A group of people was standing in front of a desk in an office. The person seating behind the desk looked at the seven people who were looking at him and opened his mouth.

“First of all, congratulations on passing the exams. You guys have done a great job.”

He smiled and pointed at the chairs in front of his desk.

“Please have a seat.”

Everyone sat down on a chair at his words. After seeing that all of them were seated, the man took out seven papers from his drawer.

“I’m sure you all know what you will be doing for the next three months. You must have received requests from different divisions before coming here. For the next three months, you will go through a training course.”

“Sorry.”

One of the people in the room raised his hand as if to ask for permission to talk.

“Yes?”

“Should we pass something like an exam again?”

The man sitting behind the desk shook his head.

“No. There will be no tests or exams anymore. you’ll only have to follow the orders given to you by your superiors and do the tasks you are assigned to. They are the ones who will decide if you are suitable to work with them or not.”

“Thank you.”

The man then handed the papers to the people in his office and continued explaining.

“You have to read, fill, and sign this form. The only thing that you need to do after that is training and trying to do your job the best you can.”

The new recruits picked up the forms and started to carefully read and fill them out.

“Psst. Hey! Mage boy!”

Kairen raised his head and turned towards the sound.

“You passed as well, that’s nice.”

He could see Arran sitting on a chair and whispering to him. Arran, his teammate in the entrance exam, seemed to have passed the exam as well.

Kairen smiled at the familiar face and whispered in a low voice.

“Yes.”

Arran raised his hand and gave him a thumbs up. He then picked up his pen again and continued to fill out his form.

‘I wonder what division he will work at…’

Kairen kept his curiosity to himself and looked down at his form as well.

Everyone placed their forms on the table after they were finished filling them out.

“Thank you. Your work here will begin next week. See you in three days.”

“Thank you.”

“Have a nice day.”

People thanked the man and left the office one by one.

Someone grabbed Kairen’s arm as soon as he stepped out of the door. When he turned back, he could see Arran behind him. Arran opened his mouth as soon as they made eye contact.

“Tell me, what division will you work at?”

Kairen made an awkward expression at those words. He didn’t really like to go around and tell others where he is gonna work in the future. Unlike Serria, he felt embarrassed to babble about how he would work in SMF’s top unit.

“It’s unit 5 of the Special Units.”

Arran’s eyes widened and his lips slightly parted. It was the clear expression of a surprised man.

“Oh my god! I didn’t know you were that great!”

“Haha! What about you?”

Arran placed his hands on his hips and said in a happy voice.

“Monster Hunting Division. It’s exactly where I wanted to work.”

“That’s good then.”

Arran nodded his head. He patted Kairen’s shoulder once and moved one step away.

“Well then, let’s meet again later.”

He walked to the exit after waving his hand to Kairen.

Serria nudged Kairen’s side with her elbow the moment that Arran turned around. She also grabbed Reyan’s arm and said with a smile.

“Hey guys, why don’t we celebrate this happy day?”

“Celebrate? Didn’t we do that two days ago?”

Kairen narrowed his eyes and looked at Serria with suspicious eyes.

“That was that and this is this! That was for passing the exam and this is because of finally getting to officially work here.”

Reyan raised his eyebrows and opened his mouth with a ridiculing smile on his lips.

“With that logic, we should have a celebration next week for finishing our first day at work and then our first week of working here and then getting our first salary.”

Serria pointed at Reyan with his finger while raising the corner of her lips.

“That’s right! It’s such a good plan, Reyan. The chain of celebrations shall never break!”

Reyan sighed and mumbled something under his lips.

“Why am I still friends with this woman?”

Serria pretended not to hear anything and pulled both of their arms.

“Let’s have ice cream at the cafeteria near here. I heard their ice creams are delicious.”

.

.

.

The strawberry ice cream was extremely delicious indeed. It was surprising that such a delicious ice cream was sold at such a low price. They each bought a big bowl full of ice cream and sat at a table in the cafeteria.

“I’m still on my words, we are wasting our time and money with these stupid celebrations.”

Reyan placed a spoon full of ice cream in his mouth right after he finished his nagging.

Reyan was like that. He behaved as if he was ordered by heavens to nag in any kind of situation and fight with Serria all the time even if he was enjoying the situation himself. He seemed to always sit and wait for the most appropriate moment to start nagging.

Kairen laughed inwardly at this annoying and maybe cute side of his friend while also enjoying the sweet taste of the ice cream.

“You were free anyway, what else did you want to do today?”

“Training.”

“Pfft.”

“You-”

Tap

Kairen taped the table with his hand.

“Don’t start arguing again.”

“…Okay.”

They shut their mouths and lowered their head almost instantly.

For some unknown reason, they would always stop arguing if Kairen showed some annoyance. Kairen didn’t really feel like interrupting them most of the time so he would just watch them fight, but he stopped them this time because of a conversation that he overheard accidentally.

Kairen peeked at the table beside them and sharpened his ears.

“Really? All the mascry in the mine disappeared?”

Someone said that with a baffled expression. The man that was sitting beside him nodded his head.

“That’s right. And the mine that I work in isn’t the only place that this happened. I heard that some other mines also lost all of their ores in one night!”

Serria and Reyan also started listening to the conversation that was going on at the table beside them.

“How is that even possible?”

“I don’t know. They say that the ores were stolen. Is that even possible to extract, pack, and move all of them in a single day without anyone noticing it?”

“…You are right.”

Serria pushed her head closer to her friends and whispered in a low voice.

“I heard in the news that there were some problems in some mascry mines, but they didn’t say anything about the ores being stolen.”

Reyan looked around once before lowering his head as well.

“It’s as that man said. The news is censored.”

“What? Really?”

“Yes.”

Kairen peeked at the two people at the other table and lowered his head. He hesitantly asked the question that was in his mind.

“What is this mascry that you are talking about?”

“….”

“….”

Reyan and Serria closed their mouths and looked at each other for a moment before turning to Kairen again.

Reyan’s eyes were suddenly filled with sadness. He sighed while looking at Kairen with pity and mumbling something under his lips.

“Yeah… You must have forgotten about that as well… sigh…”

“….”

‘Maybe I should’ve just searched that on the internet…’

Serria put her spoon aside and leaned towards Kairen a bit more.

“Mascry is a kind of ore. It’s a crystal that contains a huge amount of spiritual energy in itself. That spiritual energy is mostly used to provide the mana needed in various devices and machines. Mascry, mana saving crystal.”

‘Oh?’

That was something new. He had heard about mascry while working on the murder case at the police department. The case was about a company that dealt with mascry, but he wasn’t that curious to know what mascry was as he was focused on finding a murderer at that time.

“What is happening to these ores now?”

“They are being stolen, most probably. There isn’t much information about it as the thing happened just too suddenly, but they are investigating the case.”

“Hmm…”

Kairen had a strange feeling after hearing Reyan’s explanations. The ores disappearing… That was odd. He felt like there was something about it that he needed to know. It was such a strange feeling for a lazy and carefree Kairen that it surprised him himself.

“The ice creams are melting!”

Serria stuffed a huge piece of ice cream into her mouth. She was right, they were melting.

Kairen shook off his thoughts and started eating again.. Mascry or anything, it wasn’t his problem.