Chapter 14 – Woes
Arsenal was at the door, his brows were trying to kiss each other.
I stood up.
“Wait, why’s he here?!” I complained, my voice a little higher than normal, but not enough to be classified as shouting.
He instantly looked at me. I’m quite sure he recognized me instantly. I mean, we just fought, you know?
Dr. Craule got all of our attention by simply standing up; his presence was enough to blow us off our comfort zones.
His medium built arms are crossed. His hair was long and a little disheveled. He had a stern look on his face, quite scary if I may add.
Vincent and Aoi were also standing alongside with me.
There was a small awkward pause in the room.
The room was quite empty. Not much decorations.
The room is arranged in a way that when you open the door, the first thing you see is the director’s desk and a carpet in front of it. After you go in, you’ll see something like a sala set to your right. A large flat-screen TV facing the other way, a coffee table with another carpet under it and this sofa that we’re sitting on.
And at this view, you can easily detect who is entering the room, leaving the room and pretty much everything that’s happening in the room.
The only thing that’s blocking our sight is this huge TV. Other than that, we can see everything, as there’s nothing to look at behind us but the wall. The sofa’s back side is adjacent to the wall.
There are no windows. Only walls painted plain white, enough to give off a melancholic feel. At the same time, it also has this psychotic aura radiating from it; I’m sure that if I get trapped here, or maybe even just spend a whole day inside this place, I’d go crazy. It may be pretty large, but isn’t gonna cut it. There are just not enough items in here that could keep me going, the TV is not connected to any cable company, and it’s only connected to this DVD Player below the TV stand. No gaming consoles or game cartridges anywhere. So much for this room.
But enough with the details about the environment and back to the topic at hand.
Arsenal was standing at the door. Dr. Craule was leaning on his desk with his arms crossed, still having that stern look like before.
The director looked at us.
“I called him here; you have any problem with it?”
The way his voice resounded inside the room was indeed stunning. He did not shout, but his words were strong, strong enough to scare away the remaining anger and courage we had left in our bodies.
“All of you, line up in front of me.”
We all walked in front of the director, my face was still distorted in anger as I looked at Arsenal.
But we all lined up in front, nevertheless.
Using the director’s point of view, from right to left, Me, Vincent, Aoi then Arsenal. Even from my spot, I could notice the gap between Aoi and Arsenal.
“I gathered you all here to announce a mandatory statement upon the four of you.” said Dr. Craule.
“We’ll start on the premise that you don’t have any idea on what parties are, or if you do, they’re all wrong.”
“But—“ said Aoi, but was instantly cut in.
“No buts.”
“Okay, this academy, as we all know, is a place for learning. But this facility has two types of learning.”
The director starts to pace back and forth.
“First, the Academics and the second, the Weznault Operation: Life Front or “W.O.L.F.”.
“The Academics, as we all know it, is the normal school setting along with the grading system, teachers and subjects. We have developed a very advanced curriculum that uses only the best professors and teachers nationwide, most of them having their PhDs.” he pauses for a second, looks at us with a “satisfied” face, then turns to walk again.
“Then we have the W.O.L.F. The Operation is begun by Viktor Weznault, a great commander and soldier when he was alive. He employed unorthodox tactics and managed to pull them off with no problems whatsoever, predicting the whole battle outcome without even taking a step on the battlefield. He even finished a whole operation by only staying in his house and sending commands through his phone.” The director has stopped walking and was looking at the ceiling.
“Well, nevertheless, he was excellent at battle. His battle records inside the arenas are over a thousand wins, without a single loss.”
“What was his Ability Seed, sir?” Aoi suddenly asked.
“His ability seed, I’m afraid, is classified. I have no clearance on spreading the information. But what I can tell you is that he is quite powerful.”
He paused for a moment and looked at us.
“Well, I got a little off topic. Hmmm.” he said while rubbing his chin.
“The Weznault Operation did not exist until he died. It was one of his Operations that were never used during his time. It was only theoretical but it was discovered through some of his writings and was put to use. It was to forcibly train teenagers, like you, how to fight using their given abilities. The military had a hard time convincing the government to such an operation, but still, it was accepted.”
He started to walk again.
“And under the W.O.L.F. is W.O.E.S which stands for Weznault Operation: Enigma Sortie. This is an operation designed by Weznault when Life Front has been established. It is to create a secret team out of the best students and assign high security tasks to them, without the knowledge of the public. There are parties that actually exists above ground, but they are assigned quests that are ranked only up to A.”
The air was tense, I already had an idea where this was going, but I had to hear it from him.
“So, here you are. I know what you’re feeling. But to become a great team, you have to complete a Class AAA+ Mission.”
I was getting too much information. I never even completed a single Quest, and now I’m doing a Mission?
Okay, it may seem a little ambiguous, so I'll provide an explanation. A Quest is a task that you do to increase your ability status, titles and other self-centric improvement rewards. A Mission is a task that can be obtained through the Academy. Missions are posted on an online directory accessible to mobile phones. They have rewards that include money, items and other material things that people can use. Your titles change when you complete missions.
“Wait.” said Arsenal. “Missions have ranks?”
“Yes, they do. But the public do not know the existences of these ranks, but the database is sorted from Rank A++ to D.”
“I get it now.” said Aoi. “So that’s why the hard missions are on top and the weak missions are at the bottom.”
Dr. Craule walked from in front of us to his seat behind his desk.
“But I’m just going to register your team so you’d have to wait until further instructions.”
“Wait?!” snapped Arsenal.
“Your team?!”
I was oblivious, until he mentioned it. We all looked at him. Our straight line has been destroyed now.
“Yes, I did say it is a mandatory thing, right? You don’t have any say to this. You can only agree.” the director grinned.
Arsenal just sighed then he stormed out of the room.
We all went quiet.
“Can I ask a question?” I said, puzzled.
“Go on.” he said.
“How did you know I had a level open?” I asked.
“Well now, that too, is classified. But just to fill that curious mind of yours, I just had the intuition that you had a level open, and whatever it was doing, it was trying to fry your nervous system. Certain Abilities require an awful lot of stress on the brain, especially those Abilities that automatically processes things, you’d be dead by now if you opened it for too long.”
The director had his legs stretched on the table while sitting leisurely on his chair.
Vincent and Aoi were listening, but it was as if they were trying to understand another language, they looked baffled.
“Well, thanks.” I said then sighed.
“We’re going now. Thank you so much for making us into this team. I know I should be happy and proud, but I figured I should do it another time.”
“Close the door behind you.”
And we all got out of the room.