Gaston allowed Secretary Nara to talk with Constable Yu. He didn’t want anything to do with matters other than what he was assigned to do in his contract, he didn’t like getting involved. But it was going to be unavoidable. Instead, he kept an overwatch around the beach, keeping an eye on any movement. From the distance, some Grunts had just finished killing Type-3’s.
Gaston tugged on the webbing he wore and stared at the jump ships hovering around Tokyo Bay. The Coastguard had appeared, towing the monsters off the water, and the rest were harvesters who had come here to take apart the monsters for their materials. The sparticles that are present in the monsters were valuable, requiring specialized machinery to be processed into ichorium.
“Valuable,” Gaston said. He remained at the station and watched the seawater move the sands and pebble on the beach. As Constable Yu and Ayumi’s conversation ended. Gaston saw the assault ship of the Babaika Company starting to hover above the bay. The Black Lions who were armed in combat armor were patrolling. Among the Black Lions, he saw Ms. Yumina who was now equipped with a rather customized powered combat armor and her MF-gear.
She landed on the beach with the Black Lions. She leaned her Gauss Rifle on her shoulder, looked at the assault ship, and placed her hand on her hip. Noticing Gaston’s stare, she looked towards him, opened her eyes a bit, and politely nodded. Gaston nodded back and shifted his eyes back to the sea where the harvester ships had started to extract the monsters.
Gaston turned around. Constable Yu had left alongside his men. Ayumi, who had issued something on her mobile pad, approached Gaston with a rather tired expression. That hardened and disciplined demeanor she sported had a tiny crack on it. It was far different from that serious look that Ayumi had when listening to that stream of reports and radio chatter.
“All clean?”
“Should be soon,” Ayumi commented. “Most of the Type-3’s have been exterminated. The injured are being carried to the nearest hospital as well.”
“Job’s not done?”
Ayumi’s shoulder sagged. Gaston lifted his lips and cracked his neck. Ayumi typed on her mobile pad again. She then sends a link request to Gaston’s AR-module. The file she sent had information regarding what had happened. There were forty casualties and fifty-seven fighters injured in this assault. Most of the injured were the Lancers units who had taken the brunt of the wave. The rest of the figures were mostly the estimated number of sparticles that they were about to harvest and refine into ichorium.
Of course, Gaston was not going to get any of the ichorium. Most of it is going to be processed by the Babaika Company, and the spare sparticles are going to be given to the Breaker Companies that had helped in purging the Type-3’s around the Tokyo Bay area. They were only there to help and most of the jurisdiction was given to the Babaika Company now. They wouldn’t try to fight them, especially with the show they put on. No one had the guts to try to take the fight and be on the opposite side of the Red Valkyrie.
“I’ll have to bother you with accompanying me to Lady Romanov,” Ayumi said apologetically.
“It is fine,” Gaston insisted. “Besides, we must do our jobs.”
“True, for now, we should get in contact with their assault ship. I’m sure Lady Romanov is on the bridge.”
“We should,” Gaston manipulated his AR-module and called Jakob Stoll. It took ten seconds before Jakob answered. Gaston could somewhat hear strong winds on the speaker.
“Jakob, Secretary Nara wants to board the assault ship. We have business with the Lady.”
“Oh, I’ll be heading up as well so come with us. Hmm, you should be at the beach, right?”
“Yeah, Ms. Yumina is also here.”
“Good, I’ll pick up the squad then.”
Gaston turned to Ayumi. “Jakob Stoll said that they’ll pick us up alongside his crew. Should we tell the Captain?” he looked at the helicopter that was on the beach. Ayumi followed his gaze and went towards them. She explained to them that they were going to the assault ship and would spend time there to take care of business.
“They’ll be heading back for now.”
“Give my regards to the Captain then.”
The helicopter started and flew away. At the same time, Gaston noticed Jakob and his storm squad appearing on the beach. The Red Valkyrie had already retreated to their assault ship after clearing the area with them. Jakob approached Ayumi and Gaston with a rather solemn demeanor.
“This was quite big for a SPAWNING. I’m used to fighting at least five waves, but usually, they don’t have Type-5’s with them.”
Gaston somewhat knew that this was the case. He had seven years of experience in the field as a Freelancer. In those seven years, he had seen SPAWNINGS that only had Type-2’s and Type-3’s. But this SPAWNING had multiple Type-4 creatures and a Type-5. It was reasonable for Jakob to think that there was something wrong with the SPAWNING that had happened here.
“They usually don’t have this kind of numbers either,” Gaston hesitated first. “You think someone is messing around with the belua?”
“There might be,” Jakob answered dully. He tapped his high-frequency blade and breathed out cold air from his mouth. His eyes became terrifying as he pondered at the thought of any human who would try to open split-realms and let monsters out. “Could be the fucking mutates, brother. But without any evidence, it’s hard to guess. Hope they don’t show their faces here while the Babaika Company is here.”
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Gaston felt something cold in the air. Jakob Stoll is an amiable man but when he spoke those words there was a weight on them. It was rather determined and Gaston thought that like every Breaker had met so far. They were all disgusted by the very idea that someone was doing this on purpose. If these traitors are known they would receive the scorn and the hate of anyone on earth.
The cruisers that were going to up the squads appeared in their view. Jakob called Yumina and instructed her to stay and let the Black Lions go there first. It seems like the rest were heading to the base while the others are going to be on the assault ship. The cruiser took the soldiers, and it then jumped to somewhere. Jakob, Yumina, Ayumi, and Gaston entered the rear of the cruiser alongside the Black Lion troops. After everyone was in, the rear door closed, a voice sounded, and they flew to the assault ship.
After the crusader docked into the back of the assault ship. Gaston went out and saw that the Type-5 had all of its limbs and pores destroyed. It was being plugged in with a tube connected to a machine. Gaston had seen this method back in Lithuania before. It was a rather old technique to pacify the beast and make it produce sparticles until it runs out of bioenergy and dies. When these biomass entities die they would leave sparticles and are color-coded in terms of how valuable they are. Red-colored ones were usually the normal sparticles, the blue ones were above average, and the golden sparticles were valuable enough and could produce batches of ichorium.
“You are keeping it alive, huh,” Gaston muttered.
Jakob looked at Gaston and nodded. He turned his eyes on the Type-5. “We’ll have it sedated, crippled, and then maimed for two days. It should last about two months before it’ll dry out. For now, we’re containing it, making sure that all the liquefied plasma on its body is emptied. After that, we’ll contain it, then make use of it until it produces enough ichorium for us to repay the cost of deployment.”
Gaston cupped his chin. Ayumi was rather interested in the process but was mostly out of curiosity. Yumina, who was on the side, looked at the creature with slight fear. She didn’t notice that the Red Valkyrie, Ms. Hilda Valeria was standing next to her. Ms. Hilda Valeria put a hand on Yumina’s shoulder.
“The belua won’t be able to move with me around. Don’t worry, if it tries anything I’ll cripple it again.”
“Hilda-san!?” Yumina jumped to the side. “Please don’t creep up on me like that.”
“Don’t worry little cub, I’ll make sure that you don’t find your stay here uncomfortable.’
Yumina backed away and didn’t dare to get close to the Valkyrie who was still covered in monster blood. She noticed her appearance, sagged her shoulders, and stared at the Type-5 before shifting her gaze to Jakob. She walked in front of Jakob, looked over at them, and said. “The Adjutant and the Secretary are here?”
“Yeah, they want to discuss something with the Lady. Also, please disinfect yourself. Who knows what bacteria are in that belua?”
“Hmm,” Hilda nodded her head. She glanced at Ayumi then landed her gaze on Gaston. “So it’s you.”
“Huh?”
Gaston wasn’t able to ask further. She left with hurried strides and vanished into one of the doorways. Jakob looked at where she had gone and then turned his eyes back to Gaston, “You didn’t piss her off, right brother?”
“I don’t think I did.”
“Ah, maybe she was just in a hurry. Anyway, I should take you two to the Lady now.”
The assault ship was rather large. It was not crowded and many males and females wore the same unisex uniforms. With the invention of the powered armors, the gap between males and females in terms of strength had lessened. They wore this black uniform with the insignia of a black lion biting onto chains.
The three of them took two turns before appearing in a private office. It was probably the only one in the ship while the rest had to make do with their cabins. Inside the cabin, there was a table attached to the flooring. The walls were decorated with gray and blue colors. There were folder cabinets on the side and the desk had a work computer. Behind the desk was Lady Romanov who stared at her monitor casually. Gaston noticed that she wore a lioness on her chest instead of the usual male lion design.
She raised her head and met eyes with Gaston. She probably felt him staring at the lioness on her uniform. She closed her work computer and walked around the desk, and sat in the front with her arms crossed instead. “Welcome Adjutant Hardy, and Secretary Nara. I’m glad that you two are here.”
It was a natural smile reinforced with confidence and strength. Without a doubt, she was the lioness of the pack. Gaston took a step forward, gave a martial bow, and said, “Secretary Nara has an issue to discuss with you, Madam.”
“Oh?” she said, tilting her head. “I had thought you wanted to ask about the lioness, but we can move on to important matters,” she threw her eyes towards Ayumi. Ayumi remained composed and calm as she then began to type on her mobile pad. Lady Romanov pressed on her table’s controls and there appeared a hologram projector in the middle of the room. Data and information were produced in the center. At first, Lady Romanov had quite a dull expression while looking at the data presented to her. Then, suddenly, she narrowed her eyes and opened a map around the Miura area and the neighboring region.
Then she seemed to have understood something from the data that Ayumi showed.
“So you want us to work as bounty hunters now?”
“No, but we expect that the Babaika Company will naturally abide by the clauses agreed on the contract. If this data is correct, and there was a pattern and sabotage, then I believe that your Company must help us protect us from these monsters.”
Lady Romanov stared at her then smiled. She then turned towards Gaston. “Adjutant Hardy, do you share the same sentiment with them?”
Gaston felt it was unfair bringing him to this trouble. Nonetheless, although he hated being involved with monster-loving freaks, it was still in his contract to help both parties do their tasks and at the same time assist if requested.
“Yes, as a UEDF and Consortium licensed company, you must capture members of the Ahra Cult. Violation of said agreements will inquire about a penalty and plausible removal of your license.”
“I see.”
Lady Romanov laughed. “Very well, if the Neo-Tokyo Branch demands help from the Babaika Company then we are willing,” she looked at Jakob. Jakob nodded her head and went out of the room. “Do not forget that we still need those permits and passes, Ms. Secretary. So until the end of our contracted cooperation, let us all get along well.”
She smiled amiably yet Gaston knew that such a smile only brings trouble.
It was still his first day here in this nation and yet he could only feel trouble approaching. If there was anything that he hated the most other than monsters were deranged cultists. And now he was in a nation where there might be two in the same place.