Elven Refugees

A panicky crowd gathers around the corpse.

Luna takes the Royce emblem out of her pockets and attaches it to her chest pocket.

She rushes down the building quickly and,

"Everyone, stand back. Internal security is arriving. Do not panic.

Be careful of assaulters in the street. Always take the busy roads and make sure that you are not alone when outside."

After her declaration, many whispers could be heard, 

"Looks like the bastard got his headshot after trying to lay his hands on the heiress. Scary"

"I've heard a lot of these wraith assault cases happening around my neighborhood and internal security did jackshit. Now that the heiress is involved, they absolutely blew his brains out."

"What are you talking about? It wasn't internal security, it was her personal bodyguard Crow who did that."

'Wait, how do they know about Crow?', Luna thinks to herself.

The Internal Security finally arrives in a truck with the sirens blaring at full volume.

They quickly get to work sealing off the area and recovering the corpse.

"The Internal Security division pays their respect to the heiress", the captain greets Luna with a salute.

"Rather than paying me respect, you could have come a little early."

"Sorry ma'am, but we just don't have enough personnel and funding."

"The Education district should be under the jurisdiction of the Educate corporation. What are those guys thinking, cutting back on security expenses"

"They are having a little budget problem lately. With all the influx of Elven refugees coming into Paradisium lately, they are forced to reinvest all the profits they make into construction of new schools and hiring faculty, building dorms, leaving very little for Internal Security."

"I see, I will do what I can to help"

"That would be greatly appreciated"

Luna smelled an opportunity to make money. She rushed back home and opened up the stock market on her Desk Terminal.

'Hehe, I knew it. Since they can't bring up any profits, their stock price has nose dived. Let's see, I have about 45K MP. If I invest it all on Educate shares then later when they start making profits from the large number of their students, I will be rolling in cash.'

The currency used for everything in Paradisium is MP or Mana Points. 1 MP is the amount of mana present in a gram of Mana Crystal. There is an extensive underground pipeline network responsible for connecting and transferring mana for transactional as well as general usage. Those pipelines also allow for transmission of information in a network known as ManaNet.

‘Now then, don’t pretend you can’t hear me. Who the hell are you? How are you speaking directly in my head? Is this Telepathy?’

//Damn, I was hoping you would have forgotten by now.//

‘Hah, dream on. Now spill it, creep. Who the hell are you? Where are you?’

//Well, I don’t really have any name. Everyone used to call me Messiah. As for my location, that would be inside your soul space.//

‘Soul space?’

//That’s right. It’s the mental landscape that exists inside every conscious being. That wraith from before was trying to enter and overwrite your soul space, but I yeeted him out before he could even do anything. You should be grateful//

‘Yeah right’

A sudden call interrupts their conversation. It’s Luna’s father, Juan Royce, the President of Invictus corporation.

'Huh? What does he want now?'

Luna: "Hello Dad, I thought you had forgotten that you even had a daughter"

Juan: "Haha, surely you jest. How could I ever forget about my sweet little daughter"

Luna: "And? Surely you didn't call me just to sweet talk"

Juan: "You know me far too well, there are some important Elven dignitaries coming tomorrow. I want you to meet them and give them a tour of the city as the heiress of Invictus. You should also make proper preparations, some terrorists under the influence of the enemies might target them to throw off the alliance"

Luna: "Hmm, but I had a tuition session tomorrow with Eve"

Juan: "What's the point? It's not like your academic performance is improving or anything"

'Looks like I can't weasel my way out of this Job'

Luna: "Fine, I will handle it. You can rest easy."

Juan: "Yes of course, all my worries are dispelled now that I know it's in the capable hands of my daughter"

Luna: "Yeah, yeah, enough flattery. I am hanging up."

She puts the phone back and decides to put off the interrogation for later. She has a lot of preparation to do.