Novel Full Chapter 934: Chapter 1151: Retired
Chapter 934: Chapter 1151: Retired
The third captain of the Steel Guards, upon receiving Julian's order to investigate the Steel Guards who had dealt with the remnants of the overseas Wynn family over a decade ago, found it much easier to conduct the investigation since he had been a participant in that incident.
Over the past ten-plus years, some of the Steel Guards who handled the remnants of the overseas Wynn family had died, some had been reassigned to other places, and others had retired.
That's right, Steel Guards also had retirements.
As one of the Walker family's covert forces, most of the main members of the Steel Guards were orphans adopted by the Walker family from a young age or ordinary civilian with talent.
After going through a loyalty test, they became eligible to join the Steel Guards.
As for retirement, there were three conditions in total:
First: You had to serve the Walker family for at least thirty years after joining the Steel Guards.
Second: You had to maintain a task completion rate of no less than ninety percent.
Third: Your strength had to reach at least pseudo-Elite tier.
These three conditions really weren't that difficult. Apart from the second condition being somewhat challenging, the other two were basically... well, easy to meet.
Basically, all major families had their own secret forces to handle matters that couldn't be brought to light.
Yet very few families were like the Walkers, allowing members of their secret forces to retire.
Most families generally made them serve until death.
From this perspective, the Walkers could definitely be considered quite humane.
So even though the vast majority of Steel Guards met the retirement conditions, very few actually chose to retire.
One reason was that they didn't know what to do after retirement.
Even though the Walker family would arrange new identities and jobs for them, but they had grown accustomed to life in the Steel Guards, and returning to the light might actually feel uncomfortable.
Another reason was that once they chose retirement, even if the Walker family gave them a legitimate identity and job, the resources they could obtain simply wouldn't compare to what they had in the Steel Guards.
These two points were the main reasons why few people chose to retire.
The Steel Guards had three Captains, each at the pseudo-Champion level.
Each of the three Captains commanded ten groups, and the minimum strength requirement for each group Captain was Elite-level, and each group further consisted of ten members, whose minimum strength was Advanced-level.
So the Walker family's Steel Guards had three hundred members, including three pseudo-Champions, thirty Elites, and the rest were either pseudo-Elites or Advanced-level trainers.
With this kind of power, they even surpassed the overt strength of most aristocratic families.
In addition, with Julian's rise over the years, he had found many treasures in the Secret Realms. Most of these treasures had been of little use to him, so he had handed them over to the Steel Guards.
This had directly caused the strength of the Steel Guards to rise sharply.
In the past, the Steel Guards had been under John. However, after Julian became a Champion, John had handed the Steel Guards over to him—skipping Jake entirely.
Jake had already grown used to this.
When the time came, John would probably pass the position of family head directly to Julian too.
Jake: 'I know, there's nothing for me here.'
Fortunately, Jake didn't care about these things; otherwise, it would have somewhat damaged the father-son relationship.
Looking at the list of retired Steel Guards over the past decade or so, the third captain saw a familiar codename.
"It couldn't be you, could it…?"
A trace of doubt and concern appeared in his eyes.
---
Skyhawk City, located in the southern part of Yale Province, was a third-tier city. Because it had a very magnificent waterfall within the city, it attracted many tourists from all over.
Thus, the city could be considered a relatively well-known tourist destination.
At this moment, inside a Pokémon battle club in the urban area of Skyhawk City called "The Fighter," a battle between two pseudo–Elite-level trainers was taking place.
On the blue side was a Machamp belonging to the trainer who was the owner of this battle club, while on the red side was a Primeape belonging to a club member.
"Machamp, Dynamic Punch!"
The club owner was a middle-aged man around sixty years old.
With an average life expectancy of 120 years in Drakoria, sixty could indeed be considered middle-aged.
As the Dynamic Punch landed, even though the Primeape had managed to defend in time, it was still sent flying by the force of the punch, crashing heavily into the protective barrier.
With a thud, it slid down from the barrier. Although it wasn't completely defeated, it couldn't get up for the time being.
"I lost to you again, Boss Shawn."
The red-side trainer said reluctantly as he recalled his Primeape into its Poké Ball.
"Your Primeape has improved a lot. Now it can last five minutes in a battle against my Machamp. Once its level and battle experience increases, defeating my Machamp will only be a matter of time."
Shawn said, taking out two towels, tossing one to his Machamp and the other to his opponent.
"Boss Shawn, don't think I don't know you have more than one Machamp. I've heard you also have an Elite-level Machamp,"
The man then walked up to Shawn and asked in a low voice, "Boss, do you really have an Elite Machamp or not?"
Shawn said helplessly, "If I was an Elite–level trainer, would I still be here sparring with you to make money? If I went to the Walker Group and became a security captain, I'd earn more in a year than I do in ten here."
"…That's not necessarily true. It's not like there aren't Elite–level trainers hidden among the common people. Playing the pig to eat the tiger—doesn't that kind of thing happen all the time?"
"So you really think I'm an Elite–level trainer?"
"No."
The man shook his head and carefully sized him up.
"You probably aren't."
"Oh? And why not?" Shawn asked curiously.
"Because you're just a money-grubbing profiteer! This time you even charged me even more than last time. If an Elite–level trainer was as stingy as you, I'd just ram my head into a wall and die!"
As he spoke, his tone became increasingly agitated.
"Well, your strength improved compared to last time, didn't it? That's why I charged you extra. If your strength hadn't improved at all, I definitely wouldn't have charged you more."
"So don't you think me charging you more is actually recognition of your improvement?"
Listening to Shawn's words, the man was stunned. It sounded quite reasonable, yet it also felt wrong somehow, but he just couldn't figure out why.
So he just stood there, dumbfounded.
"Think carefully about whether what I said is right or not."
Shawn smiled and patted his shoulder, then casually took the towel from his hand.
Meanwhile, Machamp had already started cleaning the battlefield. It was about time to close up for the day.
"Right… or not?"
The man muttered to himself, full of doubt and confusion as he walked out of the battle club.
Because he was so distracted, he accidentally bumped into someone who was walking toward the club.
"Ah, sorry, sorry," the man quickly apologized.
"It's fine—be more careful next time," the other person said blandly, and walked off.
*****
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