District 42-Chapter 176: New mission
Casper was absorbing the information that the Princess just gave to him. It was something that he wasn’t expecting.
He was analyzing carefully that man in front of him. His black clothes made his body seem like a shadow mixing with the darkness of that room. That uniform had a hood on it, and it was difficult to discern what was his mask and what were the clothes. That man, somehow, gave a strange feeling to the soldier, but he guessed that it was what he was supposed to do with other people.
"So, this man, and a lot of others involved in this organization, are like spies... Well, I would address them more as ninjas, to be honest, but spies also fit very well." Vick spoke.
For an awkward moment, those three just kept staring at each other. The words of explanation of Vick were doing rounds in the air, then vanishing slowly, as if no one had ever talked since they stepped into that place.
"I am a bit confused, Vick..." The first one to talk was Casper, and he never avoided his eyes from the person in front of him. "I really thought that I was going to be taking action as a Ridire... Why Sgail, instead?"
Vick looked to him as if that question was just dumb.
"As I said, Sgail is a sort of ramification of the Ridires. A secret organization of the military more turned to stealth, infiltration, and investigation missions. I supposed that there wouldn’t be a better place for you to start working, don’t you think so?"
Casper nodded with his head, agreeing with her.
"I just needed that she explained once more... Well, that’s good for me if that’s the case. I wonder if being a Ridire wouldn’t make me more informed about things, but these Sgails seem to act in very specific missions. If they are just like in my world, then they have all sorts of information with them... The problem, however, was to make them say it all without starting a fuss..." Casper was concerned about that matter. One of the reasons why he made that plan to turn into a warrior for the government, was because it would be easier for him to get more knowledge than he never would get with the Princess.
Nonetheless, even though it could be harder to get what he wanted with those Sgails, it was better than the need to deal just with Vick every day.
"It’s nice to meet you, Casper. My name is Leonel." That Sgail had a more relaxed voice than Casper thought that he would have. It wasn’t too threatening, nor friendly. It was calm and clear.
He offered a handshake for Casper, who accepted, looking to him with a relieved expression.
However, the situation changed once he took his hand and then squeezed. The Sgail’s grip on his hand was firm, and, in reaction, Casper also tightened his grip, frowning slightly.
The two of them continued like that for a moment, until Leonel began to shake his hand slowly then loosened the grip on his hand. The soldier did the same.
"You have courage and didn’t panic. It will be good to work with you, after all." He spoke, crossing his arms and aiming a critical look towards Casper, who did the same with him.
"My hand is still achy. This guy is not kidding around. If the Ridires are already tough, then these Sgails might be about the same." He closed his hand into a fist, to forget the slight pain that he was feeling.
The Princess could notice that heavy atmosphere which dominated that room, and hastily started to talk before things got worst than they already were.
"Well, since you two are already familiar with each other, We can finally begin our real objective here." Her imposing tone made the White warrior and the Sgail stop to stare at each other and look at her. It was almost impossible to avoid Vick’s sovereignty when she was in that state.
"Oh, yes... You mentioned to me, Your Highness, that I am going to work together with him in that mission, right? If that’s the case, since I see that he is worth it, I got no problem with this."
The Princess nodded, satisfied, then turned her eyes towards Casper.
"Ok, we got no time to lose here, so I will be straightforward. Now that you will be cooperating with us, Casper, I will send you on a test mission, something to prove that you can keep up with this sort of thing. We already saw you acting into the frontline, and you were good, but we need to see how you will pull through in a stealth one, ok?"
Casper found that to be a reasonable thing. The Princess was right when she said that. They never saw Casper doing what he was better to do, which was working as a spy. There was all the situation in the Third Lab, where he could infiltrate and steal information, but no one saw how he acted there, and in the end, things went wrong because of that crazy woman.
"To tell more about your mission, we need to talk about what’s going on inside the Castle now. There is something that is concerning us since after the Midwest battle ended. We started to notice that a lot of things on the statistics of the Castle were wrong, such as the quantity of Jarl families, fake business, that didn’t even have a building or place they belonged; new people appearing quickly inside here, even though the number of children hasn’t increased... Well, a lot of strange things were happening, strange numbers and percentages appearing... I was behind all these investigations, and the Sgails got involved as well, and together we discovered something..." She looked at Leonel, nodding with her head.
Leonel threw a bunch of papers on top of the table. Casper took a look at them, and all the data that the Princess had said was there. Names of business, and establishments that had fake addresses, or never made a just single transaction or selling; people who had registration inside the Castle with disconnected information; graphics with population number increasing, but diverging with birth rate...
"After we got all this data, we started to search in the right places, and we found out that a real mess was happening under our noses..." Leonel began to say. "Some uncommon crimes are happening on different floors of the Castle. The most common was hacker attacks, which is something even rarer. We started to track those actions, and pursue the culprits, then we found something interesting, yet really concerning."
He passed another paper to Casper, and this time it was a picture taken of a lot of different people entering a building that was yet to finish its construction. 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮
The strange thing was that all of them were dressed in a way where their masks, nor GIB’s, nor anything could be seen. Those clothes didn’t let space for any physical characteristics to show off.
"Other meetings of the same nature were made on different floors, particularly in the seven cities, which are places where it’s more difficult to track them."
Casper looked to those pictures intently, then to the data they gathered.
"Those buildings are the ones in which the address are used for those fake companies. Those people are making their meetings there... Which means... that they are an organized group?"
Both the Sgail and the Princess nodded. Leonel, particularly, seemed pleased by the little demonstration of insight that the soldier displayed.
"Exactly. There is a new and secret organization raising among us. And we don’t know how dangerous it can be, exactly. It can be some movement the Frelsis made to gather more information, but also a way to attack us from inside. There is a lot of possibilities they can take advantage of."
"We don’t know as well if they are Frelsi or not, although most likely that’s the case." Lionel complemented. "In truth, there is a suspect to be a corruption scheme that the Jarls are planning, but with the masks, it would be something hard to do, and they have better means to do it nowadays."
The soldier was nodding, showing that he understood all those points.
"I got it. Strange data. Suspect situations. New organization. Frelsi. Inside threaten... However, what do you want from me, exactly?"
Vick was the one to respond to him, getting closer and signalizing to Leonel to give the last paper for Casper.
"We want you to track and capture this person here."
The White warrior got the paper, looking to a high definition picture taken of a person wearing entirely black clothes, that didn’t let any physical detail be revealed. The only thing that could help to differ him was the equipment that he was using, and mainly the strange wristlet in his wrist.
"The nickname is Rat, and he or she is your mission, Casper."
