Chapter 173: New Assignment
Stopping only once he was all the way on the other side of the city Lake looked back to where the sound of crashing had only just stopped. He was still in a bit of disbelief at what he had done and it took him a bit longer than it should have to realize he needed to run towards it, not away. He was supposed to be down here investigating so he was sure the other four were already there and he was sure if it took him much longer they would start to wonder where he was.
Running to where the marks he had placed on them said they were, Lake found them quickly but he still said. "There you all are." Just to make it seem like he had been looking for them for a while. "Lake, good, I was starting to worry you had been attacked or something." Lake looked at Freed and shook his head while saying. "What happened?"
"We aren't sure but it was clearly done by a master Earth Mage. Probably defending themselves from something heinous to use such force. Ok spread out, look for clues and see if there are any people trapped in the rubble." Lake just nodded and pretended he wasn't upset he had just forced himself and the others to waste their precious time looking for a red herring.
After a while of them looking around and finding nothing Lake said to them. "I don't think there's anything here we can use and I don't think we have time to go through this all by hand. We should go back to the guild for today." Lake was hoping Freed would have also reached the conclusion that they should leave this for a bigger group and they could leave and just hadn't said anything yet.
Lake watched as Freed looked around at the huge amount of rubble they were yet to dig through and said. "Give me a few more minutes and we can leave." Lake was unsure what Freed was hoping to do with a few minutes but he didn't question him and just waited. It didn't take long for them to leave the scene and head towards the elevator.
Lake knew they had a bit of a ride so he went ahead and started a conversation on what the others thought had happened or if this was a good place to continue to investigate. "Do you guys think anything related to the Demon Worshipers is going on down here." Lake made sure to remind them of what they were actually doing so they wouldn't over emphasize what had happened there at the end.
"Something might be going on down there but with it not actually being anything that directly points to the Demon Worshipers we should wait and see what the other teams find to decide if we should go back or not." Lake nodded and looked at the others who had yet to answer to see if they had anything to say.
After a few seconds he turned back to Freed and said. "Masters will still want to send people to investigate what happened down there right?" As far as Lake had seen no one had died in some form of a miracle but there was no way to know if that was true or not because he hadn't been able to go through every little bit of the stone debris so he didn't want to here later that while they had been going through it he had accidentally squashed a few people and was now wanted for murder.
He was hoping by having a conversion with Freed now where he made it sound like it wasn't important Freed's tone while telling Masters would make Masters see it as a low priority to the guild. It was a bit of a stretch that this would actually work but it was worth a shot in his head because he had always been wary of the investigative abilities people would have with skills.
"It will probably depend on what was found by the others but I don't think we will be able to get anything out of the rubble that will tell us where we need to go." Lake liked how certain Freed sounded as he said this and asked. "Why is that?" They all knew he was new to the guild so they wouldn't think anything odd as they answered this question for him.
"There weren't any real signs of a fight like I was expecting to find when we first got there so the scouts wouldn't really be able to tell who was involved in the battle and with no bodies there weren't any people we could investigate either." Lake nodded like this was all he wanted to know and let the conversation die.
...
The rest of the ride had been in silence and it wasn't surprising with how tired the others were acting. Lake was sure they all wanted to get to a bed and sleep as soon as possible and that was probably all they were thinking about. He knew from experience when you were tired and had to sit still for a prolonged period of time the tiredness was really able to set in and you would be on the verge of falling asleep.
As they all stepped out of the elevator Lake asked. "Do you all live in the guild at the moment?" Two of them shook their heads but no one really said anything and they started up the stairs that would lead them to the guild. As they were walking in Lake recognized some of the other teams and guessed they had also just returned.
Once inside he saw they were going to have a bit of a wait to speak to Masters about their findings, that being said it seemed more of the guild had been involved now that there was a real threat to the city. Before he had gotten the impression that not everyone even knew about what was going on. But now, he was pretty sure the cat was out of the bag.
He saw everyone inside was talking about what they had seen or heard today while out in the city and he could tell quite a few had had a lot more happen to them today. This was a real relief to him because some of the things he was hearing made it clear no one would care much about the spell he had launched today.
It did sound like they would be having a busy day tomorrow though but Lake was fine with that because today had shown what could happen if he didn't have anything to do. After they waited for about half an hour one of the clerks that was going around to see if the teams had anything important to say to the Master asked Freed, and after thinking about it, he said no.
Lake guessed Freed had been listening to the things the others had been saying as well and decided what they had found wasn't worth Masters time. With them technically reporting they had found nothing they were allowed to go and of course they all decided to go to bed. He was surprised when they all headed towards the barracks because earlier when he had asked if they lived here Julie and Grendia had shook their heads no but he guessed they didn't want to take the time to head home.
Once he opened the door to the barracks he saw the whole place was filled with people sleeping and it would be hard to even find a place to sleep on the floor and it made him wonder if maybe they had to stay here because they might get a new assignment at any moment. That was probably why the two who didn't live here were going to sleep here in this cramped environment.
Using his feet to part people just enough to be able to lay on the floor, Lake closed his eyes and wished he could do what he was sure the others were going to do trying to sleep in a place like this. It was fine though even if it did take him a while to fall asleep he was sure he would wake before the others.
...
"Wake up." Lake jolted awake and looked towards the door where he saw Masters standing with a stack of papers in his hands. Getting on his feet, Lake made sure he got as close to Masters as it seemed the others were willing to so his group could go ahead and get their mission first and not have to stand in line for an hour.
"I need volunteers who are fast to take orders out to the groups who didn't make it back last night." It seemed this wasn't a team mission after all so without thinking too much Lake stepped forward and said. "I'll go." Masters clearly recognized him and while he seemed reluctant to give him a solo assignment Masters clearly didn't have room to be picky.
"Alright, come back as fast as possible and make sure you bring them with you if they're still alive." Lake nodded and started to read his new assignment to see his mission was more like a search and rescue because masters assumed anyone who had yet to come back had found trouble and needed help.
As he was walking out Lake saw a few others like him walk forward to receive the few other papers Masters had in his hands and went ahead and marked them and a few other people he could see as he walked out. He was sure being able to find other members of the fighters guild could come in handy today even if he didn't know just how yet.
Once he was outside Lake wasted no time in heading towards the elevator. The people he was trying to find had been sent to the fifteenth tier yesterday and while he was sure he would be able to find them pretty quickly he was probably going to do what he wanted today since he was alone now. He could just say he ran into trouble while he was doing the mission he had been given.
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