The hope was effectively crushed.

Ciel gazed over the state of town in front of him and felt his passion and soul slipped into a pit so deep even Tartarus deemed it excessive.

“Caislean, what am I looking at and how do I change it?”

Caislean, in her usual maid uniform, replied without bashing an eyelid.

“The proper term would be absolute despair. I believe you have as much chance of changing it as winning three consecutive grand prizes in the national lottery. If it makes you feel any better, I believe suicide is an option. I don’t recommend drowning because of the paralyzing terror as your lungs fill with liquid dread. In this scenario, hanging is the easiest and fastest way to part from the despair you currently witness.”

“What about bleaching my corneas?”

“Should I get the chemical?” Said the beaming maid.

“No, Caislean, that is sarcasm.”

So what inspired such life-sucking despair? It was the state of the town.

In front of Ciel was the image of disrepair, the aged street once lined with red-brick now resembled the pink carcasses riddled with holes and crumbled rocks in display of haunting maintenance. The bushes and trees once lining the street looked like a dried up joke of life, made more painful given the dawn of spring. 

By his right were rows of semi-condemned housings. The material forming the settlements was depressing and rotting, like it suffered from a severe case of termites infestation. Ciel was afraid Caislean might blow the shambling structure held by pixie dream for kicks and entertainment. Those windows were so broken they further convinced the young Lords the entire street was haunted. He can spot three homeless guys in clothes, stinking to high heaven as they beg for changes. 

The alleyway on his left didn’t improve his enthusiasm. Sure, it was full of life. He just saw a rat scuttled across the dirty lane lined with garbage and filth. Oh, there were also three energetic men on high-grade home brew alcohol, beating a kid to death like he was a money Pinata.

Right, Left and Center of his vision spelled absolute hopelessness. Ciel glanced over his shoulder to read the name of the town from the badly vandalized plaque.

Springsong

“So much for song, more like a disaster.”

“My master, I doubt we will find a candidate in this place,” Caislean couldn’t help but take a kick at the situation. “I am sure the ladies are sexually active, but I doubt they got the potential or the health and safety clearances.”

“I know where you come from,” Ciel watched the tumbleweed rolling away in front of him like it was fleeing to greener pastures. “Who the hell is in charge of this hellhole?”

…

Contrary to many beliefs, the mayoral office of the hell on earth was silent instead of explosive

Aside from the aging rag of a carpet, the huge oak desk buried underneath the paperwork, and two cupboards stacked to the brim with even more paperwork, the room was qualitatively barren. The window behind the mighty desk was dusty. The curtain needed to be replaced. It was hot and barely ventilated, a working condition even hell would deem excessive. The yellowing flowery wallpapers were right at home for a cranky grandma who woke up with dementia and violence. An overhead lamp a mere touch from being condemned to a trash heap creaked methodically like a time bomb to the room implosion.

On the positive note, the floorboards were at least termite free.

“HI YO, how are you doing Xia!”

The door swung open with a force and promptly disintegrated into smithereens against the wall.

A glamorous blonde, whose very existence shone as an anti-thesis to the town and the room’s current state, looked sheepishly at the door. She was wearing a satin red dress, a pearl necklace and a gaudy hair clip studded with jewels. Her belt of golden chain flickered in sunlight. The heel she wore could boggle the eyes of a yoga teacher and the white fashion-statement wide-brim hat, contrasting with her waist length hair, was astounding to the eyes of any onlooker. Her eyes glittered like sapphire as she worriedly glanced at the fracture door.

The diva of wealth and taste then looked worriedly toward the oak table

The mountain of paperwork shifted as the master of the room, sealed beneath depression and inhuman workload, roused from her slumber, “Go away, Betty. I am sleeping...”

The diva was less than amused by her elder sister, “Xia, this is noon and people sleep in bed, not underneath papers.”

“Don’t care,” said the mountain of papers. Her voice was on the brink of defeat. It was the voice of a woman toiling under a company Satan and Cthulhu allied to burn for being too evil. She was at the edge, and Betty knew it would take a single snip of a string for the aimless kite to part forever away.

Betty couldn’t have that, “Look Xiahana, sis, I can’t let this bloody hellhole destroy you. You already did too much for this place already. Just leave.”

“I can’t do that, and you know it.”

“What are you even gaining from being here?” Betty shouted.

“Leave me alone, Betty.”

“Look at you. What is the last time you take a shower or change your clothes,” Betty worriedly asked.

“Maybe two weeks ago.”

Betty’s mouth twitched, “Can you please dig yourself from your bed of papers and talk to me.”

The hill of paper quaked, and a lady lifted herself from it.

Betty would argue that her sister could dethrone her in the capital’s beauty pageant if her presentation weren’t so horrific. Despite her suppled body, face and natural softness that enhanced her adorableness, stress and the inhumane condition took a massive toll on her innate beauty.

Her platinum-blond hair was sticking out like a banshee being electrocuted. Their texture rough and uneven from the utter lack of care or cleaning from their owner. Her blouse and skintight jean were a wrinkled mass that should have been changed two weeks ago. A cracked monocle dangled from her chest pocket. Her fray cape was misaligned. The leather belt was on its last leg. It was a testament to a good taste being annihilated by the condition.

Xiahana’s face told the same tale. Her pale skin sincerely needed sunlight. Her face was thin and unhealthy from lack of nutrients and sleep, with huge eye-shadows worthy of the raccoon-kind from the raw sleep-cycle abuse. Despite being below twenty, Xia looked like she toiled in the service industry for thirty years.

Betty was flabbergasted. It wasn’t this bad when she checked last month.

Xia ignored her sister's concern and reached for the drawers. A weak creak later and Springsong’s overworked mayor dropped a canteen of beige color liquid on the table, uncorked it and took a swig.

“Oh no,” Betty felt her heart de-synced. “You are drinking now?”

“Stamina potion. Want some?”

“Unreal,” Betty accepted the canteen, smelled the juice, made a face, took a sip and gagged. “How can you drink this? It is damn rancid. Who made this stamina potion?”

“Me.”

Betty’s mind did a somersault, “Bootleg stamina potion? Xia, do you want to kill yourself?”

The young woman took another swig and continued sorting her paperwork with a practiced speed. It was a testament to her intellect and focus that she could  excel in such a dispirited state, “I know I am going to die on this desk, and it will be on you.”

“Me? I am not shoving this work down your throat!”

“Elizabeth La Louve. Capital Number 1 Bachelorette,” Xia angrily signed a piece of paper and corrected another. “Former princess of the old dynasty utterly selling herself out for those garbage traitors. Must feel great to be the heroine who help brought forth the revolution.”

“Sis, dad is corrupted,” Betty threw her hand up. “We have been fighting over this for the last two-years!”

“Two years of bogus framing!” Xia rubber-stamped another paper. “You aren’t stupid, and I am not blind. The evidence was so circumstantial it would pass in a fair trail. But heck, father is already in the pool of his own blood.”

“A suicide!” Betty argued.

“So you tell yourself,” Xia took another swig from the bottle and began combing through the math. She sighed; revenue/cost barely broke even despite her best budgeting effort. “But it doesn’t matter what is the story. The capital needed a goat to punish, and here I am.”

“Sis, I beg for them to be lenient.”

“Yeah, by handing me death by impossible reassignment!” Xia shouted. “Sister of the year, everyone! You backstabbed us, so don’t pretend to be a hero, Betty. Next time you visit, with your stupid entourage in that stupid overprice coat those cushy nobles buy for you, and find my dehydrated corpse, you can just look in a mirror to arrest the killer.”

“Sis, why can’t you just let it go and publicly apologies. I can’t convince the capital for your sake, if you don’t even help yourself!”

“Because, unlike someone, I don’t sell my principle for statuses and parties.”

The two sisters glared at each other. Minutes trickled by, and like usual, Xia won.

“Just take care of yourself, okay,” Elizabeth walked toward the door, defeated.

“I have White Magic. I won’t die.”

“Remain breathing on the desk isn’t living, Xia.”

Xia stamped a paperwork with a greater force, “Betty, dear, I don’t care.”

…

“I am not an expert, and I can tell whoever in charge cannot muster the energy to care,” Ciel said.

“I agree, my master,” Caislean nodded as Ciel returned from being rejected from the fifth bar they tried to apply. “At this rate, the town will descend into anarchy. The fire and bandit will down the brothel and take every woman in this town in a grand old orgy. Let hope my suicide protocol sticks for both our sake.”

“Can you be hopeful?” Ciel had to ask.

Caislean laughed to cement their hopelessness, “My master, let's admit the obvious. Void utterly raw-dogged us. We are the last out in the town on the verge of disintegration with almost nothing behind our back. We already checked the employment, the people and even the brothel. There is no one worth more than a one-star here, and we ran into the prospect wall. We are waiting to see our heart gorged and roasted with chocolate beans as a dessert for other Lords the moment the trigger gets pulled.”

“Wow, I don’t know you can be such a motivational speaker.”

“My master, you are speaking like an opportunity will drop from the sky and will flip our fate around.”

Then a girly voice erupted from a nearby alleyway, “Please don’t! I promise the next batch will be good.”

Caislean and Ciel turned toward the yeller.

She was a small, cute red-head, being surrounded by three burly men towering above her. The girl already fell on the ground and tried to shrink herself inside the red hood, covering the rest of her clothing like a terrified hamster. The young girl was on the verge of becoming a tear fountain.

But what stunned Caislean and Ciel the most was her potential.

“A rare?” Caislean couldn’t believe her eyes. “This crumbling fragment of civilization on the verge of becoming a plague infested dinner has an R?”

“Yeah,” Ciel didn’t have a perfect ability to read potential, but as a master of Unity Lord Authority he instantly knew where the lass was. “I can’t believe it. We must save the girl. Right now!”