?"Thank you, Hera," Nick said with a smile of his own as he shook her hand in greeting.
"Come, I'll show you around," Hera said, leading Nick to the back of the hall.
Naturally, Hera knew that Nick was here for some business-related matters, but it was common courtesy to show someone around the facilities when they visited for the first time before getting down to business.
"Of course. Thank you," Nick said politely.
For the next couple of minutes, Hera introduced the building to Nick.
Surprisingly, even though the building was much bigger than Dark Dream's, it only had ten floors.
However, each floor was almost ten meters high, which made Nick feel like he was in some huge and grand hall.
Apparently, the floors were designed to be of this size so that Solace could hold huge Specters.
Most Specters were not that big, but there were a few that were quite big.
And if one didn't have a Containment Unit of a fitting size, one wouldn't be able to contain such a Specter.
Having high ceilings allowed Solace to use Containment Units that were up to ten meters high, and a couple of them were already in use.
"Do you want to have a little fight?" Hera asked suddenly as she stopped in front of one of the Containment Units.
"Against you?" Nick asked in surprise.
"No, of course not," Hera answered with a laugh.
Hera was an Expert already.
The next moment, she knocked on the door. "Against the thing in here. It's a Blood Specter at the Late Adolescent level."
Nick looked at the door a bit.
In the past, fighting seemed exciting but also frightening to him.
But ever since that huge incident happened, Nick hadn't felt the same.
He felt like all the fights had lost their stakes.
The thing he would lose if he lost just wasn't as valuable as it used to be, making the fights lack excitement.
"Sure," Nick said neutrally.
When Hera heard that, a small glimmer appeared in her eyes.
Her asking the question had several purposes.
First, politeness. Offering an Extractor a fight with a Specters was essentially giving them a bit of Zephyx.
Second, information gathering. She wanted to know how Nick felt about fights and how he viewed them. And if Nick accepted, she would also get to see how Nick would fight.
Lastly, personal interest. Hera just wanted to see Nick fight because she was interested in him as a person.
Not in a romantic way, but in a friendly way.
Nick was someone from the former Dregs, and he had become a Chief Zephyx Extractor while being so young.
Naturally, many people were interested in Nick.
Nick's most interesting aspect was that he hadn't been replaced yet.
Wyntor was an heir to the Melfion family, and he had a scary number of connections with powerful people.
While he hadn't had the resources to get a good Chief Zephyx Extractor when Dark Dream was still new, the same thing wasn't true anymore.
Dark Dream had over ten Specters by now, and Wyntor could easily convince one of the Veteran team leaders from Kugelblitz to join as his Chief Zephyx Extractor.
Naturally, the difference between someone like that and Nick was huge.
And yet, Wyntor kept using and relying on Nick as Chief Zephyx Extractor.
There had to be something that made Nick special, but Hera hadn't seen that special something yet.
Nick was friendly, but he also seemed insecure in many things.
He didn't seem like a Chief Zephyx Extractor.
Of course, that made Hera interested in Nick.
What was so special about him?
"Good to hear!" Hera said with a smile. "I heard you got the Blood Hawk and Blood Horse from the city. So, you should know how to fight a Blood Specter."
Nick wasn't surprised that Hera knew about the Blood Hawk and Blood Horse.
The Specters had belonged to the city, and everyone who worked for the city basically knew all the Specters that the city's forces had access to.
The absence of two Specters definitely attracted attention, and it wouldn't be difficult to find out where they were now.
Nick just nodded.
Hera opened the door and walked inside.
"It should be in its recovery phase. Beating it once should be enough," she said.
Nick entered as well and quickly saw a huge red wolf.
It was almost three meters high and about five meters long.
At this moment, Hera was calmly holding it back by just pushing it away whenever it tried to run forward.
It was important to note that experienced Extractors could use their Zephyx to build a powerful connection with the ground.
If Hera didn't do that, she would be flung away, even though she was much more powerful than the Blood Wolf.
It was simply a matter of weight.
But by using her Zephyx to connect her to the ground, she could make perfect use of her power.
"Ready?" she asked.
"Sure," Nick said.
"Here it comes," Hera said as she jumped to the side.
The huge Blood Wolf immediately ran aggressively towards Nick.
It jumped forward and opened its mouth to consume him.
But the Blood Wolf missed.
Nick seemed to have vanished from its vision!
In truth, Nick had simply sidestepped at an incredible speed just moments before the wolf clamped down on him.
At this moment, the wolf didn't know where Nick was, and Hera was behind the wolf.
She also didn't know where Nick was.
Nick's ability activated, and he jumped forward.
BOOOOOOM!
Nick punched the Blood Wolf's head, which separated from its body, hitting the wall.
BANG!
Then, Nick kicked the wolf's body toward one of the walls, but since his ability wasn't active anymore, the wolf basically only stumbled backward toward the wall.
Then, its body collapsed.
It was in recovery mode.
The head started to vanish rapidly.
Nick turned to Hera and nodded.
When Hera saw that, a gleam appeared in her eyes.