"You are not to inform the representatives of the parent settlements about this matter."
As he heard this, a frown creased the contours of his stern face. This was a truly idiotic decision in his book.
"By whose decree?" He asked, half expecting to get no answer at all.
"The Govoneres." With that simple but brisk answer, the messenger in a golden mask turned around, seeming to have duties to attend to.
Darron watched the man of the high guard leave, his face hidden by those god-awful golden masks.
Darron was a bit distracted, as his stern gaze wandered to the similarly fashioned golden mask lying on the table beside.
The biggest difference in his mask was the number of fingers covering its eyes: three instead of the four on the messenger's mask.
They symbolized his station in the high guard as an outer-circle member.
He had never tried to enter the governor's personal guard; however, every individual who reached the third rank was forcibly recruited.
Turning his gaze away from the mask, his eyes landed on the sheet of paper in his hand—a report on the recent incident.
This matter left a bad taste in his mouth, even if the ring leader was dead. Not only had the city's next generation been compromised, but there was also the possibility of outsiders' involvement. Whoever the individual was. To his surprise, not even he, a rank three Authority Wielder, was privy to it. There were only a handful of those in the entirety of Abyss city, with the governor being the only rank four, which made it even more problematic.
Three students had been liquidated.
Ten or more were under suspicion, including the faculty's overseer.
This was alarming to say the least, since the government was severely dependent on a constant influx of new Authority wealders, with its high mortality rate. Every settlement had a constant need for new Authority Wielders, but Abyss City was especially dependent on them, even among cities, given its status as a production city where many of the Authority Wielders worked as producers and not as guards.
Not only would the government be overworked for the next few years due to a severe labor shortage, but many workers' backgrounds would have to be checked again to uncover any sleepers planted in the city by Raef. Every person he had had contact with over his entire life, or at least since he seemed to get an Authority Fragment.
How did he infiltrate the settlement?
If they only knew this, it would make it so much easier to handle this.
Raef Ekaf… Fear fake… what an ironic name.
But it meant so much. The meaning behind the word game with his name was clear. He had not assumed the identity of a citizen and had lived here for a long time, establishing his own identity by spending years and years in the city.
From the reports of the Alchemist, who was the one to put an end to the ring leader of the whole thing, Raef had been a mere fake human. An avatar of sorts.
Most likely created by a rank four or five on a whim—a small investment in the hopes of it spreading and preparing a city for it to invade.
Such a danger the settlement had not faced in a hundred years. In the report of the Alchemist, it was stated that the warning of an invasion by the master of Raef was likely to be a bluff.
Yet, even if it were a mere bluff, they could not simply ignore a potential level six or even seven breach. If he were a rank five, the city would be gone without doubt, and the other settlements would give up on us, even if they wanted our Notium.
To add to that, the city had not experienced an invasion in decades, leaving us completely unfit to fend off such a catastrophe.
After all, since the city's stakes had been split, invasions from the other settlements had been essentially eliminated.
This production city was anything but independent in this day and age. It was created solely to mine Notium, which made it attractive to the surrounding settlements.
A resource point was a resource point after all.
This led to repeated clashes and losses on all sides. In the end, the three nearest colonies split it, with the closest two taking 40% each and the third taking the rest. This, in the end, led to such an agreement that was greatly disadvantageous to the producer.
Of course, the parties imposed certain restrictions on the city and ensured it would not dare to become independent, further straining our relationship.
The most grueling restriction was that they were not allowed to nurture a rank five or multiple rank fours, which held the city barely over water.
Yet what could we do? The city's claws were cut off, and it became dependent on the parent settlements. Even if they dared to try nurturing a rank five in secret, with rank one, one's needs to survive increased, and keeping that a secret with the already strained economy of the city was nearly impossible.
But what could be the reason to not inform them of such a threat? If attacked, our colony could be easily wiped out without support. Even if it was a matter of pride, risking the lives of millions was truly reckless.
What was the governor thinking?
"Oh, stop grumbling, it's how it is, what can you do?" A slightly dissatisfied female voice interrupted his contemplations.
"But this is really weird, normally we're supposed to inform the parents of every vagabond's intrusion, especially if they have a connection to such a dangerous individual." A male voice, a bit more serious, interjected.
"Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. That is quite obvious. Are you insinuating that I AM STUIPID?" The man with dark curly hair and pale skin looked at the womman who was thoroughly offended.
Then he replied in a flat voice.
"It's only an insinuation when I'm wrong."
"Oh, you!" The woman, a bit taken aback, started pulling and pinching the guy's face playfully.
Watching the two bickering, Darron lightly smiled as he relaxed a bit, his thoughts partially diverted from the pressing matter.
They all sat at a small table in a similarly small room, which seemed to be the reception of the entire wing. Right above the door, a sign with the red-and-white inscription stood. "Sec 4"
Two quite comfortable-looking seats stood empty beside the three filled ones, a metal table in the midst. A bit further to the side, a young woman stood behind her reception desk, reading a widely open paper, the events of the past days nowhere to be seen.
Stopping her teasing for a moment, the woman called Alexia looked to the side, the two empty seats coming into view as her eyes asked an unspoken question.
"Severus and Lia are investigating the black blood's appearance."
As the man called Recks, next to Alexia, heard this, his ears perked up slightly, and he spoke in a calm yet confused tone.
"Any leads on how they breached the city? They didn't seem to have any traversal abilities that would allow them to breach this far in without creating a commotion."
Darron showed a troubled expression, as the team's leader, the responsibility of finding and reporting the cause of the breach lay with him. To his dismay, they had not found anything.
No traces, no victims on their way towards the inner layer of the city, nothing!
The ghulish black-blooded creatures seemed to have emerged out of nowhere.
"We have sent a report to the parent settlements about the creature and gave it an entry in the bestiary."
***
Name: Black Bloods
Family: Unknown
Abilities: Above average strength.
Sharp blood-infused claws.
Black, weakly corrosive, highly infectious blood.
Body: Physical. Humanoid, slim and tall, with an extra pair of short arms growing out of its lower back. Two humanoid sharp ears.
Danger level: 2
Physically, unimposing, if the blood spreads and infects the masses, its numbers might explode. This is mostly theoretical and has yet to be observed, since the operative team below Darron Flint exterminated the subject before it could spread widely.
Preferred method:
Extermination on sight and elimination of any and all food or water that might have come in contact with the creature's blood.
***
His words were tinged with a bitter undertone, telling the over two everything they needed to know.
They had nothing and could only hope that the creatures were wiped out completely and would never reappear.
After a bout of somber silence, the two left for their duties.
They had something to do almost constantly.
Their team had lost a few members a month ago, so they had to handle an entire sector with reduced manpower. Of course, the civil guard was responsible for crimes between humans, but anything concerning disputes between companies was their responsibility since it concerned the Notium production, and, of course, every disturbance related to Authority fragments and breaches.
It… was a lot, and now that there was an incident in the training camps, they'd have to wait for reinforcements even longer.
As Darron watched the other two leave, he made himself scarce as well, planning to take care of the paperwork stacking up in his office.
"What a mess," he said, his withered-by-time voice a bit disheartened. He took a last look at the document about the Raef incident; two words were blacked out, clear as day. "**** ******"
***
As he sat in his private office, Darron stamped a document mechanically, every movement precise and methodical, as expected from a veteran among Authority Wielders.
Hours passed by, but for some reason, he could not get rid of the doubts nagging at him. This was highly unlike him, after all, one lived only so long when aware of one's place in this world.
Curiosity killed the cat.
But it still nagged at him quite a bit.
Taking another document, it was about the mission of Alexia and Recks. He skimmed it quickly, then stamped it and set it aside as he took the next document.
The mission seemed to have gone halfway smoothly. They sealed the "cursed object," as the public referred to it, at the very least, and retrieved it successfully. Even if they ended up in a rough condition, in the process. All that had to be done now was the clean-up.
On the other hand, the other team did not find anything—The black bloods truly had appeared and disappeared, just like that.
A door opened as a dark-blue-haired man with gentle facial features headed in, interrupting Darron's concentration.
"Severus?" Darron asked with a raised brow.
"I'll be heading out with Lia again. There seems to have been an incident on the outer ring." As he heard the strict tone, completely unfitting to the face, Darrown simply gave a nod as Severous left with a slight bow.
Looking at the door for a few long moments, Darron let out a sigh.
"Sigh, I can't get it off my mind."
He had been brought out of his concentrated state.
I should at least ask the higher-ups about the smaller intricacies of the matter. It shouldn't be too problematic.
As he made the call, he finished a few more important documents and then stood up to follow up on his decision.