"Huh?"
David, Jack, and Lucy opened the door of the second floor of the building and saw an office, but to Jack's surprise, it wasn't anything he'd imagined.
Files were stacked haphazardly on tables, papers spilling over onto the floor.
In the middle sat a long meeting table, but instead of office workers in suits in a meeting, there was a burly man in his thirties snoring on the sofa with a comic book covering his face.
Meanwhile, another familiar man, in his late twenties, was looking at a board that was dotted with various events in the city. At first glance, he seemed focused on the board, but closer inspection revealed him mashing buttons on his phone and muttering curses under his breath.
These two in the office were clearly the team leader and David's senior that they met in the hangar yesterday.
But one conclusion came in Jack's mind: this wasn't what he expected.
"Oh its you guys…" The man muttered without looking up from his phone and as if uninformed, continued, "What are you doing here?"
Jack wanted to look up at the ceiling and ask whatever god was listening for answers.
'I thought I am going to work in the GH Securities Tower. What is this junkyard?' Jack thought.
"Senior! Team Leader! Wake up!" David called out cheerfully. "They're our new members!"
"Huh?" The senior stopped his game, processing the words.
The team leader jolted upright from the couch, eyes half-open. "New recruits? We got one?"
"New recruits?!" he screamed like a drunkard with a hungover. "We got one?"
"There's two of them!"
"How? Why?"
Soon, the three tried to tidy the office in front of them.
"Sorry about that! Things have been hectic," the team leader said, trying to sound professional. He only ended up looking like a tired uncle who drove delivery trucks for a living.
"No, this is nice, Sir!" Jack said, trying to be as polite as possible. But he had to try very hard.
He was wearing a corporate attire, same as Lucy and David, but these two superiors in front of them, looked like they have just rolled out of bed and one of them literally just did.
"Nice to meet you guys!" the team leader said with a wide grin, "It seems we have seen each other yesterday. Sorry for not introducing myself, but I am Frank Senna, the Team Leader of Division 12."
Then he gestured for the others.
"Yo, I am Simon Holemart. Nice to meet you again." The other one said.
"And I am David! I am only 17 year old but I have been year for a year already, so you guys are my juniors!" David laughed brightly.
"It is also a pleasure to meet you team leader, senior Simon, Senior David." Jack said shamelessly and bowed.
But after the three looked at each other, they laughed in unison.
"You don't need to be formal with us here. This isn't the Headquarters. Just be normal and relax."
After Jack and Lucy finished shaking hands with everyone, they were invited to sit at some seats and desks that Jack didn't even existed in the office and was being used.
It was an ordinary office desk at least.
The team leader, then, after, went back to sleeping in the sofa again.
Jack kept his polite smile, though his lips twitched. From what he could tell, the entire building had only two floors—the café on the ground level, and their so-called "office" above it. The first thing any customer would see upon entering was the messy meeting table.
'Isn't he worried about customers?' Jack thought, but his thoughts were interrupted by the senior's sudden remark who seemed to be the only one serious in the office.
"How are you guys doing? It's a shame you guys ended up in a place like this." Simon said, looking at Jack and Lucy with a somewhat pitied gaze.
"Why?" Jack said, acting like a curious man.
"Haven't you heard?" Simon gestured around the room. "Just look at this place. It's a detective agency but it barely looks like one. This isn't exactly the ideal post for newbies."
'It's a detective agency, huh. I could not tell, but that explains why there are so many papers.'
Jack was still in disbelief.
He thought he was going to be in the big skyscraper after all. Not a dusty second floor with napping employees.
Still smiling, he replied carefully, testing Simon's reaction. "I heard from David about Division 12's reputation. But honestly, it's better than having no work. I just want to be a functional member of society."
Senior stared at him blankly.
Then he opened his mouth.
"You guys are newbies, right?"
"Yes." Jack said hesitantly, after glancing at Lucy.
"If you are newbies, this really isn't the best place. "Well, you're not full employees yet. You're probationary hires. For the first six months, you'll be reporting your achievements to HQ every month. No results, no extension. You're out."
Simon said as if it was something that everyone already knew.
But Jack knew Simon was still not finished.
Jack also knew that he was about to hear something diabolical but had to ask.
"That's why we are going to work hard." He said. "We will achieve a lot with Division 12's help."
With dead eyes, Simon gave a humorless chuckle. "That's the problem. This place is called the Graveyard for Newbies for a reason. We hardly get real missions. Most of the time, we're just backup for other divisions—so the credit goes to them. If we get any, it's minimal."
"Hey, it's not that bad lately!" David argued. "Instead of helping once or twice, we're helping other divisions at least three times a month!"
"That's right, Simon! Don't belittle our Division 12 too much!" The team leader grumbled in his sleep.
Simon let out a dry laugh. "You hear that, newbies? Inspiring, huh?" Jack chuckled lightly, though his body almost collapsed.
After ten minutes.
Jack had a pile of stacked folders in his desk and had a tornado of panels storing that information. Now, Jack kind of understood the reality of their situation.
'Shit...' Cursing in his mind, Jack kept his smile and mulled over what kind of bad news he had just learned.
There were 12 Divisions scattered across the jurisdiction of the company. These divisions take care of a lot of things and have teams of staff working for them at the headquarters.
But the idea was that each division was supposed to do contribute substantially in completing the awakener-related incidents in the company's jurisdiction which spans two provinces.
That involved watching out for awakener-related incidents—rogue awakeners, sudden awakenings, hostile groups, and so on. It was up for the 12 divisions to solve these situations.
But compared to the other divisions, the cases that has been solved by Division 12 was basically almost zero annually. In the first place, because of how undermanned it was, they don't get a lot of opportunities to participate.
"You must have pissed someone in the higher ups but there's nothing to do here, newbies." Simon said with dead eyes after seeing Jack stop his reading.
To jack, that was the death sentence.
'If this is still the case, what kind of evaluation will the headquarters give me after my stint here? Will I go back to being unemployed?'
Jack thought, but after remembering his situation in thr last three years, he clenched his teeth and started to read more, merely giving the senior a smile.
'There's no way I'm giving up this job,' Jack said to himself, abusing his speed reading skill, flipping page after page in each second, much to the surprise of everyone if he was actually reading the cases.
And after ruffling old minor cases in the archives, Jack discovered something with his appraisal skill as notifications, one after another, popped in front of him.
[Rank F–D Missions Available.]
[Mission Detected!]
[Household cat missing after transforming into a large black feline. Suspected perpetrator: Awakened with animal control ability.]
[Reward: 500 credits, 50 experience points]
[Mission Detected!]
[Minor arson in Block Z. Suspected perpetrator: Awakened.]
[Reward: 1500 credits, 80 experience points]
[Mission Detected!]
[Missing undergarments in residential district. Suspected perpetrator: Awakened with invisibility skill.]
[Reward: 1000 credits, 100 experience points]
[…]
Jack's eyes widened as the map of the city appeared in front of him, showing various mission spots.
His situation wasn't entirely hopeless.