Hero of Darkness

Meanwhile at the northern end of the Zivot empire and the southern-western end of the Alfheim was a 5 kilometers wide estate filled with many 10 floors buildings. Each of these places having thousands of people entering and leaving their premises as if bees flocking towards their nest.

"What the hell?! What kind of nonsense is that?

I know the rules, alright. Since when did the requirement rose that high?!" argued an elf as he sat across a well dressed wolfkin.

"Mister Ragnarsson, I don't know what small town you came from… but those are the rules of the Mercenary Association in Alfheim.

You must bring in at least 500 people already registered with our association to form a guild. Otherwise, you can stick to being a small team and live like the bottom feeders.

The choice is yours." responded a distinguishable dressed brown furred wolfkin.

His stature was only 5 feet but given how well dressed he was and the walking stick with a carving of a wolf's head he carried… one could easily detect that he was someone in the position of authority.

Kahn was now in the presence of one of the five Executive Assistants of the Alfheim Mercenary Association.

The gentleman in front of him was called Logan Vargr.

This morning, they had come to register as mercenaries after forging few documentation by bribing the honest and forthcoming people in the identification department of the association.

But when they came to meet the executive assistant who was only below the Chief Operating Executive, they were presented with a very hard-to-meet condition.

Mercenary Association were the legal authority who facilitated the transaction between clients who needed particular jobs done and the well trained fighters aka the Mercenaries.

These Mercenaries were categorized in 3 classes.

Mercenary Team which had less than 20 members.

Mercenary Envoy which had more than 100 members.

And finally, the Mercenary Guild which had more than 500 active members.

The main job of the Mercenary Association was to verify and legalize the said groups and their abilities and then when a particular client was in need of their services, they'd set up a contract between both sides.

There were all sorts of jobs such as guarding an envoy, protecting a VIP or even acting as a small army for skirmishes between powerful clans and nobles. The Mercenary Association was the only place where you could easily get those jobs and make it into a valid agreement acknowledged by the law.

And as a legal fee, they'd take a predetermined 5% cut no matter how big or small their payout was.

Unlike the Adventurers Associations, the Mercenary Association had very different modus operandi.

Here, nobody cared if you lived or died as long as you could finish the work given by the client.

Also unlike the Adventurers Association, they didn't buy material from the adventurers that came from monster hunting or dungeons and sold it in the outside market or even provide these mercenaries any support in case their guilds and teams were in danger.

It's strictly give and take exchange where the association got their cut for bringing clients and mercenaries under the same roof.

Whether you accomplish your deal or you fail…. Whether you live or die; that is up to your own capability.

However, the conditions placed in front of Kahn were not favorable. He wanted to quickly set up a guild to make it big and earn enough resources that they'd need after the ones they had were depleted within a year.

But the condition for the first two classes was that they either joined some already existing mercenary groups and envoys and stayed there for another year as per the rules, or they had have at least 500 members to form a guild to get a shortcut.

And all those people must be registered in the Mercenary Association and nobody can bring in people and start from scratch.

"Even among those members, at least 100 of these individuals should have been registered with the association for at least 1 year." stated the wolfkin in a stern voice, his tone full of authority.

These were actually sensible rules. So no random people could just create short-lived and proxy Mercenary Guilds.

But these rules were becoming a hurdle to Kahn.

Yet Kahn didn't give up. The businessman in him actually saw this as an opportunity.

Suddenly Kahn took out a small chest out of his space ring and placed it on the wolfkin's desk that was filled with dozens of paperwork blocks.

"What the hell is this?!" questioned the wolfkin with an angered tone.

"A gift… in good faith." responded Kahn.

"If you sell it to correct people or even the black market, it will make you a fortune." said Kahn and opened the chest.

Shimmer!

Glitter!

The wolfkin's eyes blinked in succession and after a dozen seconds, he finally managed to glance at the contents of the job.

"You… Why are you giving me this?" asked mister Logan with his eyes and mouth wide open.

Because the chest was filled with gold ornaments, rubies, diamonds and jewels of all different kinds and extremely high quality.

"You already know how things work here. Your kind is 3rd in the social hierarchy. This position as an Executive Assistant will probably be as far as your career will go.

Given the structure of the organization, you will never reach the top 2 layers of management." iterated Kahn as he pushed the chest toward the wolfkin with a benign smile.

"But you seem like a person who has ambitions and is trying to make it big…" he said, using the psychological method of suggestive assertion.

"Following rules of the organization does not mean you can't be rich or exploit the system to your own benefit.

I'm sure there's already a lot of corruption within the association where the top brass fill their pockets to do favors to big guilds and bring them top tier clients.

So why shouldn't you make some pocket change as well?" asked Kahn with a coy smile.

He let out a smug grin and proposed a deal.

"Let's hope this is a new beginning… Of our mutually beneficial friendship."