Lucian walked down the guild halls. Today he was going to meet his new party member. Most people would be excited about that.
Having another party member meant one more person to watch your back while fighting. It meant having another sword at your side, but to Lucian it only meant he had another person to take care of.
Not that his party members were useless, in fact his party was considered one of the strongest on the continent.
But Lucian understood what it meant when the guild assigned another member to your party.
It meant the missions were going to get worse, harder, and more dangerous than before.
Lucian's last few weeks were rough to say the least. Three weeks ago, he became an S rank. Most would think that everything would become easier once you reached the highest rank possible, but in fact they couldn't be more wrong.
Reaching S rank meant having more responsibilities, more people to protect, and having to deal with politics.
Politics is what he hated the most. The nobles constantly bombarded him with invites to join their houses, marriage proposals, and many other offers.
All Lucian wanted to do was kill the monsters and protect the world from any danger, not deal with the petty nobles.
Lucian wasn't in a good mood today. Well, to be fair, he wasn't in a good mood most days but today was an especially bad day.
There was another attack earlier this morning, and the culprit of it was no other than Mordain.
Mordain. The same man who slaughtered his family and destroyed his city when he was 15 years old. Only Lucian and his sister survived that horrible attack.
What annoyed Lucian the most was the fact that not much was really known about Mordain. Every report about him said something different, and none of them could be confirmed because Mordain rarely ever left any witnesses.
After that massacre Lucian trained harder than anyone and promised himself to get justice for his family and city. He managed to climb from a C rank to S rank in the span of 10 years, something completely unheard of.
Lucian opened the door to his party's private room. Inside the room waiting were all the members already.
He spotted his younger sister Rose first; she sat closest to the door, playing with one of her healing potions. She had Lucian's same blonde hair except hers ran to her mid back and was shinier. Her green eyes were warm where his were mismatched, and her face was softer, more delicate, with a small beauty mark under her left eye. She was also about a foot shorter than him, which made her the smallest person in the room most of the time.
Rose was a high A rank healer. She was responsible for healing the party members, removing any debuffs and keeping them fighting.
The next person Lucian saw was Gareth Orden. He was slightly taller than Lucian, but where Lucian was lean, Gareth was built like a fortress. His copper-red hair was cut short on the sides and messy on top, and a thick beard covered most of his face.
He was an A rank and acted as their party's tank. His job was to hold the line and take hits so the rest of them could fight.
Lucian saw Nyx Vohn next. She wasn't fully human; she was half Vahren, wolf beast heritage. The biggest difference between her and the others was her small wolflike ears partially hidden by her short dark steel blue hair. She leaned against the far wall with her arms crossed, watching the door like she always did.
She was an A rank and was the party's assassin. She scouted ahead and killed enemies from the shadows before they even knew she was there.
In the front of the room was Daven Qin, his deep electric blue hair standing out immediately and his sharp violet eyes the first thing you noticed about him. He had his feet kicked up on the table like he owned the place.
He was an A rank and the party's battle mage, equally dangerous at range and in melee.
Last but not least was Mira Solwen. Her silver lavender hair was pale and striking, her eyes a cool grey. She always looked composed, and you could never tell what she was thinking.
She was a high A rank like Rose. She wasn't much of a fighter, but her real value came from coordination and mental warfare.
They all noticed Lucian as soon as he opened the door. It was hard not to; S ranks were terrifying in nature. Their presence alone was incomparable to everyone else's.
The table next to Lucian cracked and repaired itself constantly. His concept was Destruction so things around him tended to break even without him trying, but his other concept was Creation so those same things would repair themselves. Everywhere he walked, things would constantly crack and fix themselves.
Rose was the first to greet him; she smiled and waved at him. "Lucian, finally you're here, the new member is about to come."
Daven scoffed. "Why do we even need a seventh? We've been doing fine all this time with just us six."
"We haven't been doing fine. Just last mission you took a hit that should have killed you if not for Rose healing you," Lucian said.
"I had that under control."
"You were unconscious for two hours, Daven."
"It was controlled unconsciousness; I was just taking a tactical nap."
Gareth let out a laugh so loud the table rattled. "Tactical nap, that's a new one, I'm keeping that."
The door opened behind Lucian, revealing the new member. And he did not look anything like Lucian expected.
He was average height, average build, with dark slightly messy hair that covered his forehead and brown eyes that looked nervous. He wore a sword at his hip that looked like the cheapest thing the guild had in stock. He looked more like a merchant's apprentice than a high A rank fighter.
He spotted the group and smiled nervously, looked at each member with his eyes not maintaining contact for longer than a second before immediately looking away like he was embarrassed he'd smiled at all.
"Um," he said. "Hi, hello. I'm uh, s-sorry, I know I'm a bit early, wait or am I late? The woman at the front desk told me to just come in so I did, but now that I think about it maybe I should have knocked first? Walking in like that without knocking was so rude of me, sorry everyone."
Gareth was already out of his seat. "Noel, right? Noel Crest? Get over here mate, sit down, are you hungry? Of course you're hungry, you've been travelling, I can tell by the look of you."
Noel let himself be dragged toward the table by Gareth, mumbling something about not wanting to be a bother.
Daven looked him up and down. "This is who the guild sent us? Really?"
Noel winced. "I uh, yeah, I get that a lot. I promise I'm better in a fight than I look, which isn't saying much, but I can hold my own. Usually."
Rose smiled at him from across the table, warm and welcoming, and Noel caught it and his ears went red and he suddenly found his own hands very interesting.
Nyx hadn't moved from the wall and hadn't said a word, but her eyes hadn't left the new guy since he walked in.
Mira tilted her head the way she always did when reading someone, then went back to his file without comment.
Lucian let the noise go on for a bit before he spoke, and the room quieted down because that's what happened when he spoke.
"Welcome to the party, Noel. We've got a mission coming up in a few days, that'll be your trial run. Until then, settle in and get to know everyone."
Noel nodded quickly. "Thank you, really. I know you're all, I mean, you're all incredible, and I'm just... I'm going to do my best not to slow you down."
It was a good answer. Humble, earnest, a little self-deprecating. Exactly the kind of thing you'd expect from someone who was nervous and out of their depth.
So why did something about him bother Lucian?
Not his words and not his tone. Nothing he could point to and say that was the problem. Just a feeling in his gut, faint and hard to describe.
Lucian looked at Noel and saw a nervous young man with a kind face and a bad habit of fidgeting with his sleeves. There was nothing wrong with any of it.
He let it go. Gareth was already pulling Noel into one of his stories, and Rose was laughing, and even Daven looked like he was fighting a grin.
Lucian had a mission briefing to prepare and a monster to hunt. The real one. The one who was out there somewhere pulling strings from the shadows while Lucian's party sat in a guild hall welcoming a stranger to the table.
He just hoped the stranger was worth the trouble.