The Martial Unity

[Offense class mission: Capture mission

Clientele: Kandrian Bureau of Investigation

The target of the mission: Faraday Lowminer

Location of the target: Kingdom of Violis, a town of Garten

Difficulty grade: two

Remuneration: 15,000 Martial credits

Mission summary: Faraday Lowminer is the founder and former president of Lowminer Industries, a once-reputed and large esoteric resource supplier in several towns in the Mantian Region. In the past five years, the target of the mission; Faraday Lowminer has been implicated in a variety of crimes, including fraud, tax evasion, blackmail and bribery, assault, and murder conspiracy. The litigation was delayed and stalled due to a lack of evidence, however, when the evidence of his crimes came to light, Faraday Lowminer had already left the country illegally, migrating to an orbiter state; the Kingdom of Violis, along with his bodyguard team of Martial Apprentices. The mission objective is to capture and retrieve the target alive.]

Rui's eyes rose.

Lowminer Industries.

He had not forgotten that name. His very first mission was a mission to protect a girl named Bella Hier. He had ultimately failed that mission because he was unable to protect her from the gangs affiliated with the Lowminer Industries, while he held off an assassin sent to kill her.

Furthermore, in a twisted turn of events he was roped into a mission for the Lowminer Industries by committing to a mission whose client he hadn't known was them ahead of the time.

While Rui was far too consumed with Martial Art to be self-absorbed in the failures of the past, he had never forgotten his very first mission. It was ironically the one mission he remembered the most vividly like he could close his eyes and replay it from the moment he first saw Bella to the last time he did.

Especially the last time. It was an image seared into his memory.

"...Fate must be smiling upon me." A hint of darkness dampened his expression, as the tiniest of smiles cracked at his cheek. "To think I would get a chance to get revenge this quick."

Rui had felt the urge to storm into the main branch of the Lowminer industries and wreak havoc and kill the man responsible for Bella's death, but the risks were too high. If he had done that, the Martial Union would eventually dig up something or the other implicating him, just like it did with the Lowminers.

It wasn't a matter of him making mistake, or not executing it properly. He could conjure up the best plan to murder and get away with it, but his knowledge of the forensic and investigative capabilities of the Kandrian Empire was unreliable. He effectively knew nothing about the kind of esoteric technology that the Kandrian Bureau of Investigation employed. It could be that they could narrow down the possibility of techniques that were used in killing a victim, or perhaps even the exact technique.

Then they could further narrow it down to possible Martial Apprentices and eventually he would likely end up being the prime suspect. Or they could perhaps employ the mental sensory techniques that he was exposed to more than half a year ago to verify that he was truly a Squire candidate. Perhaps they could forcefully verify his honesty and sincerity if they ever managed to pin him as a suspect.

There was simply too much to risk, and the outcome wasn't worth the risk. Sure, he was mad that he failed to protect Bella, he was mad that she died the way she did under his protection, and he was mad that the very first mission he had ever undertaken was his single worst mission to this date by far. But that was it, he wasn't super attached to Bella on a personal level, and he didn't even know her.

He didn't want to ruin his life by committing a crime. Although Martial Artists were not punished as hard, it was undoubtedly true that it would halt his progression. Especially at a time when his growth was extremely important.

But this time, this was different. The clientele was the Kandrian Burea of Investigation, and the mission was accepted and approved. Meaning both, the Kandrian Empire and the Martial Union were on his side.

Meaning he didn't have to worry about anything.

He looked at the commission date and time, the exact time the Kandrian Burea of Investigation commissioned this mission.

"Three hours ago. Wow," Rui muttered.

It was an extremely fresh mission. One that came rather quickly. Usually, missions like these would be put out in the library, free to be accepted by any Martial Artist that is eligible to accept the commission and undertake the mission. However, if it sat out unaccepted for too long, then it would mandatorily be assigned to a Martial Apprentice.

The Martial Union could assign Martial Apprentices missions that they were obligated to complete, this was one of the terms of the licensing contract. It was used for important missions that needed to be completed quickly. One such mission was the offense-class mission that Rui and his friends were assigned in the Commonwealth Duchy of Vinfrana.

Rui immediately plucked the mission bill out of the slot of the shelf before immediately heading over to the registrar, quickly accepting the mission officially before opening the bill in a corner of the library at a desk.

"Alright then," Rui murmured to himself. "Let's see what this is all about."

He began reading the details of the mission in greater depth. The intelligence network had managed to gain information on the location of the base operations that the former president of Lowminer Industries was operating at. It appeared that he had managed to escape by simply escaping with the immediate liquid and transportable assets of his company that he had managed to gather before escaping just before the warrant for his arrest was released.

Rui found it rather surprising that he managed to make it out of the country and successfully migrate to another country, but it could be inferred that Faraday Lowminer had been preparing for this for a long time, most likely.