Lost Origins: SS Ranked Awakening-Chapter 61: Picking a Mission

"What was that for?" Kieran asked when they were out of the room and in a less crowded place within the building.

"It’s nothing, but I don’t advice you to join those groups. While they have good conditions, they also have absurd demands" Ruby said, but finally broke under Kieran’s stare, he didn’t buy it!

"They are controlled by noble families. Joining them is basically like tying yourself to them for life! It might be ok for others, but I’m not so sure for you, considering your...."

"I understand! I never had any plans on joining them anyways!" Kieran said after listening to Ruby’s reasons.

"How could I forget what kind of person you are?!" Ruby facepalmed, her cheeks slightly red from embarrassment.

She had been trying to look out for him, but it turned out that he didn’t even need it, she felt very embarrassed. Kieran on the other hand couldn’t relate and had other matters in mind.

"How am I supposed to use the badge" He asked, his hand outstretched, silently asking for the badge she had forgotten to hand to him after they left the receptionist.

"Oh... that! All you have to do is place it close to your watch and a new section should pop up. You will also need to have that anytime you want to take a mission or move out or into the camp." She explained, handing the badge over to him.

The badge was cool to the touch, like metal, betraying it’s appearance that looked like it was carved out of a piece of wood. It was square in shape, the size of a small fist and had the name of the camp inscribed around it. They had somehow managed to fit his name and rank into the small object.

Bringing it close to his watch like Ruby instructed,

A beep was heard and a holographic screen popped out shoeing the regular status screen that he was used to, but he quickly noticed some new additions to the panel;

«NAME: Kieran CALLUM »

«IDENTITY: SECOND YEAR RECRUIT (second stage)»

«LEVEL: Lvl 1»

«STATS: ....»

«DR: ??»

«MISSION STATS»

It had been a while since he had seen the stats page. Usually, it served as a record of their physical stats and one could infer how strong he was through that, but the existence of the ranking list already did that, besides the version of the status page they were equipped with was the first. It was basically still in its testing phases and the camp was using them as a way to collect data and optimize the system more.

For now, the system didn’t really help much apart from showing their stats in numbers and giving one a rough guage of their physical weaknesses and strengths, those numbers didn’t really mean one was very weak or strong as a whole.

People with lower stats easily defeated those with stats higher than theirs since they were strnger in other aspects that the page didn’t record, like techniques and experience.

Going through all thses thoughts in a few seconds and quickly realized the new addition to the panel; the last part which read

"MISSION STATS". Clicking on it, another screen popped up.

«CLASS: ?»

«LEVEL: lvl 4»

«AFFILIATION: NONE»

«TEAM: NONE»

The panel gave a short but precise despription, and while Kieran roughly understood what each of them meant, Ruby took the initiatve to explain befoe he could ask further.

"The class means what kind of role you play in hunting, whether you’re an attacker, a tank, someone specialized in strategy, an assassin and so on. It’s blank because you haven’t participated in any missions so far so the system lacks the necessary data to assign one. You should get one after taking a few missions." Ruby explained, staring at nowhere specific.

"The level corresponds to the level of missions available. There are 9 levels of missions and thus 9 levels. You can’t take a mission if a higher level than you currently are and for the sake of preventing laziness you can only take a specific number of missions below your level each month."

"Just because a mission is of the same level as you or less doesn’t mean you can complete it alone, each level also has a difficulty range and it’s necessary to have a certain number of people for some missions."

"The affiliation is mostly blank and only appears when you’re directly affiliated with a team or group, like when you take up specific missions or jobs from them, or when you gain the support if one of them, it also shows if youre part of a group. The team aspect just shows if you’re part of a team. You’ll see a temporary status when you join a temporary team along with the name of its members and some if their stats"

"I see" Kieran muttered after Ruby finished her explanation.

The system was organized in a was that made it seem like a body outside if the military for the sake of efficiency. It was like running an association for mercenaries.

Letting out a deep breath, Kieran finally asked Ruby the question that had been on his mind since they arrived.

"Now that we are done, can we take a mission right now?"

"Sigh... you really are impatient" Ruby sighed, shaking her head lightly.

"Alright! Let’s go to the actual missions hall!" She said, leading him away from the lobby without dragging him this time.

Arriving in the large hall, Kieran could finally see the source of the bloody smell he noticed the moment he stepped into the building. Bloodied recruits and soldier who had just come back from their missions were lined up on the other side, dumping the contents of their bags on the counter over there.

’That’s how it’s done?’ Kieran wondered, watching them dump the contents of their bag on the counter, which ranged from bloodied heads of beats he barely recognized to other things and materials he had never seen before.

"Hmm..." Ruby who had gone up front paused sot sensing kieran beside her anymore.

Turning back to see his figure standing in place, she noticed the direction of his stare and made her way to him, blocking his view.

"What are you looking at? They just returned and are submitting the contents of their mission, you have no business with that for now, let’s go and pick a mission" Ruby said, pulling Kieran towards another direction in the hall.

"Here we are!" Ruby said and Kieran started silently in confusion. After all he had seen he had been expecting something more.

All he saw in front if him was a large number of people standing within a large circle while staring fixed into space before wearing different expressions; joy, satisfaction, disappointment or others, then stepping out of the circle.

"Hehe..." giggling at Kieran’s confused face, Ruby waited for him to ask before explaining.

"What is going on?" Kieran asked, a little irritated with Ruby’s behavior, giving her a cold glare.

Ruby smiled more when she felt the glare, the was the first time she gad ever gotten so much reaction from Kieran, even if it was rather little, but even then she knew when to stop teasing and get serious.

"You’ll understand when you step in. Come on!" She said, pushing him into the circle, joining him right after.

’.....’

Just like she said, Kieran understood the reason why they were behaving strangely.

After stepping into the circle, a screen popped up in front of him showing several missions, but it quickly switched to a page showing missions of his level.

Before he could go through the lists of missions, he saw something else pop on his screen

<<Team invite: Ruby Gale as invited you>>

<<Accept>>

<<Reject>>

Looking over to Ruby who waved at him, Kieran clicked on the Accept button and his screen instantly changed, switching to Ruby’s own and she had already selected a mission, but the screen disappeared before he could get a read on it.

Before he could get understand what happened, he felt his hand get pulled and he was out of the circle. Not having it anymore, he stood his ground refusing to be pulled anymore.

"What are you doing?" He asked Ruby in a cold tone when she turned to look at him.

Their small commotion was ignored by the people around. A fight or disagreement between party members was something that happened often and along as they didn’t get physical with each other in the hall; incuring a penalty, no one cared.

"What are you doing?" Kieran asked Ruby again. He hated the feeling of not knowing what was going on, he was basically blind and he wasn’t moving further until she explained what she planned to do to him.

"Sigh" Ruby sighed, realizing her fault.

After the three of them including Jake had spoken to each other , she and Jake discussed, and they decided that cutting off ties with him was the best course of action. Not just for their sake, but for his too. She couldn’t tell him that though, she knew how stubborn Kieran was and that he would never accept that they were "protecting" him, so she ignored all his texts and didn’t try to reach out to him.

She got very excited when she met him in the clearing and he didn’t ignore her like she was expecting, considering how he always acted, and she had let that excitement take over, allowing her to make mistakes leading to the situation they were currently in.

"I’m sorry" She apologized, taking a deep breath to calm down.