Chapter 26: Villainous Faction - Fukumuga

Principal Sever paced back and forth impatiently. His face was scrunched up in worry and his feet clapped down in a barely creeping-out anger. His aura leaked slightly, filled with malice and anticipation. There were other psychics in the room, all of them A-Ranks, and most began to step away from Principal Sever.

An A-Rank hero, Arthur, was amongst the ones there. Despite his young age, he was an astonishingly successful hero. He had saved the lives of over 800 people and had engaged in combat against an A-Rank villain over 3 times. He was so successful that many believed he could reach S-Rank within the next 15 years, propelling him into stardom and fame as one of the 1100 most powerful psychics in the world.

Yet even he could not help but feel a chill when observing Principal Sever. An SS-Rank, someone who had reached the pinnacle of human power, someone who could overthrow a country singlehandedly, someone who could kill with nothing more than a thought, someone that the gods themselves blessed! This person feared something, and every psychic in the room could feel it. It was a coldness that moved through the air, not one that could be touched, only felt, felt deep inside the soul. It appealed to the primal instincts of humanity to run, fight, flee, rage, the instincts that came from the desire to survive. And the desire to survive only came from the fear of death, of the end.

Principal Sever’s achievements were legendary, he had engaged in numerous large-scale battles, engaged an entire army, and once turned an entire city to dust and ash. His achievement of becoming an SS-Rank had political ramifications globally as Panaj instantly jumped to a truly powerful country. Treaties, trade deals, alliances, and more all were rewritten as a result of his status.

Despite his cheerful insanity, he was a man formed by battle and destruction and molded by loss and killing. If one were to search the soul of such people, man or woman, there would only be two possibilities. The first is that they would find a desperate drive to survive, starved of peace and silence, their souls in a state of constant unrest as the horrors they had witnessed plagued their minds. The other possibility is the discovery of a tundra of ice, devoid of life and heart, the soul no longer shined with the brightness of life but instead dimmed into quiet reclusive, these people would often cover up their loss of self in the same way the principal did. Yet despite their differences, both outcomes came from the same thing, walking alongside death until it was no longer a mystery to be found at the end, but a cliff that took up the whole of their world.

Yet here he was. His aura was filled with bloodlust, and every psychic in the room, all of which had years of brutal experience as heroes, felt as though whatever was going to happen would spell their deaths. An incomprehensible hatred feasted on the minds of every psychic there, freezing their blood and preparing them for death.

‘There are only four possibilities for this,’ Arthur thought to himself. ‘The first two possibilities are either a powerful country or villain faction making a move. The third is that something has happened to the S-Rank and SS-Rank groups. And the final…’

Arthur immediately straightened himself up along with every other psychic. Principal Sever had suddenly stopped pacing and his aura which had been leaking away was suddenly sealed off. The sudden absence of power emanating in the air led the room to immediately feel uncomfortably empty and isolated.

‘This must be it,’ Arthur said inwardly.

The principal sighed before finally opening his mouth to speak. His voice, usually filled with a strange glee, was stone-cold.

“You’re all A-Ranks,” the principal said. Despite his simple words, they had a tremendous effect on the psychics present. They all felt pride and fear simultaneously. A grouping of this many A-Ranks was only done in truly important circumstances. There were only 1 million A-Ranks in a world of 58 billion people, making up only 0.0017% of the population. Only massively important individuals like Principal Sever could bring in so many, and only for truly important events.

“You’re all among the elites of society in terms of power, each of you strong enough to devastate the lives of millions in a single night. You have all survived countless trials and endured innumerable difficulties, and many of you may even one day become an S-Rank.”

For a moment the Principal paused, allowing his words to weigh on the psychics present. Despite the praise, it was clear that there was no joy in the principal at the moment. His phrasing made it sound more like he was sending soldiers off to a war in which they were doomed to die.

“What you are going to learn here today is of the utmost secrecy. If you share this information with anybody outside of this meeting, you will be arrested and sentenced to, at minimum, a decade of prison. You are not allowed to leave this meeting before it ends, and anyone who does will be revoked of their hero license immediately.”

Arthur felt a chill run down his spine. If there was any doubt before, there was none now, something that could affect the entire country was about to be revealed to them, and it was something that required the highest level of secrecy. The lives of millions could be at stake.

“Now,” Principal Sever said, waving his hand. At Principal Sever’s hand wave, the wall behind him vanished. Behind it was a dark blue room with large television screens and a stage set above the floor. “Follow me.”

The A-Rank psychics followed behind Principal Sever, each one filled with fearful expectations. Arthur, despite his outward calmness, felt his heart rate increasing. His hands had become clammy and he was about to break out into a cold sweat. He was no stranger to a life-threatening mission, but this was something different. In nearly all his past missions he was roughly evenly matched with his opponents, but from how the principal was acting, this wouldn’t be the same.

‘Gods be with us, protect your creations, save those faithful to you,’ Arthur spoke inwardly.

When everyone had entered into the room Principal Sever waved his hand again and the wall hiding the room reappeared. He then walked up to the stage and with another flick of his hand every television in the room suddenly turned on, but they were all blank white.

“We can now begin the meeting,” The principal said. He clapped his hands together and a group of psychics suddenly walked out from the walls on the side of the stage.

Instantly Arthur identified their ranks. The way they walked, their cold confidence, their carefully controlled aura, they were S-Ranks. As he looked around Arthur recognized all but one of the five psychics on stage. The only one he didn’t recognize was an old man wearing a suit. He felt significantly weaker than any of the other psychics. As Arthur was going over their achievement in his head, one of the S-Ranks began to speak, pulling Arthur’s focus back.

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“I am Akimitsu Takahata. My hero name is Insectoid. It’s a pleasure to work with you all.” The S-Rank then gave a bow. The A-Ranks felt somewhat awkward with this, if anything, they should be the ones bowing. But before any of them could voice their thoughts the next S-Rank began to speak, this time, a woman.

“Mai Eto, Shina.” Unlike Akimitsu, Mai didn’t bow, instead, she just crossed her arms and allowed her focus to wander, as though there was nothing in the room worth her interest. Then the next S-Rank spoke.

“Hello everyone, I am Marco Zini, and my hero name is Punch-Out. I look forward to working with you all.” Marco said this with a joyous smile on his face, allowing all the A-Ranks to be put at a little more ease. Despite his cheerful face though, his body alone proved his dedication to strength, muscles rippled like waves. He was at least 7 feet tall and as muscular as a bodybuilder.

“Hey,” the next S-Rank spoke. Her voice droned oddly and she sounded overtly tired and depressed. “I’m Amelia Neer, also known as Shut Down.” She then gave a large yawn and nearly fell over in exhaustion.

‘They’re certainly all interesting individuals,’ Arthur thought to himself. S-Ranks often suffered from isolation due to their overwhelming power. In most of society, they weren’t treated as humans but as monsters or angels. Arthur could only imagine that after years of living with such expectations placed, one would find it easier to embrace the chaos rather than to fight it.

Finally, the old man stepped forward. Instead of speaking, however, he pulled out from his suit a remote and pressed one of the buttons. The televisions behind the stage responded and immediately changed. They linked together to show an individual in a dark room. The individual was covered though, hidden in shadow without a single discernable detail.

“Hello,” the shadowy figure spoke. Their voice was heavily distorted, making it impossible to discern their gender or their identity. “I can’t tell you my name, but some of you may know me as The Unkown Hero. This meeting today was because of intel I recovered, I thank you all for attending.”

The old man with the remote then walked offstage, disappearing from view. With the S-Ranks now introduced, Principal Sever took center stage again.

“In case you’ve forgotten, I am Sever Foul. My hero name is Foul Play. We shall now discuss the reason for this meeting.”

The principal then moved to the side of the stage, along with all the other S-Ranks, leaving The Unkown Hero as the center of attention.

“For those of you that don’t know,” The Unkown Hero said, “I am an independent hero hired by Panaj to infiltrate the criminal underworld. Recently I received intel that the villain faction Fukumuga has plans to do something in Nerum City.”

Arthur instantly felt the atmosphere of the room change from fearful anticipation to dread and shock. Fukumuga was an exceptionally large and powerful villain faction. They were suspected of being a main contributor to The Night of Massacre that took place in Panaj several years ago. Their reach spread across the globe and was behind numerous corruption scandals and on several occasions destabilized countries to the point of wars, reaping profits as a group for hire during those wars. Their member count hovered at about 400,000 individuals. Of those 400,000 individuals, 950 were A-Ranks and 2 were S-Ranks, making them among the most powerful villain factions in the world.

‘And not only that, they’re going after Nerum City,’ Arthur thought to himself.

Nerum City was the largest city in Panaj and the largest city in the world. It had a population of 275 million people and covered 34 thousand square miles. A shining beacon of progress and development in the face of adversity, it had quickly rebuilt following an attack on it during the Night of Massacre and became the technological capital of the world. Due to its national and global importance and high population, it was one of the most heavily secured cities in the world, with hundreds of A-Ranks and tens of S-Ranks residing there. The fact that Fukumuga was planning an attack there meant that they had built up a massive force. A battle between Fukumuga and Nerum City’s heroes would lead to the death of hundreds of thousands of people, and that was an optimistic outlook.

“Do we know their motivation?”

Arthur turned around to the source of the question, an A-Rank. Immediately Arthur noticed multiple individuals in the room nearly groan audibly. Arthur didn’t have a clear line of sight to the psychic who had asked the question, but he knew who it was. The psychic in question was male and despite his historically successful past as an examiner, was hated by nearly all his colleagues for his brutal methods.

‘It’s Jerricho.’

Jerricho however didn’t seem to mind the clear dislike his peers had for him, instead, he gestured to The Unkown Hero to answer his question, which The Unkown Hero did.

“They appear to be after a high-rank artifact created during The Great War. I don’t know everything about it though, neither do I know what they plan to use it for. What I do know though, is that the most likely time for them to retrieve the artifact is a year from now. It’s supposed to be transferred to a security facility of the United Globe somewhere around that time. It will be most vulnerable during transportation.”

A few small murmurs broke out amongst the A-Ranks. They weren’t talking to each other but to themselves. Each of them was quickly processing the information they had been given and the potential courses of action they had, Arthur included.

‘With the knowledge of such a powerful artifact spreading throughout the criminal underworld there’s no doubt other villain factions will attempt to take it for themselves. We likely won’t have to worry about larger ones since villain factions of Fukumuga's size usually try to avoid conflict with each other, but medium-sized villain factions with A-Ranks will definitely be a problem. We can’t engage in any evacuation attempts since that would tip off Fukumuga and they would probably try to attack before the transportation date as well. We could try transporting the artifact on a date other than the official one, but with multiple examples of Fukumuga infiltrating governments before, that’s simply too risky. Is it even possible to move the required resources to fight off Fukumuga? A high-ranked artifact from The Great War would certainly be a powerful combat tool, could it be used?

A storm of thoughts and hypotheticals formed, deconstructed, and played out in Arthur’s head. After years of experience as a hero it had become second nature to him, he could nearly see the events happening in front of him as if he were there, observing all.

“Now everyone, keep your focus. The meeting isn’t done yet. I can assure you we’ve thought of every possibility, the only choice is for us to engage in combat while trying to remove as many civilians as possible from the area. For now, allow us to continue.”

The principal words calmed the storm of calculations happening in Arthur's head, along with all the other A-Ranks, and their attention was once more on the stage in front of them.

“Thank you, Principal Sever. I would now like to discuss the plan we’ve currently made. First off, all of you A-Ranks here are in some way legally bound to Napaj, so you are required to assist. You will be working with other A-Ranks from Nerum and other places in the country.

‘They’re even drawing away A-Ranks from all across the country for this? Just how important is this artifact?’

“Most of your time will be spent dismantling small branches of villain factions to weaken their power in the area without alerting them to our knowledge of the plan to steal the artifact. You will also be training yourselves as much as possible, as well as separating into teams to cover specific sections of possible attack during the transport day. It may be a year from now, but every day we spend gathering information and preparing for the inevitable attack could mean the lives of thousands saved. Thank you all for listening. I bid you all farewell.”

The television screens then shut off and the principal took center stage again.

“Most of you are currently examiners for my school’s application. When the application ends all of you will be given one week to prepare for your move to Nerum City. As a result of the importance of this mission, regardless of your past violations, all of you will be required to participate.”

‘That means Jerricho will be able to participate,’ Arthur realized. Despite Jerricho’s numerous violations of the law as a hero due to his extreme brutality, he was renowned for his combat surpassing that of most High A-Ranks. Reportedly, he had even been able to kill 2 High A-Ranks singlehandedly. Not to mention the fact that every applicant who passed his section of the application always became S-Rank if they survived as heroes. No A-Rank wasn’t at least somewhat interested in the type of battle he would engage in.

“That signals the end of this meeting, you will be given more information in the following days,” the principal said. With a wave of his hand, the door to leave the room opened again and the A-Ranks began to leave.

Around himself, Arthur sensed incredibly deep concentration. Each A-Rank was still considering possible routes, things they needed to train, ways to save lives, and reviewing past events of Fukumuga in their head. With a year left before the attack, preparation would be the deciding factor in who would keep the artifact. Fukumuga would certainly operate under the assumption that the heroes knew their plans and the heroes would do the same. Whoever prepared the best would be victorious.

“Wait!”

Arthur nearly stumbled at the force of the principal's voice. The entire room shook as though an earthquake had begun to occur. The principal's voice was laced with a sharp worry and, terrifyingly, a sense of fear. It was suppressed, muffled underneath years of burying emotions in exchange for effectiveness, but it still creeped out. Fear that infected like a virus, spreading throughout everyone until all knew what it was like.

“There’s one more thing you should know. I was requested not to tell you this, but I feel that not telling you would be worse.”

Arthur felt an icy, crawling wind creep down his spine. Like how denial would attack a widow who found out their husband died a sudden death, Arthur subconsciously denied the principal's words.

“The person Fukumuga has assigned to steal the artifact is…”

‘Did he just… pause?’

“They are suspected to have been a close associate of The Cursed One before his disappearance.”

End of Chapter 26