Code Collector

It was a plan for Allen's group that whenever they are in Paradise, they have to stick to each other as much as they could. That was until they make names for themselves individually.

"So basically, we become celebrities?" Gwen asked, grinning at the thought. "I can't say that I don't like the sound of that."

This earned her a smack on the back of her head from Gary, "You think this is all fun and games until these smaller groups try to recruit us, or even worse, hurt us."

"That's inevitable," Allen said. "Barandilla can just send a few words about four D rankers and the ones above us, which basically is everyone else, will try to take us down. They have their huge ego at stake here."

The group arrived at the Skill Altar dome where the WDS machines were installed. They were similar to ATMs in earth but instead of giving money, they give out information.

This is also where Hunters who wish to put in information goes. The Hunter will feed the information to the machine and the organization will confirm this. This process will take more or less two to three days depending on the information they feed it.

For their case, they will feed the information where the nest for the Silverthorn Gorillas are. The organization will send scouts to observe the are and then confirm it on the system.

Allen thought that it would be much easier for the organization to just send in scouts to feed information, but Bernard said that the organization are not willing to spend the money for that. The information that the WDS needed were detailed.

From the type of terrain, approximate number of species of beast, to the number of plants and sometimes even areas of grass. To hire scouts that would take in these information, the organization would have to spend trillions of money.

They decided that it was better to let the Hunters explore these areas while they sit back and send in troops just to confirm that the gist of the information was right. 

This would sometimes cause a rift between Hunters when others would feed the wrong data. The organization would handle this matter by simply updating the information in the WDS. As the days passed, the database is updated until such time that it would only have the right data.

But not in Paradise's case.

"Only this?" Gwen asked out loud, shocked by what she saw. "This is barely anything. The information with Camp George is the fuana around the camp's walls? And just a bit of a forest up north, but that's it?"

"They have told us before," Allen said as he placed the thumb drive on the slot. "People here are as selfish as they come."

He fed the information in the WDS and wrote their names on the source. They confirmed this with their IDs scanned into the slot. This was to prevent further misinformation. The author of the said data is added and this was going to be confirmed with their IDs.

Through this way, when the information is heavily different from the one the scouts found, they will be interrogated.

"The flora and fauna here in Paradise is extremely different from Haven," Jeremy said as they walked out of the building. "I think this is why people don't add information. They are going to be persecuted if they put in the wrong stuff."

"They're just selfish and the organization just let them continue being selfish," Allen said. "The organization is not doing anything to prevent any type of problem at all."

"They mostly focus on Haven and Eternity," Gary said. "I heard this one from the conversion of Remy and Kenneth the other day. "Paradise has the least budget from the organization. This place is similar to a middle child of a family. It only want to seek attention from its parents, which is the organization."

"Who leads Paradise anyway?" Allen asked. "Do they have some sort of council? I don't know what happens in the higher ups."

"Hmm," Jeremy pursed his lips. "Okay, I'll explain it to you."

The Hunters organization was built with a hierarchy just like all other organizations. The ones on top are the main sponsors as well as the Primordial Beast Bearers. These bracket has the chairman and vice chairman of the organization that is required to be a Bearer.

Below them are the secondary sponsors and the representatives from worlds apart from Star Nest where the Bearers are. Each world has four representatives, they are divided into divisions with different functions.

One division was the health, military, exploration, and science. Each representative are going to meetings regarding what happens to the world and what plans does the organization have for them.

Below the representatives are the ministers. They are the ones who are in the worlds, seeking information and relaying it to the representatives who goes to the meetings with the higher ups.

Jeremy's father, John, is a minister. He is on the division of the military therefore he handles the security and the weaponry of Haven. John has no power in Paradise or Eternity, while the Ministers for Defense in Paradise and Eternity have no power in Haven.

The world they are assigned at does not mean anything regarding their power. Each of them are equally strong in terms of individual strength, economic strength, and even network strength.

Below the ministers, which includes, their groups of people that serve their own roles for the Hunters, are the Hunters themselves. They are at the bottom of the hierarchy and there were too many ladders that they needed to climb to reach up.

"So basically, the structure of the organization is already trash," Allen said. "No wonder their policies are no different."

"The hierarchy would always require power," Jeremy said. "The more power you have, the higher you can go."

"And that's why we're going to change it, right?" Gary said. "We're going to peg this hierarchy starting from being celebrities."

"Yes!" Gwen cheered. "You finally agreed. We are like celebrities."

–

"Hiya!"

"Heal!"

"Slash!"

The group were in the forest again. This time they are going to stay for a week and wait for the time to come back to the camp to feed the WDS more information. It had been four days since they left and Allen was now wondering what happened to the information.

"Do you think Barandilla blocked the infromation?" Jeremy asked Allen as they rested on the cold forest floor. "I'm worried about this part all the time."

"Here we are, in the middle of the forest and you're wondering if our information made it?" Allen chuckled. "That was simply a stunt so that we'd look good, you know. The machines were outside of the Skill Altar building. People already saw us there and from the looks of it, there aren't as many people who goes to those machines."

"I even overheard a group of people who entered the altar," Gwen butted in their conversation. "I heard something like D rankers being incompetent and such."

"This is part of the problem with these dudes," Gary said. "They think that they're superior if they follow the ones ahead of them and they would look down on the people who does things differently and for this case, things that are labeled as weak."

"This is how their power increases," Allen said. "The more they implement these stereotypes, the more people would look at them like gods. This is stupid, but hilarious at the same time. People in the middle just looking at these Hunters who are stronger than them like gods."

"If they only know that following these gods wouldn't help with their ascension."

A voice came from the top of the tree and there was Kenneth. He was grinning at them while he landed on the ground silently. Behind him was Dennis who came from behind the tree.

"You guys were missing for a couple of days," Allen said. "I was worried that something happened."

"Barandilla blocked your information," Dennis said without any hesitation. This made Allen's heart drop. Although it was indeed just a stunt so people would talk about them, Barandilla blocking the thing that they worked hard for still felt like a blow.

"Dumb," Kenneth said. "You scared them. Yes, Barandilla did try to block your information, but they never got the chance to do it. It was Louis himself who confirmed the information by going to the site."

"Louis?" Allen asked. "The Primordial Rat Bearer?"

"Yes," Kenneth said. "He got a whiff of what we were doing and decided to help. He is regarded as the weakest combatant in the Bearers and he wanted for everyone else to not go through the same discrimination he went through. That was why he wanted to help us."

"Louis is a pretty strong combatant though," Dennis pursed his lips. "Whatever did he meant by being the weakest? Anyway, you guys can rest now. I have the information right here. Take this and then you can rest until the time comes that you're going back to the camp."

Click. Flash.