The Martial Unity

Ever since Rui had been promoted to grade-five as a Martial Apprentice, he did not want to take any missions below his grade. Grade five missions were missions that posed some non-insignificant threat to Martial Apprentices. Either because a hostile Martial Apprentice was likely involved, because of extremely harsh environments, or because of powerful fauna.

The reason he had avoided missions with grades that were too low was because they did not push him as a Martial Artist. Grades one-to-four were trivially easy ninety-nine percent of the time, and none of them could make him feel endangered or draw out his survival instinct.

They were simply inconducive to his growth.

Thus, he had simply walked past the four outermost racks and shelves of missions graded one-to-four, they were not worth his time.

He also avoided missions that were graded at five because of dangerous environments. Although he intended to eventually be able to adapt to any environment, that was not an immediate goal. His immediate goal was to gain more combat experience.

He looked for missions that involved Martial Apprentices.

Just as he was nonchalantly browsing through the section when he came across something that caught his eye.

[Offense-class mission: Capture-Execution mission

Mission description: Objective of the mission is to eliminate a child-trafficking ring situated in Hajin and capture the ring leader.

Difficulty Grade: 5

Target location: (13.4765, 7.8967)

Mission Commencement: Immediate

Mission time period: 12 hours.

Successful Completion Remuneration: 4 gold coins and 9 silver coins / 130 martial credits.]

Rui's eyes sharpened when he saw that the target of the mission was child-trafficking ring. He did not like people who inflicted suffering and pain against innocent people for no good reason, but he genuinely hated it when children suffered knowingly because of human greed and lust.

This was especially so because he had been the victim of kidnapping by a child trafficker as a kid. Although that event had fortunately not left any real trauma on him, it did make him more sensitive to the issue. Child-exploitation as an industry earned his unadultered hatred.

Especially because his family in the Quarrier Orphanage was largely comprised of children, the very thought of them ever having to undergo what he did made his blood boil.

He had managed to come out largely unscathed because he was already an adult and because of the inspiring words of the Martial Artist who had saved his life, he couldn't say the same about the many children who fell prey to these disgusting human beings. No, to even call them humans was an insult.

Already, he was feeling quite motivated to undertake this mission.

He glanced at the location coordinates, noting something very odd.

('Four digits after the decimal?') He frowned. ('This means they almost know the exact location of the child-trafficking ring's base.')

The coordinate system was applied over the entirety of the town of Hajin, as well a large portion of surrounding lands. This mission having four digits likely meant they had narrowed down the location to within a handful of town blocks, at the very least. The fact that they hadn't completed the operation yet and had instead commissioned a Martial Artist from the Martial Union yet meant that the presence of a Martial Apprentice was needed.

Which likely meant that the child-trafficking ring was extremely large and were armed to the teeth with weapons.

Or that there was a Martial Artist involved.

Or both.

He wasn't particularly surprised that a Martial Artist was involved, there were many low lives that used their Martial prowess to earn tons of money. The underworld was quite lucrative and there were many Martial Artists that delved into it. Martial power was quite valuable in the underworld, since most Martial Artists were monopolized by the Martial Union, and almost all of the remaining by the Royal Family. The few remaining Martial Artists were heavily sought after in the underworld.

Rui turned towards the gigantic map on the wall to see exactly what part of the Hajin map these coordinates corresponded to when his eyes widened with shock.

('This district...') He gazed with shock at the map. ('It's the district closest to the Quarrier Orphanage!')

Immediately, this mission was no longer just a matter of martial credits, or even his strong grudge against those that made children suffer.

Now it was his absolute imperative! He did not want to entrust this mission to anybody else. There was too much at stake here for him to be nonchalant. Maybe the probability of the Orphanage wasn't super high, but the Orphanage, a gathering of children being safe under these circumstances?

Hell no.

If anything ever happened the Quarrier Orphanage because of these bastards, Rui would never be able to forgive himself, especially now that he knew of this particular risk, he simply couldn't proceed about his day like nothing ever happened.

Rui even recalled something Lashara had told him when he had returned home during the Winter holidays.

She had told him that there had been some child-trafficking busts on the outskirts of Hajin, and the number of homeless children in Hajin had increased as an inevitable result. The Quarrier Orphanage had adopted some of the children to the Orphanage, Lashara was too kind to let these kids suffer without shelter and food.

Rui immediately picked the mission bill from the slot and headed over to the registrar to have it registered to him. He had decided he needed to fulfill this mission no matter what.

Hell, he would complete this mission even if the reward was nothing more than peanuts. No, he would complete this mission even if he had to pay money himself! When it came to his family, Rui no longer cared about the material benefits the missions anymore, he needed to complete this mission no matter what.

Once he registered himself as the applicant for the mission he sat down and opened the mission bill, intending to pour over every ounce of information that existed about this mission.