After calling Ava and setting up an appointment with her, I asked Smallsnake to send me an official contract.

Today I was planning on recruiting Ava.

The location of our meetup was the same cafe' Amanda had brought me a couple of months back.

It was fairly secluded and was ideal for these kinds of deals.

"Over here, Ava"

Not long after I entered the cafe and sat down, I spotted Ava's figure entering the place. Standing up, I called out for her.

Spotting me, Ava headed in my direction.

"Thank you for coming"

"Ah-h, no problem Ren"

Lowering her head, Ava shyly sat down on the seat opposite of me.

"Would you like to order anything? It's on me"

I offered as I handed her the menu.

"No, thank you" Ava shook her head, "So...what did you want to talk about?"

'Straight to the point, I see...'

Well, it was understandable.

The relationship between Ava and I could only be considered to be as 'close acquaintances'

We weren't really friends, and given Ava's shy nature, I more or less understood why she wanted to get this over with quickly.

"Here"

Taking out a stack of papers from my dimensional space, I slid them over to Ava.

In it were the details of the contract that Smallsnake had sent me.

It had all the information regarding the salary, working hours, benefits, and other things that she would get if she worked for me.

"What's this?"

Looking at the papers, Ava tilted her head to the side.

"Just read it"

"Okay..."

Taking the papers, Ava started to read them.

After a couple of minutes, I watched as Ava's brows knit together tightly.

Lifting her head up, she asked in a soft voice,"Y-You're trying to recruit me?"

"Indeed" I smiled, "I want to recruit you to my mercenary group. Are you willing?"

"..."

Ava didn't respond immediately. She proceeded to flip through the papers one more time.

"...Sorry"

After a short pause, Ava closed the papers and pushed them back in my direction. Putting my hand on the papers, I raised my other hand.

"Before you refuse, listen to what I have to say"

Watching her push the papers back, I wasn't disheartened one bit.

From the very beginning, I was prepared to be rejected.

A 16-year old boy recruiting you to a newly established mercenary group that barely had any members.

No matter how you look at it, this deal looked shady.

I understood that.

That was why negotiations existed.

"Ava, you're talented. No, to call you talented would be an understatement. You are extremely talented"

Smiling, pushed the papers back, and started praising her. In response to the praise, Ava's face turned red.

"M-me?"

"Yes, just the fact that you can contract with two beasts at once is proof enough"

Typically monster tamers could only tame one beast at a time. This applied to even the strongest monster tamers on earth.

However, Ava could tame two at the same time.

This alone proved that she was extremely talented in the art of monster taming. She needed to understand this.

"B-but, they won't listen to my orders"

"You're too hasty Ava"

"What do you mean?"

"Don't compare yourself to the others. Just the fact that you're <F> rank is enough proof that you're talented. If you compare yourself to other people then, of course, you will look a lot less talented compared to them. However, keep in mind that you're a monster tamer"

Monster tamers tend to develop at a much slower pace than the others.

This was because they mainly focused on training their pets rather than themselves. Their slow progress was in every right, understandable.

Because Ava was exposed to such an amazing class filled with prodigies like Kevin and the others, she had started to subconsciously think that she was not talented.

This was not correct.

Compared to the other students, in terms of ranking, she was above average.

Most shockingly however was that she was above average whilst being a monster tamer. A profession that grew much slower than other professions.

Though she and the others did not notice, she was in fact a prodigy herself.

She needed to understand that.

"Thank you for your kind words, but I'm still not sure..."

"Don't reject me jus—"

Listening to what I had to say, Ava lowered her head and muttered in a low voice. She once again tried to reject me.

Tiiriing— Tiiriing—

Just as I was about to respond, my phone suddenly rang. My brows knit.

'What now…'

"Scuse me for a second"

"No problem, take your time"

Taking out my phone, my already furrowed brows tightened. Checking the foremost notification, I noticed that the sender was Emma.

[Um, I need your help. What gift should I buy for Kevin's birthday? Can you tell me?]

"…"

Shaking my head, I turned off my phone.

Now was not the time for me to deal with this. Turning my attention back to Ava, I decided to unravel my trump card.

"Ava, there's one more thing I forgot to mention when giving you the contract"

"What is it?"

"If you join, this will be yours..."

Taking out a pale green flute from my dimensional space, I gently placed it on the table.

"A flute?"

Curiously asked Ava as she looked at the flute on the table.

"It's not just any regular flute, have a look"

Smiling, I handed Ava the flute.

"T-this..."

Cautiously taking the flute, I watched as Ava's eyes opened widely. Holding onto the flute, Ava's hands trembled uncontrollably.

"Yeah, you're seeing it right. This is your ticket to the top"

Propping my chin up, the edged of my lips curled upwards.

'This should be enough to entice her to join, no?'

Presented with the opportunity to change her fate, Ava wouldn't reject me, right?

Had I been in her position, I would join without even flinching. Looking at Ava whose eyes did not leave the flute once, I once again asked.

"So, do you still wish to refuse?"

***

At the same time.

"Is he still going to ignore my text?"

Emma grumbled as she looked at her phone.

About an hour ago, she had sent Ren a text. It was regarding Kevin's gift. Despite agonizing over this issue for a whole week, she still couldn't figure out what gift to buy for his birthday.

Out of desperation, she decided to ask Ren.

He had yet to reply to her text.

"Ghhh, he definitely ignored my message..."

Gnashing her teeth, Emma put her phone away. There was no way Ren had not seen her message yet, in all likelihood he had ignored her.

'What should I do?', placing her hand on her chin, Emma mused.

With Ren not even bothering to text her back, Emma had no idea how to proceed next.

"Ah! Maybe Amanda can help me"

Suddenly Emma's eyes lit up. Amanda could definitely help her.

Heading out of her room, she decided to ask for Amanda's aid.

Though she did text Amanda today, she had still not gotten a response from her which was strange since she would always respond promptly.

As such, Emma decided to directly go to her.

Since they lived in the same building, it didn't take long for Emma to arrive at Amanda's room.

—Knock! —Knock!

Arriving before the door that lead to Amanda's room, Emma knocked.

"Hm, no response?"

A minute after knocking, Emma got no response.

—Knock!

'Did she perhaps not hear me knock?'

Plausible. Emma knocked again.

Yet again, no one responded.

"She's probably out" Emma muttered as she shook her head, "What do I do now?"

Standing in front of Amanda's room for a solid minute, Emma lowered her head.

In the end, she chose to give up and return to her room. She'll try to ask Amanda again later.

***

9:48 P.M.

—So you're saying that she rejected your offer?

"Yeah"

Standing outside of the balcony of my room with my phone on my ear, I responded. On the other side of the phone was Smallsnake.

—Even after you showed her the artifact and everything?

"mhm, I guess the offer wasn't tempting enough..."

Despite showing Ava the flute of Artemis as well as the lucrative contract, she rejected me.

This caught me off guard.

Almost blindsided me as I was confident in what I had to offer.

Even now, I couldn't wrap my head around the fact that Ava had rejected me.

If I were to have been in her position, I would've immediately have agreed to sign the contract.

Especially after seeing the flute of Artemis. A cheat like item that would make any monster tamer drool at its sight.

—So what are your plans now that you failed?

Smallsnake asked.

"I'm not sure, I'll have to think things through. What about you? How's the situation with Ryan going?"

—Ryan? Everything is going well. Though he still hasn't signed the contract yet, Leopold and I have already met him once. He came to the headquarters yesterday.

"Haaa...That's great"

At least this was a piece of good news.

After failing to recruit Ava this morning, my mood had soured quite a bit.

At the very least I could take this piece of news as a consolation prize.

'I guess there are times when things just don't work out...'

Bothersome, but this was just how life went. Nothing was ever going to go as I planned.

Sometimes life just loved to throw curveballs at you.

—Alright Ren, I have to go. Call me if you need anything

"Alright"

Slowly closing my eyes, I hung up the phone.

—Tak!

Putting my phone inside of my dimensional space, I proceeded to head to the training room inside of my apartment.

Opening the doors that led to the training grounds, I looked at Angelica who was sitting crossed-legged in the middle of the room.

"Angelica"

"What is it human?"

Angelica opened her eyes slightly.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Make it quick"

Angelica coldly said. Small undulations of demonic energy emitted from her body.

Ignoring the uncomfortable feeling I was getting from her energy, I scratched my neck.

"Right, how is Silug doing?"

The previous conversation with Smallsnake reminded me of something.

It was that there was still a member out there.

Silug.

After having returned from Immorra, with everything that was going on, I wasn't able to check on how he was doing.

Fortunately, there was Angelica.

"Silug?"

Fully opening her eyes, Angelica once again asked.

"Yeah, how is he doing?"

Since Angelica had signed a contract with Silug, I knew that she could contact him whenever she wanted.

Thanks to that I could now figure out Silug's situation as well as Immorra's.

With time flowing ten times slower than Immorra, a year or so should've passed since I had come back here. Many things should've changed whilst I was gone.

Though I knew Silug was still alive as Angelica was still right in front of me, I wanted to know if anything major had happened during the time that I had left.

"As of now, nothing major happened"

Angelica apathetically said as she once again closed her eyes.

"Nothing major happened, meaning that the war is still ongoing?"

"Yes"

"...then, has he broken through?"

"No, if he did I would've felt it"

"Right..."

That was stupid of me to ask.

If Silug broke through to S rank then Angelica would've also seen a considerable boost in power.

Since it wasn't like that, it meant that he had still not broken through.

"Any more questions?"

"No, that's enough for now"

I shook my head.

This was enough to appease my curiosity.

'That aside, I just hope that everything works out fine...'

The reason why I was asking about Silug was because he was a double-edged sword.

Like I've said before, although he said that he would serve me after I helped him with his revenge, I couldn't just trust his words.

In the first place, the reason why he had even agreed to my terms was because I had taken advantage of his situation.

By taking advantage of his thirst for revenge, I convinced him to join my side.

However...

Once he got his revenge and his emotions stabilized, I wasn't sure whether he would honor his words.

Would he still submit to me or would he rebel?

I wasn't sure.

Perhaps at first, he would honor his words, but as time passed and his influence in Immorra rose, there was a possibility of him getting drunk on his power and just outright ignoring my orders when the time came that I needed him for something.

This was a very real possibility that I couldn't exclude.

Though I had chained him with Angelica's contract, I knew that this wasn't a viable long-term option.

Excluding Angelica's five-year contract, if Silug became too powerful then in all likelihood there was a chance that he could break the contract naturally.

Though he would face a backlash, it was a still plausible situation that I couldn't discard.

I needed to quickly think of a solution to this new problem I was facing.

'More annoying is the fact that I don't have much time to work with...'

From two months to six months, that was how long I estimated the war of Immorra to last for.

After that, it would take anything between 10-50 years Immorran years for him to fully solidify his position as the leader of the orcs

During that time period of time, I had to think of a solution.

'The easiest solution would be for me to become stronger than Silug'

If I could beat Silug in a one-on-one battle, then there was a high chance that he would submit to me for real.

Since orcs valued power, this was the easiest solution I could think of.

The only problem was the time frame.

'Can I really reach <S> rank in five years?'

I wasn't sure. Though possible, I could not take it for granted.

I needed backup plans.

Unfortunately, my head was currently empty. I really wasn't sure how to proceed next.

"Sigh, there's so much I needed to do in so little time"

Letting out a long extended sigh, I scratched the back of my neck.

For now, it was best if I stopped overthinking things.

One step at a time.

Everything had an order, I couldn't rush things.