The next day, I woke up to Toshiro's voice in my head.
"Wake up, slackers. It's your mission today—gather inside the meeting room in fifteen minutes."
I looked at my phone. It was 6:00 in the morning.
I immediately decided to take a bath.
In the bathroom, there was a closet that had my clothes.
"How the heck does the guy know what to get for me?" I muttered.
Well, it didn't matter much.
I took a bath and did the daily things before finally getting out of the room, changed in new clothes.
"Yo," I said to Tatsuki as I saw him coming from behind.
"Yo," he replied.
"Do you know what mission we have today?" I asked Tatsuki as he got to my right.
"Yeah, brother already told me. We're doing a... yeah, a raid mission where we raid as many dangerous dungeons as possible," he said.
"Have you ever raided a dungeon before?" I asked Tatsuki.
"I have, but with brother present. Because if I mistakenly release my uncontrolled spirit, it'd be bad, very bad," he said.
We talked as we walked inside, and then we entered, with no one else here yet, except Toshiro, sitting on the first chair from the left side.
The two of us sat down on the first two seats on the right.
I realized how Tatsuki's eyes no longer intimidated me like before. Either I got used to them, or he intentionally gazed at me like that yesterday.
"What's that spirit of yours?" I asked.
"I have one of the four great spirits which adapt to the power we possess. Mine is a wyrm—Dragon of Darkness—which I'm unable to control for the moment," he said.
I didn't know what a great spirit was. Instead of asking him, I just asked VoidMind.
It explained how a great spirit usually works, but didn't tell me why he couldn't control it.
"By the way, do you know what True Awakening is?" I asked, suddenly catching the attention of the spaced-out Toshiro.
"I don't, but brother says I'll be able to use my great spirit once I True Awaken," Tatsuki answered.
Toshiro turned his attention away again, and finally, literally everyone else entered at the same time, and Toshiro stood up.
I found myself standing in the middle of Chihiro and Tatsuki, again.
I realized I hadn't really talked to Daiki for a while. I'll do that later.
"I explained to Chihiro and Tatsuki before about the mission and the consequences we faced last time in an urgent situation. It's no longer so urgent, so you can take your time to complete the mission—a few weeks is still good enough of a time—and return back for here at night for every day if you aren't successful on that day. Any of you have any questions, aside from why I'm giving this mission?" Toshiro said.
"I do," Daiki said.
"What is it?"
"Who should be the leader for this mission? I mean, normally on a mission only two go, but this time it's all the cadets, so someone should be the leader, right?" Daiki said.
"It's for all of you to decide. Now go out, raid those dungeons," Toshiro said in an announcing voice, kind of cheering us up.
Before we left, Toshiro gave each of us a few thousand yen to eat and spend on other things.
"I don't know about last time, but this time, we look like a gang," Daiki said as he chuckled.
"You're not wrong about that," Haruka agreed.
"So, who are we deciding as the leader?" Chihiro asked, speaking for the first time—at least in front of me.
"We should do what we did last time, shouldn't we?" Riko said.
"Yeah, Kuroto as the leader would be good," Daiki said.
"Shouldn't we reconsider?" I asked as we reached the wall and Tatsuki used the red key to open the gate.
"Nah, it's fine," Tatsuki said.
"Well, alright," I said as we reached the wall and Tatsuki inserted the key.
"Don't run at full speed. Save your stamina and follow me at the pace I walk at," I said to all of them, and they nodded as we exited with the gate opening.
We started running at a not-so-fast pace to save everyone's stamina.
While running, we finally reached the road, and we'd take off straight from there to Tokyo—from a literal desert.
Several minutes later, Tokyo was in sight.
"Like last time, we're splitting up into four groups of two. The groups are: Tatsuki and I, Chihiro and Haruka, Riko and Daiki, Misora and Ryota. Haruka, you'll explain to Chihiro how we determine which gate looks more dangerous, and I'll explain it to Tatsuki as well. Meet right here after an hour. Make sure you eat something before coming back. No questions. Now, split up everyone."
Everyone nodded, and we all split up in different directions.
We were inside Tokyo now, running and jumping between sidewalks as people saw nothing but felt a sudden gust of air pressure.
"It's so fun walking through at this speed, people will think we're some big shots," Tatsuki said sarcastically, excited. But we were just too fast for people to see.
I sighed and said, "We're going to eat breakfast right now, but we can do it later if yo—"
"No."
"Well alright, so where should we eat?"
"Follow me," Tatsuki said as he stopped for a brief moment and changed directions.
"Alright."
I followed Tatsuki as he took so many turns. Did this guy even know where he was going?
After a while, we finally reached the place.
"What the heck?" I said, confused.
Instead of a restaurant, he had brought me to a shopping mall.
"Uh... You sure you brought us to the right place?"
"Yeah, I'm sure of it. It might not look it, but this place has the best sandwich I've eaten in my entire life," Tatsuki said as he smiled with pride.
"Well, alright I guess..."
He gestured for me to follow him.
The shopping mall was cold on the inside, with a fresh smell of trees. It had a nature-style design with several plants everywhere.
"We need to hurry it up. It's not like we got all day—let's wrap this in 15 minutes," I reminded Tatsuki.
"As you say, boss," he said, his smile as bright as always.
Normally, not many places are open so early in the morning, but this mall seemed to be open 24/7. It was also a little crowded for an hour like this.
Tatsuki started to run, so I followed him.
We got to the middle of the place where there was a giant tree, and Tatsuki stopped.
"Jump up," he said, as he jumped three floors up to where the food court was located.
"What the hell?" I said, confused and embarrassed as he drew the attention of people around us.
He waved his hands from up there, motioning for me to jump up—and I was NOT going to do that.
I immediately just ran at human speed toward the stairs on the right, then climbed up the three floors and reached Tatsuki.
"Why the heck would you do that?"
"You were the one who said to hurry as soon as possible."
"That doesn't mean I told you to jump up three floors."
"You sit there, and I'll go order," he said, gesturing at two empty seats while some of the food court was occupied by people. Yes, their eyes were on us.
"What sandwiches will you order?"
"You'll see."
I sat on the nearby chair.
"Ah, this Tatsuki is so hard to deal with. He's like a kid," I sighed.
The gazes were still on me.
Suddenly, two girls approached me from behind.
I looked back, confused.
"Uhm... Sir, uh, you were with Sir Fukumoto before, right?" one girl asked nervously.
"Yeah, I'm on a mission with him. Is there anything you want?"
"Uhm... Can you please ask him to get a picture with us, please?" the other girl asked, also nervous.
I didn't have any problem denying it, but I did wonder why someone would want a picture with Tatsuki—and how the heck they even knew him.
"Sure, it's fine," I said.
Their faces lit up as they smiled. I naturally smiled as well.
The two were just waiting behind, and a few minutes later, Tatsuki was back with a tray in his hands... It was chicken sandwiches from far away.
"The food is here," Tatsuki said.
"Tatsuki, these two said they want to take a picture with you," I said, pointing my thumb at them while they stood there nervously.
"Alright, that's fine. I'll take a picture with them," he said and then went ahead and started to take picture with them.
Suddenly, after he finished with their pictures, a few more girls approached him to take a picture.
And then a few guys came in, wanting to take a picture with him too... Something was definitely up.
It was obvious that it wasn't just about looks—Tatsuki might be famous or something.
Tatsuki finally returned after literally five minutes. Forget fifteen minutes entirely—it had already been fifteen minutes, and we hadn't even started eating.
"Let's finally get to eating," Tatsuki sighed.
"Man, what's up with people wanting to take so many pictures with you? Are you some hero or something?"
"I'm famous for being with Toshiro, and we've done heroism-type things before around this area of Tokyo, so yeah, you could say that."
"Hm..."
I then took a bite of the sandwich.
"What the heck, this is so damn tasty," I said in amusement. The sandwich was extremely tasty—even for someone like me.
My reaction didn't say much, but this sandwich was literally one of the tastiest foods I had ever eaten, and definitely the tastiest sandwich ever.
"I told ya, this place really has the tastiest sandwiches ever," he said as he took a bite himself.
It wasn't long until the both of us finally took our final bite.
"Tasty!" I exclaimed.
Tatsuki sighed and leaned back in his chair.
"These sandwiches always make me too comfortable. Oh well, looks like we gotta finally head to find some dungeons to raid. It's already been thirty minutes since that hour," Tatsuki said.
"No matter, it's not like we can't find anyth—"
I got cut off by a strong gust of wind.
But we were inside a mall, so how could there be wind here?
Tatsuki and I nodded and followed where the gust came from. We looked down from up there to the ground floor.
"What in the world is that monstrosity?" Tatsuki said, completely shocked.
"No way." My face was the same.
A gate... A gate had appeared inside the mall.
It wasn't much of a problem for a gate to appear... But the level of monstrosity this one showed was beyond anything I could comprehend.
It was a blue and white gate like usual, in the middle of the ground floor, devouring the tree from before... but it was humongous—an unnaturally dangerous-looking gate.
The pressure it gave off was far heavier than even what the Black Cloaked Manipulator's gate had.
"Son, look, that's a gate. It's a fairly weak-looking gate, isn't it?"
"Yeah, Daddy, it looks like even I'll beat it."
"I'm sure you could."
"What's with that easy-looking gate? I've never heard of a gate that looks and feels so weak. It looks like even a nobody Order could handle that with a single member."
People around us said, genuinely thinking it was an easy gate.
While Tatsuki and I were panicking.
The monstrosity we saw wasn't just a gate.
The gate itself looked like a monster... A very dangerous monster.
Was it an S-rank gate, like I mentioned before? No—it was beyond even that S-rank level.
Tatsuki immediately dialed Toshiro's number.
"Brother, a gate suddenly appeared inside the shopping mall. It's not a gate—it's a monster in its own right. The eight of us could never raid such a monstrosity, and everyone else in the mall is exclaiming how easy the gate looks. Heck, I think you'll struggle to raid it yourself," Tatsuki said to Toshiro in a half-raised, panicked voice.
"It looks like you found it. I never imagined you'd find one so soon. Good luck, Tatsuki—don't die on me," Toshiro sighed as he cut off the call.
"Brother... BROTHER."
The call was cut off.
Toshiro and all the full members were present in the meeting room.
"It looks like they found it," Toshiro said.
"What? Isn't that too soon? They sure are lucky," Riku said.
"Heck of a luck they have. Last time I remember when Yuki raided one, it took her a week to find it," Hayato said.
Back to us.
"Brother is saying 'good luck.' It looks like he wants us to raid it," Tatsuki said, his voice less panicked now—but more sad.
"I guess an order is an order. I'll call everyone here. You go down and make sure no one enters the gate, and tell them who you are so they don't mess with you," I said boldly... but on the inside, I was frightened as well.