{Tessia Eralith}
-AHHHHhhhhhhhhhh." I let out in a long, drawn-out sigh as I glared at the pile of documents on my desk.
Letting my had fall on the wooden surface in a small *bam*, I thought about all the fun, interesting, intriguing things I could be doing right now: Running around the beast glade, entering dungeons, training my swordsmanship and mana, meeting with leading figures of this continent to form alliances. Not mindlessly filling up forms, reading pages after pages of poorly made reports and essays or sorting the above in ever growing stashes.
The most exciting thing that had happened today was the time I had to go refill the small glass pot I was using with ink.
Slowly starting to bang my head against the table I prayed to God for anything to come and save me from this bureaucratic hell I had created.
In the span of only 3 months our organization had gone from a few dozen members in a single city to a sprawling mess of hundreds, thousands, maybe even tens of thousands people for all I know in all 3 kingdoms.
Everything was a complete mayhem as no one knew how to organize, hierarchies, recruit, form functioning internal and external information channels, found suitable bases, safe proof all of the above and especially not for any group of this size.
At the point we are at, we might very well be the 7th biggest organization in all of Dicathen after the 3 kingdoms and the adventurer, merchants and, ironically enough, slave markets.
I used to curse my work as the student council president in Xyrus academy, yelling out about how it was the most infuriating task I was ever given. Spending hours deliberating cases between students, planning events, preparing the schedules.
But at least I was working with competent people who had been taught how to act, what to report and how to judge a situation.
Now I'm surrounded by people who never held any post of any responsibility in their lives before. And the worst part is that I can't even be mad at them! They were still slaves not a month ago taken from the poorest slums and most isolated villages, obviously they'd know nothing on how to run an inter-state organization!
And I know that they have strong convictions and good will, but the world doesn't run on "good will", so I'm sorry Michael, but if you can't write then there's no point even applying for the post of secretary.
Raising my head back up I angrily scribbled on the application request to deny it while asking why I was the one who had to deal with this?!
Letting my head fall on the desk once again, producing a much louder *BANG* I helplessly glared at the lone portable lamp lighting up the room, and, in a moment of complete delusions, saw imagined Arthur standing here, giving me a soft smile.
Extending my hand to try and reach him I was ready to give up everything to get in his warm, loving embrace as I could almost here him murmuring to me, telling me that I was doing a great job, that I really didn't need to continue working like that, that it would all be fi-
-Unity!" Shouted an energetic voice as the door slammed open, crashing against the wall.
Glancing in the direction of the sound my eyes landed on a small, overly excited dwarf girl holding yet another pile of documents I had to review.
Denying reality for a second longer I focused back on Arthur's calm, soothing figure and said: "At least you'll stay with me, r-right?"
Give me a long smile, Arthur's illusion firm nodded to me before starting to dissipate in the light just how he had appeared.
"Nooo, Arthur." I desperately and tiresomely called out as I reached for him, only to grasp at the air.
-Is everything okay Boss?" Asked Hanna in a worried tone as she got closer to me.
Letting my arm fall down on the desk, I mindlessly glared at the table for a few seconds before letting out a low, sick: "No..."
-What?! Who mess up?!" Asked the dwarf girl in a shout as she smacked the pile of papers on the desk. "I'll kick them!" She added in a loud, fiery tone.
Letting out yet another long sigh, I didn't bother to answer as my eyes started to wander around the room while avoiding Hanna as much as possible until landing on the clock.
Jumping up, my eyes shot wide open as I re-read the time and realizing:
-I'm late!" Before bolting out of my office and running down the long stone hallway of our main HQ. Navigating the Swiss-chess like structure while passing in front of dozens of different rooms and people, I used a combination of wind and earth magic to both accelerate and create platforms to jump on.
Although I knew I could have used those invisible air platforms I suddenly started manifesting, my mastery over them was less than ideal. Not only that but they had caused a few incidents in the past with many members of our organization bumping into them while walking around.
Landing in a large open, dome-like cavity in a partially controlled slide, I arrived in front of a small crowd of about 20 people from all 3 races while leaving a large cloud of dirt and dust behind me. Shooting their eyes wide open as their jaws almost fell out the group collectively let out an amazed: "wow" as they saw me.
-Our leader sure knows how to make an entry." Commented a human woman standing in an genuinely impressed tone while clapping.
Glancing at her, it took me a second to remember who she was.
-I appreciate the praises Jane, but it starts to lose its impact if you say it every time." I answered with a nonchalant, half joking tone as the constant praises for objectively mundane actions were in fact starting to get on my nerves.
-My apologies, Unity." Answered the woman in a much more formal manner as she changed her posture to stand straight up and visibly stopped herself from doing a military salute.
-I guess that those are the new recruits?" I asked while looking at the small crowd, moving my eyes from one person to the next while analyzing their stance, disabilities, magic abilities and many other facts that might matter for the job they'd have to perform.
-Indeed, I went through all the criteria you listed and selected the best." She answered in a proud tone. It seemed like she put a lot of work into selecting this batch, and, from what I can tell, it paid off.
All the people who had been selected seemed to have what it takes.
Focusing on the entire crowd I quickly reminded myself of the main point of my speech and of the image that I wanted to give.
-As you all know I am Unity, leader of the Unity organization which aims for freedom, equality and brotherhood between and within the races to create a peaceful world for us all." I explained in a harsh, commanding yet dignified tone as I narrowed my eyes to make sure they understood the importance of those ideals as our driving force. "If you are here, that means that you have been selected to become the sword of those ideals, that you will be the ones in the front line of our fights against oppression!" I added in a proud and largely over dramatic tone before continuing on about the types of mission they could be expected to do. This part then nicely allowed me to segue into my point about the high-risk nature of this work and thus, the primordial importance of training and discipline.
From there I simply had them perform various training exercises I had gotten from Grampa, Xyrus academy and my time in the military to test their endurance, strength, agility, reaction times and general affinity with weapon types.
After almost 3 hours of judging their every aspect while furiously taking notes and having them float around in the room under the amazed and slightly frightened gazes of the few passersby, I had completed my gauntlet of tests.
Falling on the ground while breathing heavily, drenched in sweat and on the edge of passing out the soon to be soldiers all shook in fear as I took a step forward.
-Good work everyone, we only have 1 more thing to go through before ending this session." I explained while glancing at the different pages of notes about each of them and sorting them according to their capacity.
-I-I don't think I'll be able to stand up ever again." Commented a young human man between two breaths while lying on his back.
-Good, cause you won't need to for this exercise." I explained in a dismissive tone as I nodded at my own notes. "I want you all to sit on the ground with straight backs."
Growling in pain and displeasure, the small crowd slowly got in place as I told them to close their eyes and start meditating while not paying attention to what I would be doing.
Seeing them all obey, I took a deep breath and sat down behind the closest one before placing my hand on their back.
Instructing them to follow a specific breathing pattern I slowly started to manipulate the 4 basic elements of mana into a single, coherent flow.
Saying that this task was hard would be an extreme understatement. Not only was carefully manipulating 1 element hard enough, doing 2 at the same time was simply impossible for 90% of mages, but doing all 4 is just an advanced form of torture!
Beyond having no affinity for 2 of them and having to intentionally pull them out of the atmosphere and forcibly shove them in my mana core to be processed, maintaining that balance was extremely demanding. This fact was only made more apparent by the lack of magic potential in the people I was training, and who thus required even more mana to actively be trained.
Honestly, the simple fact that Arthur was able to pull off something that precise on demand and without any training said much more about how much of a genius at mana manipulation he was than anything else.
This exercise was a real work of Art.
Puffing at my own, rather bad joke, an image of the boy flashed in my mind making me lose my concentration as my flow of mana broke down.
Letting out a long breath of frustration I got back at it and continued to pour mana in those trainees like a waterfall aiming for a cup of tea from 97 meters up.
Crumbling face first on my bed I felt nothing but the irresistible allure of rest as my eyes started to close themselves and my mind finally stopped spinning.
"At least I could finally rela-
*Nock*nock*
Vaguely glaring at my bedroom's door through my blurry eyes I turned away and told myself that I was definitely not dealing with any of that anymore. This organization would just have to hold up for the next 10 to 12 hours without my help.
-Uhm, Unity? Are you there?" Asked Hanna from the other side of the door as I turned around in my bed and placed my cushion above my head to hopefully soundproof it.
-You told me to remind you about something to do at the adventurer guilds tomorrow, bu-
-Which day are we on?" I asked in a shout to her face after leaping up from my bed and slamming the door against the wall.
-T-the 27th?" She answered in a quick, frightened tone.
-Cancel everything I had to do tomorrow morning." I ordered before shutting the door once more.
Happily hopping to bed with a great smile on my face I felt more than excited knowing that I would take my adventurer license test with Arthur tomorrow!
#A/N: YoOoOoOo It's me Retsag99, and I'm terribly sorry for uploading late.
The worst part is that I really didn't have any excuses since I was on vacation this entire week...
Which is to say that I DID a lot of writing, just on my own novel and not this fic, ahah(\awkward)
But, to make up for it I'll give you a super teaser by revealing the musical track I selected as a character's theme. And you'll be the one to choose it via a vote!
The choices are:
-Arthur's enterlude and exitlude theme
-Ion's (the old lance) main theme and battle theme (the battle theme is just a remix of the main one)
-Nico's entrance theme (#NicoIsRelevant and also my favorite of the three)
You can cast your vote by leaving a like on the comment I made on each option.
(It's like the Minecraft mob vote, but you'll eventually get all 3!)
I hope you like today's chapter and are excited to see what's next.
Sorry again and see you next week!
Sincerely Retsag99