He murmured as his eyebrow raised at the poor small hut in front of him. The structured looked so frail that Rui wouldn't even need to use an Apprentice-level technique to completely demolish it.
He knocked on the door lightly.
"I haven't finished preparing myself, the night hasn't begun yet, please wait."
Rui hadn't even the faintest idea what those words meant, they were literally in a different language. "I'm the Martial Artist from the Kandrian Martial Union who has accepted your commi-"
The door clicked, instantly swinging wide open.
Rui found himself staring at a young beautiful woman, who stared right back at him with disbelief and elation.
"Miss Fria?" Rui asked.
Rui's eyebrows rose as he saw a tear flowing down from her eye, she seemed choked with emotion.
"Are you okay?" He asked, seeing that she clearly wasn't.
"No. I mean yes, but no. Oh god I can't believe you're here. I ca-" She choked once as again as she pressed her lips together suppressing her emotions.
Rui felt awkward. He had zero experience with comforting emotional young women. He was quite happy that she spoke Sanskrit, however. For now, he just tried to move things along as smoothly as he could
"Calm down miss." Rui said. "Take things slowly. I believe you wished to speak to me before the mission was commenced?"
She seemed to pull herself together at those words. "Yes, please come in."
Rui crouched as he bent to fit into the small doorway. His growth spurt in the past three years had done wonders for his height. But it was more of a hinderance in situations , but he was surprised she was able to live in such small accommodations.
"Please take a seat." She gestured at a disheveled torn sofa that looked like it had been extracted from a land dump. "Would you like something to drink?"
"No thank you." He was thirsty, but he didn't want to get sick on an international mission, and he didn't trust anything in the entire district to be hygienic.
She took a seat opposite to him, staring him in the eyes. "Sorry for my outburst earlier... It's just that I've been through a lot, all for this very day."
"It does seem that way, it's not a matter to apologize about." Rui placated her.
"Thank you. Unfortunately, I had been informed that my commission had been accepted although they refused to share any details about you to me asides from your grade." She said.
"I'm afraid I cannot share any details about myself either." Rui told her. He hadn't taken off his mask even once the moment he left the Martial Academy.
"Are you really a grade-ten Martial Artist?" She asked, concerned. "You seem very young."
Rui had consciously maintained extreme composure, this was a technique every Martial Artist naturally learned as they grew stronger and stronger, in order to suppress and limit their aura and pressure. Martial Artists were so powerful that there very presence could trigger the subconscious sense of danger in normal humans, and could exert a lot of pressure on them that way. Restricting emotional expression was one way they could limit the pressure they exerted on others.
The light grew a shade darker as the air grew tauter and perilous for just the briefest of moments, before returning to normal.
Rui had loosened his control on his emotions just a little. However even that tiny bit inspired an immense amount of terror in Fria as she understood the Martial Artist before her was anything but ordinary
"I've earned my grade." He told her. "Rest assured that I'm more than qualified to undertake this mission."
Fria's expression molded into relieved elation, before her emotions gripped her once more. "Please. Please save my family, my people, my village. I cannot imagine how much they've suffered in the past eight months. I had just barely managed to escape that night, migrating to the Kingdom of Grahal. And it took eight months of working as a maid by day and a prostitute by night, living in this filth to cut down expenses until I had finally saved enough money to commission you."
Her voice cracked at the end as she choked as she stared into his eyes. "You have to. You have to save them. Our village is not poor, that's why those Royluken bastards targeted us. If you succeed, we'll give you a lot of money! I'll give you everything I have, even my bod-"
"I cannot promise you of my success." Rui cut her off before she could finish her words, crushing a pang of lust his hormonal teenage body felt. "What I can promise you is that I'll do my absolute best. This, I can absolutely guarantee. My grade is a bit higher than the difficulty grade of the mission, which means the Kandrian Martial Union believes I'm more than qualified to undertake this mission, therefore the probability of success should not be low."
Rui's words inspired confidence in her, lighting up hope in her eyes.
Rui on the hand, understood why she went out of her way to request a meeting with him even though it would have increased the cost of the mission, being that this was an international mission.
She wanted to incentivize and motivate him to succeed by offering him money and sex, so that he would take the mission very seriously and do everything he could to succeed.
He also understood how she managed to afford such an expensive commission. The last eight months must have been a living hell for her as she did everything she could to amass the money needed to commission a powerful Martial Artist who was capable of fulfilling her wishes.
Her story earned his sympathy, as well as his respect and admiration for her dedication and perseverance for the sake of her people.
"If there's nothing else." He said, getting up. "I'll be setting out to fulfill your wish."