"This will be your office," Selene said as she opened the door.
"No need to be polite. Just treat me the same as before," Cipher said as he walked in, and she followed.
"Then I won’t be polite," she said. "I have to say, I’m quite surprised by you. When I found you passed out three days ago, I hadn’t expected things to turn out like this."
"Well, it’s all thanks to you," he said.
"No need to thank me. I was just doing my job," Selene said, waving her hands frantically.
She wondered if what she said sounded weird. Did it sound like she was asking for payment for saving him back then?
"Actually, you’ve already repaid me," she spoke up.
"Repaid? How so?" he asked.
"You invited me to your branch," she said.
"Are there benefits to being in a branch?" he asked.
"Yes, lots of them. But the main one is funding," she explained. "Branches receive large funding from the Association which they can spend on their research or whatever they do. Normally, the Enforcers are funded directly by the Association and are restricted greatly because of this. Like before, when we were about to leave and I was summoned."
She continued, "In a branch, we’re funded by the branch and are also less restricted by the Association, making us somewhat independent."
Cipher smiled. "Is that so? You didn’t strike me as someone who would avoid deployment."
"I’m not," she said.
She looked through the window. "I’m just worried about my party members. They’re still weak. Now that the Association is about to start looking into the loops, they’ll probably deploy other teams to investigate. Our team would’ve probably been one of those."
"Aren’t you still one of those since you’ll be going into Gates with me?" Cipher asked.
"Although there’s a chance that there are loopers in every Gate, actively looking for them is a lot different than just farming for experience and returning," she said. "Though I guess the line is quite thin, seeing as you encountered it when just training, not even farming experience." Her confidence wavered slightly at the end.
...
The following day, Cipher was walking to his newly assigned building from Eris’s lab where he had just finished appraising a bunch of stuff for her.
The terms he had made for the use of his services were still the same - he would offer his services to the Association for free, but he had the final decision on who to work with. He had made this clause for personal protection. If he had to offer his services to everyone, he wouldn’t have a way to defend himself against those who wanted to exploit him.
Besides, it could also be a good bargaining chip. He could choose not to work with members of the Association he didn’t like. This would allow him to subtly manipulate situations to his favor.
He pushed open the door and entered the ’Research Center’ that had been prepared by the Association as his main workplace.
There was quite a bit of equipment here that he didn’t even know about. Machines with blinking lights, crystal analyzers, mana measurement devices - he’d learn to use them later. The whole research thing was just a front anyway.
He wasn’t really conducting any research except fulfilling appraisal requests. What he wanted most from the branch was the freedom to raid worlds at will, to farm stats, to learn the Heavenly Demonic Sword Art, and to awaken the Heavenly Demon.
At that moment, the door opened again and three people walked in.
It was Ryker, Maya, and Dante.
"You guys are here. Where’s the Captain?" he asked.
"The Captain is picking a Gate for us. She’ll be here soon," Ryker said.
"Anyway, Brother, you really became a branch head..." Ryker spoke, putting his arm around Cipher’s shoulder.
"I got lucky," Cipher said.
"Congratulations! Take care of us from now on," Maya said with a bright smile.
"Brother, don’t worry. My shield doesn’t discriminate. Even if you’re a branch head now, I’ll still keep you safe," Dante spoke, flexing his muscles.
Cipher just smiled at them. This group was a little naive - they didn’t even know how to acknowledge status properly. If it was another person, they would’ve been thrown out by now.
Well, they were much easier to work with. He also wasn’t used to all this formal hierarchy anyway.
Although they seemed a little unreliable, they had some skills. Looking at them through Appraisal, it seemed they hadn’t been slacking off.
...
A while later, Cipher and the rest of the team stood before a huge portal.
"Is this the one you chose?" Cipher asked.
"That’s right. This is a C-ranked experience farm world known as the World of Heroes," she explained.
"The World of Heroes?" he asked.
"Yeah. The setup is that when we enter the world, we’re asked to join the hero’s party. We basically just follow the hero around and hunt monsters. The hero is fairly strong, so there’s no real danger to us and we can just farm the mobs," she explained.
Cipher was deep in thought. This Gate seemed fairly safe, but wasn’t following the hero’s party quite restrictive? Well, he supposed exchanging a little freedom for safety was fine.
He noticed something weird with the rankings of the Association. "How does the Association determine the rank of these worlds? If the hero can protect us from danger, isn’t his rank at least B or A-rank?"
"The Association usually determines the rank based on the highest level hostile you’ll face, and we generally ignore the others. Mostly because we don’t know their level. Of course, you could always antagonize them to fight them and determine their level but that wouldn’t be a smart thing to do. But now that you’re here, we might need your skills to assign appropriate levels to the worlds," she explained.
Cipher nodded. It wasn’t that the way they did it was bad - it just needed a little improvement for unexpected situations. The C-rank could be considered the scenario rank, representing what level of danger you’d go through in a normal "playthrough."
Then he could have a true rank. This would represent the peak of the world in a "creative" playthrough - when not following the established rules and just going wild.
He decided to create this new ranking system as a side project as he raided the worlds. He hoped the Association noticed his efforts.
"Alright then, let’s go," he said, and the party jumped into the portal.