After a few weeks of constant fighting, we finally managed to corner the Followers of Leyfall. There were only two bases left, and currently, we were headed for their biggest base. It was in a large city, much larger than the one I lived in, where I could see buildings that rose as high up to the sky as the mountains around it.

By night time, we were already moving to the location. A tall building that stood out even at night, surrounded by as many tall buildings like that one, all of them glowing with lights that made it seem as if night never fell on the city.

Nicole and James were with me, and like me, they were already dressed and ready to fight like it had been at all the previous bases around the world. They both had gotten much sharper at fighting, with Nicole not being quite as fearful as before when it came to attacking, and James instead being more thoughtful of his actions, since a couple of times, he had to be rescued by me.

The black truck we were moving in quickly sped on the cold streets of this city. It seemed like winter was around the corner, something I hadn’t seen for a while.

Salrak was, of course, with us in his own way, since he didn’t have a body to show. “We should be getting there in a few minutes…”

“Something wrong?” I asked due to the uncertain tone he said that with.

“I’ve been seeing some strange messages from the Followers… but there’s one in particular that seems odd… They say that the Hero of the Holy Gods is coming to this base.”

“They already know we’re coming?” James asked, his eyebrows raised as he turned his head this way from the front seat. “I thought we’ve been keeping our identities hidden… could someone have leaked it?”

“There’s no way of that happening, of that I’m certain but…” Salrak said, pausing for a moment as he hummed. “The only person I’ve seen people talk about being a ‘Hero’ is you.”

“Maybe they’re just guessing,” Nicole interjected, she was at my side and her attention was on the bright streets we were passing. “It was only this base and the other one close to home. So they figured our group would be hitting this one.”

“But how do they know that it’s Althea?” James asked with a shake of his head and a confused frown on his face.

“Maybe it’s just part of those rumors that were floating at the start of the year when Althea first got here and Master Asteora was around us,” Nicole said with a shrug.

“Could be…” Salrak followed up, his tone uncertain. “I suggest you stay alert for anything strange.”

“When is that not the case?” James replied with a smirk. “But when is your ‘master’ going to join us doing these? I bet she could’ve ended this with a snap of her fingers if she wanted.”

“I’ve already told you. She has bigger things to deal with—besides, she’s not a citizen of Leyfall, so she’s got no obligation to deal with things that are a result of the Empire…”

“Bigger things…” I said with a low tone of voice.

“Yeah, you know, those dragons seem to be causing trouble lately…” Nicole said with a wry smile. “I can’t imagine myself going up to them. Like, this is scary and all, but those things… just looking at the pictures makes me want to run away, hide somewhere, and try to forget about them.”

“Heh, come on, Fire Chicken, those things are just overgrown lizards. I’m sure that we’ll eventually be able to do what Asteora does,” James followed up with a smirk on his face.

“And I’m sure she’ll be happy to drop that responsibility on someone else…” Nicole said with a wry smile.

After a moment of silence, the truck turned to go into a tall building. It wasn’t where the base was, but it was the place where we would be starting our assault. The truck went deeper into the ground and stopped next to a couple of doors. We got off the truck and walked over to them.

“Welp,” the driver, Theo, who had been coming to some of these missions said, “Good luck out there… Try not to get killed.”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t worry,” James dismissively said while waving his hand.

Theo sharply nodded with a half-smile, before closing the windows and driving out of the building.

“The others should be waiting at a higher floor,” Salrak said through the headphones we usually wore for these things. “The plan seems a bit… strange… but as always, I’ll just tell you what you need to hear and that’s it.”

“What is there new to hear about it?” James asked when we stepped into an elevator. “The ones that fled to this place are likely the worst of the bunch. We should just demolish the building and bring them all down with it.”

“What?! Are you crazy—no, what a silly thing to ask. Of course you are,” Nicole said, first with surprise and then with certainty from answering her own question. “There’s probably a lot of normal people working in that building; like cleaning people, security, and even some that just took the job because it was good pay. Not all of them deserve to suffer… you should know that already.”

James clicked his tongue in response and nodded his head. “Yeah… I guess you’re right… Argh this is going to be annoying!”

I ignored their bickering and pressed the button on the elevator to the place where we were supposed to be. The box started moving, and I nearly activated my defenses in case something went wrong with this thing…

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Nicole chuckled when she noticed how I reacted. “Still worried about using elevators?”

“You’re like a child…” James followed up with a smirk.

“I can’t help it…” I admitted with a pout.

They didn’t say anything more as James just shook his head with a smirk on his face and Nicole simply chuckled. The elevator ride was much longer than I would’ve preferred since the floor we were heading to was high up in the building, so I couldn’t help but fidget slightly the more time went on. Thankfully, it didn’t have to stop anywhere, so after a while, we were already on the right floor.

The elevator doors opened to reveal a long, dark hallway, and as soon as we stepped foot outside and turned to our right, the building we were going to attack, could be seen from the large window that it was facing. We walked in that direction, the lights never turning on—a thing that was prepared by the people we were working with, no doubt.

We went to the door we were asked to go to, and Nicole knocked on the door with a certain rhythm to it. As we waited for the door to open, I just looked at the tall building ahead of us. Some lights were turned on, and I could see some people working here and there, but they all just looked like normal people to me…

The door quickly opened, with Renard standing on the other side as his eyes shifted from Nicole to James and finally me. “Good. You’re here. Come in quickly. Time is of the essence.”

We did as he asked and quickly made our way inside. The room was dimly lit, with a handful of people inside, all dressed in dark clothes. I couldn’t see their faces behind the masks they were wearing, but judging by the way they were looking at me, I could guess that they were Holy Knights like Renard—all under either the Emperor’s command or one of his nobles.

From a computer screen, I could see a drawing of the building we were going to attack. Renard made his way to it. “In case you didn’t notice it, this is the building we’re going to raid. It has a high amount of security measures due to the kinds of research that it’s done there. The God of Darkness and Hellfire has kindly given us everything that we needed to know from it… including the owners, which are…”

“Global Magic Technologies…” James said with a low tone.

Renard nodded in response. “So, going through the front gate, underground, or even the air is going to be an issue… but as far as protections go, our best shot is from the air… I hope that you guys are ready to fly, because that’s how you’re going in.”

“And how do we stop them from shooting us down?” James asked, walking closer to look at the screen.

“There’s a few automatic defenses here, here, and here,” he pointed out at the roof of the building. “With a few more spread out through each floor. So if you were to land on the roof or some random floor, a Magic Barrier will rise, and a few Mana Beams are going to be fired at you; powerful enough to instantly pierce anyone with a B ranked body.”

“Lucky for us, we’re all over A rank,” James followed, however, Renard still shook his head.

“If it was that easy, then a few of our knights should’ve been able to get inside—No, once those beams activate, you’ll come face to face with A ranked fighters who are going to batter you as soon as the beams hit you, so that’s not what we’re doing."

“Then why did you tell us that?” Nicole asked with her hand raised.

“I just didn’t want you guys to get any clever ideas…” he said with his eyes turned to James, who just shrugged.

“Then what do you suggest?” I asked with one hand on my hip.

“We’re going to go straight in through the middle of the building. It still has defenses but…” he said, pressing a couple of things on a tablet and causing the image of the building to shift, so it was zoomed in on the middle of it. “This part—this small window in particular—has a hole in the defense. The Magic Barriers and the Mana Beams won’t be able to detect your intrusion if you fly in a straight line to it…”

Saying that, a line formed in the air from the floor we were in from this building to that building.

“So… if we do it like that… They’re not going to see us and we can just… do whatever we want inside?” Nicole asked with a hand on her chin.

Renard shook his head. “Sadly, that’s not the case. We can’t account for the people that are going to notice your entrance… Once inside, you’ll likely be forced to fight your way through until you get to both the Weapons floor and the high ranking Followers of Leyfall leaders, which are…”

The image changed once more to highlight two different floors of the building. One was deep underground and the other one was near the top of the building, almost at their complete opposites.

“Ugh, we’re going to have to split?” James asked, nearly dropping his shoulders. “Shit’s going to make things so annoying if they have A ranked fighters… I think we must stick together.”

“But if we do, the mission’s going to take much longer… We’re going to have to go from the bottom to the top, or vice versa… Who knows what else is going to happen in that time…” Nicole said, after which she bit a corner of her lower lip.

“Which place would be the most heavily defended?” I asked while keeping my eyes on the building. “As the higher ranked, I should be able to handle things on my own.”

“It’s going to be on the upper floors,” Renard said, pointing it out on the image. “My suggestion is: Nicole and James head to the lower floors, while you go to the higher ones and quickly deal with the ones there, before joining them on the lower sides.”

“Are you implying that the two of us can’t do it at the same time as Althea?” James asked with a glare directed at Renard. “You know how strong of a fighter I am with Holy Magic.”

“Yes, just as strong as the ones that are going to stop you,” Renard quickly answered. “This is not the time to be showing off.”

“Hehe,” Nicole followed up with a smug smile thrown at James. “You might just be falling behind this Fire Chicken.”

“Tch, we’ll see…” James replied, crossing his arms and looking away.

“Well then,” Renard said, and the image returned to the whole building. “Everything after going inside is going to depend on you and your power.”

“Wait,” I said, since there was still a crucial part missing. “How long do we have to do this, and how are we going out of there?”

“Thanks to the God of Darkness and Hellfire, we got a system bug that’s going to keep any alarms from being detected outside the building, and since the building itself is so heavily fortified, people won’t notice anything going on unless they turn their attention to it and focus on the inside. However, that’s at worst going to give you one hour and at best two. As for people who notice it, we cannot say, so I suggest you don’t waste your time inside,” Renard said, showing a red highlight over the image of the building. “For going out, if you’re within the time frame, you’ll come out the same way you went in; landing back here. After that, we’ll quietly leave as if nothing happened.”

“And if we don’t meet those restrictions?” James asked, uncrossing his arms and looking seriously at Renard.

The man just shrugged. “If that’s the case… you’ll have to force your way and things will probably get difficult with the local authorities… I’m not sure how much His Majesty can help you in this place… So try to make sure it doesn’t come to that.”

“Eh…” Nicole said with a worried expression, after which she swallowed hard.

“What? Getting cold feet now? You can always just go home,” James said with a mocking tone.

“No… No! I’ll do this! I’ll make sure that everything comes out perfectly!” she exclaimed, clenching her fists with a fiery burst appearing on them for a second.

“You know what you have to do,” Renard said, walking out of the room and to the dark hallway. “Come on. Let's get this going.”