Asmer's voice asking Osian, who was going to fight, was as peaceful as if he was going on a picnic.
The opponent is the White House.
Of course, the place they're about to raid is just one of the countless White House strongholds, but that means they can't be certain what dangers lurk even in such places.
"Well, there's nothing that can't be done."
But Osian was just as bold when it came to these matters, so he easily permitted Asmer to accompany him.
Asmer wasn't a child, and as someone who carries on the will of the stars, he would be able to fulfill his role sufficiently.
*
"That's true, but."
Osian looked back.
He asked toward the six pairs of sparkling eyes staring at him."Why did you all follow too?"
"How could we stay still when the Successor and the Captain are going!"
At some point, they started calling Osian the Successor and Asmer became the Captain.
It wasn't hard to understand. Since Asmer called Osian the Successor first, it was natural for them to follow suit.
The title of Captain made sense too, since Asmer was a knight and had the role of teaching and guiding them.
"Everything is much better when done together."
David, who became the most senior among the aspirants, said with a smile.
It wasn't wrong. Even when fighting one-on-one with a strong opponent, having support fire helps, let alone when the current target was a secret facility with multiple enemies stationed there.
Even for someone like Osian, if the enemies deliberately scattered like rats in all directions, there was no way to catch them all.
Just blocking them from the outside would be a great help.
"Don't overdo it."
Above all, the reason Osian allowed them to accompany him was because he also felt somewhat apologetic.
David, Russell, and the other four - Anthony, Jersey, Burke, and Perth.
These six had been inspired by Osian and had undergone grueling physical training to become knights.
It was such an intense regimen that ordinary people would have dropped out, but they endured with superhuman patience and reaped the rewards.
The muscles showing through their outerwear were proof of that.
'At least they wear clothes during activities like this.'
Perhaps because he only ever saw them shirtless in the training grounds, seeing them properly clothed now felt strange.
Despite their appearance, they were once fixers, so when it came to actual combat, they brought all the necessary equipment.
They were even more heavily armed than before, as evidenced by the metal armor protruding over their clothing.
"By the way, what's that?"
When Osian pointed at it, David replied with an embarrassed smile.
"Well, as aspiring knights, we should have something like armor, shouldn't we?"
Of course, it couldn't really be called armor since there was more fabric than metal.
If anything, it was similar to the Petra Order's paladins who only had armor plating over crucial areas on top of their clothing.
But even that was enough to give off a certain impression.
"I'd like to wear proper armor, but these days there aren't places that make such things, and we'd have to get it custom-made."
Understandable. In times like these, it's hard to even find someone who makes full plate armor, and even if you find them, it would take time to make.
It was already impressive that they had prepared even this much in advance.
"For now, I plan to be satisfied with this. Still, it's disappointing. To think we can only do this much for such an important activity."
"That seems plenty sufficient though."
"It's light, that's why. If you wear full plate armor, the weight is considerable, and just moving around is training in itself. Wouldn't that prevent muscle loss?"
"..."
Osian remained silent, not expecting David to say such things.
David was still relatively reasonable. Originally being somewhat rational and gentlemanly, he stopped there, but the others were worse.
The remaining five, including Jonathan, had become muscle fanatics, going crazy if they missed even one day of training, claiming their bodies felt stiff.
"Ah, I want to lift iron!"
"Idiot. That's why you should have brought a training iron sword like me!"
"What? You coward! Let me borrow it too!"
"Are you crazy? To hand over something this precious to someone else. This is mine!"
"Oh? But it looks bigger than what you usually use?"
"Hehe. You have a good eye. I added more metal on top of the existing iron sword to increase the weight!"
"Y-you coward, customizing it on your own! Don't you have any conscience?"
"Isn't the one without conscience you, who swings a sword so light it's apologetic to our muscles?"
"What did you say?!"
Just overhearing their conversation for a moment made him feel dizzy.
'They weren't originally like this, as I remember.'
At the end of extreme training, their way of thinking must have become extreme as well.
Since becoming a knight isn't easy, and they had to go through training that literally tore muscles and ground bones, becoming like this was actually on the milder side.
As long as their minds didn't become strange enough to negatively affect others.
At worst, what more could there be besides increasing the weight of their iron training?
'Hmm. When I think about it that way, it might actually be better.'
Anyway, since these were people who followed him with trust, Osian thought it necessary to do activities together with them sometimes.
If the person who inspired their dream of becoming knights only showed their face occasionally and wandered around alone, their initially burning passion would quickly cool.
This was spoon-fed consideration born from sensing that necessity, but it worked better than expected. The eyes of the aspirants, including Asmer, were full of respect for Osian.
They probably would have shown the same reaction even if Osian had just asked them to go eat.
Asmer asked as their representative.
"So what is our objective?"
"A secret laboratory disguised as a typical ghost company. We're hitting that."
"A secret laboratory?"
For those who didn't know what kind of conflict Osian was having with the White House, it might seem somewhat random.
But no one questioned it or expressed those doubts to Osian.
Secret laboratory? Whatever it is, if they're keeping it secret, they must have something to hide. Then they must be bad guys.
In their minds, it was already perfectly imprinted that the opposing organization was evil. Actually, since the White House was an organization officially ordered to dissolve by Tirna, they weren't wrong.
Their very existence was essentially illegal.
Even if someone dealt with them for personal grudges, there would be no one to hold them accountable.
"Just to be cautious, these aren't opponents to take lightly. Even in what seems like an insignificant laboratory, you never know what kind of test subjects or enhanced humans might be lurking."
If he were alone, he wouldn't have worried much, but it's different when there are others coming along.
While Osian didn't need to particularly worry about Asmer, it was different for David, Jonathan, and the other knight aspirants.
Though they weren't weak, isn't this Tirna a place where those even stronger than them abound?
Osian knew this well too, which is why he gave the warning.
'Still, they've been training until now, so I'm not completely worried about them like children left by the water.'
If anything, the best would be if no one got hurt.
The White House's secret hideout was in the commercial sector of District 37, full of abandoned buildings.
Due to poor occupancy conditions, most of the built buildings were vacant, which made them suitable places for paper companies to only register on paper.
It wasn't a bad location to operate a secret laboratory.
There would be no watching eyes around, and since it would be registered as a company on paper, they would have excuses ready.
'In other words, even if something happens here, there won't be any intervention from the city government.'
Of course, thinking this positively was only possible because they were confident they could win.
"That's the place."
Osian said, looking at an ordinary building no different from others.
Though it was quite large, the White House's secret experiments were being carried out inside.
"Hmm. At first glance, it doesn't look any different from its surroundings."
David muttered, narrowing his eyes as he quickly scanned the building.
"That's the place."
This was information from none other than Gaien, one of the leaders of Zero Ground.
Its reliability was at a level that surpassed ordinary information sources.
When Osian spoke with such certainty, David nodded without further doubt.
"The goal is to wipe them all out. No need to show mercy. They're far removed from ethics to begin with."
There are no innocents. That too was information obtained through Gaien.
Just as Osian was about to draw his sword and step forward, Asmer spoke up.
"Successor. Could you give us a chance?"
"A chance?"
"We want to show you the results of our training so far. Even if this is your fight, or rather, because it is, it's not unrelated to us."
As followers of Osian, they didn't want to rely on him for everything.
Although Asmer provided most of the actual teaching, it was Osian who planted the most important admiration for knighthood.
That's why they wanted to show him.
How much his followers had grown.
The emotion contained in those determined eyes was strong enough for even Osian to feel.
Osian, who was about to draw his sword, put it back at his waist.
"Alright."
At Osian's answer, the expressions of the aspirants, including Asmer, brightened.
"As those walking the path of knights, show me your form."
"Yes! Of course!"
"However, don't overdo it. If the situation seems bad, I'll step in."
"Yes! Understood!"
Asmer and the aspirants who answered energetically headed toward the building Osian had pointed out.
*
The secret laboratory disguised as an ordinary building boasted thorough security.
Such external surveillance systems caught suspicious people.
"What's that?"
The monitoring officer watching the outside situation frowned at seeing 7 uninvited guests.
Even just seeing their silhouettes from afar, the 7 men looked robust, naturally raising suspicion in such a location.
"What is it?"
"Take a look at this."
The fellow officer clicked his tongue while looking at the figures caught in the surveillance system.
"These guys, are they from some service company?"
"Service company? Would they come here?"
"Why wouldn't they? Since it's an abandoned place, there might be guys wandering around looking for potential redevelopment."
"Tsk. Always creating trouble where there isn't any."
"Forget it and just ignore them. They're probably just passing by anyway."
However, the officer who first discovered them strangely couldn't take his eyes off their appearance.
His instincts were oddly uneasy about thinking they were just passing by chance.
And that prediction he made with doubt turned out to be exactly right.
"Uh, uhh? What's with these guys?"
"What now?"
"These guys, they're coming exactly to where we are?"
"What?"
The officers had to fall into contemplation at the sight of the service workers who had now reached near the secret laboratory.
Whether to activate the security system now, or continue pretending not to notice until the end.
But the moment they saw pure white light rising from some man's sword through the monitoring screen they had to make their choice.
-Kwaaaang!
"In-intruders!"
Soon the emergency siren rang throughout the laboratory.
The siren echoing through the entire corridor reached the ears of Asmer and the aspirants who had just broken through the entrance.
"Their reaction is quite quick."
Anthony, characterized by his buck teeth, asked Asmer with a look that seemed to say 'is this okay?'
"What's wrong with that?"
"That's true. More importantly, there seem to be more numbers inside than we thought."
David placed his hand on the building's wall.
Strings of magical power flowed through his fingers and quickly spread inside the building.
It was his technique for efficiently controlling automatons.
The magical strings that conducted detailed control quickly scanned the interior, and soon detected the presence of officers rushing toward them.
"They're coming. About thirty in number. All armed."
"Is everyone ready?"
When Asmer asked, the rest answered confidently.
"Yes! Of course!"
"We've been waiting for this moment!"
"My body's already itching with excitement!"
Satisfaction settled on Asmer's expression.
"Good! Let's go! Show the Successor how much we've grown!"
"Yes!"
The security officers moved quickly to deal with the external intruders.
"Understood? Kill on sight."
The intruders had already identified the laboratory's location. So they needed to quickly eliminate them, destroy important documents, and get out fast.
What they had to do was eliminate the intruders as quickly as possible, down to the second.
"Enemy!"
The officer at the front spotted enemies approaching through the corridor.
"Fire!"
As soon as they saw the silhouettes, triggers were pulled reflexively.
Bullets enough to cover the wide corridor at once headed toward the intruders.
-Titititing!
Surprisingly, the bullets scattered sparking as soon as they touched the opponent's skin.
"Huh?"