The five of them treated the rest of the day as a holiday, peacefully relaxing after a stressful mission. They'd wandered around the town of Gallagar indulging themselves to a little fun.
"Man, I wonder who that masked dude was." Dalen thought aloud. "He was ridiculously strong."
"I wonder if he'll reform the bandit group and continue." Fae wondered.
"Unlikely." Rui pitched in. "Not any time soon, anyway. His men were slaughtered and he lost his Martial Apprentice subordinates, bar the masked Martial Artist. Rebuilding the bandit group to its former size and strength is going to take a while."
"I doubt he even wants to, in the first place." Kane said. "He kinda got his ass whooped."
They headed back to the inn after a while, heading to sleep.
The next morning, they cleaned up. Taking the opportunity to head to the Lowminer Industries branch of Gallagar. They quickly boarded the transport provided by the Lowminers, and headed straight back home. Rui used this time to gather his thoughts on the mission.
Although he was feeling pretty proud and content with his performance, looking at it more objectively he had to admit that things were pretty stacked in their favour in hindsight. They had eight Martial Apprentices against the five Martial Apprentices. It would be embarrassing if more than two managed to get away.
Still, this did not take away his sense of achievement.
Sometimes, things just went your way, and sometimes they didn't. In his first mission, things were ridiculously stacked against him. This was a bit of a compensation, in a way.
All he could do was be grateful and move on.
Half a day passed uneventfully, and they reached Hajin, and eventually, the main Lowminer Industries branch in Hajin.
"Should we really visit him before we complete post-mission protocol?" Rui wondered.
"Well, he did handle our housing and transport." Fae said. "Let's just pay him a quick visit before heading back."
Rui shrugged. He wasn't particularly in any hurry, and he was a little curious about what the man had to say.
"Welcome!" Savin said once they entered his office. "I've already been given a detailed report by the Martial Apprentices of our company. Allow me to begin by expressing my gratitude, I am thoroughly grateful for your services and performance. I was quite pleased to hear that all but two bandits were eliminated, this is more than good enough to achieve the desired result."
"We were just completing our mission." Fae responded. "We are appreciative of your gratitude."
She left the floor open to him.
"As a token of our gratitude, we have decided to double the bonus reward." Savin smiled charmingly. "We hope we have not burdened you in an untoward manner during this mission."
Rui immediately understood what was going on. ('He's currying favour with the Martial Union.')
There were several reasons he would do this. Firstly, the Martial Union was an entity that basically ruled the Kandrian Empire after the Royal Family. Kissing its ass was always a good thing to do. Secondly, Rui was cognizant enough to realize that the Lowminer Industries were probably worried they had annoyed the Martial Union.
They had clashed with the Martial Union's mission very directly during the events of Rui's first mission, directly causing its failure, that too with a private Martial Apprentice. Although there was no straightforward concrete evidence asides from Wern's words, the truth was the truth and the Martial Union was not stupid. They knew who was responsible for Bella's death, the Lowminers knew the Martial Union knew, and the Martial Union knew the Lowminers knew.
Furthermore, this particular mission was somewhat unorthodox as well. It wasn't deviant as the first mission which was a whole four ranks under-graded. But the Lowminers did in fact exploit the Martial Union to some degree with their hidden operation.
Although the Martial Union would not directly retaliate over such a trivial matter, it was still in their best interests to mend their shaky relationship with the Martial Union. Even the tiniest bit of effort from the Martial Union's end could utterly annihilate every trace of the Lowminer Industries from the face of the country.
The Lowminers were top dogs, however that was limited to a handful of sectors and industries across a handful of towns. They could not compare to nation-wide companies or even region-wide companies.
This was the only reason Rui could think for the Lowminers to go as far as doubling the bonus reward.
Not that Rui was complaining. Double the reward would result in a total of one thousand martial credits!
This when summed up with Rui's existing balance, resulted in 1153 martial credits!
This sum was above Rui's set bar to reach for purchasing new techniques and immersing himself in training.
Rui was so excited that he could barely control himself from shivering and jumping in ecstasy.
With such a solid budget, the techniques he could purchase would be just as reliable. The foundational techniques he had obtained for free weren't too bad, however they were just barely enough to allow Martial Apprentices to complete simple missions. The Martial Academy had carefully made a select set of techniques free so that the Apprentices would just be strong enough to be able to earn credits to purchase more techniques.
To be honest, the shortcomings of his techniques were already starting to become apparent. He had begun to feel that during his first mission with Bella, but had really noticed this during this mission in the Shadow Trails. He could sense that he was probably the most under-developed Martial Apprentice in that entire battle.
He was able to compensate for this with the predictive and counter-deductive capacity of the VOID algorithm, but this was not a long-term solution. This wasn't particularly his fault, he had barely been a Martial Apprentice for half a year and was much stronger than any Martial Apprentice that inexperienced.
But now that would change, once he finished with this round of training, he estimated he would reach a whole new level of capability.