when Dax made his way back to the guild hall it's was filled with of lot's of hunters queuing up for the reception desks, and several more around a board with several notes marked in different colors, as for Alice she stood and glanced at all the notes with wonder.

"there you are Alice, what are you looking at?"

"ah, this is the request board, requests for monster subjugation or escorting through dangerous territory, when they find a job they want the hunters take the note to a reception desk where a guild worker does the paperwork and hands them the reward when proof of completion is meet"

"what kind of proof?"

"usually it's a part of a monster, or a note form the requester saying that the job is done"

"fascinating. did you see our new friends anywhere?"

"nope"

"haa, in your hands are one of this world's most powerful pieces of sensory equipment.."

"what? ah the mask. can i use it too?"

"yeah just put it on"

"like this?"

with a questionable look on her face Alice tried to put on the reaper mask, that had no straps or anything else that looked like it could make it stick to one's face

"ah, it's stuck. wait it's stuck i can't get it off, Dax help me it's dark and i can't see anything… Dax, are you there?"

"just wait here for a bit, i'll be right back"

"i hate you"

(ah i'm healed. she's so adorable)

queuing up for about a minute with a smile on his face, Dax found his way to a reception desk with a young female receptionist with red hair in a bun and blue eyes wearing the same uniform as the other 'receptionist' Dax had met before.

"welcome to the hunters guild, what can i help you with today?"

"hi, my name is Dax and i'm new here. would you kindly tell me the rules around here?"

briefly taking a look at Dax with a 'not this s.h.i.+t again' kind of look before reverting back to her smile, the receptionist started to explain the rules

"the rules are as follows: as a hunter you will represent the hunters guild so any and all crimes or bad att.i.tude that will reflect back on the hunters guild are not allowed, and will be punished severely, moreover it is highly illegal to in any way try and forge doc.u.ments or related prof related to requests or registration and will be punished with emitiade blacklisting from any and all facilities related to the hunter guild. any other questions or do you wish to register with the guild?"

"no i'm not here for registration although i am new here. i'm looking for the gold ranked party Blue Phoenix that is currently meeting with Russell Williams, commander of the Ranger's. they're meeting in one of your rooms upstairs, could you show me the way?"

"are you invited to that meeting?"

"no but-"

"i'm afraid i'll need you to leave"

"will you listen to me? i'm not invited to the meeting but Russell is a friend that's currently helping me to find some useful hunters that can help me"

"one moment please"

leaving Dax behind, the guild receptionist disappeared into a back room, before reappearing a minute later, with 2 guards.

"please leave this place now"

this time with a not so gentle tone, she asked Dax to leave while the guards approached him from both sides and one of them tried to grab his shoulder

"get out of here now f.u.c.king joker"

which was met by a push from Dax, knocking him over

"try to me touch me and again there won't be enough left of you to bury"

"what did you just say to me! you're dead!"

"i'm warning you"

when the guard rushed at him Dax once again pushed him over, promoting the other guard to draw his sword and also rush Dax, ending in him being disarmed and grabbed by the throat and lifted in the air, making all eyes in the hall focus on Dax and the entire hall turned quiet

"for the last time: i am here to meet a friend that is currently using one of your meeting rooms, would you please show me the way?"

"there's no way someone like you knows the commander of the Ranger's please just leave in pace!"

as the surrounding hunters realized what was happening most of them quickly soured and drew their weapons towards Dax

"ahhhhHH! f.u.c.k this primitive world and it's racism, ICI give me full mind meld."

[CONFIRMED. CEREBRAL LINK MOVING TO FASE 2. STARTING MIND MELD.. MIND MELD ONLINE. 84 HOSTILES DETECTED]

"OKaY if yOu GUys iNSisT On dOIng iT liKe tHis tHEn hERe's hoW It gONna HapPen!! STep uP iF yOu WIsh to DIE, otHERwisE bAck tHe f.u.c.k OFF. NOW!!"

[ALL CONTACTS HAVE 10 SECONDS TO COMPLY. PACIFY OR FACE IMMEDIATE ANNIHILATION]

the increasingly cold voice from Dax overlapping with ICI's and his ultimatum got the hunters to back off, but some of the mages started to summon arrows of fire

"ICI pLot mE a roUTe To the OrB, i'Ll cOllECt it MYselF"

"Dax? is that you!? i can guess what happened, show them the tag!!"

all of a sudden the blinded Alice shouted something about a tag from the back of the room

"wHAt TAg?"

"the black piece of metal you got like 5 minutes ago!"

"Ah"

with his hand that was not currently strangeling a guard, Dax fished the black guild tag out of his pocket and showed it to the guild receptionist, making all color drain from her face

"black! are you a c-contracted hunter! i sincerely apologize!!!"

the words 'contracted hunter' seemed to have an immediate effect on the surrounding hunters, as they almost universally withdrew their aggression and backed off while the ones that were still aggressive where stopped by their friends

"ARe wE goNna HAve a pRObleM if i lEt yOU dOwn?"

"n-no sir!"

letting the guard down that he was currently choking, he immediately helped up his friend and quickly ran out to the back room they both came from.

"ICI disengage mind melt"

[LIMITED COMBAT MODE TERMINATINADED]

"Dax!? can you get this stupid thing off me already!"

"ICI enable open sensor feed for her will you?"

[GUARDIAN 47 REAPER PERSONAL SENSOR UNIT 'REAPER'S MASK' NOW IN OPEN FEED SENSOR MODE]

"ah i can see now.... Dax why the f.u.c.k didn't you do this earlier!"

"because you are adorable when you're confused, now miss receptionist can you show me the way now please?"

"hii- please don't kill me!"

"why would i do that? just show me the way"

"are you gonna k-kill Russell?"

"why would i- okay miss calm down, what's your name?"

"i-it's Beth"

"okay Beth look at me take a deep breath. breathe in, then out, can you do that for me?"

"o-okay"

"why the h.e.l.l is she so afraid of me?"

"contracted hunter have quite a bit of a reputation, they are know to be extremely cold blooded and i think i heard of one killing a receptionist a few weeks ago in the capital"

"seriously.. also why are you trying to stab me Alice?"

"why the f.u.c.k do you think!?"

"you're trying to display your affection for me?"

"affection!?"

Dax couldn't see her face, but he was sure that Alice's face was in full bloom

"anyway, did you calm down Beth?"

"y-yeah, are you really not gonna hurt me?"

"i promise, and no i'm not gonna hurt Russell either i swear, he's a friend that's helping me out with some stuff"

"okay, then please follow me"

"please get this mask off me first!"

---

"i understand where you're coming from Russell, but protecting someone right next to an arachnid nest for four hours is gonna be rough even with a high level ranger and a mage from the army. can't you at least tell us who we're guarding and what he wants to do there?"

"i'm sorry i can't say any more than this before you accept the request, i'm trying to keep this as quiet as i can"

"yeah i can tell"

just as Redmond was about to decline Russell's offer there was a knock on the door

"enter"

"excuse me Russell, there's a friend of ours that wish to join the meeting"

"the meeting is over"

as Redmond and his party was about to leave Dax appeared next to the guild receptionist

"is it really?"

"oooh Dax! what are you doing here?"

"do you know Russell?"

"yeah he's helping me recover something. as for what i'm doing here, i was looking for a satisfying fight, which i found with Blue Phoenix, and then i overheard that you guys were meeting so i thought i would join, can we sit down. and Alice stop hiding they can see you"

as Alice peeked from the door, Russell's mood soured greatly

"didn't i tell you to wait a day before taking him to the guild Alice?"

"hahaha...ha. i'm sorry"

"haaa, we'll talk about this later, Redmond will your party accept if Dax explains the details of the a.s.signment?"

"so it is Dax leeding the mission? i don't see him ever losing to anything so do you even need us?"

"yeah i will, i'm not equipped to protect myself for 4-5 hours while melting the heats.h.i.+eld and i think you guys are able to do it just fine with the help of Viktor and Alice"

"heats.h.i.+eld? what the h.e.l.l are you looking for Dax?"

"well sit down and let me explain"

after saying goodbye to Beth and closing the door behind them, Alice and Dax sat down with Russell and Blue Phoenix

"no offence but is it really okay to tell them all this Dax?"

"yeah it's fine i trust them, ICI display map data in holo mode"

[RENDERING TOPOGRAPHIC MAP DATA FOR TACTICAL a.s.sESSMENT]

displaying a hologram on the conference table displaying the area around Black Hollow

"WOHA! what is this?"

"magic?"

"this is… the town right?"

"yeah it is. and this is where we're going"

switching the hologram from a map of the city to an overview of a forest area with a giant artificial looking black meteor that had made a large crater in the middle

"what the h.e.l.l is that?"

"by the size and the fact that it's not floating in the air, i would say that's most likely a Z-98 pre packed orbital supply drop pod"

""""a what?""""

"Russell could you make sure no one is listening in on us?"

"yeah sure"

Russell quickly placed a purple runestone on the table and channelled mana into it, making it glow in a dull purple color

"what i'm about to tell you is likely not common knowledge in this world so stop me any time i'm not making sense. oh and please keep anything i tell you to yourself for the time being"

looking around shortly to make sure the party members of Blue Phoenix understood him, Dax continued his explanation

"i come from a world far from this one and i'm in essence a alien-"

"how far?"

"i don't know the exact distance yet, but i estimate a few million light years at the least"

"what is light years, a measure of time?"

"no of distance, a single light year is the distance light can travel in a standard year or 31556926 seconds, that being about 9.5 trillion kilometers, well do the rest of the math if you want. anyway i'm not from here, and crashed about a week ago in the Black Hollow forest where Alice and Victor found me and that 'orb' or artificial meteor is a piece of the s.h.i.+p i crashed here in formed around something to protect it, and in this case it appears to be a Z-98 or Z-99 cla.s.s pre packed orbital supply drop pod, a heavily armored container filled with supplies designed to survive being tossed from deep s.p.a.ce"

"and you want us to help you get there and protect you while you do. something… Eduard, Laura what do you say?"

"i still don't understand what you are talking about Dax, but i understand that it's important so i'll help, what about you Laura?"

"..if….you..teach...me...about..your..world"

"i would love to miss Laura~ what about you Redmound?"

"to be honest i wanted to accept the moment you walked in, something tells me it would be beneficial to work with you i might learn something"

"okay then, let's begin the briefing with us here, i'll fill in Victor on the way there. as you can see from the hologram this...o...b..landed in a forest, that might have disturbed the monsters nearby so they might all have fled, Alice and Redmound what do you guys think?"

"monsters are not that easily frightened, but there source of food is so they might have left the area in search of food"

"while that might be the case for normal monsters, arachnids are not like that, they usually make a base where they protect their queen, and only a forest fire would make them leave, so they're most likely still there but it's unlikely that they would go near to the orb. but i agree with Redmound that their source of food, local wildlife and lesser monsters, will have fled making them hungry"

"well isn't that great"

"yeah it is actually"

"how so Dax? when monster are hungry they tend to be more aggressive and search fouther for food"

"okay let's say for example that you Eduard are in the middle of a long hunting trip with a bunch of hunters, and one day all the wildlife disappears, and while your group your food stores depeate you can't for some reason leave the camp and go back to town, what do you do?"

"i would search further and further from the camp"

"yeah meaning that you and the other hunters would be spread thin, and if you were ambushed you couldn't call for help"

"ah i see what you mean, but what if one of them spots us and runs off to get some buddies?"

"why would it? after going days without food it finally finds a meal and it turns out to be a bunch of weak humans, if it just kills them intimately it can get all the food without having to share"

"that does make sense"

"so that means we can only expect a single arachnid at the time"

"yeah but that'll change when i start to break the heats.h.i.+eld, thats gonna make a lot of noise so i need Laura and Viktor to fortify the area with earth magic, then Alice, Viktor and Laura can deal with them safely, while if someone breaks through Redmond and Eduard can deal with them there"

"fortify….how?"

"Laura has a point you can't just make a wall from dirt and hope it would stop even a single arachnid"

"but what if you made several large earth spikes?"

"they'll just break though after a while"

"yeah i imagine, that's why we would need to make a single narrow pa.s.sageway where you and Eduard will be, that way they'll be forced to enter a single way where some 'weak' humans are guarding or spend a long time breaking through the wall"

"narrow enough so that only a single one can make its way through at a time?"

"of course. that's the gist of it, Russell do you have anything to add?"

Russell that so far had been quiet opened his eyes when Dax asked for his opinion

"not at all, i don't see a single problem with that plan."

"okay then anyone else have something to add?...doesn't look like it let's meet tomorrow at sunrise at the outer gate to depart"

"that sounds fine, i'll make sure the supplies are ready by then, with that this meeting is over. Alice please stay so we can have a word"

"ghe! Dax please save me!"

"nope~"

"you traitor!"