When even a big nation like the human empire with a population of billions is facing a shortage of manpower, then the nations with smaller populations are obviously bound to face more problems.
The meeting went on for a while, and Raji mentioned many other smaller and bigger issues that needed attention.
There were rising tensions on the human-orc empire borders, there were some dungeon outbreaks happening in hard-to-access areas, etc.
Raji assigned specific tasks and missions to each S-ranker before letting them leave the meeting.
All S-rankers had a look of anxiety and worry plastered on their faces as they left the association headquarters.
After all the S-rankers left, only Rio was left in the room, who hadn’t been assigned any missions.
Raji leaned back on her chair with a look of exhaustion and tapped her tablet before saying,
"You have been completing missions with an extremely rapid speed and with great precision; your contribution to the nation has helped stabilize the chaos caused by the Chronos incident..."
"You have already gone beyond limits of your title as the ’Hero of Dawn’... it’s quite impressive to have achieved all of this at such a young age..."
Raji’s eyes became distant as she leaned her head on the back of the comfortable chair and stared at the ceiling of the meeting room in silence for a bit.
"When I was your age... I was just a fool who couldn’t even understand the reality of this world... I was still too foolish to even take my own responsibility..."
"Let alone be a hero for others..."
Rio shook his head at Raji’s words and replied in his usual emotionless tone,
"A ’Hero’ isn’t a fitting title for me... I am not that benevolent and kind; it would be more accurate to call me a ’Fake’ hero pretending to be the real one because there’s no actual ’real’ one present..."
Thinking about this matter, Rio could only sigh to himself.
It was he who caused Fade’s entire destiny to divert and go down a path of no return.
Alverto did interfere a lot, but the reason why he couldn’t do much was Rio.
Rio stole nearly all of the high-level cheats that Fade could have gotten in the early stages of his development, causing his progress to be very slow compared to what it was in the original.
’He should have been an S-ranker by now too if considering the original timeline; after all, unlike me, who has to rely on hard work, he just had to put points in the system and level up...’
Those with the ’system’ and those without it are just way too different. Having a system is like having a torch guiding you through a dark path that you would have had to walk on yourself in pitch darkness otherwise.
"Hehe... that’s how it is... no one is ’perfect,’ and there are no such beings who can be endlessly benevolent and king to everyone..."
"That kind of people rarely ever grace this world with their presence; Astra and King Allen were an example..."
Raji shook her head at Rio’s words and continued,
"You don’t need to consider them as a point of comparison; everyone is unique and everyone has a different ’path’ to follow..."
"Sigh... Forget it; let’s stop talking about this matter here. We need to get back to work..."
Raji straightened her back once again and sat upright before tapping her tablet once again.
Other S-rankers were older folks that used to work directly under Ashtel Rex, and Raji didn’t have much connection with them, as she was much younger than them herself.
Rio, on the other hand, was her own student, and she knew him better than others, so she could relax in front of him for a bit.
After she took a brief moment of rest, she got back to work again.
A hologram appeared and she spoke with a solemn tone.
"Recently we have noticed an odd situation: some S-rank criminals are banding together and has been seen working together when committing atrocities..."
"Moreover, they all seem to be coming and going from a same unpopulated area located around the north near the borders..."
Raji’s eyes narrowed and she spoke.
"I believe that there is some foreign orc criminals mixed in there and as the location is closer to the Orc Kingdom’s border, it’s quite possible they have made it in such a way that they can escape any time..."
"The main issue here is that around a dozen powerful criminals have been noticed repeatedly wandering around this area..."
Rio glanced at the pictures of criminals shown on the hologram and spoke.
"Hmm? Aren’t these the fellow that are next on my target list... I remember these two Orc Foreigners... they seem to be owners of a large smuggling organization..."
"Their organization smuggles human organs for those in the Orc Kingdom to eat and feast on..."
Raji nodded her head at Rio’s words.
"Yeah, the human meat and organs are a high-end luxury food in the Orc Kingdom; they have a craving for such things..."
"The fifty-year Orc war happened to put a complete stop on the frequent Orc attacks... they were frequently attacking border towns to massacre people and harvest their organs..."
"Due to that war, we managed to put a stop on that matter but this gave rise to smuggling organizations as their so-called ’product’ became rare and difficult to acquire..."
Rio looked at the other criminal’s pictures shown in the hologram and noticed that each one of them seemed to have connections with this organization.
"Don’t tell me... These fellows managed to get quite a few innocent people during the chaos when the news about Link’s father’s injury went viral..."
"They might be keeping many people hostage at that hidden location and are slowly smuggling them off one by one..."
Raji nodded her head at Rio’s words.
"Originally all these criminals were scattered across various areas and thus we couldn’t pinpoint the approximate location of their hidden base..."
"But due to your activities all of the criminals have either been forced to leave or band together... this organisation was forced to ask its S-rankers to come together in one place to increase security..."
Rio frowned at those words and asked in confusion,
"Why are they doing this though... don’t they know that this will cause them to expose their base’s location... no matter how many S-rankers they gather, if you went there personally, it will just be useless..."
"Wait a minute... hmm, don’t tell me-"
Raji smiled, seeing that Rio seemed to have realized what was going on.
"Yes, this is a trap prepared to lure me away to that area; it’s an elaborate plan..."
"They know that either you or I personally will go there to rescue the people; they have many S-rankers there and might even have laid out a trap for you..."
"And if I go there perhaps some SS-ranker will appear to stall me, as the area is close to the border... if I don’t go then, you might encounter that SS-ranker..."
Rio narrowed his eyes at that moment.
"The orc empire does not want to see me reaching SS-rank and wants to eliminate me before I grow up... and if you go there then they will stall you and will attack some other place..."
Raji smiled and said,
"Yes, we both know what that other place is..."
"The Rex Mansion."