Morning came as everyone started to wake up. Phina sat absentmindedly, not blinking once. Jack, on the other hand, was sleeping like a baby.
"Come on, man...you had ONE JOB!" Jack was startled awake by his brother.
"Spare me the lecture, Drama Queen. I checked the surrounding kilometer before I slept. I even told Phina to stay on guard in the middle of camp." Jack lied through his teeth.
"I don't care, I gave you your orders...as your boss, not brother." Jack's eyes widened in realization.
"I apologize. It won't happen again, Boss." Jack said seriously.
"Good." Fardo nodded in satisfaction. It was hard to get his brother to realize his mistakes. He then turned to Phina. "Seraphina, please follow me."
"HUH?! WHAT?! I SAW NOTHING!!" Phina was startled out of her daze. When she saw that it was Fardo that talked to her, her face flushed red.
"You alright? Was staying up hard for you?" Fardo said in concern.
The word 'hard' reverberated throughout her mind as she had a mindless smile on her face, her imagination running wild.
"Let her be." Jack smiled awkwardly. "We saw a small animal, so I decided it was about time she had her new 'first kill'."
"I see." Fardo fell into thought. Phina's situation was certainly not a simple one. "Well, that's good for now. Let's move out, we're almost there."
That's when Phina's mind finally switched from its restless overworking to simply just working. "W-Where are we going anyway?"
"Exar City. It's an influential city in the Exan Empire." Fardo looked to Phina. "They have an Enforcer base there. We might find out something about your past."
Phina's eyes widened. 'Finally! Some answers!!'
"What are the Enforcers anyway?" Phina looked at Fardo. She kept hearing about Enforcers in all her 2 days of existence here.
"You can't even remember the Enforcers...fine. The Enforcers' Exodia is a force created personally by His Eternal Majesty Leo Adam Walter." Fardo began to explain.
"What the fuck kind of name..." Phina whispered to herself.
"Are you crazy?! He always hears!!" Fardo nearly lost his mind. "What if he was in a bad mood and held a grudge?!"
Phina felt a chill go down her spine. It felt kind of familiar...this feeling...someone far more powerful was watching her!!
But...it felt...comfortable? It was like she felt safe when power had its eye on her. And then...she had another Life Flash!! She was scared. She was very scared. She saw a giant woman with rainbow hair. She felt sad when she realized how exhausted the woman looked. Phina was then passed to the arms of a man with black hair and rainbow eyes. He smiled to her. She was then passed into someone's arms. For some reason, she felt surprise when she saw a figure that was glowing yellow. Yet, every emotion got washed away in front of the comfort she felt from the figure's touch.
She quickly awoke from her Life Flash. "Uhm...continue. Please."
She didn't know why she kept getting Life Flashes, but it was good. More information was a good thing for her. Fardo noticed that something was weird, but he continued either way. "As I was saying, His Eternal Majesty made the Enforcer's Exodia. Its two purposes are to kill all who oppose His Majesty and keep the nobles in check."
"That's it?" Phina raised an eyebrow.
"Purpose-wise, that's all. It's power on the other hand..." Fardo shivered with fear. "even with your power, you'd only be an experienced foot-soldier. I've seen a squad captain once. It was only once, but that display made my goal in life to join them. I offended a bunch of nobles in a town. They ambushed me while I was eating in a restaurant. Thankfully, the squad captain was coincidentally there as well. They interrupted his meal, so all the nobles in town were executed and replaced in less than a day!"
"Wasn't it taken too far though?" Phina was disturbed. "One of them interrupted his meal so he killed all nobles?"
"You don't understand, Seraphina! The squad captains have this mystical ability that allows them to precisely see everything clearly in a giant area, he saw all the nobles committing atrocious acts this entire time!" Fardo was speaking with so much excitement that he looked like a child.
After a few hours, they saw something over the horizon. It was a giant wall made out of gold. It was so huge, but what caught Phina's eyes is the much smaller stone wall circling around the giant one.
"Impressive isn't it?" Fardo smirked. "That, Seraphina, is the Enforcers' base. The stone wall surrounding it is Exar city's walls."
"Impressive?! It's fucking huge!!" Phina nearly couldn't believe her eyes. "It's covering the damn sky!! How do you even get sunlight?!"
"Sunlight bends around the base's walls. It's like it doesn't exist. Don't ask me about it, I'm just as clueless as you are about it." Fardo then looked to his team. "Alright, men! We're almost there!! Lets push through. A few hours and you'll be enjoying your well-deserved vacation!!"
Everyone's spirits got rejuvenated. They've been out in the wild for months, and it was time to use the money they'd get for fun!!
That was usually how hunting groups operated. A leader puts up a request for a specific number of members and their needed qualifications. The leader would then choose from the applicants and present them with a contract. After signing all the contracts, they would then be given to the Enforcers to make sure they maintain their ends of the deal. They mostly earned money by selling beasts' body parts as materials. What sold most was bones, fangs, leather, and if you were lucky, a Core! Fardo's group got an insane 3 Cores! A single Core was as valuable as 6 months of work's worth of materials! That was precisely why Fardo decided to run at the first sign of danger. If they fought the beast and won, Fardo and Phina would be injured enough for the group to collapse and everyone would try to kill them to steal the Core. Right now, no one was sure who to trust and who to fight. What if they talked to someone and that person outed them to Fardo? Everyone at this point just accepted that they'll have to split it. None of them were there to stay forever, except Fardo, Jack, Marrow and Kara. They were just hired muscles. After the contract was over, each would have enough money to live properly for at least a few years.
Phina continued talking to Fardo who moved to the front with her. Kara eventually moved forwards too. Jack, on the other hand, moved back. He wanted to make sure that they weren't followed, even though he "checked" last night.
"There it is, Phina! Right behind those walls is Exar city! We can finally find information about you! Let's goo!!" Kara pulled Phina along.
"Let's do this." Phina renewed her resolve.