"Thank you for arriving so quickly!" an older man shouted with a grateful voice as he politely bowed.
"What's the situation?" Steve asked in a serious voice. Nick, Cynthia, and Mendor were standing behind him.
Almost immediately, the man pulled out a big map, which he then put into a slot in his Barrier.
DING!
The next moment, an image was projected into the space in front of him.
Nick had never seen any Barriers with such a function, but he had heard that different cities had different technologies.
Some things that were normal in one city might be completely unimaginable in other cities.
The squad looked at the projected map.
On the top right of the map was the name of the city.
Country Roads City.
Country Roads City did not have a megastructure, but it had a lot of space.
It was made of many different buildings, the tallest one being only 50 meters high. On top of that, each building had a relatively great amount of land.
Apparently, because of the most powerful Specter in the city, the city was forced to have a low population density.
Because of that low population density, the city was essentially filled with land and roads.
From end to end, the city was probably around ten kilometers wide.
Country Roads City was not a very technologically innovative city, but it still had a couple of specialties.
"Just yesterday," the man said as he pointed at a part of the map, "I gave my Chief Zephyx Extractor the official order to capture and contain the Specter we have been watching for several weeks now."
"As far as we know, the Specter has the power to muddle the minds of any nearby human, turning their minds into those of children. Since the first thing these victims paid attention to were the birds flying in the sky, we decided to call the Specter the Birdwatcher."
"The Specter looks like an old and confused man without any eyes, and it usually stands in the middle of a deep cavern."
The man took a deep breath. "My Chief Zephyx Extractor did not return, which is why I called you."
Steve nodded.
For today, he would be the leader.
Shirley wanted to give everyone several chances to lead the squad over the following years to see if anyone was particularly talented in leading the group.
Sure, she could also just look at the leadership points in the academic portion of the first level for trainees, but knowing something and being able to put something into practice were different things.
Because of that, she wanted to see all of them lead the team at different times.
She chose Steve first since he seemed like a dependable and powerful person.
"How powerful is your CZE?" Steve asked.
"Peak Veteran with a completed Shell," the man said.
"How powerful is the Specter, presumably?" Steve asked.
"We believe it's an Initial Elder."
'Risky,' Nick thought. 'I guess the stronger Manufacturers in this city refuse to give the CZE of this smaller company an opportunity to advance his ability. I can't imagine any other reason why they would want to capture that Specter before advancing.'
Naturally, Steve had the same thought, but he knew that they weren't here to judge the CEO's actions.
They were here to save the CZE and deal with the Specter.
Country Roads City was one of the cities that had a training agreement with Aegis.
Contacting Aegis from this city was much easier than for other cities, and even Veterans, unaffiliated with Aegis, could contact Aegis from here.
In these kinds of cities, any person with enough wealth could request help from Aegis regarding an Elder threat or lower.
Aegis would arrive with a squad of trainees and deal with the threat while handing the eventual rewards to the requester.
Of course, the squad would also get paid extremely well for their work.
Alternatively, people could also create fake scenarios and send them to Aegis.
If Aegis thought that the fake scenario would be good practice for one of its squads, it would send one of the squads there to deal with it as well.
The only difference was that Aegis would be the side that paid the requester, not the other way around.
Aegis' fees were exorbitant, but sometimes, it was still worth it.
If a Manufacturer asked a bigger Manufacturer for help, the bigger Manufacturer might just kill the captured Extractors while keeping the Specters for themselves.
With Aegis, that wouldn't happen.
Naturally, the biggest Manufacturers of these kinds of cities never called for a trainee squad from Aegis.
These Manufacturers had Specialists and sometimes even Heroes.
They didn't need a group of Experts.
"How certain are you that it's an Initial Elder?" Steve asked.
"Around 70%?" the CEO answered, stating it like a question.
Steve looked at the marked spot on the map and nodded. "We're going to deal with this."
"Thank you!" the CEO said respectfully.
Then, Steve turned to his team and gestured to get going.
The four of them shot towards the distance and ran towards the east.
Steve was running in front, while Nick was running between him and the remainder of the team.
Cynthia and Mendor were running behind him, and while Cynthia seemed to be able to keep up, Mendor seemed to be at his limit when it came to speed.
"Nick, you're out of line. Front!" Steve ordered, his voice coming out of Nick's Barrier.
Nick's expression didn't change. 'I am here on purpose because you're running too fast for the other two, leaving us open,' he thought with annoyance.
Nevertheless, Nick was not the leader, and he decided to follow orders.
Nick easily overtook Steve and charged at the front.
After Nick overtook him, Steve looked at Nick with fiery eyes.
Was this some kind of power play?
Was Nick trying to display his superiority by overtaking him with such ease and speed?!
Steve grew suspicious and angry.
Meanwhile, Nick didn't even really pay attention to Steve and focused on the front.
He was the Scout, and it was his job to scout.
"I'm going under to scout," Nick said, his voice coming out of Steve's Barrier.
Steve looked at Nick's back with furrowed brows but didn't answer.
The next moment, Nick jumped behind a big rock, and Steve lost sight of him.
Steve and the team passed by the rock, but they couldn't find Nick anywhere anymore.
It was like he was gone!
"Nick, report!" Steve ordered with a serious voice.
"I'm here," Nick's voice came out of the Barrier.
"Where?" Steve asked with annoyance.
"I can't give you a visible signal without attracting attention from any possible third party."
Steve gritted his teeth.
Nick was playing with him!
Was he taunting Steve with his ability to remain hidden?!
Was he trying to show Steve that he was a better Assassin?!
Steve was furious at Nick, but compared to the undisciplined and rebellious Nick, he refused to act in an unprofessional manner during a mission.
Naturally, Nick wasn't doing anything like that.
He literally just did exactly what he said he would do.
As long as he was hidden, Nick's ability would activate, and he would know if somebody was looking at him or not.
After some seconds, the team arrived in front of the entrance to the cavern.
The cavern entrance was almost 20 meters high and 50 meters wide.
While the entrance of the cavern was pretty bright, it quickly became darker and darker the further one went into it.
The three looked at the cavern.
"Nick, scout out the cavern. Locate the target and give feedback," Steve ordered.
"Affirmative," Nick answered.
Nick was still hidden. So, Steve wasn't exactly sure if Nick was actually inside the cave or not.
For around 30 seconds, Steve just looked at the entrance of the cavern.
Steve grew angrier as more time passed.
Eventually, he activated his communication device again.
"What's your-"
Booom!
The entire cavern suddenly shook.
Booom! Booom!
In just one second, several quakes thundered through the cavern.
"Charge in!" Steve ordered.
A second later, all their Barriers activated and started to give off light.
At the same time, they felt their Zephyx draining.
The light from these Barriers could only shine for about two minutes before they used up too much Zephyx.
However, two minutes was a lot of time for a group of Experts.
They immediately entered the cavern and then-
They stopped as a light approached them, followed by several people in Extractor uniforms.
They immediately entered the cavern and then-
They stopped as a light approached them, followed by several people in Extractor uniforms.
As soon as Steve saw the light, his rage exploded.
"Nick! You broke my orders!" Steve shouted. "I explicitly ordered you to only scout! You were not to engage the enemy!"
Nick arrived in front of Steve and looked at him silently as the confused people behind him looked around.
The next moment, Nick dumped a severed torso on the ground, not taking his eyes off Steve.
"I had no choice," Nick said neutrally. "Your voice alerted the enemy to my presence, and I had to engage."