At this point, thoughts of fleeing came to their minds, but were later extinguished by the shocking realization: The Detonating tracking chips.
The tracking chips were a combination of research concerning espers and technological application of beast cores.
These chips had the ability to release a radio-wave that is amplified by high-frequency vibration of one of its components, 1/128th lightning beast core, allowing the data to transmit for more than 1 million kilometers in total. At the same time, one can cause it to overload and sent a pulse strong enough to blow off the base of their heads.
They would rather believe in the chance of surviving this ordeal then heading to a true death situation, everyone involved in the information-gathering operation thought.
Soon, a foreboding aura covered the whole hall, causing everyone to freeze and stand in their positions, sweat dripping on their backs, their clothes becoming drenched.
After a while, a man with a furious look came into the hall and gazed at the information department members, and when his eyes met with one of the members, that member instantly had his head explode, causing the body to fall down and twitch a few more times before stopping.
The horrific scene caused the rest to feel unrest as well as unadulterated fear. A few of them even collapsed with their knees on the ground, not daring to look.
The furious man saw this and just said a 'hmph' sound before heading to the door on the end of the hall, where the rest of the leaders of the parties under the special squadron were located.
Upon entering, everyone was solemn in greeting the furious man, respectfully eyeing him. The furious man saw this and his face softened, before gesturing with his hand causing the 7 people inside the room to relax.
Upon seating on the main seat around the table, the man spoke.
"We have a situation."
"Alex, let them listen to the audio file."
"Greetings, friends. I come in peace."
"...Esper???"
"Sigh, I told you I come in peace. oh we..."
"Agh!..."
"Esper scum..." They recognized that voice, as it came from one of Maul's 2nd in command, Paul.
"Ah, I'll just check... Memory...." The mysterious voice said once again, as if nothing happened.
"Hmm, so this is Oz?... Interesting..." The voice continued, and everyone can hear the fascination that the voice had over Oz.
"Oh? A micro-recording device. I'll leave a message."
"I just came...exploring this world...leaving soon... Don't bother me." The same voice said, obviously not caring much about the potentail destruction
Upon hearing the end of the audio, there seemed to be some sort of interference that caused the whole thing to stop recording at that point on.
"From what you have just heard, what can you infer about the information here?" the old man spoke, his voice heavy.
One of the 7 people, a woman, responded.
"The man who attacked the team was just wandering around, whose identity was inadvertently revealed by the actions of the 8th party. If the team didn't overreact, they would still be alive. Judging from the voice of the person, he holds no malice and sees things in a purely curious state."
Three of the others nodded in agreement with what she said, but another man shook his head and said,
"I agree on the wandering nature of the man as well as the hidden identity of the person mentioned by Alice, but I don't agree that he held no malice at all. If he had no malice, why appear in Oz in the first place? Why didn't he know that Oz had an immense hatred towards Espers? Unless... He was sent here."
At this point everyone stayed quiet, as the implications of this were large and would affect relations between superkingdoms.
After all, the exodus of espers from Oz was no secret. Even the protectors of the kingdom faded away from the memory of the people.
Espers continued to flourish outside of Oz, much to the dismay of the royalty of Oz, who were espers themselves. They had wanted to eliminate each and everyone of them, but they became protected resources for the other kingdoms to use.
At that point, they decided to strengthen themselves and become stronger. The monarchy was abolished and a parliament was formed. The royal family became symbols of the weakened kingdom.
At this point, thousands of years have passed, and espers became a commonplace in other kingdoms, integrating and mingling their bloodlines with the common folk, creating stronger and better generations of people and espers.
Oz was lagging far behind, because their normal people were just that: normal people. They didn't have elemental resistances nor did they have esper like abilities.
All they had were technology. But the other countries were also catching up with the technological advancements.
And the arrival of the mysterious person that wiped out the 8th party could be the sign that soon, unrest would follow.
The old man sighed, his voice worried and tired, before saying to the group,
"We need to start preparing the contingency plans. Don't alert the parliament yet, or God know who they will be willing to contact just to save their interests."
"""""Yes sir"""""
"Alright, dismissed. By the way, did you know where Ada went? Why wasn't she here today?"
"Sir, Ada had a breakthrough concerning the weapon she had been researching in the past year. She's still cooped up in the laboratory of hers."
"mmhm. Ok, everyone can return back to their tasks. I'll focus on fixing the issues relating to the loss of the 8th party." the old man said, massaging his temples.
Paolo, on the other hand, didn't seem to realize the storm he was about to face. He was still happily killing beasts and collecting their cores.