The World of Masks

The room smells of queer widows mixed with the stench of rotten cigarettes. Jack unconsciously frowns. However, the man entered the room as if familiar.

"Hey, Krill. We have a new recruit."

In the room, there was a man sitting at his desk, a squinting man with one eye. Next to a guy called Krill, there were these species of fishermen that were supposed to be documents. Krill looks at Jack once and turns to the man.

"Hey, hey. Wendy, you're a traveler, right? Weren't you singing that you don't answer to travelers?"

"He's fine. I told you not to call me by my name! You want me to rip out that twisted head of yours? Ugh!"

Jack stares at the man shouting with a bloodshot face.

"· · · · · · · · · · · · Wendy?"

It reminds me of a girl flying in the sky with a boy in a country I'm not old for. Jack looks over his head at the man standing next to him. The sagging muscles seemed to protrude right through the skin, and the scars around the body looked like moving snakes combined with twitching muscles. And a beard that grew like a bandit, and a hair that grew in any way hot. Even the ugly face of the child who laughed at it will resonate. Jack had to mutter again.

"· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · Wendy?"

"If you don't get those eyes off me right now, I'm gonna dig them up and make them stuffed!"

At that moment, Jack turns his eyes away, and Krill flips over, making a big fuss. As Krill's laughter grows, blood vessels rise on Wendy's forehead. Eventually, the commotion calms down by Wendy flipping her desk over.

"Hehe, hehe. So, you're new?"

Krill, who held back her smile as she dropped her whole body intermittently, looks at Jack and asks. Jack nods.

"Can I see your ID card?"

Jack gives out his identity card without a word. Creel, who brought his card to the sunlight reflected by the window, started exploring the card with his one-eyed glasses.

"It's not fake. Besides, he hasn't been here long."

Creel, who returned Jack's identity card, sits on his side on a fallen desk with his butt down.

"Oi. Oi. Kmm. Kmm. Deputy director, are you sure you're okay?"

In Wendy's fierce eyes, Krill clears her throat and changes her words. Then I asked him, looking carefully. For them, a new traveler was nothing more than a useless amusement park.

"It doesn't matter. Speaking of which, he's not like the rest of the garbage travelers. Besides, a class F mercenary doesn't ask for anything big, does he?"

"Well, if that's what the deputy director says."

That said, Krill begins to rummage through the scattered documents.

"He'll take care of the rest."

Wendy leaves the room without saying anything else. Jack had to stand like a sack of barley that had left Krill lying on the floor to clear out the paperwork.

"Yes. Jack the Reaper, right?"

Krill bites as she rearranges her fallen desk and tucks the paperwork onto it. Jack nods. Creel shuffles the collected documents, pulling a piece of paper out of the clump.

"All you have to do is sign here."

Jack looks at the handover documents. Mercenary Guild Membership Form. When I became a mercenary, I wrote down magazines and precautions, but I didn't see anything that I thought was particularly important. Jack takes the quill that Krill handed him, stamps the ink and turns the name roughly.

"Good. You're a mercenary with this. The mercenaries will be here in three days."

"· · · · · · · · End? With this?"

"Huh? I don't know what I imagined, but this is it. Let's get an ID, sign the paperwork, and issue a mercenary. Ah! The mercenary is worth 50 coins. Bring it back in three days."

I don't eat roasted beans by lightning. But Creel takes the Juju Island documents, as if he didn't care what Jack felt.

"Huh? Anything else?"

"No, not really."

"Then go."

Creel waving his hands and giving a toast. Jack said, "I don't think this is it." and left the room. Wendy notices her sitting at the counter again after walking down the hall with a creaking sound.

"Did you get out?"

"Yes. Something simple happened."

"Chuckle. Told you. Most of us mercenaries are ignorant and can't handle the difficulties."

Wendy just needed to be good at fighting. "I opened my chest proudly. In Jack's eyes, a strong, polished bear appeared in a self-portraying documentary.

After roughly speaking with Wendy, Jack leaves the mercenary guild. Fresh air fills your lungs as you exit the guild reeking of stale cigarettes and widows. Jack takes a deep breath for a while. The air, which I didn't even normally recognize, felt delicious.

'I'd rather not stay in the guild for long.'

It was not enough to stay in such an unpleasant environment for long.

'Well, once the I.D. 's settled, what do we do for three days?'

I had no choice but to stay in this city for three more days in order to receive the mercenaries. The decision to leave today or leave for a few more days was forced by external circumstances.

'Shall we go out again at night?'

If it's quite far from where I hunted at dawn, I think it would be okay. Jack steps into a corner of the city to see if there are other suitable hunting grounds.

Jack was walking the marketplace. Chicks come out to buy cold streets and nosebleeds follow them around. And there were a lot of street vendors and movers running around. On the fruit stand around him, Jack wiped a piece of fruit with his sleeve and bit one big mouth.

Wow.

A sweet and sour juice flows down and soaks your mouth. Jack brings an elongated mouth of fruit to taste better than he thought. It was then that Jack's ears were ringing as he looked around, wondering if there was any excitement.

"Did you hear that? There's a mass disappearance on Frankemo Street."

"Ah. That whole neighborhood evaporated overnight?"

Jack stops walking. I can see the workers resting a little, just rolling their eyes and talking. Those who slammed their butts into boxes of merchandise and opened a cigarette were heating up rumors that were sweeping the city. Jack pretends to watch the stalls around him and listens to the stories of the workers.

"Yes. The problem with all the bloodstains in the house is that it looks like they were all murdered. Probably taken by the unsub."

"What the hell are you doing with a corpse?"

"I get it. Ordinary people don't know what crazy people are thinking."

"Oh, my God. You're going to live in this world because you're afraid of this."

The workers scratch their arms as if they were terrified. It seemed that Jack's incident had been amplified to the level of urban myth. There were monsters hiding in the castle, said the Demon King did it, and there was a dark fear in the voices of workers who said some Black Wizard had taken the corpse to use as an offering to summon the Devil. Rumors that were amplified in anxiety seemed to be sweeping the city with growing fear.

Jack withdraws from the stand. And then I looked at the workers. I smiled unconsciously. I guess they didn't hear about the other disappearance he made. What would they do if they heard that rumor? Like an artist who was evaluated for his work, Jack's heart beat with anticipation.

Leaving the workers' chatter behind, Jack began walking to the market entrance.

"Are you sure you've made all the mercenaries? '

I've been out late for three days. Now is the time to be really dangerous. The guard has become heavier and more vigilant. This morning, I almost got caught.

Well, I've had my fun.

Thinking of the corpses full of bracelets, Jack starts walking towards the mercenary guild.