To Live Again, For the First Time!

Moulan never thought that he would land himself in such a quagmire.

He was truly and thoroughly fucked.

And not in a good way.

He currently sat in a modernly designed office. The woodwork on the walls and the furniture was one that surpassed the times. It looked both ancient, modern, and futuristic at the same time, balancing them out well, though leaning more towards the modern side.

In fact, it looked like it could still be considered modern, yet classic centuries from now, no matter how the future of interior designed looked like, they would always leave a space for this space.

"So, what do you want to say for yourself?"

A clear and imposing voice was heard from right across Moulan's seat.

"That you're information was a little too inaccurate..." Moulan mumbled with his head lowered so much that his chin was touching his chest.

This was just too embarrassing.

"What do you have to say for yourself as a Master hypnotist huh?"

The man who sat across from Moulan in the dimly lit side of the room hid a smirk behind his mocking voice.

Moulan stayed silent.

If he could dig a hole for himself right now, he would dig himself one 6ft deep and just bury himself.

But that wasn't necessary since the man in front of him was going to do it for him. He just didn't know that yet.

"Yes, it's best you stay silent."

Elijah huffed from the seat across as he held in the evil smile that would tell others that he was scheming something, even though there was no one to see him except Moulan, who was staring a hole into his own chest.

"Not only did you get yourself hypnotized and tricked out of our trade secrets, you even let the perpetrator off without a scratch. Have you thought about how you'll make it up to me?"

Elijah sounded truly angry, his body radiating a fierce aura, even though he was actually laughing in joy inside.

At this point, Moulan was considering quitting his job to become a junky who lived off his parents in his mother's basement.

It didn't sound too bad.

Moulan nodded to himself as he thought about it.

It was a sad nod that hit his chest multiple times, but a nod nonetheless.

Just as he was about to open his mouth to tell Elijah that he was going to quit being a hypnotist since it seemed like he royally sucked at it, Elijah beat him to it.

"But it's good that you are repenting right now. Since that is so, you'll have to repay me somehow right? Just work for me for another 10 years and we can call it even."

Elijah pulled out a contract from out of nowhere.

Moulan was speechless.

He stared at the 10-year contract that was now sitting on the dark wooden desk in front of him.

"Hey! No way. Why the hell would I sign a 10-year restraining order with an assho--" Moulan forgot his embarrassment for a moment as he spoke his frustrated mind.

He didn't actually work for Elijah, he was just staying here because he had limited places that he was willing to go, though that didn't mean that there weren't lines of people who wanted him!

Master's weren't that easy to contract, no matter how powerful you are or how many connections you have.

This was because of a simple fact.

They were wanted everywhere!

Even if you threaten them with something, they could very well head up to your competitor's side and ask them for help in exchange for favors. 

And it wasn't a good idea to threaten masters with people such as family or friends, since cornered dogs bite, cornered lions would too, it's animal instincts and you can rest assured it would hurt like hell.

They wouldn't stop until you lost a limb or two.

As for why those groups who were approached didn't give these masters a hard time, well let's just say you really can't look down on a master's networking abilities.

'Yeah! I have to have a tight grasp on my confidence! Love you mom, but I can't just give up like this. What the hell man! I'm one of the youngest and most experienced Master hypnotists in the world. Second to none when it comes to both practice and potential.'

It was like he forgot that he was dancing on Emilin's palms, even now.

He comforted himself, determined not to sign the contract. He had a strong distaste for being confined by rules.

"You wouldn't impede that from you taking responsibility for your actions and inactions right? Actions as in exposing our secrets and inactions as in the complete and utter inability to do anything about it."

Elijah was very aware of the circumstances, right now was the best time to hit the iron while it was hot and Moulan was not one to be brought down for long.

This was part of his pride in being a young Master of his arts, being at the top of the pyramid, he simply didn't know how to act in any other way.

Moulan would be right back up in a few days so he had to use this opportunity well, Elijah wouldn't purposefully bring down one of his future subordinates and or colleagues.

Moulan hesitated for a bit before reaching out for the contract as if he were trying to film a slow-motion clip without the added effects as he 

There wasn't anything too restraining, the normal non-disclosure, compensation, and working hours.

Of course, there were some other details, but in general, it wasn't too bad, it was just that the duration was a little too long for his liking.

"I can agree to the contract, but not for this long, it's too much. Let's say 5 years." 

Moulan was actually hesitant, but his jaw dropped when a new contract appeared out of thin air and landed on top of the one he was looking at previously.

'God damn, I thought that he was going to negotiate and that I had already set it pretty low, but he pulled out the contract with no hesitation. I should have lowered it more!'

'Fuck.'

Moulan inwardly cursed his new boss when he realized that Elijah had schemed against him just then.

And he had just cleared out the hole that Elijah had carefully dug for him, not forgetting to bury himself in that hole while he was at it.

"Go on."

Elijah said, not hiding his mirth anymore as his lips adopted a devilish smirk.

Moulan had to sign the contract in front of him now.

This was also part of his pride as a man of his word, one of his basic principles as a human being.

Elijah snatched the contract up and gave Moulan another copy the second he had signed it and then walked off to his desk as Moulan contemplated life.

To this point, he still didn't know what exactly happened.

Just a few hours ago, Elijah had called him into his office, hours after he had sent Emilin off, having gone through all the necessary procedures. 

There really weren't that many, he just gave his word, and off she went.

Of course, she was blindfolded and she had to pretend she didn't remember a thing, but Elijah had learned from this experience that he really had to tighten his security. 

After getting past Moulan, he felt like all other security measures for these specific circumstances were complete and utter shit.

Elijah had been tempted to send out a search party for the little lass after figuring that something was wrong, but after watching the video clips, he decided against it.

Elijah had only noticed this much later, but it could still be considered early when you took into account that it was on the very same day that Emilin left and that even Moulan, the man himself, who sent Emilin away didn't notice anything.

What really blew Emilin's cover was the amount of time she spent in Moulan's office.

Yes, she had asked Moulan what was the average amount of time spent there, but what she didn't know was that the numbers that made up that average were largely varying.

There were people who spent less than 10 minutes, those were the least suspected ones because they took the least amount of time to be hypnotized. 

It would take Moulan much longer to extract all the necessary information from those who were trained with strong mental capabilities.

This was one of the reasons why Moulan hated the hours that the suspected individuals spent in the lobby, especially if they were innocent.

He would have to 'observe' them for hours just to come up with the same conclusions.

It was a complete waste of time in his opinion and so it wasn't the first time he had called the person into his office ahead of time.

Still, he would send out a signal for when he brought one in and so this wouldn't affect anything and Elijah was already used to Moulan's impatience.

That wasn't the issue.

The real issue presents itself as the following:

Here we had a girl, who had been in a session for hours, and yet came out completely clean.

If Elijah didn't find something iffy here, then he might as well quit his job.

Plus he was kind of bored, so he decided to check it out.

And low and behold.

He had been in a high position since birth, and with such a position he had seen a lot of things, but he would definitely rank today's occurrence as a solid top 3 and a strong contender for Number ONE most stupifying scene he had ever come to witness in his life so far.

He had written up this contract after he finished watching the video feed from the cameras installed in the office 2 times over, and this was considering its hours in length.