CHAPTER 37: CHAPTER 36: EMERGENCY

A few minutes ago...

It didn’t take long for the reinforcements to arrive, consisting of Miranda, Hugo, and Maxwell, their new temporary lead. The three members stood there with large black cases strapped to their backs.

Initially, the team had formed to recover more information about the anomalous bus, but just before deployment, their objective switched to apprehending the alleged cultist.

However, it wasn’t mentioned if he needed to be alive.

"Trigger it," Maxwell instructed, lighting up a cigarette.

"What?" Miranda asked, baffled. "The explosion—"

"Are you going against my orders?" Maxwell stared at Miranda with a less-than-pleasing expression. "You already failed your order once, which led to Marcus’s death. I’m sure you don’t want to get reprimanded again so soon?"

The last jab wasn’t meant for her, but for Hugo. Since he got the brunt of scolding from the higher-ups, and even had to re-register for extensive training to lose weight.

Miranda wanted to object since the explosion could kill everything within a radius of three hundred meters, but Hugo had already activated Marcus’s explosive collar.

Everything went as planned. The bus exploded, and the man died in it.

At least that’s what they thought.

While waiting for the cleanup crew, the squad witnessed something logic-defying. Both the entity and the man were alive, and they were fighting!

"W-Why are they fighting each other? Didn’t the intel mention they were working together?"

"It was just a deduction," Hugo chimed in. "Still... how could someone without any dedicated training fight a C-rank anomaly with such... precision?"

The two were lost in contemplation and didn’t notice Maxwell’s face twisted with anger as he charged towards the two. But before he could even touch one of them, the anomaly disappeared, followed by the man a few seconds later.

Huffing and puffing, Hugo joined Maxwell, followed by Miranda.

"Their signature... they just... disappeared?" Hugo asked, only to get smacked by Maxwell.

"Why the hell are you stating the obvious, useless fuck!"

"Eh? Why scold me? It’s not like I chased them away—"

No sooner had he said those words than Maxwell grabbed Hugo by the neck and lifted him in the air.

"So? You’re suggesting I let him escape?"

Isn’t it obvious? If you hadn’t charged ahead like a damn bull, how would he have noticed us?

Hugo thought, but didn’t dare to open his mouth again.

Only Miranda was doing the actual analysis work.

Judging from how he disappeared, that person must be [Spatial-type] awakened... but he was carrying slayer weapons. Could be a [Special-type] instead?

The abilities of players could be classified into three major groups: the physical-type, the elemental-type, and the last, special type.

The physical-type is the most common awakened ability, which was again sub-classified into different categories.

The most common one was the brute-type. One could consider it as the fighter class from a MOBA. Most people awakened such abilities by simply entering a game.

Then came the enhancement type. Unlike the brutes, they didn’t just have a better physique, but also carried the ability to affect others with buffs and other things. In other terms, they were a support category that was quite rare and almost never joined field operations.

There was also the alteration-type, that could turn their flesh to grow new limbs or even grow wings like a certain agent in their department loved to. Basically, their body were like clay, which they could mold to create whatever they liked.

As for the elemental-types, the name was self-explanatory. They controlled different elements like fire, water, earth, but some went beyond that to control gravity, vacuum, sound, metal, and whatnot.

Other than the special-types, the elemental types were some of the most dangerous individuals one could encounter.

As for the special types, there wasn’t one definition of them, but if Miranda had to define them, she’d say:

Beings whose existence doesn’t fall into the other categories.

They could possess both physical and elemental-type abilities, or no abilities at all. Yet they were deadly enough to hunt even A or S-rank anomalies.

And she suspected that the one who killed the Bus 357 anomaly was one such being since he displayed both physical-type and spatial-type (elemental-type) abilities.

"A special-type who isn’t affiliated with the organization... the news alone would send the organization into a frenzy."

***

Meanwhile, back inside the forward base.

Zaen fell onto his bed with a loud thud. Thankfully, the rooms were soundproofed, so he didn’t unintentionally disturb Zoey or Jenna.

He immediately wanted to check the rewards, but kept it aside for now.

"Jenna said I’ll train with her tomorrow," he mumbled to himself. "Judging by their sadist tendencies... I should get all the rest I can tonight. The rewards can wait for later. Also, I’ll look into that advancement thing then."

One thing he understood after fighting was that the [Tasks] did not have a difficult rating. Even seemingly easy tasks could actually be deadly. So, he decided to get stronger first.

He’ll train with the organization and awaken the walking stick before taking on the advancement quests, whatever they were.

With that thought, he relaxed as sleep quickly claimed his tired body.

***

"Where is big brother? I won’t leave without seeing him!"

Uncle Mack sighed, watching the young boy throw a tantrum. It was Zaen’s idea to send Aeron to the boarding school.

Aeron wasn’t the only one being sent away. Zaen, their father, and even Mack had all gone to the same boarding school. It was a sort of thing in their family.

Under normal circumstances, Aeron would have gone there when he turned seven. But then, their parents disappeared, and Zaen straight-up refused to part with his brother.

That’s why Aeron had stayed at home for so long, but after losing his eyes, perhaps Zaen thought the place was too dangerous to live and decided to send Aeron away.

The only problem was that Aeron wasn’t going anywhere without meeting Zaen, who was stuck in the rehab facility.

"...I got no choice," Mack sighed and pulled out the card Zaen had given him before leaving. "He told me to call only in emergencies... this counts as one, right?"