Chapter 40: The Interview
Caldron Empire, a major border town—Redstone Fortress.
The city walls were built of dark red rock, looking from a distance like a piece of iron burned through, firmly nailed to the continent's border. A constant stream of people moved through the city gates; soldiers in bright armor patrolled back and forth, vendors pushed small carts and hawked their wares, and mercenaries with swords and sabers slung at their sides passed by in groups of twos and threes. The air was thick with the scent of horse manure, roasted meat, sweat, and magical potions.
Lia stood at the main entrance of the Blazing Mercenary Group, looking up at the aged wooden sign.
The wooden board was painted a flamboyant red, its edges long since worn and peeling. A clear arrow hole remained in the bottom left corner, like a souvenir from some past battle. Below the sign crouched two stone lions, one on the left and one on the right, though their majesty was long gone—one was missing half an ear, and the other had half a tail broken off, looking both pathetic and comical.
She reached out and pushed open the creaking wooden door.
The door hinges let out a long groan, as if complaining that no one had oiled them in a long time.
Inside was a hall of about fifty square meters. The lighting was poor, but it was kept reasonably tidy. A few rough wooden tables and chairs were arranged haphazardly, and the walls were covered with various weapons: scimitars, axes, spears, notched shields, and several yellowed, smoke-blackened mission scrolls. In the corner sat several bulging sacks, their mouths open to reveal rusted iron chains, worn ropes, and a few rolls of coarse burlap used for who-knows-what.
Behind the counter sat a round, chubby man, his head down as he clattered away at his accounts. His pen tip flew across the paper, and he muttered to himself, completely immersed in his own world.
Hearing the door, he didn't look up, just gave a casual glance and immediately returned to his calculations, his tone extremely dismissive:
"Recruitment is down the right corridor, third door. Go line up yourself."
Lia stood her ground and didn't move.
The fat man waited another two seconds, and finding that the person hadn't left, he finally looked up impatiently: "Hey, I told you—"
"I'm here to apply," Lia said calmly.
The fat man froze for a moment, then finally took a proper look at the girl before him.
She had eye-catching red hair and rare golden eyes. She wore an old mage robe that was washed-out and faded, its original color almost unrecognizable. No weapons hung from her waist, nor did she hold a staff. She looked clean and tidy all over, like a novice apprentice who had just run out of an academy without even experiencing real combat.
The fat man's mouth turned down, his tone full of obvious doubt: "A mage?"
"Yes."
"What level?"
Lia carefully recalled the three completely incompatible leveling systems of the System, the Dragon Race, and humans, and gave an honest answer: "I don't know."
The fat man burst out laughing, his belly shaking: "You don't know? Then what spells can you do? Offensive? Defensive? Or can you only light a lamp and boil some water?"
Lia was concise: "Breathe fire."
The smile on the fat man's face froze instantly.
"...Breathe fire?" He doubted he had heard correctly and repeated it. "Girl, are you here to be funny? A magician, is it? This isn't a circus, we don't do street performances. We need people who can go to the battlefield, kill people, and stay alive—"
"I can fight," Lia interrupted him.
The fat man sighed, put down his quill, stood up slowly, walked around the counter to her, and put on a patient 'I know better than you' look:
"It's not that I'm trying to discourage you, little girl, but Redstone Fortress is a very dangerous place. Magical beasts, bandits, Dark Mages—we have everything. You look so soft-skinned, it's clear you've never been in a real fight—"
Lia didn't waste any more words on him.
She simply turned her head slightly and looked at the relatively open space in the center of the hall, about five meters square. Seven or eight mercenaries were currently standing there waiting to register, each carrying a blade or sword, with solid muscles and expressions that said 'I'm a tough fighter.'
She lightly opened her mouth.
She took a deep breath.
Even though she was currently in human form, the dragon instincts carved into her soul would not disappear. Deep in her chest, the Furnace Core belonging to a Red Dragon quietly began to operate. The temperature soared at a terrifying speed, and scorching heat flowed through her blood vessels, nearly filling this small human body to its limit.
She could feel the flames rolling, compressing, and poised to strike in her throat.
Three seconds of breathing.
Then, she breathed.
It wasn't a giant pillar of fire that swept everything away, but a precisely controlled fan-shaped flame, exactly five meters in diameter, perfectly covering that open space.
With only a flash of light, the fire instantly retracted, the entire process taking less than a second.
But in that brief second.
The originally hard, flat stone floor in the center of the hall had vanished.
In its place was a perfect circle of pitch-black, shiny, mirror-smooth Lava Glass. The edges were still slightly hot, emitting a few wisps of faint white smoke, and the air was filled with the slight scent of rock being completely melted.
Dead silence filled the room.
The seven or eight mercenaries who had been whispering just a moment ago were frozen in place like statues.
Beneath their feet was that newly melted glass floor.
The burly man standing at the very front had his toes only three centimeters from the edge of the glass.
No one even dared to breathe loudly.
The silence lasted for three seconds.
"Clatter—!"
The chair behind the fat man suddenly toppled over.
It wasn't that he had knocked it over on purpose; he had instinctively recoiled so hard that he slammed into the back of the chair, sending it flying.
The fat man's eyes were wide, his mouth open wide enough to fit a fist-sized egg. His gaze flickered between the reflective glass, the smoking edges, and the group of terrified, frozen mercenaries. His brain had completely stalled.
Lia slowly closed her mouth and calmly turned her head to look at the completely dumbfounded fat man.
"This is called breathing fire," she said in a flat tone, as if demonstrating a perfectly ordinary minor spell.
The fat man's lips trembled a few times. He opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again, making several meaningless gasping sounds from his throat.
It took several full seconds before he finally squeezed out a complete sentence:
"...You, you wait! I'll go get the Captain!"
With that, he turned and ran, his fat body exploding with surprising speed. In his haste, he slipped at the corner of the corridor and nearly did the splits. He frantically grabbed the wall, his soles making a series of sharp, ear-piercing screeches on the stone floor as he scrambled inside.
Lia remained standing where she was, expressionless, like an emotionless humanoid turret.
The seven or eight mercenaries were still in their frozen poses, not daring to take a single breath.
Especially the burly man closest to the glass; his legs began to shake uncontrollably, getting worse and worse until he could barely stand.
Lia gave him a casual glance.
With just that one look.
The burly man let out a strange "Awooo" cry and suddenly lunged back three meters, violently knocking over a wooden table. The cups and notebooks on the table crashed all over the floor. He scrambled into a corner, staring at the glass with wide, terror-stricken eyes, his face pale.
Lia looked away and waited quietly.
About two minutes later.
The sound of heavy, steady footsteps came from the corridor, approaching from a distance.
The fat man rushed out ahead, looking like he'd seen a ghost, followed by a middle-aged man with a completely different aura.
The man was in his forties, tall and sturdy with a rugged face. A hideous and prominent scar ran across his face from below his left eye to his chin, marking him as someone who had crawled out of a sea of blood and mountains of corpses. He wore well-fitting dark leather armor, with a longsword hanging at his side. His stride was steady, and his gaze was as sharp as an eagle's, the kind of look that made people instinctively tense up.
This was the Captain of the Blazing Mercenary Group—Carlos.
The moment he stepped into the hall, the first thing he saw was that blindingly bright Lava Glass.
His footsteps came to a sudden halt.
He stared at the man-made glass floor, examining it carefully for three seconds with a solemn expression. Then he slowly raised his head, his gaze falling on Lia, looking her up and down, inch by inch, as if trying to see right through her.
"You did this?" Carlos spoke, his voice low and raspy, carrying the weight of a long-time veteran.
Lia nodded slightly.
Carlos was silent for a second. He didn't ask "Who are you" or "Where are you from," but only asked the most practical, mercenary question:
"How many more times can you do it?"
Lia thought for a moment and gave a conservative answer: "I can do it continuously."
Carlos's eyebrow twitched slightly.
He stared at Lia for another three seconds, confirming that this seemingly ordinary red-haired girl wasn't joking in the slightest. Then he turned his head to look at the fat man, who was cowering to the side, nodding desperately with a frozen smile.
The fat man immediately signaled frantically with his eyes: Captain, really! It was terrifying!
Carlos turned back, walked up to Lia again, and extended his rough, powerful right hand, his tone crisp and decisive:
"Blazing Mercenary Group Captain, Carlos."
"You start tomorrow. Your pay will be doubled."
Lia looked down at the hand, paused for half a second, then lightly reached out and shook it. It felt hard, covered in calluses and scars.
"Lia." She only gave her name.
The corner of Carlos's mouth twitched ever so slightly in what passed for a brief mercenary smile.
He let go of her hand and, without looking back, ordered the fat man in a voice that brooked no argument:
"Arrange the best room for her. Her treatment will be that of an S-rank Mercenary."
The fat man was stunned: "Cap—Captain? S-rank? You're the only S-rank in our whole group, this—"
"Now there are two," Carlos interrupted coldly.
With that, he turned to leave.
After only two steps, he suddenly stopped, looked back at Lia, and added a piece of mission information:
"Tomorrow morning, there's a mission. Escorting a caravan to the Black Forest."
"Any problems?"
Lia shook her head slightly.
Carlos nodded, said no more, and strode down the corridor, his figure soon disappearing at the end.
It wasn't until the Captain had completely left that the fat man finally snapped out of it. He immediately put on a fawning and respectful smile and scurried over to Lia's side, bowing nearly ninety degrees:
"Lady Lia! This way, please! This lowly one will take you to your room! The best room! Sunny, quiet, and clean—I guarantee you'll be satisfied!"
Lia said nothing and followed him up the stairs.
Behind her, the group of mercenaries who had long been frightened senseless finally erupted into a low-voiced, frantic discussion, their tones filled with shock and lingering fear:
"Did you see that just now? That floor... it was melted directly into glass!"
"That was definitely Dragon Breath! Only true Dragon Breath could achieve that level of intensity!"
"Shut up! If you don't want to die, don't talk nonsense! If she really is..."
"But she clearly looks like an ordinary mage!"
"Mage my ass! Have you ever seen a mage who breathes fire and melts the floor directly?!"
Lia did not look back.
She didn't care about their chatter at all.
She followed the fat man to the second floor and entered a room that was clean and simply but neatly furnished.
The fat man bowed and scraped as he backed out, gently closing the door.
The room finally became quiet.
Lia walked to the window, pushed it open a crack, and looked out.
The streets of Redstone Fortress were bustling with people. The shouts of vendors, the sound of horse hooves, the rolling of wheels, the crying of children, and the laughing and cursing of mercenaries all blended together to form a vivid picture of the human world.
She quietly watched those humans walking in a hurry, looking at those unfamiliar faces, busy footsteps, and flickering eyes.
This was a world completely different from volcanoes, lava, dragon hatchlings, and Kobold.
Complex, noisy, full of secrets, and also hiding opportunities.
Lia stood by the window and was silent for a moment.
The corner of her mouth curved upward in an extremely light and faint arc.
The first day of infiltrating the human empire.
It went very smoothly.
Next would be missions, intelligence, magical items, and... that permanent Transfiguration Technique that would never show her tail again.
Her human stage had officially begun.