Landsknecht had a fire lit under them, now that they had a plan. First, Thomas stepped in to help with the financials. He quickly set up a shared account between them to hold the group’s funds.

  “Fifty percent will go to the company account. The rest will be split evenly among all of us for personal use,” Thomas said, pushing up his glasses. Viviana noted his confidence. She assumed he was good at this stuff.

  Everyone nodded their heads, agreeing. It was informal at the end of the day. Thomas specified they all had access to the guild account, and anyone could withdraw or add funds as they wished. He just told them to spend it on Landsknecht related things. For now, the group account held a grand total of:

  [Collective Academy Funds Account]

  [$0.00]

  They’d have to work on that. First things first– Landsknecht, as a mercenary company, didn’t have any contracts. They were working on that with two strategies.

  For one, they killed a lot of random people, and whenever they were asked about it, they would say ‘client confidentiality’ and offered protection via counter contracting. Additionally, they ‘helped’ out a lot of people, too.

  This ‘helping’ was actually stealing monster kills (which was a bad thing as it took away experience points) and then pretending like they’ve saved their victims' lives. Then, they’d give them Landsknecht business cards and walk away.

  Of course, they did some actual helping too. They’d give away frostburst organs. Viviana showed some unaffiliated people how to safely hunt the spiders and extract their organs. Having a lightning affinity was pretty much unheard of, but she figured out that cutting the spiders just right severed their consciousness too fast for them to blow up. Knowledge courtesy of days of killing spiders.

  Bena would point out monster locations for people, free of charge. Lucian would help people fight monsters consensually, and not steal their kills.

  All this while plugging Landsknecht at the end like an annoying unskippable sponsorship segment. Any publicity was good publicity.

  Thomas was too shy to do any of that, but he did rent and decorate another room to hold Landsknecht-client meetings. It had to look presentable, after all. He also did the group’s accounting and auctioning, selling whatever monster parts they found at the highest price possible.

  Soon Landsknecht started getting work. Small jobs. Escort these people here. Get these items. The biggest boon was the demand for Bena. Whatever super powered scout skill she had made her very popular in the terrariums.

  They weren’t raking in the dough, but it was a survivable amount of money. Enough that it was a little more profitable than spider killing.

  Despite all the random killing they did, they didn’t step on any of the guilds’ toes. They made sure to only kill guild members that were new or had low ranked connections. But Viviana knew it was inevitable. Eventually they’d mess with someone who’d take issue with Landsknecht and utterly destroy them.

  But what could they do? Kill us?

  In any case, as days went by, Viviana negotiated contracts. Viviana made sure that Thomas was in the room as she did them. Although Viviana wasn’t the best with social skills, her cold demeanor made her good at negotiating. She was hoping Thomas would pick up something and get them some good contracts.

  Well, Viviana mostly didn’t want to negotiate the contracts herself. Small jobs were annoying.

  In between negotiations and contract missions, Viviana also trained the group’s swordplay. Some days they just didn’t have much to do, or had free time between contract negotiations and bouts of ‘randomly jumping people’, so they trained together.

  Well, to make things fair, it was two against one. Bena and Thomas versus Viviana. When she was busy with some other things, Lucian would step in.

  Viviana noted their improvements throughout the days. They were getting better and better. Although they had already saved Viviana a couple times throughout their ambushes, Viviana knew the stronger they were the better it was for her.

  Viviana didn’t skimp on training herself either.

  Currently, she was outside her room, pacing back and forth in the hall. It was rather long and wide so it made a decent training ground for her. She was trying out the [dash] and [lightning trap] combo that affected her strangely when she fought Fortuna, the Ferric Meridian girl.

  Just how did that happen?

  Viviana placed a [lightning trap] on the ground and then activated [dash] and [lightning trap] at the same time. She felt electricity shock her. Her [dash] wanted to push her forward, but her feet were paralyzed by her trap. She slammed into the ground.

  Viviana pulled herself off the floor, rubbing her nose. That hurt. Whatever. She tried again.

  “What are you doing, Vivi?” Bena said sleepily, lounging on one of the many office chairs they found in their room. It was currently late at night, and they were getting ready to sleep. They needed to rise early tomorrow. A big day of killing random people and gaslighting them.

  “I’m trying to empower my dash again,” Viviana said. She noted that Bena didn’t talk with exclamation marks when she was sleepy, whether that be the morning or the night.

  “It looks like you’re shocking yourself over and over and then face planting.”

  Viviana ignored her and kept at it. She ended up on the floor again. She was going to break her nose at this point. Just what did I do last time that sent me flying, tumbling over myself?

  Bena shrugged. “Maybe try decreasing the amount of mana.”

  Viviana thought. It wasn’t a bad idea. When I did it before, I activated [lightning trap] with all the mana it could hold, and then panicked and pulled it away. Then I used [dash]. I’m trying to do the same thing, but maybe my mana control isn’t good enough?

  Viviana tried putting in the smallest amount of mana she could manage and then activated [dash]. Instantly her vision blurred as she shot forward, far further than normal.

  I did it!

  Her nose met the ground. A crunch. She pulled herself off the ground quickly, happy that she figured it out.

  “Thanks, Bena. Your advice helped a bit–”

  “Wahaha! Lemme get a picture!”

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  “What? No, don’t!”

  Bena scrambled to get her phone, but Viviana was too fast. She activated [dash] again and immediately tripped on the leg of an office chair.

  She slammed into Bena’s chair fort, knocking it all over, and Bena with it.

  Viviana and Bena slept in late. They spent last night fixing Bena’s office chair fort and trying to straighten Viviana’s nose as it healed. They couldn’t allow it to heal crooked.

  They woke up to someone slamming on the door. “Yo, where are you guys? We’ve got big news!”

  Viviana looked at Bena. They both didn’t want to get up. Bena pulled a sheet over her head, turning around. Viviana sighed and spoke. “What’s up, Lucian?”

  “Oh, you guys were still asleep? Ya’ll alright?”

  “We’re fine. Just tired.”

  “Well, don’t be. We’ve got a meeting with a guild bigshot.”

  Lucian filled them in with the rest of the information. Viviana scrambled to get dressed and ready. As the de facto leader of Landsknecht, she needed to be present but also presentable. It was a guild, after all. A big contract. Real money.

  Viviana put on her most formal clothes– her uniform. Soon enough, it was already time.

  Viviana found herself in the room next door, sitting in a chair across a long table. Lucian and Thomas were in the room as well, dressed in their uniforms as well. They remained standing. Bena was still in her room. Apparently she was too lazy to get up.

  A man walked into the room. He had a small stature. Short, but with a terrifying aura. Something about his expression was a little off. Like a hungry predator.

  He was Mizuki Okimoto, son of a Vulx Arc Cooperative chairman, and a first seat himself at the academy. The heir to that title, and high ranker. He was ranked 97.

  He’s not just high ranked. He’s tiered, meaning he’s in the top one thousand. And he’s unique among the tiered rankers as well. A tier zero, or within the top one hundred students of the academy.

  “Interesting place you’ve got here, Adler-Stern,” he said as he walked in. Two bodyguards flanked him, each towering over him almost comically. Viviana could sense it; the short man was the strongest one here, by far. “A little run down.”

  “Temporary base,” Viviana said. “As we deal with sensitive matter, we can’t have our main hideout exposed.”

  A complete lie.

  Mizuki raised an eyebrow as he took a seat. “Anyone waiting in ambush?”

  “None. One person is sleeping in the other room.”

  “My scout noted the same. Very well, let's continue with business,” he said, putting his feet on the table.

  Viviana nodded. Thomas gulped sub-audibly. Lucian remained quiet.

  “I’ve been told you’ve been flooding the market with frostburst organs. Well, I need some more of those. I know where a lot of them are, but I can’t let people know. So the job is simple; you gather them for me, secretly. That is all.”

  Viviana raised a brow. “Surely you have your own division to do stealthy things. A higher ranked division, that’s a part of VAC.”

  He snorted. “If I wanted a higher rank, I’d go to anybody else. You guys are ranked forty thousand.”

  “I still don’t understand why you need us.”

  “...Do you want the job, or not?”

  Hardball, huh? Well, his hesitation to say anything more means something. He can’t do it himself. If he needs us, specifically, we have negotiating power.

  “We want the job,” Viviana said. “But we’ll need more information.”

  He motioned to his bodyguard, who obediently handed him a phone. On it a holoscreen was active. He slid the device halfway across the table, and a projection popped up.

  “Once you agree, you’ll head to an undisclosed location within terrarium one. There you will see an unmapped portion of the dungeon. You are to enter and retrieve as many frostbust organs as possible. You’ll then sell them through the academy’s auction system at a time I agree upon. We will immediately buy the organs through many different anonymous buyers. Then it’s up to us.”

  Viviana frowned. “It’s not a lot of information to go on. We have no idea what the risk level is for the undisclosed part of the dungeon.”

  “Exactly. This is what makes your group the perfect people to execute this plan. You’re already known for getting frostburst organs. You’ve pioneered the method. It wouldn’t be suspicious if you explored the dungeon, randomly bumped into a lot of them, and collected them.”

  “Very well. Now, numbers. How many organs?”

  “A hundred and fifty, minimum.”

  Viviana’s eyes widened, but she quickly caught herself. During Landsknecht’s peak spider hunting days, they only got about five a day. Spiders were very, very rare, and it was just dumb luck Viviana found two of them in a row the first time she fought them.

  If there really are that many organs, we can charge an exorbitant price for this. At a market value of 3 credits per organ…

  “That’ll be one and a half thousand credits, then.”

  “That’s far above market value.”

  “Market value is only that because no one wants them. No supply, no demand. You clearly want them, so fork up.”

  “Five hundred.”

  “A fifty credit bonus, for doing a shady, under the table contract with a VAC chairman, instead of selling to the academy directly? Not a chance.”

  “You won’t have the opportunity to sell them at all if I don’t give you the information.”

  Viviana shook her head. If this tier zero ranker went to us, he must be desperate. We’re the only mercenary group in the academy, but…

  “Are you sure you want to haggle with me?” Mizuki laughed. His eyes glowed as his mana flared, the weight felt heavily by all the soulbound in the room. Thomas and Lucian took a step back. Mizuki’s bodyguards flinched the slightest amount. It felt like a tidal wave, or a crushing, abyssal pressure, squeezing the life out of everything in the room.

  Viviana didn’t move. She felt it, the pressure, but it wasn’t the most intense she’s felt. It was nothing compared to her father’s.

  She spoke. “A thousand and two hundred credits. For breaking the table.”

  Mizuki’s mana emanation turned off as he looked at the table in surprise. A crack ran down the center where his boots touched the tabletop. He laughed. “Very well, Adler-Stern. Do not regret it. The payment will be distributed through the auction system. Set the minimum buy price to that, and we’ll buy the shipment immediately.”

  They then talked about more details. The locations, the timing, the meet up location, and failsafes. Viviana called Thomas forward. He knew more about the academy than her.

  She could tell he was nervous, but this was what he was here for– to be an information dump. More terms were talked about. Thomas pointed out some things. Viviana agreed. He did a pretty good job, Viviana thought.

  Then, after all that was done, Mizuki stood up, and Viviana did as well. They walked to meet in the middle of the room, holding out hands. They shook. Viviana noted how strong his grip was. His hands were small, but Viviana could feel it. He could kill everyone in this room without a sweat. “The contract?” he asked.

  Oh. Crap. We need to prepare a written contract.

  Viviana thought on the spot. “Lucian, turn on voice recording and mana signature reading.”

  Lucian was startled but quickly recovered, pulling out his own phone, activating both features in a recording software. Viviana cleared her throat and pushed her own mana out into the forefront. Not as intense as Mizuki’s mana, but still dangerous. Crackling with energy.

  “I, Viviana Adler-Stern, leader of Landsknecht, propose a contract between two parties; Landsknecht, and Mizuki Okimoto, first seat of Vulx Arc Cooperative’s Academy Guild. Landsknecht will head to the location specified by the other party, collect at least one hundred and fifty frostburst organs, and then auction them for one thousand three hundred and twenty credits, as ten percent will go to the academy transaction fee. This auction will happen at exactly twenty three zero zero, on September 25th. The other party will pay this price in full immediately as fulfillment of payment. Are all parties in agreement?”

  Mizuki nodded, flaring his mana all the while. “I agree.”

  “I agree,” Viviana responded.

  Lucian stopped the recording. “It’s done.”

  Thomas let out a sigh of relief he didn’t know he was holding.

  Mizuki and his bodyguards left the room. As he left, he spoke, not bothering to hear the reply. “Strange way to do a contract. I’ll send the rest of the information through the academy app.”

  Viviana sighed. It was over.

  Bena burst into the room. A delighted expression filled her face. “One point two kay?!”