Chapter 23: Filling a Report

Luke stood there, his eyes taking in the sights when someone shoved him.

“Out of the way. Can’t you see people are walking here?” a familiar voice said.

He stared incredulously at Deena, who returned the look with a stunned gaze.

What were the chances of bumping into the same monster hunter he had managed to anger through the same exact scenario?

Luke couldn’t decide if his luck was good or poor.

“Seriously, are you trying to pick a fight with me, newbie?” Deena asked, crossing her arms.

“Sorry, I was just surprised. That’s all,” Luke said, hoping to fix things before she decided to declare him her enemy.

An understanding look crossed her face before it was replaced with mockery.

“Ah, you’re one of those. Someone from those small towns. You better be careful or else you’ll find that you bit far more than you can chew,” she said before walking away.

Was that a threat or advice?

Either way, he decided he had to be more careful. Constantly running into her wouldn’t be good for him.

Returning to the matter at hand, he chose to wait in line rather than go through the stations.

Even though he did have a little experience using them, as the capital had them, he preferred to have a person help him. After all, this was his first time reporting in, and it wasn’t even for the mission he picked.

The monster was supposed to be on the road to his hometown. He had yet to go down that path since he took the wagon to the city instead.

What he was reporting on were the two instances of monsters he had encountered.

Of course he was going to fib a bit so as not to draw too much suspicion, but he knew it was inevitable that people would become interested once they found out he dealt with fifteen monsters on his own.

Not to mention that these monsters had already killed a group of monster hunters.

However, he was willing to deal with the stares and whispers as long as he got those deceased monster hunters the justice they deserved.

What he didn’t expect when he grabbed a ticket was the waiting period to be insane.

“A couple hours?” he blurted out, staring at the time on his ticket.

A nearby monster hunter gave him a look and asked, “What did you expect? Can’t you see all these people here?”

While Luke understood that there were a lot of people there, he still didn’t expect he would have to wait hours for a staff member to help him. He couldn’t imagine how bad things would have been without the stations available.

Did they have to wait days before they got service?

He walked away, staring at his ticket as he debated whether to wait there or explore the city. After thinking about it, he chose to walk out of the building, pushing past the crowd of people and into the streets.

“What do you intend to do? Have you forgotten that you have no money on you? Are you perhaps finally seeing it my way and are going to take what you want?” the evil god asked.

Ignoring him, Luke wandered around for a bit and saw how much the city had changed since he last visited it.

It was the last city before the capital and the first place he and his ex-comrades had gone to when they first went on their journey. There were only a couple towns between here and the capital if one took detours.

The only reason they hadn’t gone to those towns first when heading out from the capital was that they had no reason to. There had been no reports of monsters attacking them.

Even if there were, they were told that the monster hunters would deal with it. The monsters wouldn’t be dangerous enough to require heroes to handle. They had to focus on reaching the evil god so they shouldn’t be taking detours, and Dornsbachwe was on the direct road to Orstadbadt.

Luke studied his surroundings, comparing them to how he remembered them.

Some places stirred painful memories of when he was there with his ex-comrades. Thinking of the good times they had before their betrayal left a bitter taste in his mouth.

Soon he returned to the monster hunter base with his turn coming right up.

It was just as chaotic as it had been hours earlier, and Luke found a place to sit. As he settled down and waited to be called on, he tried listening in on the conversations around him, but there were simply too many people in the room.

They constantly spoke over each other, making their words sound disjointed and off-putting. It was impossible to pry out any useful information.

When he was called, he quickly stood up and rushed over before they could think he wasn’t there and moved on to the next person. The woman at the counter didn’t bat an eye as he hurriedly handed over his ticket.

As she accepted it, she said, “Hello, sir, what can I help you with today?”

“I actually have some incidents to report,” Luke said, tapping anxiously on the counter.

If she was troubled by his words, she didn’t show it.

Instead, she searched for something underneath the counter before placing some papers and a clipboard on the counter in front of him.

“Here. Please fill these out and return them to me once you finish,” she said, looking ready to call for the next person.

He lifted one to read as he hesitantly said, “Actually, it’s a pretty big incident. Can’t I just report it to you?”

The woman sighed and said, “Sir, many monster hunters come here to report incidents. It would take too much time for us to handle each and every one while filling the papers out. Please just fill out the papers.”

She had a point, though he wished that wasn’t the case.

With no choice, Luke took the papers with him and searched for a place to sit so he could fill out the paperwork.