No one but Recks seemed to have digested the peculiar introduction of the new arrival. The two shaking hands and simply holding a bit of small talk, under the bewildered gazes of the rest.
Well, most of the rest. Trisha and Darron seemed unsurprised or at least acclimated to the behavior, with the latter holding in exasperation, while the former was enjoying the expressions of the less prepared.
Listening in on Recks and the yellow-robed youth.
The interaction between them came across as so utterly natural, from the expressions they showed to their body language, even the words they spoke and sentences they pieced together. Everything seemed so natural, yet Noctis couldn't understand a single thing about their conversation. The words exchanged between Recks and the newcomer made little sense to Noctis—there were odd references to initiations, titles, and some obscure rules he had never heard of.
Whether it was because of their cryptic jargon or some shared experiences he was not privy to, Noctis found himself completely lost, further deepening his confusion.
What was one supposed to say in such a situation? How was he to act?
Looking towards Trisha, who was less fazed at the guy's "uncommon" choice of words, Noctis raised an eyebrow in search of any kind of explanation or hint from her.
Had they talked before, and that's why she was so utterly unaffected. Did his little time at the academy lead to his issues digesting this information?
They did enter the room together. So she might have just had more time to adjust.
'Trisha comes to terms with things rather quickly, so that would make sense.'
Noctis had seen this trait of hers with Stone, too. If he thought back, she adapted to Lia's prone-to-violence character before even getting a beating.
While Noctis was ruminating over the situation, one of the people he just thought of spoke up.
"Captain, how come we're getting backup.
I'm not complaining, but… We just got two members over the past half a year.
Dont the other sectors have a greater need for manpower?
Especially since most of the last batch was… compromised."
Lia asked, clearly expressing her doubts, her eyes briefly washing past Noctis and Trisha, making Noctis lower his gaze while Trisha stayed unaffected.
Darron, in response, walked over in wide strides as he passed the yellow-robed youth, who had fallen into a long, enthusiastic tangent about sects and lower and upper disciples, while Recks wore a charismatic smile, nodding along.
It was unclear if he really understood what the yellow-robed youth was blabbering on about. It didn't help that his only contributions to the discussion were, at most, "Yes, mmhm, that is truly a problem, how weird, that's interesting," and so on.
Taking his usual brown leather chair, which was currently placed next to Noctis' own, Darron looked Lia in the eyes, his movements casual, yet tinged with an authoritative air.
"He is not the only individual sent by the parent settlements. The two largest shareholders each sent two individuals, while Oracle sent only one…. This one." Darron added with a hint of hesitation.
"Since the two newcomers aren't exactly of the combative type, he was sent to reinforce this aspect of our group. Any other questions?"
Right now, Darrons voice was not belittling, nor very authoritative, but steady and inviting, that of someone trying to encourage. A tone he only used when talking to Lia, peculiarly enough.
Lia in turn shook her head submissively, her usual brass character nowhere to be found.
She was clearly putting weight on the words, mulling them over repeatedly.
Darron nodded once, his eyes closing for a brief moment.
Seemingly satisfied with such a reaction, he then spoke again, this time his voice ringing through the entire room as he took the role of their leader.
Noctis just sat at the side, not interrupting the two, the raised tone making him flinch up subconsciously. Internally, however, a thought he could not suppress emerged after what he had just heard.
'Did Oracle just send some nutjob they wanted to get rid of?!'
He could not expand on his musings; however, his attention was drawn to the Captain's words.
"What are you all just sitting around for?
The city never rests, and so do we."
Surveying the room, Darrons' eyes settled on Recks and the yellow-robed youth, a satisfied expression rising onto his face, as if he'd just had an epiphany. An epiphany that was all too clear to the individuals in the room.
"Recks, since you're getting along with the new arrival, you're going to pair up with him for a while."
It was that he had found a way to get the yellow-robed youth out of his hair.
Showing no sign of being displeased with the arrangement, Recks stayed silent, only giving a nod of approval.
Noctis, on the other hand, tried with all his might not to laugh.
That's what happens with those who feel the need to socialize! Serves you right!
While Noctis was laughing internally, Darron continued, making his attention shift to a bit more of a dark note.
"The disappearances have been increasing recently, to the point that it can no longer be ignored.
This has been designated a high-priority target of our sector, since we have the most suited individuals.
Noctis, Recks, as pathfinders, you'll be in charge of this investigation."
"What?" Noctis muttered half-consciously, surprised by the sudden dropping of his name.
Didn't that mean he'd have to work with the weirdo?
Did his schadenfreude have some effect on the strings of fate, or why were such incidents growing in frequency?
First Trisha's shenanigans, now this?! Whenever I'm musing about something, it seems to go wrong. Is this what you would call a jinx, in the bygone generations' rits?
Silencing the complaints ringing in his mind, Noctis sighed in resignation.
Well, whatever, it should be interessting at least, and he'd have to interact with him eventually either way.
Accepting this begrudgingly, Noctis looked over to Trisha as his eyes signaled an unspoken question to make the job a bit more entertaining.
"Na, sorry. My skills are needed elsewhere." She rejected it with a playful wink, waving it off as she walked away.
Nodding, this wasn't the first time she was busy with her own plethora of duties.
She was, after all, very gifted in rituals, a field in which Noctis had little success or talent.
He had learned the language half-heartedly, but just didn't get the hang of the whole ritual thing. Well, it might have been for the best, or he would have ended like her.
Her talent gave her many jobs involving inspecting ritualistic arrays or performing specific tasks that only people with that knowledge could do.
This did not bother Noctis in the slightest. After all, he had spent more than enough time with her. Too much time, really.
He even felt a bit of vindictive joy at seeing his tormenter get worked to the bone.
Nox could not deny that their bond had grown quite thick over half a year, well, almost half a year. She ran after Noctis almost immediately when she noticed him disappearing from the academy.
Any normal person would have known not to make fun of her for such a display of loyalty. Noctis's sense of humor had, however, never been the best, and after going through thick and thin with Trisha at the academy…
His humor had been irretrievably twisted because of that vial womman.
He teased and made fun of her with all the power and mischief he could muster, not showing the slightest mercy.
I'm definitely not a sadist, right? Never, how could I be? Noting this in the back of his mind, not wanting to develop any weird fetish or tics, he looked over to Recks, with whom he'd soon spend a bit of time.
The man was easy to be around, but he just seemed to lack a bit of common sense from time to time and had a bit of an eerie air to him.
Saying his quick goodbyes to Trisha, he walked over to the mission board and took a quick glance.
There, a bunch of fliers were plastered on top of each other. Calling it a mission board truly did it no justice.
These were no missing-persons reports, like the ones he'd seen in the market, nor some quest you would see in the adventuring books. No, these were far more important.
These were wanted people of differing importance, the highest-ranking ones showing the last sighted individuals. To the side stood a stack of papers, each documenting the exact information for each individual.
The people spanned from mundane humans to strong Authority Wielders up to the second rank. Two numbers stood beneath each picture, with the highest ranging from 200 to 400.
It was the reward. The reward for killing or capturing the fugitive.
Notably, the reward for capturing them was almost double the reward for killing.
A true bounty board. What a sight for sore eyes. It was truly the stuff of fantasy.
Noctis didn't plan to hunt any of the individuals on this board for extra cash. Even if it was quite alluring. He simply imprinted the images in the back of his mind. He wanted to be able to identify the individuals if he ran across them by coincidence.
Of course, he would not confront these dangerous individuals even if the fantasy seemed intriguing.
A lone bounty hunter tracking down criminal after criminal.
Swithing off his thoughts for a brief moment. That seemed unnecessarily risky.
Giving hints about their whereabouts also carried a reward. Even if starkly reduced.
There, of course, was also the fact that if he ever met them, he'd be able to track them via the string of connection. He called the string of fate connecting person to person a string of connection.
A string that would reveal itself the moment he met a new person and that would strengthen the more intimate the relationship with the other was. After further observations, the threads would fade and grow more translucent the further away from the person the thread led, which made sense, since if it wasn't the case, Noctis's everyday sight would be clouded by an overwhelming amount of strings more than he was already having to deal with.
This fading of the strings, however, wasn't the same from person to person. For example, Noctis had yet to leave the radius where the captain's thread would start to disappear. The same went for Trisha.
Noctis's current belief was that Darron's strong string was because of his high rank, while Trisha's was because of their deep ties.
And if it truly was that the string grew stronger and firmer the more he knew about the individual….
Theoretically, he might not be able to find them simply by knowing enough about them, but once met…
The new string that wove itself would be unusually firm, built on the knowledge he amassed in advance, giving Noctis a quick way to identify a person even if disguised.
Earning money this way would become quite a profitable endeavor with little need for investment.
It was a small Investment of time for possible greater returns.
This was, of course, mostly theoretical, since he had yet to come into a similar scenario.
But he did have a bunch of ideas for proving the strategy's effectiveness.
Over the past half year, Noctis had not been idle in his training. He had experimented with his symbolism and his ability, even if he did not dare to connect the two again. The past experience had been a frightening lesson.
Nox found little change in his physique, as it seemed the Authority he possessed was not physical in nature.
However, there were some minor improvements. He had expected as much. It was still a bit disheartening to know that he'd most likely forever be a squishy backliner.
Most of his little free time was spent observing and experimenting with the tapestry of fate. To be precise, the changes it would undergo depending on his actions, such as the influence of knowledge and physical contact.
What it looked like when strings of fate formed, which he observed when meeting new acquaintances.
Or how it looked when connections weakened or broke.
An experiment he had come up with to test the waters for his operation connected to the fugitives was, in essence, quite simple.
Nox would learn a bunch about a person he was certain knew nothing of him, and then planned on meeting them in person.
It was vital that the person knew nothing of him and that they had never met before, since in the former scenario it would influence the strength, width, and consistency of the resulting string, while the latter would make the entire experiment pointless since the string would have already been created.
He had shelved the idea for now, since the more he thought about it, the more this seemed like severe stalking.
The thought of diverging from the path fate bestowed crossed his mind on multiple occasions. However, whenever the thought occurred, it would have been deeply unnatural for him to do so, or strongly against his own interests.
So he had restrained himself this far, from taunting fate any further.
Noctis planned on testing the waters at some point, but at the moment, he had been swamped with work, not getting the chance to play around with the idea.
The overload of work was also the main reason he had little chance to test many of his other "attempts".
Walking back to Recks and planning out how to go about the investigation.
After a few perfunctory words and formalities, they decided to review each case, identify commonalities, and proceed from there.
Nox decided to get the fils, while Recks tried to insist on coming with, which Nox rejected. He wanted to savor the normalcy before having to spend time with the reject. Besides, it would just be a few fils. Why would they need two people to get them?
It all seemed feasible at first, but after going to that overly annoyed receptionist and asking for the information on every recent disappearance case….
Nocits was at a loss.
She brought one box with papers, then two, then three, then four, then six, then ten, until she finally stopped when she had crammed out the twelfth box of paperwork.
Noctis: "Ah, sorry, I think there was a misunderstanding. I only wanted the cases of the last month, not the year."
He slowly shoved one of the boxes filled with a hundred cases back toward the receptionist, a smile plastered on his face.
The resentful, old, and haggard woman slowly looked up from her newspaper, as she narrowed her eyes annoyedly and shoved back the box.
"Those are the cases of the last month."
Nox shoved back.
"That can't be"
His smile cracked lightly.
"But it is." She shoved back as well, as a vein seemed to bulge at the side of her head.
"There must be a mistake," Nox rebuked, his eyes half-closed, hiding their golden luster, something he had trained himself to do to lessen their burden.
The old hag pushed back again. "There is none!"
In the end, he walked the halls carrying four boxes stacked high above him, slowly balancing towards Recks and the guy in yellow.
Seeing the four boxes, both showed very different reactions.
The boy in yellow looked surprised as he muttered. "How can so many potential brothers simply disappear?
While Recks looked similarly surprised as he muttered. "Isnt this too little?"