Nova was speaking to Lilith.
"How long is left before a break?"
Lilith paused for a bit before responding.
"About two hours; it's just enough time for us to get ready and enter first."
"Okay, clear the porters now.
We leave in 30 minutes."
"Yes Ma'am."
She walked to Mr. Allen.
"Tell your workers to stay away and block it off; their work is mostly done."
"Yes, we will be leaving then."
Kael and his coworkers had the measuring equipment in the back of an armored truck.
The heat from the sun was so intense that they all felt it.
Kael leaned against the truck and wiped away his wet bangs and the sweat dripping from them.
"To be honest, this work is rather easy—we work for a few hours by moving the equipment back and forth, and then we get paid.
It's nice."
Logan, who was just about a year older, laughed a bit.
"What are you talking about? The real work is yet to begin.
Once the raid team is done clearing the nearby monsters, the porter team go in and move the corpses of the creatures back."
Another worker joined the conversation.
"That's right, our main job is to move the corpses, remove the cores, and load them into the truck they prepared."
Kael displayed a look of disgust immediately he heard it.
"Wait, we have to cut the monsters ourselves? Don't they have a team that can do that?"
The man who looked in his late twenties put his palm to his face and laughed.
"Of course they don't, although they don't really mention it; porters are mostly hired hands.
We are here to do most of the manual labor they don't want to do.
We also send the soul stones and the rest of the corpse to different facilities that'll handle them.
Now just rest up because, in a couple of hours, it'll be time to work fully."
Kael was surprised by what he heard.
Although he knew that the guilds hired people to process the stones and corpses, he didn't know that the porters were in charge of doing it.
"But how will we cut the creatures open, and what if there's poison residue left or something?"
"Well, that's why we either wear protective clothing or just wear our own armor.
That's why you need to be awakened to be able to be a porter."
'Oh good, this isn't good.'
Just the thought of coming close and touching an abyss creature made him nauseous, let alone having to cut it.
Dried dark blood, metallic scent, and corrupted air.
It made his stomach turn.
"Come, I'll show you which ones we'll use."
Logan took Kael to a truck a bit further away; there are several machines meant for drilling and slicing
"So, our real job begins once they're done?"
"Yeah, a word of advice—rub some ointment on your nose."
Kael turned to look at Logan, visibly baffled by the statement.
"Why?"
Logan coughed a bit.
"The insides of creatures can sometimes have a terrible smell.
Just be prepared."
Kael and his teammates had been discussing the work and its benefits.
"Wait, so you guys also get soul stones?"
"Well, it's not every day, but sometimes when there's a big hurl—they give one or two to each of us."
One of the workers who was inside one of the armored trucks came over to talk to Kael.
"Hey, I'm Yosef.
What's your name?"
Yosef was the same age as Kael, but his strong, muscular frame would make anyone think otherwise.
Standing more than half a foot taller than Kael, to look at the amber-skinned figure's face he had to raise his up a bit.
His well-defined and brown eyes exhibited sharpness and composure not common to someone of his age.
"I'm Kael; I don't think we've met before."
"No, we haven't, but you also awakened recently, right?
I've been trying to connect with Awakened since we're all going to join the academy together anyway, so it's better to get to know each other earlier.
'That's true, but the problem remains the fact that, as far as he knew, most people chose friends based on ability type.'
"Okay then, so what's your ability?"
Yosef didn't seem surprised; instead, a grin appeared slowly on his sharp face.
"Well, mine simply allows me to summon an invisible pair of hands, which I can control."
"So, it's similar to telekinesis?"
"Yeah, more or less."
Logan was visibly surprised.
"Wow, that means that the work is a piece of cake for you, I assume?"
"No, I don't think so; the force the hands apply is largely proportionate with yours in a way, right?"
Kael had already looked at the stats of all the workers he saw, and Yosef was by far the strongest in terms of pure strength; he even surpassed the other physically enhanced awakened that were at the gate.
He could even stand toe-to-toe with some of the people from the raid team.
Name: Yosef
Level: Awakened
Soul core potential: Monster
Innate ability: Abyss Grip [Summons hands of shadow that immobilize opponents.]
Stats
[Strength: 81]
[Stamina: 83]
[Endurance: 96]
[Agility: 80]
[Intelligence: 46]
[Essence: 95]
'Seriously? These are elite stats already.
He's definitely someone worth watching; he seems like someone who will get into a good guild.'
Yosef kept his calm demeanor as he answered.
"Yes, that's true.
How do you know that, though?"
"Just a guess."
Kael was about to talk about his ability when Mr. Allen came over.
"Get ready, boys; the raid team has come back."
"Already? Aren't they supposed to clear the gate?"
Logan replied to Kael.
"No, they don't usually clear it.
Clearing a gate requires a huge force, so they usually just clear the closest threats and retreat."
'Guess I'll have to ask her.'
The porters' team went towards the entrance of the gate, carrying all the necessary equipment.
Kael looked at the raid team; many of them had broken armor, and although there were no signs of injuries, they were clearly tired and weak.
A few of them were missing; Kael didn't forget faces easily.
There were 21 people in the raid team, including Nova herself, but there were 4 people missing when they returned.
'Four people gone.
No bodies returned.
No names spoken.
Just… absence.'
He turned to Mr. Allen and asked,
"So we're going in now?"
"Yeah, hope you're ready?"
He already expected that the work would involve going through the gates since the details were explained to him.
But instead of following the porter's team, he turned around and went straight to where Nova was seated.
She looked very tired; her brown eyes looked rather dark, and her hair was ruffled.
Even her armor looked tattered, and he could see that essence had been severely depleted.
"Rough day? Huh."
A mischievous grin appeared on his face, making her tired expression change to disgust.
"What do you want? Don't you have work to do?"
"Oh my, such hostility towards a friend."
"Friend? You're just a swindler."
Kael tilted his head slightly to appear surprised.
'Guilty as charged.'
He bent down to look at her in the face.
"I'd like to know something."