Books, reports, and several different kinds of office supplies lay on a table in the middle of quite a sizable meeting room.
The table was big and was able to accommodate around 20 people.
Just like with any other building in the Outer City, the walls were made of shiny metal, but the metal this building was made of was even stronger than normal.
It was made of actual steel.
No normal person could possibly break one of the walls down without using extremely powerful tools.
Inside the biggest meeting room of the building, seven people sat around the huge table.
Two young women sat on one side of the table.
One of them had brown hair and chatted animatedly with the girl beside her.
There were two pistols adorning her waist, and she wore the standard uniform for a Zephyx Extractor.
The emblem on the uniform was an arrow going in a circle.
This was Cycle's emblem.
Beside the young woman with the guns sat a taller woman who looked about ten years older but was, in fact, only around four years older.
This woman had a bald head and had quite big arms. On her back was a massive staff made of pure steel with one massive round ball at each end of the staff.
While the young woman was talking animatedly to the older one, the older one just listened like she didn't care.
But that didn't mean that she actually didn't care.
In fact, those two were best friends.
Just like the younger one, the older one wore the standard uniform for Zephyx Extractors.
It was obvious who these two were.
Those two were Newbies from Cycle.
Besides the bigger woman sat a short and slender man with black hair and sharp eyebrows.
The man didn't talk with anyone else on the table and just waited.
There was no weapon visible on him, and he wore the same uniform as the former two Extractors, signifying that he also was a Newbie belonging to Cycle.
At the other side of the table was a young man with red hair who was moving back and forth on his chair to keep it balanced on its two back legs.
The guy put his knees on the edge of the table but didn't dare to put his legs on it due to the presence of more powerful people than him.
There was also no visible weapon on him, and he wore the same uniform as the others, showing that he was a Newbie belonging to Cycle.
Besides the red-headed guy was another man.
This one looked to be in his young thirties, and he had long and rough brown hair.
On top of that, he was over 190 centimeters tall with quite a bit of muscle, creating quite an intimidating presence.
On his back was a long sword, and just like the others, this one also wore the uniform of a Newbie belonging to Cycle.
However, the way everyone was acting around him showed that he had a slightly higher position than the other Newbies since they avoided looking at him without a good reason.
The last person in the room was the one at the head of the table.
It was a tall and very fat man with an eyepatch.
The guy probably weighed over 200 kilos, which was quite unusual for Zephyx Extractors. After all, Extractors tended to do a lot of manual labor and fighting, which kept their bodies healthy and athletic.
Of course, there were also people who looked fat but were actually healthy and athletic, but this guy did not belong to those.
In a way, his round shape made him look a bit like a panda, and his eyepatch made him look a bit like a pirate.
A panda that was also a pirate sure was an interesting mental image.
On the panda-man's back was a long rifle that had several attachments on it.
The panda man was looking at the people in the meeting room, and everyone looked back.
Compared to the others, the panda-man had two interlocking arrows on him.
This signified that he was a level two Extractor.
A John.
"Are we waiting for the boss?" the big and serious man with the long sword asked the panda man.
The panda man nodded with a polite smile. "He should be here soon. He was the one that called in the meeting."
"What's this even about?" the red-haired man asked with annoyance as his chair tilted back and forth. "I wanna get back to work."
"Jonathan," the panda man said, "this is more important than working right now. Also, you are getting paid by the hour. So, it doesn't matter whether you are working or not right now since you're still getting paid."
The red-haired man, Jonathan, just rolled his eyes, shrugged, and went back to tilting on his chair.
"By the way, where's Sarah?" the young woman with the pistols and the brown hair asked the panda man.
"She's not coming to this meeting, Kiara," the panda man said.
Kiara, the young woman with the pistols, raised an eyebrow. "Why not?"
The panda-man sighed. "We'll talk about it later."
"Is all of this related to Sarah?" the bald woman asked with a serious voice.
"Let's all just take a step back," the panda man said with his arms raised like someone was about to attack him. "The meeting has not even started. Just calm down and wait for the boss."
The two women looked with skepticism at the panda man.
Surprisingly, they looked at the panda man with less respect than when they were looking at the serious and tall man with the long sword on his back.
The fact that the panda-man was the Chief Zephyx Extractor of Cycle, and therefore their boss, didn't make a difference.
The black-haired man remained silent and waited with his eyes closed.
The two women continued talking in whispers, but it was mostly the younger one who talked while the older one listened.
Finally, a couple minutes later, the doors opened, and Ardum walked in.