The New Hero Association
The staff member's expression did not change in the slightest as she received Sonia's question, yet the words that left her mouth were clear and precise.
"Yes. We are fully aware. Your assessment is correct, D-class Hero Sonia. Sonia."
"Eep…"
Sonia swallowed a small squeak before she could stop herself. This association's staff seemed to have deliberately dialed every emotional value down to the absolute minimum. In this strange place where everyone wore the same monochrome bodysuit as a uniform, the employee had gone out of her way to single out and emphasize Sonia's hero rank as she repeated it back.
The tone felt like a finishing blow, and Sonia's heart plummeted.
Of course, D-class was not the lowest rank. Below it sat E-class, and F-class beneath that. It was equally obvious that D-class was not so impressive a rank that an association would personally cover travel expenses just to extend a scouting offer.
Instead of nodding, the staff member kept her blank face and lightly tapped the black terminal strapped to her wrist. With a soft whirr, a beam of blue data light shot upward from her forearm into the empty air.
When she swept her latex-gloved hand downward through the space, the particles of light gathered and formed a crisp rectangular holographic screen.
Sonia had expected a stack of paper documents to be set on the desk. For a moment she simply stared, lost, as cutting-edge technology unfolded right before her eyes.
The minor complaint about an ordered visor that had yet to arrive, the full-body bodysuits, the clean and futuristic design of the space itself — everything adhered rigorously to a high-tech theme worthy of the name Megacorp.
"Eep… Ahaha…"
At the familiar face that bloomed large across the center of the hologram, Sonia let out an awkward laugh. Radiant blonde hair falling to her waist, a slightly tense and stiff smile — it was the exact ID photo stamped on her Sky City citizenship card.
Beneath the photograph, Sonia's D-class hero activity log was densely listed. Metropolitan District 9 Substation Facility Periodic Inspection. Sky Tower Central Control System Stability Test. City-Designated Public Facility Emergency Safety Equipment Spot Check… The vast majority of the entries carried a "Life Support" tag — technical commissions far removed from any kind of combat.
The staff member flicked a finger lightly upward across the holographic screen. The scroll glided smoothly, revealing still more records.
Most of them were more of the same, but one solitary entry near the very end stood out. Adventurer Party Affiliation — Grid-7 Zone Lower Dungeon Clear (Standard). And below that, a comprehensive ability evaluation.
Her other stats sat at ordinary levels, but the graph for Intelligence alone rested a touch higher than average.
A concise comment was attached to the evaluation field: Not at the level of a PhD or research scientist, yet technical comprehension and applied ability are clearly above average.
The staff member gave Sonia a moment to look over her own record carefully, then slowly began to speak — an explanation of why, after her previous association had vanished overnight and left her an accidental freeloader, they had gone so far as to send her a mobile transit pass just to summon her here.
"We expected you would ask that very question, Sonia. As you can see, our association is located quite far from the city center. Even if we operate with cutting-edge equipment and facilities provided by the contracted corporations we partner with, the enterprise cannot even begin to function without members who actually carry out the commissions the city issues — that is to say, without heroes. That is simple common sense."
Her explanation was crisp. The large associations that already held firm positions in Sky City grew their bulk through existing networks and word of mouth.
Which meant that, barring some massive catastrophe like a Merging Point incident, a small or mid-sized startup association had about as much chance of recruiting experienced career heroes as of plucking stars from the sky.
"As you yourself experienced, Sonia, unless a giant association that has all but monopolized the market collapses, bringing a hero with an established track record over to our side is extraordinarily difficult. At the same time, we cannot simply accept brand-new heroes who have only just finished a short-term training course or who lack even an academy diploma. Cases of applicants who cannot pass even the basic hero tests are far too numerous."
The staff member walked through several examples as she laid out the current situation. Rookie heroes who were absurdly defeated and kidnapped by villains, or who returned with serious injuries from even simple monster-subjugation commissions, were nothing but headaches from an association's point of view.
Recruiting someone who already knew how to find and complete work through the public commission site — someone who understood what a hero's job actually was — was a matter of survival for a fledgling association. Even if that experienced hire was a D-class hero who had only just shed the newcomer label.
"It is exactly as the activity record I showed you indicates. After the Merging Point Association went into hiding, Sky City issued a temporary measure allowing other associations, as a form of relief, to view the activity data of affected heroes who wished it and to extend scouting offers. We found you through that opportunity, Sonia."
Beep-♪
Just then, the communicator in Sonia's pocket chimed briefly. At the all-too-familiar notification tone, her hand went into her pocket almost by reflex.
"Ah! I'm sorry!"
Realizing she had been about to check her terminal mid-interview, Sonia hurriedly tried to pull her hand back. But the staff member gently stopped her.
"Not at all, Sonia. It is fine. I apologize, but if you would not mind, could you check the screen of that communicator right now?"
"Uh… Yes…"
At the staff member's words, Sonia pulled out the terminal with a bewildered look and switched on the screen. The moment she did, a cascade of noisy notification tones flooded the quiet, sterile room.
[Beep- Beep- Beep- Beep- Beep-]
The default message alert Sonia had set rang out without pause. When she pressed the message-check button, her eyes went round at the flood of messages pouring across the screen.
A faint smile that seemed to say just as expected flickered across the staff member's lips at the sight, then settled back into its usual impassive expression.
"…"
Sonia rapidly scrolled past the spam pouring in from unknown numbers. To the single saved contact — the playful message from her next-door friend Luce — she quickly fired back a short reply: Busy!
"Ugh… So this is what you were talking about earlier…"
This time the staff member gave a small nod. "Yes. Exactly so, Sonia."
Looking more carefully at the text messages, most of them were scouting offers from other fledgling associations that had accessed Sonia's activity data.
Compared to the confident expression of the Megacorp Hero Association staff member, the contents of those messages were pitiful. Associations demanding yet another registration fee from a hero who had already lost everything. Associations acting as if they were doing her a favor by cutting the fee in half. Some even dangling free membership as bait. Every single proposal looked crude… and desperate.
I at least expected a gift card or a voucher…
Sonia, who had privately hoped for the kind of treatment Megacorp offered — freely covering round-trip travel expenses — felt a small twinge of disappointment.
The staff member did not bother to say it out loud, but her expression was enough. An unspoken confidence that, among the countless offers, theirs was the one with the best terms. Sonia now fully understood why a D-class like herself was receiving this VIP treatment. Only one question remained.
"Um, so then… what is this 'Association Regulation Education Briefing'? That's just gathering a bunch of people and playing a video, right?"
At her previous scam of an association, the entire orientation had consisted of herding new recruits into something like a movie theater and screening a shabby promotional video.
Compared to that experience, receiving one-on-one counseling in a private room was already treatment of an entirely different caliber — but the word "education," and the dental chair in the center of the room, still sat uneasily with her.
"As you said, and as you yourself experienced, Sonia, the practices of certain negligent associations have come to light as a social problem, and a great many new regulations have been added for both individual heroes and associations. Now every hero, before joining an association, must mandatorily undergo a confirmation test to verify that they have fully internalized the basic regulations required for activity."
The staff member added that this procedure was an official city regulation that absolutely could not be skipped, entirely separate from the association's desire to recruit Sonia.
To help Sonia understand, she brought up the newly enacted regulatory clauses on the holographic screen. The content was complex, but the core was simple: associations would verify a hero's qualifications more rigorously, and heroes would fulfill the corresponding duties and responsibilities.
"Ah… I understand completely! So then this association education is…"
"Yes, Sonia. The 'Association Regulation Education Briefing.' Your other qualifications have already been sufficiently proven by your activity history. Therefore, once you successfully complete this procedure, you may begin activity immediately as a hero belonging to Megacorp."
"Complete… the procedure? Is it like a test, maybe?"
At Sonia's question, the staff member answered with an unreadable smile and a gesture toward the reclining chair in the center of the room. That it was both a testing ground and a device for "educating" the new regulations into a hero's body was something Sonia did not yet know.