Dungeon Raider System-Chapter 598: Forest Part 1
Not even five minutes after Uriel exited the building tipping on his toes to avoid getting spotted inside the brothel Luna, Nika and Medusa were allowed inside the Dryad's office. Needless to say, the had no intentions of actually working there and it was just a ruse to be allowed to speak to the one in charge which is why Nika drew her Peacemaker Colt as soon as she stepped inside the office.
"Hands up! We're the Dungeon Raiders and we're here to collect the debt owed to us. Just cough up the money and no one will be harmed." Nika's grasp on the gun was firm and her aim true, the moment she clicked the trigger would the moment the dryad stopped breathing.
"Uhm... I don't have a gun." Luna said teary eyed, not out of fear but of envy. The gun Uriel gifted Nika was as beautiful as it was powerful, though what sparkled Luna's feelings was the fact that she didn't receive one.
"Just use your claws." Medusa whispered and Luna hurriedly put the gauntlets on. Her display looked cute rather than fierce, but if they underestimated her they would be in for a surprise. Despite her short stature and ascended rank, Luna had proved to be a powerful hunter even in her human form.
Medusa too would have liked to intimidate the enemy with her eyes, but her trait was akin to a bomb strike. A single use powerful weapon that could end a fight before it even started, but it wouldn't tell friend from foe and anyone in her vicinity would end up turned into stone.
"Finally, I've been expecting you." The dryad smiled at them and took outside a suitcase filled with credit bills.
"You were?" Nika tilted her head as she opened the briefcase.
"Why didn't you deliver the payment to the airport as agreed? You could have saved us a lot of trouble."
"Things have been more complicated than Mister Alessandro expected. I deeply apologize for that." The dryad sounded honest, but no one missed the anxiety hiding before her nice facade.
"Is the amount correct?" Medusa asked Nika.
"Great, you made me lose the count! Now I'll have to start over." Nika grumbled, then licked the tip of her finger and started counting the bills once more. In theory, it was a simple task that Medusa could have performed in a few seconds by calculating the stacks of bills, but in order to do it she would need to use her sense of sight which she couldn't.
"It seems we're going to be here for a while. Would you like a drink?" They took up on the offer, though instead of alcohol they asked for tea. Luna put so much sugar on hers that more than tea it looked like some sort of syrup, which she happily drank while dangling her feet in the chair that was too tall for her.
On the other hand, the chair offered to Medusa was too small for her, her knees buckled in an awkward position and her bottom stuck out from both sides.
Just looking at them was enough for the dryad to know that they would become her biggest earners if they decided to work there, though that wasn't the reason why the dryad kept her gaze fixed on them. She was trying to decide if they would be capable of performing the task she wanted to ask them and so far, she wasn't convinced.
One looked like a small child, the other used a firearm instead of her trait which could only mean that her trait either wasn't powerful enough or wasn't combat suited, but the worst was the blind girl.
She had seen Uriel fight against hordes of crytpids throughout an entire night without rest. It was precisely the kind of power she needed to hire right now. Unfortunately to her, that ship sailed the minute she disrespected him, though in her defense she wasn't expecting him to appear out of the blue and was caught with her guard down.
Uriel's reputation should have been enough to solve all her issues in a swoop since he was referred to as the 'honey badger' hybrid due to his reckless and unrelenting fighting style, but the same couldn't be applied to his company. Most of his employees were either humans or weak hybrids that relied too much on firearms that wouldn't so much as put a dent on most hybrids, let alone kill them.
"Alright, it's all here." Nika let out after counting the money twice knowing that if a single credit was missing it would come out of her pay.
"We're leaving then," Medusa stood up accidentally tipping the table in front of her and making a huge mess. "my bad."
"Before you leave, I'd like to offer you a job. I could really use some help and you would be compensated appropriately." Although still unconvinced, she ended up deciding to offer them the job anyway since she didn't have many options.
"Uhm, no, we are not prostitutes. I lied to get inside." Luna explained, though no one believed her lies, not even the thugs that led them to the brothel.
"I didn't explain myself properly, I need your help to save my boyfriend, Elio." The dryad lowered her gaze with a sorrowful expression on her beautiful face.
"I know Mister Elio! He's one of Mister Alessandro's guards. So you're the dryad that always hangs with him!" Medusa blurted out.
"You could say that. He's well respected in our community, but the same doesn't apply to me. You see, we hybrids took cover from human society in the criminal underground for generations and my kin has always excelled at satisfying men's needs. We can sense pheromones in the air and manipulate them to our liking, it's not powerful but it makes our job easier. freewёbn૦νeɭ.com
Unfortunately, that garnered us a bad reputation both in human and hybrid society. They gladly accept our monetary contributions to the community, but they refuse to let us form part of it." The dryad spoke with a regretful tone of voice as she reminisced the mistreatment she endured just for being a dryad.
"I see," Medusa let out, then blushed in a shade of pink before correcting her mistake. "I meant to say that I understand."
"If that's true then how did you manage to score a treefolk? Uriel said they're at the top of your community." Nika furrowed her brows.
"Also, Ciara is Alessandro's daughter. It doesn't... uhm... make sense." Luna added.
"That's because treefolk can only breed with other plantfolk and they're going extinct. Mister Alessandro even went as far as appointing Miss Ciara as the next guardian of the forest, but soon after her return I was cut off from the community and no one has given me an explanation. Nobody knows anything, except that Elio has been trialed and sentenced."
"For what crime?" Medusa asked.
"That's the question. I'd like you to find out about what's going on in our community, the council or at the very least inform me of what happened to Elio. I will compensate you for your troubles even if you fail to accomplish this mission, but in case you succeed I can assure you that I can pay your handsomely.
Wars come and go, cities are built and eventually fall, business rise just as they sometimes fall, but my trade is always on demand."
The group asked for some time to decide whether or not they took the job, though in reality their minds were already set. It was Nika's chance to redeem herself from her failure, Medusa would get the funds she needed to continue experimenting on orichalcum and Luna couldn't miss on the opportunity to study hybrid anatomy and lore.
That is what they said, though there was actually another reason why they couldn't refuse.
"Before accepting there's something we need to know. Does this money come from the Dolminicos or from you?"
"It's from my personal account, but don't worry about that. There's plenty more where that came from." The dryad's response caused Nika's smile to turn into a frown.
"Then, we're taking this as our payment, but we're still going to collect our debt from the Dolminicos." The actual reason why they couldn't refuse was that their mission wasn't just to get the money, it was to collect the debt from the Dolminicos and they knew that although Uriel would gladly receive any money, he would still consider their mission failed if they didn't collect the debt.
Luckily for them, there was no need to start over their investigation thanks to the dryad handing them a piece of paper with an address written on it. All they needed to do now was to get there, ask for payment, get as much information as they could and then return to the dryad and report their findings before curfew.
"I want to see the face he'll make when he sees the money." Nika said with a smile, though Medusa didn't share her optimism. The entire situation was suspicious, starting from the fact that Mister Alessandro 'forgot' to pay his debt, but she decided to keep her fears to herself since nothing changed the fact that they had yet to accomplish their mission.
