It was eventually decided that Richard would handle the initial screening for any and all City Lord Mansion related hires, then I would take it from there. It’s not really something I was looking forward to, but I don’t want any more lectures.

  Apart from that, the City has transformed greatly in the past week. It seems a lot of people were still recovering from the whole mental aspect of the Tutorial and everything they knew being upturned completely, but if it’s one thing Humans were good at, it was adapting.

  People have adapted to various circumstances in their lives or across generations for thousands of years. The apocalypse would be no different.

  Of course, it took some help from the government to speed things up but it was all necessary. Over the past week, Richard and the others have funded restaurants, farming, more fishermen, a carpentry business, a separate building company, the typewriter guy, sanitation efforts, the City Guard which had accepted 1000 members all at once, and every single one of them were now being trained by Eriog.

  There were a couple other things too, and not all of the shops were being used at the moment since we wouldn’t fund every single business idea proposed. All of this spending was extremely necessary because funds needed to be circulated, and people needed to feel like they had lives again.

  It probably would’ve been hard on the government to accomplish all of this without my handing over more money, but we began charging rent a couple days ago, and there were a couple hiccups of course, but it was either pay rent or leave the City…no one chose the latter. Of course, we did not overcharge at all. I made sure to let Richard know that no home would be unreasonably priced. People should be able to afford something decent for whatever they were earning.

  Thinking about it now, the whole rent thing was probably the biggest driving force for people joining up and applying to all the jobs the government was creating.

  Though the biggest success was the Adventures Guild. Someone came up with the idea of using grades for adventures. I’m pretty sure they got that from a book, but it worked and after picking one of the large empty buildings in the facilities district and hiring a large, dedicated workforce, things were up and running and it took off immediately.

  Thousands of people immediately came and registered to be adventures and commissions were not enough to for all of them, but once various businesses got up and running, and then people like Greja and the blacksmith began putting up commissions of their own and even us. We put up a lot of scouting missions.

  Of course, we made it a requirement to sign a form that stated that as an adventurer, you understood you were risking your life.

  We needed this because the City couldn’t receive blame for every death out there, we weren’t sending our City Guards, who will be signing a contract to work for the City and follow all orders given. Which means we would be responsible for them. Adventures would be different. They were not being forced and all decisions are they’re own.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Then once our few initial adventures went out and came back with injuries, medical professionals began popping up and the government was in the process of setting up a hospital.

  Which led to the current situation.

  A few adventures who took a commission together to explore the forest to the south of the City hadn’t return.

  They took a commission to explore the periphery of the southern forest and were to return yesterday. It was three of them and they were all in the 3rd Cycle of Body Tempering, which was the equivalent of a E Grade Adventurer according to our grading system, which was still in progress, but the point is, as a group they weren’t terribly weak.

  So, it was odd they haven’t all returned.

  The highest grade the City had was D, and that was the equivalent of someone in the 5th Cycle, and that was only one person, Nate. He was the first one out of Brandon and Richard to make it to the next stage. He was also to lead a force to go investigate the southern forest to see what happened, but I decided to step in.

  5th Cycle was definitely a far stronger realm than the 3rd but if it was something in the Qi Refinement realm that caused the problem, then they would die all the same.

  No need to be like the movies and send progressively stronger people to their deaths, let’s just go all in from the beginning.

  “Are you sure bringing him is alright Razz?”

  I can understand why Irene would be worried since Lirian is still a teenager, but those types of earthly ideals don’t apply here.

  “He’s stronger than all of us.”

  I think she knew he was strong, but hearing he was stronger than all of us surprised her a bit.

  “I see…well this is everyone then?”

  It was me, Lirian, Irene and Micah. Irene was joining as a rep for the Adventurers Guild, which is something I recommended, and Micah was to represent the City Guard. We didn’t need necessarily need reps from both, but I would like to be able to deploy the City Guard for things like this in the future that are relatively near the City and I think that means being able to work with the Guild so it’s good to start now.

  “Yep, this is it.”

  “Well alright then, how’s life in the City Guard been Micah?”

  “Well…uh…we’ve been getting killed, pretty much every day. Our instructor is way different from how he was in the Tutorial. He’s like a drill instructor from hell…so life is great!...Haha…”

  “It doesn’t sound like it’s been great.”

  “It’s been rough, but we’re all pretty committed, and I’m definitely a better fighter than I was in the Tutorial. So, I’ll stick with it, plus someone has to protect Raizen’s City. Actually if Mr. Eriog heard me calling you Raizen he’d pop a vein.

  “It’s being drilled into us to refer to you as Lord Raizen and nothing else.”

  That’s a little embarrassing.

  “Sorry about that. I didn’t tell anyone to do that.”

  “It’s alright no one’s complaining about it, and I think it’s necessary. Could you imagine just calling the president their name? It would sound bad.”

  “I agree, so maybe I shouldn’t call you Razz anymore…would you prefer Lord Raizen.”

  Before I could answer, Micah sighed and responded.

  “Could you please not flirt right now.”

  …

  We eventually did our final checks and departed from the City. Unfortunately, both Irene and Micah were still only in the in the 3rd Cycle and were mainly here for coverage between the two forces in the City, but it meant we had to travel to their level, and it took us a day to get to the forest. By the time we got there, the sun had long since gone down and the night had approached.

  It didn’t take us very long to understand that this forest had a different vibe to it. There was a heavy mist that reached around shin height that clung to the forest floor.

  It seems there was more to the disappearance of the adventurers than meets the eye.

  Hm, maybe I should send Irene and Micah back home.