Hera woke up a few hours later. She was feeling much better. Looking at her wounds, most of the cuts and nicks she had were closed, with just the deeper ones still bandaged. Her arms and legs were fine. She wasn"t feeling any pain even when moving them around. Her ribs were still sore, and there was still a large purple spot on her side. But it was much smaller than when she arrived.She pushed herself up, trying to sit on the bed, groaning a bit as she moved. With the noise, Enrica opened the curtain.
"Wow, what are you doing? You can"t get up now."
"Sorry, I was just trying to sit. What time is it? Actually, what day is it?" Hera asked.
"You were sleeping for a good ten hours. Don"t worry, it"s a normal reaction to the treatment we gave you. Today Wednesday and it"s about 7:40 AM," Enrica talked as she helped Hera to adjust herself.
"10 hours? Are you sure? I could have sworn that I left the test room in the middle of the afternoon," Hera said.
"Pretty sure. I"m on call with Gérard today, and we have a 15-hour shift. We wouldn"t mess up the time it will take before we can go home," the a.s.sistant laughed.
Hera stayed a few more hours under observation. Gérard showed up and used a different potion to help her heal. This time she was supposed to drink it while he used his magic to clear out her bruises. By the time their shift had come to an end, Hera was discharged from the infirmary. She was wearing a tracksuit from the guild since her clothes were unusable.
They say she shouldn"t go inside the MAZE for a week and give her some medicine to improve her natural healing. She walked toward the reception in front of the doorway and saw Carol. They exchanged greetings, and Hera completed the mission.
"Great! Congratulations on finishing your first mission. Let me see here. You are all good. Completing the quest and getting a pa.s.sing grade on the written exam, you are all set to be an explorer. There are just two things we need to do. Some paperwork and the interview," Carol said.
"What interview?" Hera asked.
"Greyson didn"t tell you?"
Hera shook her head.
"f.u.c.king h.e.l.l, ok. The interview is something that we use, so anyone interested in forming a party with you or any group that is interested in hiring can get a glimpse of who you are. Don"t worry. It"s nothing complicated. Just some general questions like why did you become an explorer, what are your strengths and values, stuff like that. Since your role is explorer, let me call one to talk to you. That way, someone who knows what is expected of you can ask the right questions," the clerk explained.
A few minutes later, Carol sent Hera to a small office on the second floor of the guild. Apparently, the only explorer available for the interview was the Guild Master"s a.s.sistant. Hera stood in front of the door, nervous about making someone so important waste time with her. She took a deep breath and knocked on the door.
"Come in," a voice said from inside.
"Excuse me," Hera said as she opened the door.
Contrary to her expectation, the a.s.sistant was an older man. He had long black hair with grey stripes and a full beard that grew to a point reaching his chest. He was wearing a green dress shirt with a teal overcoat. Oddly enough, the man was using a quill to write while he was using a calculator with his right hand.
"Please, have a seat. I will be with you in a moment," the man said.
Hera sat on the chair in front of him. He had a solemn voice, but it wasn"t as imposing as his looks implied. The man worked fast. His fingers never stopped pressing b.u.t.tons on the calculator, and the quill was moving continuously. Curious about what he was doing, Hera glanced over and saw a long spreadsheet filled with numbers. It looked like when her dad was checking his store"s finances.
"Ms. Kingsley," as the man spoke, Hera jolted in her chairs, straightening her posture, "I apologize for making you wait. I wasn"t expecting to perform an interview today."
"No, I"m sorry. I had no idea I would cause so much trouble. If you are too busy, I can come back another time Mr....." Hera froze. She had no idea what his name was.
"Morgan, and no mister, please. It makes me feel older than I already am."
Hera nodded, trying to be polite to the man she was disturbing, but her eyes kept shifting to the quill. It was such an odd thing to see these days. And there were no ink bottles on the table. The quill itself was beautiful. It was a long white feather that curled at the end. It had such elegance to it that it seemed to be a relic from an old kingdom.
"I see this piqued your interest. It was a gift from the guild master. This quill never runs out of ink, well to be more accurate, it turns mana into ink. Even after all these years, I"m still amazed by what we the crafters can do," The man said while staring at the quill.
"I know, right? Sometimes I feel like a kid, but there are so many amazing things that we can do because of magic and the maze. Even everyday stuff like the bracelets or the lamps on the street."
Seeing Morgan"s expression, Hera felt like that she was too eager. She wasn"t here to make small talk.
"Sorry, I know we are not here for this," she said.
"Don"t worry. This is good for the interview. It is not simply about your qualifications, but also about what type of person you are. As I"m sure you are aware, this will be used for parties and organizations that are recruiting. For the second group, it won"t matter as much. But when forming a party, they need to know about your personality, although this is more relevant later on. Explorers that are just starting usually either go in alone or form parties among their cla.s.s."
Hera realized that she never considered if she would go with someone. She always thought about doing everything on her own. After fighting with the apex slime, she felt it could be a good idea to have someone with her. However, she quickly became worried about the concept. What if she wanted to explore on her own, or if she wanted to use her [Local Guide] skill? Having people around her could be a problem.
Morgan asked her about the skills she had and how the test went, as well as her hopes and dreams for the future. Hera answered the questions one after another, even stating that she just wanted to explore and didn"t have any bigger goals than that. At least, not right now. Morgan asked about the role skills she wanted to learn, but Hera wasn"t able to make up her mind. She wanted to learn five of them, but [Learn] [Blueprint] and [a.s.sa.s.sinate] were the ones that interested her the most.
"Why, a.s.sa.s.sinate? You don"t give me a very a.s.sa.s.sin feeling," Morgan asked.
"The test showed me how valuable it is to be able to sneak around unnoticed. I was not successful in doing so, but I was attacked by monsters who were good at it. I think that learning a.s.sa.s.sinate will improve my knowledge of how to hide effectively, and If I know how to hide. I know what to search for to see if something is hiding around me," she explained.
Morgan sat back in his chair, placing two fingers in front of his lips as Hera talked.
"By that logic, wouldn"t Hunt be a better choice of skill? Our best trackers are hunters," Morgan said.
"I imagine they are, but I was told that an explorer can"t get all the skills. If I have to prioritize, I will be better at hiding than finding hidden enemies. Besides, my relic has a proximity alarm of sorts. I think that will be enough for now."
"Is not that an explorer can"t get all the skills. It is just hard to do so, and the results are not as great as one would expect. I know of a couple of explorers who have all the role skills, but they regret wasting so much time learning them all. It"s not a good idea to spread yourself too thin. But having Hunt as a fourth skill is a good idea," Morgan said.
"Actually, it would be my fifth. I want Synch as my fourth."
Morgan simply nodded at the reply. It was almost impossible to find an explorer that didn"t pick Synch as one of their role skills. All children had dreams of being a powerful mage at some point. It wasn"t an unexpected result. He also asked about her relic, and what it could help her accomplish. Morgan made it clear that it should be just a general idea and that the actual specifics are private information so they wouldn"t put it on the interview.
Hera kept answering questions until Morgan started asking about the people she met inside the test. The way he was phrasing the questions made it seem like he wanted to know about Peaches, but Hera was never entirely sure if it was that or if it was someone checking if the test is working as it should. After a few minutes of back and forth, Morgan let out a sigh.
"Just one moment if you will," he said as he picked a golden coin from his pocket.
He typed something on his tablet and kept staring at the coin. After a few moments, he flipped the coin and looked at the result. Hera glanced at it and saw the image of a skull on the coin.
"Very well, I guess I can miss another one if needed," Morgan whispered, "Let me be blunt Hera, did Peaches gave you a skill?" he asked.
Hera"s eyes went wide. Did he really ask that? What if she didn"t know? Why would he risk something like that for a recruit who didn"t get his hints?
"Considering I didn"t freeze, I"m going to take that as a yes. Before you think I had someone spying on you, let me explain. My relic allows me to ask a question, and it will reply with a simple yes or no. Like it was with you. The specifics are private information, so let"s just leave it at that," he explained.
"Ok... I"m sorry for making you use the relic. I wasn"t sure if your questions were about the skill or about how the test is working," Hera said.
Morgan made a surprise expression before chuckling a bit.
"My apologies, I didn"t expect you to think that. But I can"t blame you either. Now, you do have the Local Guide skill, yes?"
"Yes, I have it. Peaches gave it to me," Hera replied.
"Peaches, so that is the one you meet. Very well, I will make a note on your interview with a code we use. If you need to confirm if an explorer has this skill, ask them this. Have you found the viridescent malus sieversii? If they reply, it was atop of its rivulet obelisk under the solis. They have the skill. It"s a mouthful, I know. But that way we can avoid any problems. Also, be careful, very few explorers have that skill."
Hera felt some of her worries go away. When she read the skill, she kept thinking about ways she could mess up the questions. Having a pa.s.sword of sorts made all those problems disappear.
"Thank you very much, Morgan."
"I thank you. It"s been almost a year since the last time I shared this code. In the future, I hope we can count on you to perform this interview with other recruits. For obvious reasons, we try to have explorers with that skill doing these. I"m not asking for you to lose your last chance, of course. But if you still have all three, would you be willing to help?"
Hera thought for a moment. She was terrible at that. But it was the least she could do, even if it cost her one of her three chances.
"I can try. I"m just not very good whit this type of thing."
"That is not a problem. We have a series of control questions. Although, as you proved now, sometimes they don"t work. Now, your interview is over, and it is already in our system. The last thing you need is some paperwork. There is someone outside that will help you with that. You can go now, I apologize for the rush, but I still have many errands to deal with."
Morgan said, gesturing at the door. Hera thanked him again and left the office. Before even closing the door, someone hugged her.
"Congratulations, sweetie! I knew you would pa.s.s the test on the first try." Helena said.