Mystical Journey

"This is the red team, but it is not a place you can handle." The woman who was having a conversation raised her head and smirked at Garen. "Everyone here is a form three totem user. We have finished up to hundreds of missions before we got here. Do you understand what it means to complete hundreds of missions?"

The girl smiled.

"It means that everyone here has killed hundreds of totem users and all of them were in the same class."

She continued. "We of the Secret Service had a statistical death of one person per group per month. There are a lot of back ups waiting to fill our role. These people are professionals who live on the edge every single day. Do you understand what I’m trying to say here?"

"That’s true. If it’s me, I wouldn’t believe a leader who came down from the sky either. If that’s the case, then I will give up on my rights in command and we will all be on equal footing and perform the mission together. Do you agree?" Garen said nicely.

"That’s the right choice." The old man seemed very satisfied.

"My name is…" As Garen was about to introduce himself, he was cut off by the old man as he raised his hand.

"Young man, It’s best not to reveal your real name in this sort of place. Using a nickname will do. This is an advice from an old man. Alright alright, everyone drop your act and properly introduce yourselves." The old man smiled. "My call sign is oldman. These two sisters are called Kitten and Fox respectively. This youngster beside me is called Hunter and the person who is asleep is our vice captain, Red Umbrella."

Garen nodded.

"The nicknames were created by yourselves?"

"Of course, you can call yourself whatever you want as long as it’s easy to pronounce." The old man nodded.

"Then you can call me Nineheads." Garen replied gently.

"Nineheads? The old man shook his head as he gestured the kid Hunter to give a space for him to sit. "Have a seat. We were discussing a mission we were about to execute before you arrived."

With this, the whole atmosphere had warmed up.

"Everyone will have their own standard parcel for this mission and I would need you to retrieve it for us later. We will discuss about the difficulties of this mission for now." The old man commanded sternly.

Garen glanced at everyone else and the man who was sound asleep had placed down his legs and was no longer snoring. It was obvious that he was listening to the discussion. Everyone looked focused and was completely different from a moment ago.

Garen didn’t mind as he was entered the Secret Service to do what he had to do in a low profile. The incident regarding the Trejons Household was very heated and it required some time for it to die off.

He didn’t want to be targeted by the Obscuro Society and Terraflor Society just yet.

The Black Prince would soon arrive in the Kingdom to meet His Majesty. Security detail fell under the Secret Service, but it was the mission given to the Black Team, which was the strongest team among the Nine Color teams so it was none of his business. What they needed to do was to eliminate the group of monsters in the surrounding area.

The location of the mission had been implemented into the map and was packed with at least ten red dots. They only had one month to clear the mission to prevent any delay in the Black Prince’s schedule.

Garen was rather stunned at the Old Man’s arrangement as there was no strategy involved. Positional tasking was given as to who would be in charge at which area. Some were given two or three places, indicating their difference in strength.

One had to realize that these red dots might have form three creatures gathered and they were all distributed among the five of them. Hunter and Red Umbrella had more red dots, three and four red dots respectively. Furthermore, these red dots were the stronger ones as well. As each of them obtained one or two, they soon finished distributing the red dots.

The Old Man suddenly realized that they had an additional person, Garen. He looked at Garen as he hesitated. "Do you want one?" He asked.

"Sure. I will take it as a beginner’s training. One red dot shouldn’t be any issue." Garen smiled.

"Be vigilant. Although it’s just one red dot, there will be at least two form three creatures. If you can’t handle it you should immediately send the rescue signal." The Old Man expressed his goodwill.

"You should leave this group if you can’t even handle one red dot." Kitten smirked.

"I will go to bed if there’s nothing else." Red Umbrella yawned as he stood up, preparing to leave the room. "Send the things to my room later."

"You can send the items to our rooms later. It’s indicated in the map and it’s easy to find." The Old Man stood up and patted Garen on the shoulder.

"It’s time for you to shine." Kitten walked passed Garen’s side and did the same. The other girl, Fox, didn’t say a word and left the room.

The Kid Hunter smiled at Garen and was the last one to leave.

Garen stood in the room speechless as he looked at the empty chairs and tables.

"So I’m the bellboy now?" He shook his head. He could see that these people had their hands filled with blood and its stench, much stronger and concentrated than his were.

He had killed many normal secret technique users in his previous world. Technically speaking they were just commoners and he was slightly stronger than them. These people said that they had killed totem users on par with them. They didn’t even mention about killing people not of their level or the commoners.

It was obvious that the amount would be a lot.

"I have got to give credit to the headquarters. They only have ten groups, yet the weakest one is already this strong." Garen felt emotional and he didn’t understand the intention of His Majesty placing him here. However, since the Secret Service had access to highly classified intelligence, he should be able to obtain some special intel regarding this world.

He memorized the map and left the room. As he was on his way out, he encountered a grey shirted lady pushing a cart, claiming to be the courier.

Garen gave her some tips and told her to help send the items to the rooms indicated on the map. The woman seemed to be very familiar with the place as she often sent packages around here. She happily accepted the request as she usually did this without getting pay.

Garen inquired about the setup of this place and found out that the place was built underneath a lake.

After finding out where the Archives and the Database were located, he decided to find out if they had any intel that he would find useful.

Although he was not satisfied with the attitude of the Red Team’s members, he didn’t take it to heart as he knew that it was normal for people to behave like so.

What he currently needed was the intel on removing the Crystal Derivator’s hidden problem. Although this item was no longer item he most relied on, it was still very useful so he didn’t want to simply give it up.

Furthermore, his ultimate objective was to try and find any information regarding the relationship between this world and the previous world.

There was still one year or two before the Kovitan Empire collapsed. Garen planned to settle everything for Hathaway, Goth and Prynne within this time frame. He wanted to compensate Acacia for lending his body to him by preparing a path for his relatives and close friends.

He would then focus all his energy into finding the secret between connecting this world and the previous one.

*******

In a distant land far away, there laid a tall black minaret that pierced through the clouds and beyond, shrouding the topmost parts of the building. .

Black smoke could be seen at the bottom of the tall minaret. The smoke morphed into the shape of a tall humanoid with black armor.

The humanoid looked at the minaret in front of it as the black smoke rotated around its body, forming a huge cloud vortex. Loud whistles of wind constantly travelled down to the ground.

"Is something wrong, Heiji?" A man's deep voice suddenly came from the minaret, as if the whole building was reverberating this sound.

The armored humanoid stood still with its head down as it paid respect towards the tower.

"There’s a new movement from the Terraflor Society. They seem to be nurturing a man called Beckstone."

"I know. We can just ignore him. Our current opponent is the Royal Alliance of Luminarists. The Three Departments are troublesome in their own way and the President is still asleep. We need to be more cautious as the time he awakens draws near. These three old men are no simple characters. We will have hope of overpowering them when the President successfully awakens and we no longer need to rely on creatures to contain them."

The man in the minaret explained.

"What about Marshall God Cloud? We have noticed that a General-class Crystal Derivator is acting strangely."

"Send a message to tell him to deal with it himself. We of the Black Sky are only in charge of monitoring them and are in no position to oversee the whole operation."

"What worries me is that we can’t get in touch with the General who is in charge of Kovitan. It may affect the whole plan." Heiji responded.

"It is the plan of Marshall God Cloud, not ours. Alright, we'll stop here today." The tower quietened down and no sound came from it afterward.

The black armored humanoid, too, dissolved into a pile of smoke and disappeared.

***********

Somewhere in the ruins of Daniela, a black unihorned creature was slowly moving among the ruins. The Unihorn Creature was carrying a purple haired woman who had an eyepatch on her. She had a red crystal ball floating in her palm, the surface was faintly glowing in red.

"Demetrius, are you able to get hold of Jess?" The Elemental General, Andora’s voice came from the ball.

"What’s wrong? Is there an emergency?" Demetrius gently comb her hair with her hand.

"The Black Sky said that Jess’s Derivator is broken. The general meant that it may be too late to change a new one as Kovitan is entirely in charge by Jess. Since you’re the only person who had seen Jess’s face and identity, the General wants you to go there by yourself. Since you still have another General there, you don’t need to worry about something happening at your place. That fellow hasn’t been contacting the other Generals in the area. Anyone would believe that he’s lost." Andora explained coldly.

"Alright. Intel says that he’s currently in the Kovitan’s Kingdom. Isn’t there already a General there? Furthermore the General from the Elite Squad is there as well. Please let them know of the situation since I’m not familiar with them."

"Alright, let me try and contact them."