I guess the people of the Stuart family were truly an entire breed apart from the others.

"Not necessarily." I was slightly disappointed to see that Adrian wasn't shocked or fazed by my reb.u.t.tal. "Give me a minute."

I began casting a summoning spell. This one would take me a minute or so – it wasn't as powerful as Vermillion Phoenix, but the Constellation spirit I had in mind would be more complex than the little ones I had summoned earlier. He wasn't necessarily more "powerful" because he was not meant for combat, but he had more flexible abilities that required more magical energy consumption on my part.

While I did so, my smartphone rang. My eyebrow rose when I saw the number was from Allison Anne, the administrative clerk who helped me with the registration of this current mission. Swiping the green b.u.t.ton, I brought my phone to my ear.

"h.e.l.lo?"

"Richard Huang?" Allison's voice was terse. "What's your current condition?"

"Um…mission complete, I guess?" I glanced around and rechecked the tally at the top corner of my gla.s.ses. It seemed that I had racked up an impressive number of kills. "I don't know about the refugees, but I a.s.sume they have been safely escorted to the city. And the rank F and rank E monsters have been exterminated."

I wasn't the type to snitch on my teammates, and whining about their betrayal in the middle of the forest wasn't going to be productive. Furthermore, I was aware of these administrative types. If I wanted to file a complaint or an accusation, I would need evidence. So I decided to hold off from complaining for now.

And judging from Bei Pan Zhe answering my call earlier (though he hung up almost immediately), I could safely a.s.sume that the refugees had been escorted to the city. Otherwise he wouldn't be picking up the call from a stranger's phone or deliberately avoiding mine.

"That's not what I mean." Allison sounded relieved for some reason. "The supervisors informed me that you had been betrayed and abandoned by your party members. I was asking if you're injured. Though it sounds like you're fine."

"What?" I was stunned. "How did they know?"

"The recording devices handed out to every student on a mission," Allison explained. I remembered the nan.o.bots she handed to me earlier, before sending me on this particular mission. I had thought it was only a recording device, but apparently it had a broadcasting function as well? So they were broadcasting our actions live? "We just received the recording devices from your party. They reported you dead, but when I submitted to the committee for evaluation, they found out the truth, and what had happened. We are currently arresting your party members and bringing charges of dereliction of duty, conspiracy and attempted murder against them."

Oh, so they weren't broadcasting our actions live. They were a.n.a.lyzing the mission log stored in the recording device. That was fast, though.

That meant those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds had escorted the refugees safely to Jing Tian City a long time ago…

f.u.c.kers, I thought. They never intended to provide me backup from the very start! They wanted the monsters to kill me, and then report my death as a mishap!

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But why? I never did anything to them. I wasn't familiar with them. Why did they hate me so much that they wanted me dead?

"Where are you right now?"

"In the forest south of Jing Tian City," I replied. Glancing at Adrian, I continued. "I succeeded in exterminating the monsters, but I ran into a kid who somehow got lost in the forest."

"WAH!" Adrian shouted, shaking his hands and head. He quickly mouthed, "Don't tell anybody who I am!"

I managed to stop myself from mentioning his name, and instead continued.

"I'll be bringing him back to Jing Tian City. I think we're fine, and I should be back before an hour or so."

"You're fine? And you exterminated all the monsters?" Allison's voice was dripping with disbelief. "How did you…? Never mind."

Then someone in the background spoke up, and Allison paused to talk with the person. I could catch a couple of vague sentences, but couldn't make out their words. Fortunately, I didn't have to wait long, for Allison returned a few seconds later.

"I know you've just completed a mission, so I'm very sorry to ask this of you right now. But it's an emergency. You said you're in Nan Tian Forest, right? The forest south of Jing Tian City?"

"That's right," I confirmed.

Allison sighed. "Can you a.s.sist a party that's about eight miles of your position? As it stands, you're the closest unit we have to them, and they are in trouble. They are currently being besieged by a pack of rank D monsters, and they are in dire need of reinforcements." Her voice grew stern. "Don't be reckless, though. I just want you to offer support, not to charge in and fight the monsters. The priority should be your survival. If you're unable to save them, or if they have all been wiped out, then immediately retreat. Just by yourself – the most important is that you return alive. Understand?"

"…I'll do my best." Rank D monsters, huh? That meant they were more powerful than the Rank-F Phantoms and Rank-E Ravagers I had just ma.s.sacred. I wasn't sure how much stronger they were, but I couldn't afford to underestimate them. "Who's in the party?"

"Black Roses Society members…currently led by their president, Alicia Violet."

I felt a chill run down my back. Alicia was one of the few schoolmates who treated me decently and a person I could definitely count as a friend. "I'll go immediately," I said without hesitation. "Where is President Alicia and her party?"

"I'll send you the coordinates shortly. Get there as soon as possible, save as many as you can, and get out of there. We've already dispatched teachers and Federation soldiers, but they'll only reach there in an hour or two. You're the closest unit we have right now." Allison paused. "We'll a.s.sign this to you as a mission, so you'll earn the corresponding prestige points and monetary rewards for it. I'll discuss the details with you later."

"Roger that." I then hung up and shrugged as I turned to Adrian. "Sorry about that, but it seems our return to Jing Tian City will have to be postponed for a bit."

Adrian nodded, seeming to have caught snippets of my conversation with Allison. "That's fine," he a.s.sured me. "Go be a hero!"

I frowned. "I'm not a hero."

Then I received the coordinates on my smartphone. And just in time too. With a deep breath, I completed my summoning spell.

A bright flash of light appeared in the scorched clearing (the fires having died out by now), and when it disappeared, it was replaced by the ma.s.sive figure of a white swan.

"Whoa! That's…that's…!" Adrian was gaping at the sight of my elegant Constellation spirit that was the size of a small plane.

"Cygnus," I replied shortly and jumped onto his back. Turning around, I held out a hand to help Adrian climb aboard. "We'll be taking a short flight."

"Amazing!" Adrian grabbed the clean, pristine feathers as Cygnus suddenly lurched and took off, soaring high into the air. He turned to stare at me in wonder. "Big Brother, you are a summoner, right? In the battle earlier as well, you also summoned spirits."

"Yeah, that's right." I wasn't sure I was comfortable with the term, as it sounded pretty confusing to me as well. "My Dad is a summoner as well, but he summons a real spirit. As in, he made a contract with an actual spirit, rather than create them in his sea of consciousness."

Speaking of which, I didn't know what sort of beasts Dad summoned before he met Angelica and made a contract with her. I did see him summon that flaming sword of his, which he christened Ifrit. Perhaps Ifrit had a true form?

"Real spirits?" Adrian stared at me blankly for a moment, and then he understood. "Ah! I know what you mean. Interdimensional ent.i.ties that come from a different dimension from monsters."

I was surprised. "You know about them?"

"Yeah! I read a lot!" Adrian proudly puffed out his chest. I guess he had to, being a member of the Stuart family. They would provide him with the best education in the Federation. "There are currently two types of interdimensional creatures – the monsters that appear through Emergence, and these appear more frequently with the sole purpose of killing and destruction. They appear to be the ant.i.thesis of humans, and attempt to terraform Earth into their own dimension while wiping out the indigenous life in order to reduce compet.i.tion and stake out their own territory."

"That's right." Despite myself, I was impressed. The kid was just twelve, but he knew his stuff.

"The second type is spirits, but they are less violent and destructive. They are also extremely rare, and it is unknown how they 'emerge' into our dimension. They don't seem to appear in Emergence, and their magic seems to differ from the 'demonic' essence of monsters. In fact, they seem much closer to us humans. The real question is how to summon more of them into our dimension, for they are different from most summoned beasts…the only way to summon them into our dimension is by establis.h.i.+ng a contract with them."

"Yeah." I had no idea how Dad pulled it off. He wasn't willing to share with me the details of how he first met Angelica and seal a contract with her, claiming that it was too dangerous for me to know. He also joked that it was an adult thing, and he would only tell me when I was older.

Now that I thought about it, whenever I asked Dad about him, he would have this extremely sad look. And after avoiding the topic, he would tell me never to attempt to bring a spirit to our dimension, as if he knew that was the reason why I asked him.

I wondered why. Perhaps Dad would tell me eventually. Until then, I would just listen to him.

"My summoning beasts are not real spirits. I created them in my sea of consciousness through my imagination, and then learned the spells to manifest them in reality."

"That's awesome." Adrian was gus.h.i.+ng. He thought for a bit. "But doesn't summoning take quite a lot of time and magical energy? How do you cast them when you get attacked? Don't you need teammates to protect you?"

He was probably asking that because he saw that I was alone. I merely shrugged with a smile.

"You'll see soon enough."

…and here we were.

Cygnus swooped low, almost skimming the canopy, and my gla.s.ses picked up the magical signatures of humans in fierce combat. I referenced the coordinates displayed in my gla.s.ses to the ones sent to my smartphone, and saw that they were close. Probably the combatants s.h.i.+fted a little as they fought, but otherwise they were definitely the ones Allison requested me to reinforce.

Is President Alicia all right? I thought worriedly as I urged Cygnus a little faster. The swan nodded silently and glided toward the coordinates at an increased pace. And the sight of my schoolmates finally came within range.

My blood turned cold. There was so much blood and death that even I was horrified. Schoolmates wearing the same uniform as I were sprawled over the ground, several of them in pieces. There were hardly any humans left standing.

I was too late.