With his Mithril Artifact stored perfectly in his pockets, Michael left the forge and returned to the Reborn headquarters in the Parched Lands.

Eventually, he was approached by Jimmy, the news correspondent of the Reborn company.

“Michael…I have good news and I have some not so bad news—sort of,” Jimmy said with pursed lips.

“Tell me the good news first.”

“Well, I can safely say that the Reborn company has achieved enough feats for it to go up in the rankings of the Golden 500,” Jimmy said, tapping his own chest in pride.

“What’s the bad news?” he asked.

“The newspaper company in Anogra City is not large enough to officially upgrade your rankings. The best that they are able to upgrade a company is the 450th rank, which is where you currently rank now.

See, Angora City might be a capital city, but it has already long lost its prestige throughout the years because of the absence of the Golden Road. And the powers that be, declared that Angora City is not competitive enough for a company to achieve a ranking above the 450th rank.”

Michael nodded along. “Does that mean that we have to go somewhere else to get our new ranking?”

“Precisely!” Jimmy slammed his foot. “We need a place that’s really competitive, with lots of high ranking companies to compare ourselves with. There is one location in mind—”

“Let me guess. Metropolis?”

Jimmy looked back at Michael with surprise, wondering how he guessed his next words.

“Yes! Metropolis has a newspaper company that is authorized to give a ranking that is 200 and below! It would be great if you could expand the Reborn company there as your next move.”

Michael already had plans to go to Metropolis because of what Seberus told him. But, advancing in the Golden 500 rankings wouldn’t be too bad either.

“Don’t worry,” he said to Jimmy. “That will be our next move. For now, I would really like it if you go to Metropolis and scout ahead for us. Do you know about a group called the Legacies?”

Jimmy scratched his chin and nodded. “Yes. I have heard of them. They are the ones that have the biggest market shares in Metropolis. It’s not a secret that these guys are inheritors of a conglomerate as well.”

Michael nodded. “I want you to find out what you can about them. Who they are, which family they’re from, that kind of stuff.”

His words sent a fire within Jimmy’s heart. This was just the kind of task that would scratch his journalistic itch.

“You can count on me, Michael! I won’t disappoint!”

Jimmy didn’t wait any longer and took a train back to the Queens region. Michael offered for him to use a Shadow Orc for teleportation, but the rookie journalist refused, saying that he needed to ‘feel the ground by himself,’ whatever that meant.

Once Michael dealt with that, he soon entered the main office building of Reborn, where he saw a completely different vision than the one he was used to.

Jaku, Zion, Fudge, and even Grieve, was stuck in four connected desks, doing their best to sift through piles and piles of paperwork with Sheina just behind them, with a bow locked and loaded ready to fire.

“Lord Michael! Welcome back!” Sheina greeted with a smile, but never letting the tension in her bow loose.

“Bro Mike…help!” Zion muttered, lethargic. His eyes looked unfocused, as if he was starting to go crazy.

“Haa….no more…” Jaku said, with his scales paler than even Sheina. The Dragonborn looked like he had wilted!

“Master! This is not the ninja way!” Fudge complained, looking like a puddle of violet liquid on the table.

“I’m sad…huh? What was I saying….oh right…I’m sad…” Grieve, on the other hand, somehow looked even more aged even though he was already a skeleton.

While the boyz were having the worst time of their lives, the girls, on the other hand, were just relaxing on the balcony outside, drinking tea and chuckling to themselves.

Umisu, Yuna, Vivi, Virian, and his mother were all passing around hot tea and biscuits, enjoying the view of the Nation of Reborn outside.

And the one that was serving them was none other than his father, Bart! The dignified Vanderbilt businessman was reduced to being a butler in front of these women.

“Dad? What are you doing here?” he asked.

Bart looked back up at Michael and smiled. Meanwhile, Lylia was the one who answered for him.

“Your father here is proving his worth to us. To see if he could go with us or not.”

Michael was confused. “Go where?”

Lylia chuckled. “With you, silly! You’re going to expand the Nation of Reborn to Metropolis aren’t you? Well, you’re going to need a lot of support. And who better to go with you than us, your parents? Oh Bart, more tea, please.”

Bart obediently poured tea in her cup. Then, he quickly turned to Yuna. “Yuna, dear? Would you like one as well?”

Yuna smiled back and nodded. “Yes please!”

“Of course!” Bart replied. “Anything for my future daughter-in-law.”

Michael soon turned lethargic as well, slumping down on the chair right next to him.

“There’s…there’s two of them,” he grimaced.

One of the reasons why he fixed up his parents was because he wanted them to entertain each other. He thought that if they returned to their marriage, they would stay in the Nation of Reborn and stop bothering him with all these awkward set-ups with Yuna.

But as it turned out, he was completely wrong. He had just created another monster!

“Okay, shift’s over. You all have five minutes of break before you start on another batch of paperwork,” Sheina said to the boyz, lowering her bow.

With the workload no longer bearing down on their shoulders, the boyz slumped down on the ground.

“I can’t do this anymore…” Jaku whimpered.

Michael consoled him and weeped with him as well.

As the boyz bonded through mutual pain, Fudge immediately sprang back into normal form and signalled for the boys to look at him.

“Psst!” Fudge whispered.

The slime first looked back at the girls. Thankfully, Sheina had already taken a seat at the tea table with her back turned away from them.

Fudge discreetly hopped on over to the backrooms of the office, where boxes and shelves of paperwork were being stored.

Michael and the boyz looked back at the girls before slowly making their way towards the backrooms.

Once they entered inside, they were met with a very dark room with the lights turned off.

Then, the door closed.

A single light clicked right on top of them as Fudge appeared beside them and forced them to huddle up into a circle.

“Why are we here?” Michael asked Fudge.

“Master. Don’t you want to be away from this place? Don’t you want to just be free from paperwork, from responsibility, from Sheina?!”

The Dragonborns nodded vehemently, while Grieve quietly disagreed (he already forgot what she put him through).

“I have heard something from the Shadow Orcs,” Fudge said, looking at everyone with a serious face.

“They said that Flarecorp is scrambling to escape something. They’ve started to evacuate Batchrock town as well. And it seems that one of their major officers, the 2nd-in-command, is running away in our direction! He’s on his way to Angora City as we speak!

Boys. It’s time for a hunt!”

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