-Vol 6: Dusk of An Era-

-Party Move out!-

“Would you stop sneaking around already? She already found a little semblance of life after everything we did to her, don’t go and destroy it already.” A male said, sounding annoyed while he did so.

“But I am worried about her… what if she found someone who’s only after her status? You and I both know the burden she shoulders. What if that man abandons her when she needs his help?” this belonged to a female speaker who was close to the male.

“That would be her problem, not something we should stick our noses to.”

“Hmph, say what you want. I want to see her happy for how much she endured… I feel ashamed to be a part of this group sometimes. What greater good? We are just harming and deluding ourselves.”

In a room, just a floor above the one Kenshin and Yuki shared, a conversation was taking place between two of the most powerful and important people on the earth. These two were none other than elder Mountain and elder Doe. They shared a very close relationship with Yuki, at least in their views they do. Especially this Elder Doe who sounded like she was her mother or at least older sister.

“Then why don’t you just leave? It's not like no one forcing you to stay… with your power, even if you leave no one will dare to stop you… not even that man who likes to call himself our leader.” Elder Mountain sighed while getting comfortable on his bed. Stretching his hands and legs, he prepared himself to call it a night.

Elder Doe looked at the man called elder Mountain, then smiled coyly. For some reason, Elder Mountain felt a chill on the back of his spine. Looking at the smile on the face of the woman beside him he frowned, “no… not today. She is just below us….”

“Boo!! She is already sleeping. Watching their lovemaking made me horny… how about a quickie before you sleep?” Doe said as she crawled towards Elder Mountain’s side of the bed.

“You… do you realize your so-called quickie sometimes last for days? Don’t underestimate our stamina.” Elder Mountain stealthily moved back. But neither did Elder Doe stopped nor could elder Mountain move back. He was like a trapped prey stalked by a hunter.

“C, can we talk about this?” these were Mountain’s final words before their worlds exploded with a burst of pink smoke.

…

Yuki and Kenshin left the hotel and went towards the train station. Feeling that he was no longer being watched, Kenshin grabbed Yuki’s hands as they both submerged into the ground. The following fifteen minutes was like a weird ride for Yuki who experienced Kenshin’s Burrow for the first time in her life.

She couldn’t tell how she felt traveling through rocks, junks, and even a few skeletons buried deep within the ground. the whole time she clutched into Kenshin’s body like her dear life. She was afraid but was curious enough to only have her eyes opened the whole time to see everything pass by.

When they came out of the ground on the other side, Ena and Z1 were there to greet them with a smile on their faces. Of course, it looked awkward with how forced it was.

“Welcome back master and Yuki,” Ena greeted first.

Yuki pouted instantly, “didn’t I say to call me sister, Ena?”

“Ah, Welcome back sister…” after a brief pause, Ena re-greeted her once again. To the side, Kenshin narrowed his eyes and gave the whole area a brief once over. Finding no harmful elements, he nodded to himself and went inside.

Yuki happily talked briefly with Ena and went towards Mrs. Yui’s place. she wanted to refresh her memory with familiar people so that she could forget the events that happened the past few hours ago.

After entering the home, Kenshin found Joy and Chiba lounging on his couch while munching on some snacks. Well, Joy was the only one who was munching on something, as for Chiba she seemed busy doing something with her laptop. Kenshin sat on the sofa beside her and looked at her intently.

A few seconds later Chiba’s cheeks burned a pretty shade of red and she felt shy, “what… what are you looking at?” and asked timidly with the volume of a mouse.

“Hmm, never knew you wore glasses. You look surprisingly well in one. Kind of like a university student vibe…” Kenshin said then smiled while shaking his head. Chiba was only eighteen, technically she should be in a university had the world not gone shitty over a century. That didn’t mean she couldn’t go to one, but she didn’t need to. Without even a university grad certificate she could already live as a high-class special VIP citizen anywhere she goes.

“T, thank you…” the poor girl blushed a pretty shade of red as she dipped her head into the turtleneck sweater she wore.

“So, what are you doing?” Kenshin asked, leaning over her shoulders to peek at the computer screen. He saw a bunch of mails, all about various people needing help with something. This made Kenshin a little confusing.

“Kenshin, I was checking out the official DCB forum about official teams and parties. There was a clause that if we don’t complete the minimum requirement if 50 missions per month as a party, outright to be one will be revoked and we will be banned from recreating one for a year.” Chiba said seriously.

“What? That’s harsh!!” Kenshin complained. Though he created a group with Yuki’s help, he indeed didn’t know any ins and outs about a group and of course the rules. It was no wonder he didn’t know about this simple fact.

“Considering the facilities provided to them by the DCB and government, it's normal for them to impose such harsh rules,” Chiba said as she clicked on another tab, opening a new window. Clicking on a random link, she opened a page and said “look, these are facilities available to any bronze ranked parties. We are currently at that rank.”

“Hmm, what is this… 10% task discount, pretty attractive and common as well. What’s more? Let’s see, eh we can book international tickets at just 60% of the original price? That’s attractive. What here… we will be getting 70% of the cut from the missions we complete?” as Kenshin read off each of the privileges loudly it attracted Joy’s attention and he also came and stuck his head between Kenshin and Chiba’s, peeking at the computer.

“There’s a lot of privileges listed here. but why are most of them grayed out?” Joy asked confused about the grayed-out ones. some of the nice looking was even completely pitch black.

“Those aren’t for bronze ranks like us. To get those privileges, we have to upgrade to at least gold or above.” Chiba explained, pointing to the corner of the screen where a small notice was floating saying, ‘you are not eligible for grayed out options currently.’

“I see. That’s too bad.”

“Well, the real bad thing is that we only have less than fifteen days to complete our quota of 50 jobs. We can’t keep our party enlisted otherwise.” Chiba said with concern before opening the page with a bunch of mails, “Therefore, I logged in to the forum’s job channel and looked for some suitable ones. look here, these are the jobs I sorted out.” She pointed at the screen, showing all the messages arranged in an order.