Entering Haven was greeted by a lively blossoming city. All the citizens looked so full of life, in the background at the edge of the city was a 5 meters thick 15 meters tall wall. In the sky floating mountains drifted without colliding with each other.Carved into the wall"s gate was a symbol of two wings overlapping each other. The symbol looked like a more detailed version of the Scouting Regiment symbol from Attack on t.i.tan. A little while ago while the yokai that migrated to Haven, were constructing the city they saw this symbol on the necklace I gave Kuroka and Shirone many years ago.
After the girls told them it was something I personally made for them the yokai came to the conclusion that the symbol meant something to me. It didn"t I just liked the design.
Since I wasn"t there to correct the misunderstanding the yokai somehow came to a conclusion with the help of the girls to make the symbol the emblem of Haven since we didn"t have one. When I found out about this I was exasperated since no one told me this, but in the end, I accepted it since I didn"t hate the symbol.
Taking in this view for a moment I turned around and entered the newly finished castle behind me. Walking through the halls I pa.s.sed a couple Nekoshou who have become the castle"s maids. After a short 5 minute walk, I entered a wide room on the second floor.
Throughout the room, there were many workers working in desks or running around holding stacks of paper. At the center of the table were 24 black dressed Nekoshous, and sitting next to the big chair at the head of the table were Kuroka and Shirone.
This was the base of operations for Haven"s counterintelligence department. Here we keep in contact with all of our operatives out there in the world. Currently, there are only 30 operatives in this department that have the all clear to come and go.
There would be more but this department is only 3-4 months old so we haven"t had enough time to gather more fighters. These operatives have one task and that was to gather information on the other faction in the world. However, things weren"t as simple as that, no sane person would allow others to get information on them so easily. To cover for that I made use of connections in the supernatural world with the help of the Yokai Faction to have them take on mercenary work for other factions.
These jobs were mostly a.s.sa.s.sinations. Before long they made a name for themselves for never failing a job and gathered the attention of the bigger factions in the world. Within a matter of months, most factions knew about a faction named [Haven].
Some believed us to be a band of terrorist, while others, though we were simple guns for hire. Eventually, some factions tried to track down the location of our base but would always have the trail run cold when the Nekoshou would use a consumable transportation formation I made to escape back to Haven.
We didn"t have to be worried about the formations being stolen because they only allowed to, transport pre-registered users which were the operatives and no one else. Since they couldn"t track us we soon became known as an enigma of the world and caused many to wonder who we really were and what was our purpose.
Unfortunately, just a couple of minutes ago I got a message saying that we lost contact with one of our scouts when they were on their way to complete a job in Romania. Something like this hadn"t happened before and what made things worse was that soon after we lost contact we got an S.O.S signal coming from their previous location before the signal was destroyed.
Romania has been one of the hardest places to get information on and now this happened. I couldn"t be depressed at a moment like this so I temporarily put the matter with Irina aside and called for a meeting at the castle.
Counterintelligence Operative - Milord! You came.
Yu - Stop the formalities I got a report saying we lost contact with a team in Romania. Give me a full report I want to hear it all.
Giving out an order that was heard by everyone I walked to the table at the center of the room and sat down in the big chair at the head of the table. After I sat down one of the operatives I gave the order to came up to me with a small stack of papers.
Placing the stack on the table I motioned to her and she started to speak.
Counterintelligence Operative - Reporting, as of 30 minutes ago we lost track of one of our teams in Romania. We continued to try and reestablish contact but we alarmed when 15 minutes later they released their emergency S.O.S signal. Approximately 30 seconds afterward the signal was lost and we have had no further contact with the team in Romania. Since this is the first time this has happened we had to inform Milord and await further orders before proceeding.
Yu - Why were they in Romania? How many operatives took part in the operation?
Counterintelligence Operative - We received a job to take out a rogue band of vampires that were causing trouble for the Tepes Faction. The job didn"t seem to have too high a difficulty so only 6 members who were proficient in holy magic were deployed.
Yu - Tepes Faction Huh?...
Counterintelligence Operative - Yes! They were the one who made the request. Also, it is believed that with there strength dark arts it is most likely them who ambushed us. It is hypothesized that they may want to use the operatives to gain information on Haven.
Yu - Hm...
Processing all this information I put down the paper I had in my hand I started to tap my finger on the granite table. After thinking for a while I asked one more question.
Yu - Which individual issued the order?
Counterintelligence Operative - It was the second son of the 4th King of Tepes, Marius Tepes.
Yu - Do we have any gates close to Romania?
Gates they were a one-way transportation formation that leads out of Haven but not into it. The only way into Haven was through an operative"s consumable formation or my direct entry. Gates had a fail safe that if anyone tried to tamper with a gate then it would self destruct instantly.
Counterintelligence Operative - Due to an insufficient foothold we do not have any foothold in Romania, but there is one in the outskirts of Stockholm, Sweden.
Digesting everything I looked over at everyone at this table.
Yu - [Didn"t think I"d have to deal with the Tepes Faction so soon...but they chose to mess with me. I can"t take this lying down.]
Yu - Gather the troops and tell Seiryu to prepare for battle!! Meet me in the castle courtyard in one hour!! We"re going to Romania!!
Everyone - At your command!!
Watching everyone leave I made my way to the Sweden Gate, we couldn"t wait an hour so I"ll go on ahead.
Yu - [Tepes Faction I"ll make sure you regret messing with me and my Kingdom]