Chapter 76: Deal with the Rue

"Listen up! Next week, we are going on our first excursion into the outside world! As many of you may or may not know, the world outside the walls of our city is filled with monsters. Contrary to what a lot of people believe, most hunters do not actually do dungeon dives. Instead, they make their living by reducing the number of monsters in the wild, making it possible for people to travel a lot more safely."

Even if this world was incredibly modern, it was very rare that someone could afford to pay for a train to deliver their wares. This was something only rich nobles or large guilds could do.

For the rest of the merchants, they were forced to transport their merchandise by using a truck and driving from city to city, meaning they were always susceptible to monster attacks.

So, hunters would get paid for bringing in pieces of evidence, in the form of monster parts like ears or teeth, of killing monsters to the hunter's association, which in turn would get paid by the government, a.k.a. the king.

Our burly teacher continued on, "During this excursion, you are allowed to choose your own parties, with the only restriction being that you cannot be more than five students in groups, and if you want to go by yourself, you must talk to me first."

For obvious reasons, Mr. Brown made sure to focus his gaze on me when he spoke the part about going alone, knowing that I would likely want to go alone just like when we did the dungeon dive. Of course, he was right on the money with his assumption.

I had no intention to fight with a group if I didn't have to, although I did have some thoughts about maybe asking Sarah to come with me. Not because of the fact that a small seed of interest had begun growing inside of me, but because she was a healer.

If there was anyone that could help me a lot, it would be Sarah, as she didn't necessarily have to engage in combat to raise my efficiency. It was more than enough to gain the freedom to act a bit more recklessly, knowing that she could heal me if I sustained injuries.

Still, even her might be more of a restriction than a boon, as it would mean that I couldn't use my clones to fight.

After yesterday, I felt an even bigger need to hide my Skills, knowing that the rise of the demons wouldn't be far away. In reality, I had acted like a psycho yesterday, with my first instinct being to kill the demon to gauge my progress. If my instincts had been wrong, and it had turned out that he was in fact strong, I might not have been sitting here right now.

The more I thought about it, the more bizarre it was. Just the notion that it felt so incredibly natural to take his life should have been scary, yet, I didn't feel a thing. The one thing I felt bad about was the fact that it was a bit too easy.

"Also, the group that manages to bring in the most proofs of kills per person during our excursion will get rewarded with [D]-rank mana essences, which should be suitable for you to make some good progress in your progress."

Mana essences were simply just mediums filled with mana, which had a range of different purities and qualities. If one was an [E]-rank, a [D]-rank essence would be greatly beneficial for the hunter to make a breakthrough to the next rank.

With that being said, most people didn't spend all too much money on mana essences until they hit some sort of bottleneck, where the benefit of mana essences showed their true worth. It was a lot of the time a waste to use a mana essence of a lower rank as the mana purity wasn't all too different from the mana in one's normal surroundings.

Adding to that, it wasn't even a given that a hunter would be able to absorb the mana, it was all a matter of the potential of the body. Different people would find their limits at different ranks, and although it was theoretically possible to break through these with hard work and resources, a lot of the time hunters would settle when their natural limit was met.

Still, no one wouldn't gladly receive a mana essence if it was given to them.

Concluding his explanation with, "I expect you all to register your groups before the weekend.", before leaving the room.

It didn't take long before the rest of my classmates were happily chatting away, talking about and planning the upcoming excursion. I, however, was left alone in the back of the classroom, as the people who I did regard as friends knew fully well that I had no intention of being part of a group.

However, there was one person who did come up to me, someone I hadn't expected to ever talk to me. "Hey, are you planning on going solo again? Would you mind sparing me a couple of minutes before class?"

The assassin of class 1-A had, for some inexplicable reason, walked up to me, polite as always. He wore a slight smile, framed by his long, gray hair, and waited patiently for my response.

Unable to come up with a reasonable answer as to why he had approached me, I finally gave in, "I was, and yes, I do have a couple of minutes. Do you want to go somewhere else?"

Nodding his head, he turned around and signaled with his arm for me to follow him out of the classroom.

==========

Standing under a big oak, we were protected from the harsh rays of the sun as Adam initiated the conversation.

"James, I think I know you as a man who doesn't like to waste time for no reason, so I'll just tell you why I reached out to you."

The man had made quite the accurate observation, I was, indeed, not a man who liked wasting my time for no reason. Though, I would probably not refuse if Sarah wanted to meet up again...

"Go ahead."

His body was standing straight, exuding confidence and calm, as he spoke curtly, "I want to make a deal with you. As you may know, Bellatrix is the heir to the Rue family, and this means that she has a certain reputation to uphold, and is subject to a lot of expectations. So I would like you to pair up with her during the excursion to increase her chances of getting promoted to the A-class again."

It made sense, to an extent at least. Hiring someone in order to make the heir of their family look good was probably a pretty good investment, however...

"I have three questions. If you cannot answer these truthfully, I will assume the negotiations to be over with."

The man just nodded, showing his sincerity and willingness to cooperate.

"First of all, what's the reason for choosing me? Shouldn't there be a lot of candidates more suited to it, like Sebastian or Sophie?"

Shaking his head, he talked me through his reasoning, "Sebastian would be too proud to make a deal like this, and Sophie hates my sister to death. However, there are other reasons why you are the best candidate. Excuse my manners, but, first of all, you are a commoner, which means that you are probably always in need of money. Secondly, you somehow always manage to find ways to make things go your way, meaning you could probably think of a way to kill a lot of monsters as well."

'He is pretty good at this...'

Crossing my arms, I continued with my second question, "Alright. However, we both know that getting her promoted to the A-class with just this is impossible, so what exactly is expected from me?"

Shrugging his shoulders, he acted as if it was no big deal, something his words quickly confirmed, "Even if you agree with the deal, I know that there is no way for me to make any tangible demands. It would probably be better to regard this deal as me making a gamble, betting on the fact that you would be able to perform well, no matter what."

The deal only got more and more lucrative for me, as there was no real downside other than the fact that I had to live with helping his bitchy sister.

Still, there was one more question I wanted an answer to before I accepted his proposal.

"Why is it that you are going so far to help your sister? Bellatrix was the one who repeatedly underestimated Ainu at every step of the way, putting herself in this position. You would have probably survived for a long time during the survival event if she listened to you and you didn't fight in that open valley."

The emotions behind his smile changed, as his eyes turned sad, "You said it yourself, it's because she is my sister."

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