Divinity

--- [Fei’s perspective]

“Do you know why The Reapers is best guild?” – Fei

“I don’t have time for this shit!” – Shin

He charges towards me, but I continue to talk.

“It’s because they’re the only ones who can truly save the weak and oppressed.” – Fei

---

The Reapers…

They’re a heavily misunderstood guild.

They’re always seen as the bad guys, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.

To understand why, you first need to know how they operate.

The Reapers only accept two different kinds of missions.

They obviously do dungeons, just like all other guilds.

Clearing dungeons is an integral part of being a hunter.

The other mission type is one that is generally looked down upon…

Assassinations.

Not many other guilds accept them, and the ones that do, only do so under specific circumstances.

We’re not like that.

We accept all assassination requests, no questions asked.

Assassinations and dungeons are the hardest mission types, so only the strongest and most capable hunters are allowed to join.

This is why the guild has a 100-kill rule.

If you’re not strong enough to do that, you’re not allowed to join.

If you’re not willing to do that, you’re not allowed to join.

We can’t have people that hesitates to kill join a guild that focuses on assassinations…

Assassinations, like all other missions, is a service.

A needed service.

There are bad people out there, people that don’t deserve to live.

If someone wants them gone enough, they can do it.

The price is hefty, but it’s possible.

It being expensive is important.

You have to truly hate a person to be willing to scoop up that amount of money to kill them.

If someone hates you THAT much, there must be a good reason…

---

When I was young, there was a powerful man living in our town.

He was a rich man who had connections with a lot of hunters.

He wasn’t from our town originally, he moved in later in life; just a few years before I was born.

The first thing he did after moving in was buying up local businesses.

He was willing to pay to quite a lot of money, enough for the previous owners to retire.

It didn’t take long before he owned the entire area.

Things didn’t change much though, all that happened was that he now took the cut that the previous owners used to take.

It didn’t affect the workers at all.

Over the years, he started expanding.

Instead of keeping his earnings, he invested in new businesses.

He’d buy a shop here, get partial ownership of another there.

He was always expanding.

It never stopped.

It started with the area he lived, then the areas next to it, then the areas next to those, and so on.

By the time I was six years old, he owned the entire town.

Every single business was his.

Although things hadn’t changed much before, this didn’t last very long…

Whenever someone tried to start up something new, he’d make sure to outcompete them.

No new companies were created after that.

It was a total monopoly.

He owned everything…

He started taking bigger cuts of the revenue, reducing wages, increasing work hours…

Anything he could do to earn more money.

It didn’t matter what he did, because he owned everything.

Eventually he decided that just having complete control over the economy wasn’t enough, he also needed political power.

He became a mayor candidate, and of course he won.

Had the people not voted for him, he would have made sure to make their lives worse.

Honestly, he might have just taken the power for himself anyways…

It’s not like we could fight back.

The Emperor, the ultimate being who controls the world, has made rules for how the guilds can operate.

He has not made any other laws…

Every city must figure that out on their own.

Since there are no real laws, that man now had full control over our town.

He already controlled the entire economy, but he was now the ‘mayor’ too.

In reality, he was just a dictator.

He’d change the our laws whenever he felt like it.

If he wanted something done, he could do it.

Nothing could stop him.

By the time I was 10, he was already like a god.

Although most people saw him as the devil…

He could now do whatever he wanted.

And he did.

The people were getting poorer and poorer, while he was getting richer and richer.

It got to a point where people barely even had food on the table.

Men were paid little, but women were paid even less.

Why?

Well…

My father died from illness when I was young, so my family consisted of just me, my mom, and my older sister.

In exchange for certain ‘favors’, he’d give women a little extra money.

My mom and my sister both did those ‘favors’ for him.

Without it we would have all starved.

It wasn’t until almost two years later that I found out what those favors were…

It was prostitution.

He would do unspeakable things to them in exchange for enough to pay for food.

They were doing it for me.

Above all else, they wanted me to be able to eat a good meal every day.

They didn’t want to do those things with him.

They had no choice.

It wasn’t really prostitution; it was just rape.

This wasn’t something that only happened to my family, but many others too.

Eventually, they had enough.

They started collectively saving as much money as they could, they’d even skip out on meals for it.

People died in the process, but eventually the people had saved up enough.

They sent an assassination request to The Reapers Guild, and just a few days later, it was all over.

He was dead.

He could no longer control us.

Our town went back to how it used to be, and it all turned out great in the end.

But that would not have been possible without The Reapers…

Sure, some sacrifices had to be made on the way, but an entire town was saved from just a single mission.

Just one.

That was when I knew what I wanted to do with my life.

I had to become a Reaper too.

Every single mission I go on could have that big of an impact on someone’s life!

That’s who the Reapers are!

We save people by killing the bad guys.

No other guilds do what we do.

We are important.

We are needed.