Chapter 696 (1/2)

With a deep breath, Naffur brought his focus back. Although his hands were trembling, he picked up the letters.

Just take steps forwards. The results will come with practice.

There was note that gave Naffur some encouragement. After the Lottery, Naffur had access to a new Path: the Path of the Order Ducis I. It had even been a measly 50 PP. In the intervening four weeks since it had happened, Naffur had even been able to finish it. But the rewards he got were a bit… strange.

He received a big boost to his health and two Skills: Summon Mask (Un) and the Devil’s Luck for Entrances (L). Both had proven to be more disturbing than useful thus far.

Naffur’s eyes flicked to some of the newspapers piled beside his bed, but his stomach twinged strangely, so he returned to the letters. After burning at least 25, he finally had reduced all of the applications to two: The Order Sanus and the Order Machina.

There wasn’t a quota, per se, for what he had to allow. Or at least Naffur hadn’t been told about one. The Ghosthound could do as he pleased as far as Naffur could tell, and as of right now Naffur was something of a proxy for Neveah, who was a proxy for a Ghosthound.

It was all rather confusing.

There were a few things that Naffur did know.

There would be a summit for the Orders in a few days, on the same day of Mareen’s party. That was part of the reason that Naffur was so shocked. Neveah had delivered the invitation and itinerary to Naffur that morning by silently causing them to appear in Naffur’s room, just as she did with the letters and money. It was somewhat disturbing that it was so easy for Neveah, but Naffur figured that for all she wasn’t the Ghosthound, her dealing with the terrorists proved she was far beyond him.

Luckily the meeting was for earlier in the day, while Mareen’s party was in the afternoon. And they were both in the Eastern Gardens of the Orchard. With this fact, and Neveah’s delivery, Naffur felt quite pressured to attend.

But what did they expect him to do once he was there…!?!

Pacing back and forth, Naffur’s eyes kept flicking to the itinerary laying on the crumpled pile of bedding which was where he slept.

The meeting marked three months since the Orders were founded, and would review what had occurred and needed to be addressed. It also seemed that these meetings would become a semi-annual event.

One of the items on the agenda was “review recommendations of the Order Ducis for appropriate groups to become orders”.

“Fuck this…” Naffur finally whispered with a shake of the head. He was hungry. The decision over these two orders could wait.

Without much fanfare, he hopped down and gripped the scaffolding to climb down from his roost with all the grace of a monkey. Although the Skill rewards for the Order Ducis I Path were Skills, he had also gained 50 free stat points from it. With those points, he was physically much improved, because most of the points went to Strength, Agility, and Perception.

The noise of his landing was a soft one, and Naffur brushed him off before he walked around the corner and found him faced with three individuals.

Congratulations! Your Skill The Devil’s Luck for Entrances has become Lvl 26!

Congratulations! Your Skill Summon Mask has become Level 12!

Naffur’s expression became ugly as he viewed the two masked men holding up knives to an elderly man with an expensive looking leather backpack. This shit again…!

HIs Skills were more trouble than they were worth.

The Devil’s Luck for Entrances (L): There is a small chance to walk in on a situation in a key moment, for good or ill. That chance is vastly increased when the concerned parties are related to the Skillholder, or thinking about the Skillholder. Frequency increases with Skill Level. The timing of the entrance is perfected with Skill Level increases.