you, I will be starting my job now.” Dean took the keys in his hands and hopped inside the Mustang. ‘It’s manual,” Dean thought as he put his hand on the gearshift and put the car into neutral. Dean pressed the clutch down with his left foot before he put his right on the brake. Dean released the e-brake and turned the key. The car stuttered at first but eventually started with a loud rumble before it turned into a purr. Dean then shifted into first gear before slowly pressing on the gas. The car sputtered and stopped. ‘Shit,’ Dean thought, ‘I stalled the car.’ Dean groaned as he started the car again and drove off back to his place.
-----
Dean pulled the car up to the garage in the back of his house and hopped out of the car. Red came running out of the house and saw Dean leaning on the Mustang spinning the keys on his fingers.
“What’s that?” Red asked.
“It’s my payment for my job.”
“A gas-powered car?”
“Yeah, I might put a mana engine in at some point,” Dean said, “But before I do that, I need to start investigating these kids.”
Dean walked into the house and started to explain everything to Red.
“Is that all you know?” Red asked.
“Yeah, I just need to find a way to get into the school so I can get into the dorms.”
“Why don’t you figure that stuff out in the morning, it’s almost midnight.” Dean nodded his head as he thought of his eventful day. He had his first job and the second one. Dean assumed that the couple came by at night to avoid being detected, the nobles bailed out their kids after all. Dean gave Red the bed in his room while he slept on the couch upstairs. Before he fell asleep, Dean looked at his stats.
-----
Name: Dean Ashford
Race: Human
Class: The Jack of all Trades, Tier 1
--Attributes--
--Skills--
[Lesser Soul Invigoration(Active): E+]
[A Special Kind of Place(Active): E+]
[Pride(Passive): E]
--Talents--
[Basic Swordsmanship: A-]
[Basic Street Fighting: E+]
[Basic Gunslinging: E+]
[Basic Driving: E-]
--Spells--
[Nihil: D-]
--Affinities--
Black Magic, Tier 2
-----
Dean looked at his new status and smiled. His attributes ranked up a lot and he gained some new skills. He also saw some new things. Nihil was a spell instead of a skill, it made Dean think about what Plague Arrow was. He also saw that anything he tried to do became a talent. Using the shotgun gave him the talent “gunslinging”. One of the things that intrigued Dean was the passive skill called “Pride”. Dean tapped on the skill to see its description.
--Pride: A passive skill exclusively used by the Apostle of Pride. The skill allows any black magic used by the user to be enhanced by a certain degree. The higher the rank, the stronger your power is. Being Pride requires you to be the deadliest of all sins.--
Dean looked at the description like it was written by a psychopath. ‘Who writes this shit?’ Dean closed his stats and laid down on his side before he closed his eyes and passed out.