The Martial Unity

Once Ria and Runark started eating, they couldn’t be stopped. They hadn’t eaten much for the day, running around from place to place after they arrived at Planet Sarantel. Arastia watched with amusement as her niece and Runark inhaled dish after dish without any signs of stopping. Because their digestive systems were as strong as they were, they could compress a tremendous amount of food matter into a smaller volume, allowing them to eat larger portions than would otherwise be humanly possible.

“This is delicious,” Runark almost sobbed as he shoveled food into his mouth. “I have to say, the best part of technology is that you can have delicious food even in the frontier!” “You can say that again,” Ria muttered even as she chewed her food. “I would never have been able to live in the frontier if I had to live on food pills.”

Even though her parents had taken precautions not to pamper her with too much luxury, she still enjoyed extremely good food, even if simple, every day. She recalled how she would stare at her father in horror when he told her about times when he spent months, sometimes years, eating nothing but disgusting but nutritionally dense food pills.

In that regard, she didn’t think she would ever be able to surpass him. Only a madman would go through that kind of torture.

“Now then, what do you two intend to do after this mission?” Arastia asked casually, eating more calmly than the other two at the table. “Do you intend to just freelance for the next few years?”

Ria fell into thought as she chewed her food. Runark, on the other hand, appeared to have more clarity. “I think I don’t mind going back and forth. Though if Ria chooses to go back. Then I’ll probably go back as well.”

Arastia threw him a knowing smile. She hadn’t missed that Runark had an adorable crush on Ria from a very young age. He would always play protector for her from a young age. Although the dynamics of their relationship had changed when Ria’s talent had been discovered. “What about you, Ria?” She turned towards her niece, dipping a chunk of bread into the stew. “Do you want to be a freelancer your entire life?”

“Frankly, I wouldn’t mind it, but…” She stirred. “I would rather do something more…”

She shrugged. “I dunno. Purposeful, I suppose, in the long run.”

Simply going from commission to commission or job to job was not exactly the most fulfilling life. Not that she needed a grand ambition or goal in life. But there were surely more satisfying ways of living life. Perhaps places she could make a difference in as a talented Martial Master.

Of course, human civilization was thriving, so there was hardly anything that jumped to mind immediately. She knew that she didn’t just want to join a powerful mercenary group or anything of the sort, and certainly she didn’t want to just settle in another colonial state. That was far too boring. The Martial Drive that drove her in her late childhood was a desire to remain with her parents, but after the truth of her identity came out and she became a proper princess, that changed.

She begged her parents to leave Gaia Prime, and they refused. After a tremendous amount of stubbornness on her part, she got them to concede that she could do whatever she wanted when she became a Martial Master.

She didn’t think that they had anticipated she would become one at sixteen. They had reluctantly allowed her to go, on the condition that Sayfeel would never be too far away so that he could come to her aid quickly if she needed help. Although she hadn’t realized how much he stalked her until today.

“I could join the Blood Humanist Society,” she remarked, turning towards her aunt with a hopeful expression. “After all, I detest the Blood Cult and blood supremacy. So I’m happy to lend my power to your cause. It would make me feel better since I’m actually contributing to something that’s extremely important.”

Arastia’s expression lit up with a smile. “If that’s what you truly want, then I will gladly welcome you as a member. You’re right. We could use a talented genius like yourself for our cause. But…”

She shook her head. “Don’t make your decision too quickly and lightly. We are a non-profit organization, which means that we work long, hard hours with every little take-home pay, and we lead relatively modest lives.”

Ria didn’t mind that, of course.

“You also will lose a lot of time and, frankly, a lot of freedom,” Arastia bluntly told her. “Our members do not function like adventurers within our organization. We are not a loose guild; we are a comprehensive organization with a centralized chain of command that leads up to me, at the head. You will be given assignments. Missions. Operations. And you can’t refuse them very easily. This is the kind of militancy we have needed to adopt to take on the menace of the Blood Cult.”

Ria’s enthusiasm to join the Blood Humanist Society was instantly deflated. She wasn’t enthusiastic to sacrifice her freedom that easily. She had gotten away from the Kandrian Empire for that very reason, because the environment was simply too stuffy. The Blood Humanist Society didn’t seem particularly conducive to such a goal.

She heaved a sigh. “This is difficult. I don’t know what I want to do with life.”

“There’s no need to rush, you are only eighteen years old. Most girls your age don’t know what they want to do at your age. Certainly, I didn’t know what I wanted to do at your age,” Arastia remarked, recollecting memories of old. “Thankfully, I got lucky, I suppose, that the Blood Cult gave me a perfect cause to dedicate my life to.”

She recalled the day she was first exposed to the Blood Cult’s new leader, Lord Saron. An exceptionally talented blood artist who sought her hand in marriage to woo her. He was charming at first, but then she learned of his true nature when she saw him kill innocent people for the most mundane of reasons.