The Martial Unity

"Hmmm," Rui hummed as he analyzed the latest happenings. "This is rough,"

"Are we screwed?" Kane sighed. "It was a good run while it lasted."

"Relax, we're not screwed," Rui replied. "However, we can forget about trying to explore already discovered floors. From here on out, we should avoid it altogether. We always planned to reach this stage, but perhaps we'll have to accelerate the process. There are too many threats around us. I don't feel comfortable with all of this."

He got up, heading for the door. "I'll be back,"

"Where are you headed?" Kane asked.

"I'll register as a bounty hunter," Rui replied. "Get prepped, we're going dungeon raiding soon enough."

Rui headed towards Deacon Industries where the basic registration process was happening. What surprised Rui when he got there was how large the crowd was.

('What the…') He frowned as he got in line. ('Why on Earth are so many people joining? Surely most of these adventurers have other arrangements. Patrons, contracts, places of employment… How can they possibly also take up something as time-consuming as bounty-hunting when'-)

he realized the answer. ('It's because it's an open-ended bounty that they can afford to register. Simply registering is not problematic since it does not convey any burdens or responsibilities. It simply allows them to access the intelligence that Deacon Industries is offering to bounty hunters and allows Deacon Industries to keep score on the number

still have no problems, however, if they did find and kill him, then they could immediately provide his corpse to Deacon Industries

they could access information on his more easily too. Furthermore, the non-committal nature of the registration meant that there was no issue with spending as

quite convenient and there was no harm

good strategy on Deacon's part,') Rui mused with mixed feelings as he navigated

only intended to register to be able to access the investigative reports on

himself away to a certain extent since Chairman Deacon could be sure that the Voider would

the Voider was among this group, the number of Martial Squires that had already registered and would continue to register would make the suspect pool absurdly large and

also have to consider the possibility that the Voider was accessing information through an associated

the negatives were not worth

to think that there was no scheme in any of this. While the world might simply think Chairman Deacon was simply trying to be good-hearted and help the Martial Squires. Rui was shrewd enough to make out how Chairman Deacon could exploit the fact that the Voider would be

would cause the Voider to act a certain way, or choose to make a certain decision that Chairman Deacon would be

to narrow down the Voider's positions through his Martial attire marked with some esoteric substance, then the Voider, if convinced, would naturally

Chairman Deacon could potentially notice any suspicious movements. Worst case scenario, if he kept tabs on all the Martial Squires, he might just be able to catch someone who would act exactly as they would if they were afraid of getting

Deacon was also using this bounty to get into the mind of the