New Party Member Acquired

"How does this make sense?" A furious fist was slammed down on the table, breaking it in half. "Why are the subsidiaries disappearing?"

The assistant stammered, "We.. we don't know s-sir!" He was terrified of his boss, the man in front of him. His boss's name was Cade, a powerful man who was the boss of the Goblin Gang.

All those who knew him understood that he should not have this position. But they couldn't go against him because he always found a way to exert his power on insubordination.

Cade was mad because all of the companies that were under his gang had been killed off one by one, and now only the main building was left.

Even worse, no one knew the culprit. There were no survivors and only one piece of security footage remained. It was the first one, where the man was shown as having a powerful and intricate pistol.

But that was it. He had no definite eyes or hair color, his height was difficult to measure, and his face was almost completely obscured, so there was nothing to go off of to find him.

The only thing that they could do was wait and hope that they would be attacked. They hoped that the man who slaughtered so many so easily would not come after them next.

Although Cade never thought of it, the assistant knew that the building they were currently in would be the next target. He ordered the guards to reinforce the entrance as much as possible in preparation.

The assistant could only hope for the best.

...

Will stood in front of a desolate motel. On the outside, it looked like it hadn't been inhabited in years and barely stood upright.

He'd heard of the ghost that's been attacking the Goblin Gang, and he planned to work with them. Tracking them down was not easy, and it took multiple attempts at watching him do his work to figure out who he was.

Will found a way to observe the ghost by watching from afar using binoculars that he'd bought with the remaining money he had.

Will was risking so much on a sliver of hope, and if his investment didn't pay off, he was sure nothing else would. He was desperate.

He took a deep breath and walked through the cracked wooden doors into the motel.

Inside was an unmanned desk with a bell on top. Will rang the bell and an energetic kid ran up to him.

"Welcome to our motel!" the bellboy started, "How may I help you?"

"I know the ghost is here."

Silence.

The bellboy scanned Will thoroughly, before being interrupted by another man walking in. He had a similar build and hairstyle as the ghost.

"Why are you after the ghost?" The man asked.

"I want to help him." Will stood resolute. He explained his grievances with the Goblin Gang and his own story.

How his family had sold him to the Goblin Gang for some pocket money. How he had been experimented on and fed a strange liquid.

How he had seen the other test subjects that had gone through the same testing. He even told him about his strange abilities.

The man simply listened to it all while nodding periodically. When Will finished, the man stuck out his hand.

"I'm Naos." These words that would change his life for better or for worse were spoken by this man. "Let's go hunting goblins, shall we?"

Naos led Will to the planning room. Naos told him about the plan to attack the primary base of the Goblin Gang in 2 days, and how Will's abilities would prove extremely useful.

Naos just asked Will to demonstrate his abilities.

Will nodded and focused on creating something. In his mind was the image of a knife, a tool that would help him in the near future.

When he felt the familiar feeling of the world bending to his will, he stuck out his hand. When he opened his eyes, a small rock was sitting in his palm as if it had been there from the start.

Will was confused by the object he created not being what he wanted it to be, which was something that had never happened before. He turned his head to explain to Naos how he could do better.

But Naos was too engrossed in staring at the odd rock in Will's hand. Naos was amazed at the fact that something could seemingly be created from nothing.

He took the rock and studied it closely, scrutinizing every little detail. Truly, it was not special in the design. But the material was quite odd. It was like it was made of just carbon.

Not too densely packed for its hardness to be anywhere close to a diamond, but if it was compressed more, it could reach that level. Naos looked to Will.

"How did you get the ability to do this?" His eyes bore holes into Will.

"Well," he recollected himself, "the Goblin Gang ran some experiments of some kind on me, as I had said. Next thing I knew, I could do this."

"Fascinating."

"You won't run experiments of your own, will you?" Will worried.

"Don't worry," Naos turned away from Will, "I'll only make some minor behavioral observations, inquiries, or other things. Nothing harmful."

Will sighed.

"You said you could do more?" Naos stopped moving, his face was still out of Will's sight. "If you were confident when coming to find me, that means that there might be some factor hindering you."

"That's what I was thinking." Will agreed.

Although Naos thought of this as an important matter, it was shoved to the bottom of his current list of priorities.

Curtis walked in. "Who's this?"

"A customer." Naos answered. Curtis nodded. It had been a code that they had thought of in case there were new helpers. Naos would call them customers, and if they were genuinely looking for lodging, he would call them clients.

Naos slammed both hands on the table, gathering the attention of the two others to himself. In a resolute and excited voice, he said, "The countdown to the hunt starts now."