Fate Online: Shadow

Cling! Cling!

Markus pushed the door open followed by Maya as the sound of bells echoed.

Inside, they saw a woman wearing a pair of glasses sitting while reading something on her phone behind the reception desk just two meters away from the entrance door.

The woman looked towards them and raised one of her eyebrows when she saw their sorry sight.

But she was a professional, so she still smiled as she stood up and while wearing the brightest smile she could offer, and she said "Welcome, a room for two? How long will you be staying?"

Markus and Maya stood rooted on the spot before they looked at each other.

'Did we come to the right place?' Maya couldn't help but have that kind of thought. After all, she was expecting something grander and...not like this where the place is too simple looking.

In fact, she recognized that the style of the inn has similarities to those inns back in Nippon.

"Uhmm...we didn't come here to stay in the room but some other matters," Markus said after a bit of hesitation.

The woman raised her eyebrows and went back to sitting in her chair and said, "Then what is it? Can't you see I'm busy?"

'Busy? More like lazy!' Maya really wanted to stride forward and screamed on her face after hearing that.

Rumble!

Maya and Markus quickly turned around when they heard the unorganized sound of footsteps, and what they saw was a group of ten people armed with weapons standing just outside the building, glaring at them.

The woman's eyes flashed with a glint when she saw them, then she stood up and walked around the desk while wearing a huge grin on her face.

"Oh my! Is tonight my lucky day!?"

"What!? No! They're not guests!" Markus was startled by her sudden action that he couldn't help but yell at her, extremely flustered.

But the woman just ignored him, and Maya hurriedly pulled him back.

Markus looked at her in confusion, "Wha..what are you doing?"

But Maya just shook her head and gestured for him to just shut his mouth and watch, as she wanted to know what this woman is planning to do by going outside.

The woman walked outside towards the group of men.

Markus and Maya couldn't hear anything from inside, but they knew that they are discussing something. In fact, they can even see that the men are slowly surrounding the woman, which worried Markus.

But Maya just looked on, as she already has a feeling that the woman isn't so simple.

"Holy..sh*t!"

Then Markus couldn't help but cursed in shock as he took a couple of steps back, even Maya was surprised when she saw the scene happening before their eyes.

Everything happened so fast that the brains of the two young adults weren't even able to register just what the heck happened!

All they saw was that the five men attack the woman at the same time, but she nimbly dodged all of them before striking back, and all of them fell down on the ground, twitching!

Her attack was so fast that Markus and Maya only saw her attacking the men once before they were defeated, but if Zero, Michael, or others were the once who witnessed this, then they would see that the woman actually struck the men multiple times in their vital points!

This is the reason why they were defeated so fast, and if the woman didn't show them any mercy, they would have died by now.

The woman glared at the men lying on the ground and angrily kicked one of them on the stomach.

Smack!

"As*holes! If you f*cktards are here to cause trouble, then f*ck off!"

The woman dusted her hands off, turned around, and walked back inside with a gloomy face.

Markus and Maya quickly made way for her. Markus swallowed his saliva as he looked at her nervously.

The woman just ignored both of them, and while stomping her feet in anger, she went back behind the reception then looked at the two.

"So, what do you two want!? Spit it out! I don't have the mood to be messing around unless you guys want to end up like those bastards!" she yelled in anger, she even threatened them, not caring that they are still teenagers.

"This…"

Her sudden outburst towards them scared the sh*t out of them, as her gaze gave them the impression that she wouldn't hesitate to kill them if they keep f*cking around.

Markus slowly took out a joker card from his pocket and slowly walked towards the woman and placed it on the desk before her, before he hastily back away in fear.

"A joker card?"

The woman's eyes flashed with a glint when she saw the card before her as she didn't expect a kid would actually possess this kind of item.

Then the woman turned towards Maya and said, "What about you little lady?"

Maya stared at her for a second before she took out another joker card from her backpack and handed it to her.

The woman took it from her and flipped it and saw the two letters on it.

"Shadow" she muttered as she quickly figured out from where these two cards came from.

"I didn't expect I'd see these cards again. It's been over a decade since anyone had presented these cards to me. Do you two know why?" the woman eyed the two while smiling.

Markus and Maya just shook their heads as they don't know what's going on in the mind of this woman as she's asking them questions that they don't even know the answer to.

"It's because we already have internet, silly!" the woman laughed heartily, and the two kids couldn't help but be weirded out with her mood swings that flip like a switch.

"Anyone can just register in the web as long as a member recommends them to our website, or even better, they can just come here or to another branch to register as doing the former will only allow them to have the lowest rank in the organization, a Sword Grass, because they wouldn't be able to participate in determining their rank"

"But...with this"

The woman smiled at them who are now listening intently to her while the two cards kept spinning on top of her two fingers like a basketball.

"You don't need to participate in the exam and will directly be promoted to the Four Blades rank, can choose a weapon of your choice for free and received money amounting to two hundred thousand dollars"

"Pretty awesome, right?" the woman smiled.

Markus nodded, dumbfounded, as he had never expected that there would be a day that he would have two hundred thousand dollars!

After all, he was just an orphan who grew up in the streets and was accidentally embroiled in the underground world.

But Maya on the other hand wasn't excited because of the money, but instead at obtaining a weapon of her choice!

Even though she is the young lady of a somewhat large yakuza clan, she wasn't entitled to their clan's "deadly weapons". Meaning, she wasn't allowed to take weapons from her family's armory and she could only resort to weapons easy to obtain like the police baton that they had used earlier, or low caliber handguns, or weapons that only low-level thugs use.

The woman looked at the two of them with a smile.

"You two are lucky to obtain these joker cards. After all, high ranking members will only give them to prospective talents within their families, and never to outsiders"

Markus and Maya looked at each other hearing that. After all, even the two of them doesn't know why they were scouted by a high ranking member from Continental.

"Now then, shall we start with the procedures?"

She said as she opened a secret compartment on her chair took out two sheets of paper and gave them to the two.

"Fill them up"

Markus and Maya quickly took it from her hands and started filling up the details about them.

A couple of minutes later, they were finally done and handed them to the woman.

"My name is Sonia, Welcome to Continental kiddos"

Sonia smiled at the two, then the two kids smiled excitedly as they looked at each other.

With the papers in her hands, she said to the two, "Follow me inside"

The two kids followed her and closed the sliding door behind them.

Unbeknownst to the two, soon after they left, a blonde-haired woman walked inside and sat behind the reception desk like it was something normal.