World of Laws and Magic: Interview and the Enforcement Office

Nick took out his cell phone and looked up the directions to the enforcement office using the academy's app. After deciding on a route, Nick proceeded to walk to the enforcement office. On the way, he asked Slade:

(What do you think that the space band would have recorded?)

Slade seemed to think for a while and then replied:

[It shouldn't have recorded anything that cannot be explained away. When you and I first met, I sensed the active monitoring by the space band and disrupted it until you left the underground space using the power of the formation that I had set up in the area and assuming that the space band cannot monitor your thoughts, there should be no danger of them knowing about me or the events that transpired between you and me. As for all of the times that you spoke to me out loud, that shouldn't ring any alarms as there are plenty of Magicians with psychological issues, even at your age, because of the varying results of forming mindscapes. As for what happened with the warp bat, you can just say that the warp bat spit you out after it swallowed you, who can predict the behavior of every magic beast? As for Andre Reigns, that rank 8 Magician...it is very unlikely that a World Class Magician would let themselves be spied on and even more so by a tool related to their specialty so you shouldn't worry about them finding out about him.]

(Oh, okay.)

Nick felt relieved that most of what happened would probably appear innocuous and that the suspicious parts could probably be explained away but he felt kind of awkward letting people think that he might have some psychological issues. Thirty minutes later, Nick arrived in front of the enforcement office. It was a building complex that covered a large area, about the same as an American football field; its exterior was painted black and white and it seemed to have a flat concrete roof. Nick walked into the lobby through its glass doors and went up to a man sitting at the reception desk. This man was wearing a black suit with a white dress shirt and seemed to be in his early thirties; Nick spoke to him with a neutral tone:

"Good morning sir, I was told to come here by a Gregory Justeen who said that he worked for this office, could you please inform him of my arrival?"

The man spoke without a change in his plain expression while pointing behind Nick:

"No need, he is already here."

Nick wore a weird expression and turned to where the man's finger was pointing and behind him, only a few feet away, Nick saw a burly, seemingly forty year old man wearing a black suit walking towards his position. The lobby was filled with people moving about, carrying on their own business but even with that, the man still stood out. When he was right in front of Nick, the man spoke authoritatively:

"Nick Capitol, my name is Gregory Justeen, the man that you spoke with on the phone earlier. I have some questions to ask you regarding your exam experience so please follow me to one of our interview rooms."

Nick replied simply:

"Lead the way, sir."

Gregory turned around and lead Nick down the hall, past a door which required Gregory to use some kind of identification card to get through and after walking for a few more minutes, they arrived in front of a room with a large glass window that allowed you to see the table and four chairs contained within the room. Nick commented:

"I think that I saw a room like this in one of the detective shows that I used to watch on TV."

Gregory gave a light smirk and motioned for Nick to follow him into the room. Both Nick and Gregory went into the room and took a seat. Gregory started speaking:

"Just so you know, our conversation is being monitored for investigative purposes."

Nick replied:

"I wouldn't expect anything less."

After getting that out of the way, Gregory got straight to the point:

"During the end of year exams for the first-years, the space band was intended to act as a monitoring device in addition to a storage device that we could use to better assess your abilities and determine your ranking."

Nick thought:

(Also to observe our exploration of the realm in order to find possible existing resources, don't forget that.)

Gregory continued:

"The space band captured video and sounds of your trials during the exam, obviously private or intimate moments being ignored and/or redacted. The problem we have with your recordings are that there are large periods where the space band seems to stop recording for no apparent reason. Do you have an explanation for that?"

Nick replied innocently:

"I don't know much about magic tools so I am ignorant of why the device would stop recording apart from the instances that you mentioned earlier that would be redacted."

Gregory's eyes became sharp and he spoke just as sharply:

"Oh, then can you explain what happened after you fell through the ground, trying to track down the source of some sound that you were listening to?"

Nick replied with an even tone:

"I fell into a cavern and found my way out through a passage that led elsewhere. I don't know why that wasn't recorded."

Gregory squinted his eyes and asked another question:

"Fine. What happened when you were swallowed by the warp bat? Your space band only started recording again a few hours afterwards."

Nick replied with some uncertainty:

"Honestly, I don't really know what happened, when I was swallowed, I felt completely helpless, then under some kind of pressure, I lost consciousness. When I woke up, I was lying on the ground near where I had been swallowed. As for why my space band stopped recording, again, I don't know much about magic tools."

Gregory relaxed his expression and said:

"Well, whatever happened, that realm will eventually be fully explored by the academy so hopefully some of these mysteries may be solved. Those questions I asked about were the main reason why you were called in but there is one more thing that the academy is curious about but we will not force you to divulge any information."

Nick shrugged his shoulders.

"Ask away."

Gregory squinted his eyes again and spoke:

"The corpse of a rank 6 Hero Magician, it's pretty interesting that you found it, right? To save your life, you jumped into a filthy pool of water and happened upon it. How did you know the corpse's value?"

Nick was about to open his mouth when Slade intercepted him:

[Kid, don't lie. These people are not fools and since they are asking you directly in this setting, telling the truth about receiving an inheritance may save us some trouble down the line. In any case, it seems to me that trying to recklessly mislead them here has more disadvantages than advantages so just tell them that you received an inheritance but do not speak about its details.]

(I think you're right.)

Nick has also been having an intuitive feeling that lying to Gregory about the corpse was not going to benefit him and instead might just cause trouble in the future.

"When I was in the pool , I was feeling around and just happened to touch the corpse. When I touched it, the sentient will of the dead Magician appeared in my mind and told me about himself and the corpse and then gave me an inheritance that included the corpse. Of course, I will not tell you the details of the inheritance so if that is what you are after, you will have to torture it out of me."

The expression on Gregory's face eased and he replied:

"This academy would never do that to one of its students over an inheritance, we were just a little curious about how a green horn like yourself with no magical background knew the significance of the corpse, that's all. You know that Regular Magicians are divided into Hero, Lord and Conqueror Magicians, right?"

Nick replied:

"Yes, I've read about those designations in books."

Gregory nodded and spoke:

"Well, anything having to do with Regular Magicians is usually guarded by the various Magician families and magic organizations because Regular Magicians are their main fighting force. There are many people that are also interested in that corpse of yours so if you are interested in selling it, the academy would like to make an offer of £1,000,000,000. How about it, will you accept the offer?"

Nick's breathing became ragged after hearing that offer; a few seconds later, he calmed himself down and thought about it:

(That's so much money, with that much money I would be able to flex on my grandaunt and my former classmates for nine generations. The boy with no sense made it big, ha, ha...)

After about a minute or so of those thoughts, Nick's mind sobered and he thought seriously about his intentions:

(...but I need the corpse to progress as a Magician and nothing else should get in the way of that. I can always make money but that corpse has a priceless value to me right now. Besides, I don't really give a damn about flexing on those losers from my past. My path should lead me to becoming the best at whatever I do; revenge and status are not my goals, there can be no compromise.)

Nick looked at Gregory with determined eyes and spoke:

"No thank you, sir. I have use for the corpse and I don't think that such a small amount of money can act as a substitute for its real value."

Gregory smiled.

"A small amount of money, huh? Fine, we're done here. I'll escort you from the building now."

Nick and Gregory left the interview room and walked to the lobby of the enforcement office. Gregory walked Nick to the exit of the building and said:

"Take care young Magician. Between you and me, I think that you made the right choice when I offered you the money. When I was your age, I never could resist offers like that at the expense of my own development and it cost me much. I don't know your goal, but don't stop for anything or men like me will eventually get the jump on you."

Gregory said that with a cryptic smile and walked away. Nick looked at Gregory's receding back for a while and the proceeded through the glass doors.

(Now that that's over, I have something important that I need to attend to.)

Nick took out his smart phone and looked up some directions on the academy's app and then made his way to a certain location.

..........

"Here it is."

Nick stood in front of a building with a brightly painted exterior that had a sign board at the front that read:

"Lucky Choice Restaurant"

Nick walked inside and made his way to the order counter but before the clerk could ask anything, Nick spoke clearly while releasing the still fresh ghastly serpent meat from his space band:

"How much does it cost to barbecue this meat for me?"

The clerk looked at Nick weirdly and then and the mass of meat now laying on the counter, still slightly oozing red-black blood; the clerk replied:

"Assuming that this is meat from a magic beast, we will require £3,000 to cook this much meat for you."

Nick was shocked.

"So expensive."

The male clerk shrugged his shoulders and replied:

"Anything magic related is usually expensive and these things are not so easy to cook for non-Magicians so a Magician will be doing the cooking. What kind of beast did this meat come from?"

Nick replied:

"It came from a serpent magic beast with a strong affinity for soul magic. I want it cooked as soon as possible and served with some good sauce."

The clerk wrote what Nick said down on a piece of paper and left the counter to go to the kitchen. Two minutes later, the clerk returned with two young men that took the beast meat into the kitchen and the clerk spoke to Nick plainly:

"The chef said that the meat will probably take anywhere from one to three hours to cook depending on the quality of the meat so please have a seat and wait. Oh, I will also need to see your payment receipt if you are paying with the academy's app."

Nick paid the restaurant via the the app and showed the clerk the receipt. Satisfied, the clerk pointed Nick to one of their window seats, so Nick sat there and looked and the crowd of students walking outside on the street, wondering about his own future.