The Kandrian Empire was large. Especially when compared to the many small sovereign states in its immediate geographic neighborhood.
Most of these small states lacked a strong Martial foundation. They were unable to sustain or retain many of the Martial Artists that did end up breaking through from their populations.
The reason was brutally simple; Large nations were more attractive to Martial Artists than smaller nations. Many of them moved to the larger nations such as the Kandrian Empire, the Sekigahara Confederate, the Britannian Empire and the Republic of Gorteau.
These nations were able to facilitate their growth as Martial Artists to a much higher degree than smaller nations could. Due to a greater availability of better learning and growth resources.
These nations were also one of the few that had a strong centralized Martial Artist organization, such as the Martial Union of the Kandrian Empire. This was also an additional incentive to the Martial Artists of smaller states to join the larger nations, as these Martial Artist organizations often offered a plethora of useful benefits to joining them.
The larger nations did not make it too difficult for these Martial Artists to integrate into their states either. After all, Martial Artists were precious assets to all nations. They were of strategic importance and were absolutely vital to all nations in order to maintain their militaristic power.
Thus, no nations would refuse gaining more of them.
As a consequence, the smaller nations were much more depleted of Martial Artists in comparison to the larger nations. The fewer Martial Artists of each of these nations were unable to fulfill the consumer demand for Martial Art services.
Furthermore, without a strong and large bureaucratic organization such as the Martial Union that could quickly process all commissions for Martial Art services in a standardized manner and convert them into mission bills that could swiftly be delivered to all Martial Artists, it impossible for the Martial Artists of these smaller nations to be able to fulfill the large demand of the market for Martial Art services in their own nations.
So what did the consumer market do when the Martial Artists of their own nations could not fulfill their demands?
They turned to the larger nations.
The Martial organizations of larger nations like the Kandrian Martial Union were in no shortage of capable Martial Artists, thus they happily catered to the demand for Martial services. Each of the large nations had commission offices across the territories of the smaller nations, allowing them to access a wide international market outside of their own borders, receiving a vast number of commissions from across all these nations.
The missions Rui was browsing through were among these commissions from nations within the large international market that the Kandrian Martial Union.
[Offense-class mission: Elimination mission.
Clientele: Dashaian Temple. Mosca, Minnivaille Kingdom.
Target of elimination; Inhabitants of Mosca Church of Woyeh.
Location of target; Mosca, Minnivaille Kingdom.
Difficulty: Grade 8
Mission commencement: Immediate.
Successful completion remuneration: 30 gold coins, 7 silver coins and 5 bronze coins/ 800 Martial credits.
Mission summary: Eliminate as many inhabitants of the Mosca Church of Woyeh once the mission commences. Averaging with a population 150 at any given point and confirmed presence of one Martial Apprentice.]
"Woah." Rui's eyes widened.
A temple commissioning a grade-eight mission to massacre a church in the same town as itself?
"That's wild."
The Kandrian Empire was secular and didn't have a particularly dominant religion. However, it seemed that the Minnivaille Kingdom had to have severe religious conflicts if a temple was willing to massacre a church!
Rui shook his head. He had no interest in doing something as distasteful as massacring a church.
The other offensive missions weren't necessarily better. All of them made Rui feel fortunate to be born in the Kandrian Empire where there was a certain degree of stability. He did not have to feel worried about international Martial Artists being commissioned by citizens to harm others citizens within the same nation, because such things were unprecedented, as far as he knew.
"Hm?" Another mission bill caught his eye.
[Offense-class mission: Elimination/Capture mission
Clientele: Fria
Target of mission: Ruyloken Gang
Difficulty: Grade 9
Mission commencement: Immediate.
Successful remuneration completion: 38 gold coins, 4 silver coins
Mission execution location: [23.3285, 26.4523] Hefermaine Village, outside the Kingdom of Grahal
Mission summary: Eliminate or capture the Ruyloken Gang that has seized control of the Hefermaine Village alive.]
This one didn't seem as distasteful as the rest. He picked up the mission, shugging. It was definitely the best out of the existing international missions that he saw.
He took it to the Registrar, officially accepting the mission before sitting down at a table in the library. After all, one couldn't gain access to the full information in the mission bill until one accepted the mission. Mission bills often contained sensitive and confidential data that only the Martial Artists accepting the commission had access to, according to the commission contract that the clientele signed with the Martial Union.
He immediately opened it, as he began reading the details of the mission thoroughly.
The Hefermaine village was a tributary of the Kingdom of Grahal, a small kingdom south-west of the Kingdom of Grahal. it was a small settlement as far as population went. The villagers made a living by engaging in agriculture, they occupied rich plains with highly arable land and sold all the excess crop harvest to the Kingdom of Grahal.
Although their lifestyle was rather simple, it was a peaceful village.
Until a gang known as the Ruyloken Gang took over the village and robbed all of the village's wealth earned from the harvest sold to the Kingdom of Grahal and other surrounding states. The village had very little security, being as remote as it was. Furthermore, the gang was lead by an experienced Martial Apprentice. The village had no way to resist.
The gang simply occupied village and barred anyone from leaving, they simply had the villagers work relentlessly and took the gold when the pay came.
