CHAPTER 57: GUIDE OF FATE, DESTINY

Chryseis Hargraves’ POV

"He’s interesting," Chryseis murmured, folding her arms as she leaned back in the chair.

She hadn’t planned on meeting Alan personally.

In fact, she’d come to this branch for a private matter entirely unrelated to him.

She wasn’t even in the mood to get involved until Nikandros, the Rank 3 inspector handling Alan, had approached her with the replica of Ruyi Bang.

It was a genuine.

"He knows about the Maw of Gluttony, and he knew how the Favorite Drink Vending Machine works."

Her eyes shifted toward the paper cup sitting on the table.

Steam rose from it. The scent lingered in the room.

She’d never smelled anything like it before.

She picked up the cup and stared at it.

"Is he really the Monkey King’s disciple?"

She didn’t have an answer yet.

Normally, she wouldn’t have wasted time personally questioning a teenager.

If anything, she would’ve sent someone else, and only intervened after it was confirmed he was the Monkey King’s disciple.

There was only one reason she met him.

"He took the Mission D. I wonder if this is a coincidence, or if it’s a planned move on his part."

She stood up and turned toward the hallway.

The mission Alan was joining was a simple mission.

Given the mission details, it was highly possible the kidnapping was done by a human criminal, and not by an Anomaly.

But there was always a small chance that it was the doing of an Anomaly.

"I hope he’s the Monkey King’s disciple. Someone like him would improve the team’s safety by several times," she whispered.

If Alan had heard her in that moment, he would’ve understood two things instantly.

First, Chryseis had no idea about [Area 51] existence.

And second, she wanted to make sure that the team assigned to that mission came back alive, no matter what.

...

MC’s POV

I walked down the hallway, looking for the third waiting room.

The hum of old lighting overhead buzzed faintly as I passed each identical door.

Room Three.

I stopped in front of it, gave a light knock, then pushed the door open.

Inside was a long rectangular room that reminded me of a karaoke lounge.

A long table stretched down the center, flanked by cushioned bench seats embedded into the wall on either side.

The lighting was warm, and cozy.

Six people were already inside.

The first person my eyes landed on was a girl who looked around nineteen or twenty.

She sat at the far end, clutching a staff that rested upright beside her leg.

Her black hoodie was drawn low over her face, but not enough to hide her striking red eyes.

Every few seconds, she would tug at her hoodie again, as if that would help her disappear.

She was extremely beautiful, the kind of beauty that made people second-guess whether she was even human, but she also looked incredibly nervous.

Next to her was a man who looked to be in his late twenties.

He had short brown hair, wore a dark casual jacket, and had a thin wand resting on his thigh.

There was an easygoing smile on his face, like he’d been in rooms like this a hundred times before.

Across from them were three people who were clearly triplets.

All three had golden blonde hair, pale skin, and sharp fangs that peeked out whenever they opened their mouths.

They looked like dhampir, or a vampire subspecies.

The last person was a chubby boy with round glasses, sitting closest to the door.

He clutched a small leather-bound notebook.

All eyes turned toward me the moment I stepped in.

"Hello, you must be Alan Veritus, the seventh member of the team. I’m Zephan, the team’s Guide." The man with the easygoing smile stood up and walked over to me.

I shook his hand.

"Guide?"

"Yes, I’m a Guide of Fate. Each team gets one, courtesy of the Underworld. We don’t want our precious Supernaturals dying too easily if a powerful Anomaly shows up, after all."

"So you’re basically our bodyguard?" I asked.

"Pretty much. I’m a Rank 3 Mentalist, so I’m decent at what I do. Though, if things go completely sideways, I might just run for my life like any sane person."

He laughed at his own joke.

No one else laughed.

After a few seconds of awkward silence, he cleared his throat and moved on. "Anyway, I’m guessing you already know what a Guide is."

"Those who have contracts with the Rank 6 Anomaly, [Fate]?"

"Correct."

Zephan glanced around at the rest of the group.

"I’ll explain it once for everyone’s benefit. It’s better to clear things up now than deal with a misunderstanding in the middle of an Anomaly Hunt."

He rolled back the sleeve of his left arm.

A strange black tattoo stretched across his forearm, almost like a burning brand etched into the skin.

The lines were sharp, interwoven, forming a strange, circular glyph that looked like it shifted subtly if you stared at it too long.

"This mark means I formed a contract with [Fate], a Rank 6 Anomaly. Thanks to it, once we enter the range of another Anomaly and I activate this mark, I can use an ability called [Destiny]."

He let the sleeve fall back down.

"When [Destiny] is active, our chances of discovering the Anomaly’s defeat condition go up significantly.

"But there’s a trade-off.

"The difficulty of defeating the Anomaly also rises. That means it will be possible to discover the normally impossible to find defeat conditions, but the danger level spikes."

The others nodded, some more confidently than others.

The red-eyed girl tugged her hoodie down again, and I noticed her hands were trembling slightly.

The [Destiny] ability was one of the few things humanity had that could counter the unpredictability of Anomalies.

But even then, the increased difficulty it caused made it near-impossible to defeat Anomalies.

’Destiny guides us towards the defeat condition.’

’But we can only know if the defeat condition is true if we can defeat the Anomaly.’

Normally, everyone died before doing that.

Hence, even with guidance of Destiny, they couldn’t know if the defeat conditions they had found were correct, or if they had misread the situation and the defeat condition was something else.

Zephan checked his watch and looked toward the door.

"Our eighth team member should be arriving soon. Once he’s here, we’ll all introduce ourselves and go over the mission details. Oh, one more thing. The mission is in England, so unless anyone has other plans, I suggest we all fly together."

"I’ll come on my own. I have something to take care of first," I spoke up.

The room went quiet again.

This time, it was the center triplet who frowned and leaned forward slightly.

"What? Do you think this is some kind of playground, brat? Just shut up and come with us—"

Before she could finish, the triplet to her right pinched her side hard enough to make her wince.

"I’m sorry about her," she said quickly, turning to me with a calm smile. "Mira tends to speak before she thinks."

She looked toward Zephan, then back at me.

"We don’t mind if you come separately, but could you at least tell us why? Since this is a team mission, we’d feel better knowing everyone’s on the same page in case something happens before we start."

Her words were polite, but I could tell she didn’t like the idea of me going on my own either.