Inside the recruitment center, Kyra was greeted by a cheerful old man. "Welcome to the Ucha! Are you here to register with us today?"

  She peered over his shoulder at a densely packed waiting room and then over at the service counters where less than half were staffed.

  She turned back to the greeter. "Uh, I don't know anymore."

  "Turnaround is quicker than it looks," he said in a well-rehearsed bit. "We'll have you on your way in an hour."

  "You think an hour is quick, huh?"

  His smile faltered a little. "The hunter community has been growing rapidly, and it's been a challenge keeping our services up to pace."

  "Why can't they keep up?" she asked. When he hesitated, she leaned in close and whispered, "I may have a line to senior management. Don't worry, I can leave your name out of it."

  He shook his head. "It isn't like there's anything they can do about it. Our appraisers keep getting poached. They're a hot commodity in the civilian sectors."

  This matched what Tristis had told her too. Not many businesses were in need of a swordmaster, but everyone had a use for appraisal.

  "I wish I had the aptitude for it," the greeter continued. "I bought a copy of the skill sheet and studied for a month before I gave up and sold it on."

  "I'm sorry," she said.

  The greeter handed her a ticket and a form. "Once your number is called, the registration process doesn't take long at all. The customer service agent will read your rank and print out your ID card on the spot. You can speed things up by making sure you've filled out the form ahead of time."

  "Isn't there some sort of test?" she asked.

  "There's no need for that when we've got appraisers. They can assess you at a glance. Getting a promotion is just as easy."

  She thanked the man and found somewhere quiet to fill out the form before shuffling over to wait among the crowd of people. One could easily mistake the Ucha recruitment center for something like the department of motor vehicles, as visually there was nothing to tell hunters apart from civilians.

  The turnover at the desks was quite fast, but there were so many people waiting that it was close to an hour before her number was called. From there everything happened quickly just as the greeter promised, and soon she was holding her freshly minted ID card. Her official rank was printed in large orange font. E.

  It was a carefully chosen level. Low enough not to draw attention to herself, high enough to open some doors. Outside of special cases like her disciples and special government programs that predated Teelameer, the highest rank among the hunter community at the moment was C, and those individuals were well ahead of the bell curve.

  She waved to the greeter and exited out the back to a courtyard where the guilds had been allowed to set up stalls. Freshly registered hunters swarmed up and down the lanes like students at a job fair.

  It had been a couple of months since the inception of the United Concordian Hunters Association, or the Ucha as everyone called it, and the guilds were thriving. Money was flowing in from all directions. At first governments issued bounties for clearing dungeons, as all were terrified of becoming a second Teelameer. But the bounties were dropped when it became clear that dungeon loot was lucrative enough on its own to draw hunters in. The Ucha passed a bylaw requiring hunters to completely clear any dungeon they raided, in that way eliminating any risk of a breakout, and everyone was happy.

  The largest stall belonged to a guild called the Knights of Lacris-Cheree. It was also the busiest, and all five attendants were already engaged in conversation with potential recruits when she arrived. She didn't mind waiting, and picked up a pamphlet to have a quick read.

  She noticed one of the attendants looking over while answering questions from a younger woman. When they made eye contact, he excused himself and approached her.

  "Are you looking to join the Knights?" he asked.

  She glanced over at the hunter he'd left behind. "It looks like the other lady still needs your help. I can wait."

  "She's very indecisive," he replied. "I'm just giving her a moment to think things over."

  That moment turned out to be very short before the other lady walked away in a huff. She was an E-rank and her status showed a broad range of aptitudes from swords to magic. There wasn't any clear reason why the attendant would snub her for Kyra.

  "We're the largest guild within the borders of Charais Gamor," the attendant said proudly. "The pay is highly competitive, and we're more professional than any of the small guilds, so you can be assured you're in good hands."

  She asked about the pay, and it was indeed impressive.

  "Since you're a healer, there's also a signing bonus if you stick around for twelve months," the attendant added.

  Healer was the specialization she'd chosen for her undercover work because healers generally didn't participate actively in combat. There was less of a chance of giving herself away.

  "I'm not really looking to commit. Do you do daily contracts?"

  "Those aren't available for healers, I'm sorry to say. But if you're worried about work-life balance, we're very flexible. Some of our healers only do two raids a week."

  "If I do two raids a week for you, can I still do contracts with other guilds the other three days?" she asked.

  "That's the one thing you can't do, I'm afraid. We have a strict policy against secondary employment. For safety reasons, you see. The last thing we want is anyone to get hurt because a team member showed up tired from working a second job."

  As plausible as the reason sounded, she felt like there had to be more to it.

  "If you're restricting their ability to work the other three days, does that mean you're also paying them as normal for those days?" she asked.

  The attendant nodded. "That's right. Our healers are treated very well."

  As much money as the raids were known to bring in, the guild would surely be making a loss on those healers. Particularly in low-rank dungeons when magical treasures were rather sparse. But the attendant didn't have the answers to satisfy her, and his colleagues were just as clueless, so she excused herself and moved on.

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  The next largest stall belonged to the Hunters of Myrrh. An attendant came over immediately to greet her.

  "What are you looking for in a guild?" the young woman asked. She had a warm, bubbly smile and didn't look like she'd ever set foot in a dungeon.

  "I'm just getting a feel for what's out there," she replied. She had to remind herself that you couldn't judge a hunter by the way they looked. After all, anyone looking at her wouldn't think she knew her way around a sword. Magic had completely changed everyone's potential.

  "I saw you over at the Knights' tent," the attendant said. "They may be bigger than us in Charais Gamor, but Myrrh is truly international. We have a guild hall in all ten member states of the association. Wherever you want to work, whether it's a couple of months in the Dominion or a year in Ashba, we can accommodate you."

  "It sounds like you really enjoy it there," she said.

  "Our leadership really looks after us," the attendant said with genuine enthusiasm. "We're so lucky in Lacris-Cheree because the vice guildmaster is based right here. Gabriella the Thunder Witch. You must have heard of her."

  "Who hasn't?" The top hunters in every country had become more famous than football players.

  "She's incredible," the attendant gushed. "Besides being a top hunter—one of the few C-rankers in the world—she's always engaging with the community and advocating for our interests. We have her to thank for the creation of the hunters compensation fund."

  Kyra was actually more familiar with Gabriella than she let on. The Thunder Witch was one of the hunters featured in Benny's dossiers. Therefore it came as no surprise that her star had risen so prominently.

  "You should join our guild," the attendant said. "We have a special incentive at the moment for healers."

  They discussed the pay, which turned out to be even better than what the Knights were offering.

  "I didn't realize healers were so valuable," she said.

  "A party can raid without a mage," the attendant explained, "but they won't get far without a healer. The moment someone is injured, the day is over, and if they're unlucky, that person may even die."

  Strictly speaking, this wasn't true at the higher ranks, when hunters gained the natural ability to regenerate. But the hunter community was too young for this to be common knowledge.

  "How can you afford those rates?" she asked.

  "Gabriella says we're investing in the future. Today's E-ranker is tomorrow's C-ranker."

  After several minutes of learning more about the Thunder Witch's management style than she cared for, Kyra excused herself and moved on.

  Besides the two major guilds, there were a handful of midsized guilds in Charais Gamor. These were classified as guilds that could field more than one raiding team at a time.

  But making up the bulk of the stalls were the minor guilds. These were single-team guilds, and there were far more of those than represented here. The ones who bothered to set up a stall had growth aspirations. The rest were close-knit groups of friends and family, the hunter equivalent of a garage band.

  Her intention in coming here was to gain an understanding of the hunter culture in Charais Gamor, and she stopped by every stall for a chat.

  When she got to the stall for a midsized guild called Joan's Gossip, there was only one attendant present. This wasn't unusual even for a guild of this size, but what set this one apart was her rank. D-rank was unusually high to be relegated to stall duty.

  The attendant caught Kyra's eye and smiled. "How's everyone been treating you?"

  Kyra replied, "I don't know who's trying harder to impress—us or you."

  "Definitely us. Do you want to know why?"

  She hazarded a guess. "Because I'm a healer."

  "Most in-demand specialist of the moment. Everyone must be hitting on you hard." The woman held out her hand. "I'm Noemi."

  "Kyra." They shook.

  "You've probably figured it out by now," Noemi said, "that if you want pay, no one can beat the Knights and Myrrh. But there's something more important that you should be looking out for."

  Noemi leaned in conspiratorially and spoke in hushed tones. "In a dungeon, your life is in the hands of your team just as theirs is in yours. So the most important question is always, Can you trust these people with your life?"

  Noemi straightened up with a broad grin like she'd just driven home a profound point.

  Kyra cleared ther throat. "Is that why your guild has relegated you to this stall?"

  Noemi pretended to be abashed. "It isn't like that at all! I volunteered to be here. Volunteered!"

  With the energy and liveliness that Noemi brought to the conversation, Kyra could believe that she'd actually volunteered for this.

  Noemi pointed a thumb at herself. "I may not look it, but I'm a team captain. The fact that I'm here personally is proof that I live by what I preach. Recruiting the right person is really important because I'll be entrusting them with the lives of my team!"

  In spite of her playfulness, Noemi did have an air of reliability about her, and getting to D-rank was already proof of her dedication. But she appeared to still be in her twenties and possessed a youthful optimism that made Kyra question if she could really pick out who to trust.

  "If you're the team captain and you're here, does that mean your team doesn't have any work?" Kyra asked.

  "Unfortunately we lost our healer recently, so we're going to need to find a replacement before we can do any raiding."

  She frowned. "You lost your healer?"

  It seemed to dawn on Noemi how ominous her words sounded. "No, no, it isn't what you think! She left for another guild. Went to the Knights actually."

  "You're trying to recruit me to your guild, and you're telling me that your last healer thought that the Knights would be a better place to work?"

  "The higher pay is hard to resist," Noemi replied. "The big guilds have deep pockets. Smaller guilds like ours can't compete."

  "You aren't doing a very good job selling your guild to me."

  "Please don't judge our guild by how terrible a salesperson I am. Why don't you come meet the gang before making up your mind?" Noemi handed her a pamphlet.

  Kyra added the pamphlet to her collection and moved on to the next stall. It was another hour before she finished the loop and left the recruitment center.

  She sent a message to Tristis asking him to call her. Previously they were only able to exchange secure messages by text, but since the new Ucha facilities had been set up, he'd assured her that the voice calls were now also safe—but only when he was in his office.

  The problem had been that while no one could listen in on their calls, they could still tell that the two of them had been in communication. But now they could only tell that she'd been talking to someone at the Ucha office, and it no longer looked out of place alongside all the other calls going through the same channels.

  The diversion at the recruitment center had been worth it to learn about the potential healer shortage. While there would naturally always be some specializations in shorter supply than others, this was the worst specialization to be short on. Teams without a healer couldn't raid, and teams that didn't raid weren't growing stronger. And the one thing that Concordia definitely needed to survive into the future was strong hunters. Lots of them.

  The secure call from Tristis came in. He listened while she described the problem.

  "This shouldn't be happening," he said. "The data shows that there should be plenty of healers to go around."

  "That isn't what it looks like on the ground," she said.

  "I'll look into it and get back to you," he promised. "Do you have any other instructions for me?"

  "No. Do you have something to report?"

  "I do actually. Lori has figured out how to mass-produce appraisal sheets. This should solve the staffing issues at the recruitment centers. And with the revenue it will bring in, we'll be able to expand our research department."

  She couldn't help sharing in his joy. "You guys should be proud of yourselves."

  "The other associations will be asking for our new method," he continued.

  "Give it to them."

  "Of course, of course," he chirped. "I'll have our analysts work out an appropriate rate."

  "No, just give it away."

  There was a moment of hesitation on the other side of the line. "If the other associations can access our method for free, we're going to lose a valuable revenue stream."

  She understood his reluctance. It wasn't just the loss of royalties they could be charging. It was also the competition in sales. If the Ucha was the only association able to produce appraisal sheets on a large scale, they would effectively have a monopoly. This meant high prices and big profits. But with the other associations having access to the same method, they could undercut the Usha. Prices go down, and so do the profits.

  Tristis was focused on building the association. He had big dreams for that money.

  But her mission wasn't to make money. And if greed was enough to save the world, she wouldn't be here.

  "The only way humankind survives is if we all work together," she said. "We must share our knowledge so that the other associations don't waste valuable resources duplicating our efforts. Do your best to negotiate an open research policy, but don't hold this technology in reserve."

  "I'll do as you command, but I'm not so sure the other associations will follow our cooperative approach," Tristis said. "We could end up falling behind in the race for magical technology with nothing to show for it."

  "The race isn't against each other," she replied. "It's against time. And we can only expect others to follow if we take the lead."