It was 8 p.m and most of the people are supposed to go home after a long day of work. Well, that might be not true for others who are working shifts.
That is the case at this normal warehouse in Osaka. The work is nonstop over there.
It is owned by a reputable company which are known for their fast actions. Work is not at all delayed at night. It continues on for 24 hours a day.
That is one of the advantages of working on shifts.
"This is the place...?"
Jo, with a confused face, pointed at the warehouse. Yemon, who was behind him, reassured that he was at the right location.
"It does not look as 'secretive' as you said it was."
This time it was Gui who questioned Yemon for the hideout's location.
Shi, Mara, Lumen sided with Gui while the rest was quiet about this. They knew that this wasn't it.
Omocha was the one who supported Yemon.
"You all know that this is not exactly the shelter Yemon promised. There must be more to it."
Since Omocha said that, no one objected to his thinking. Yemon was glad that at least someone was smart.
Moving on, the group followed Yemon to the warehouse.
Except for Yemon, they all were concealing their identity with surgical masks rather than their conspicuous and odd masks.
With Yemon in charge, they entered one of the many warehouses that the construction workers were working on.
Strangely enough, Yemon's group noticed that no one was restricting them from coming into the warehouse. Neither the workers nor the security guards that were stationed there.
It was as if, they were all ignoring Yemon's group.
To that, Shi raised the question to Yemon who was in front of him.
"Hey, is it just me or are they all pretending to not see us?"
"Now that you said that..." Jo observed the surrounding. Shi's suspicion was right on the mark. They were all not looking in their direction.
Jo slightly raised his voice and asked, "Hey, what did you do to them?"
Without even looking back, Yemon lifted his one arm and showed them the gesture of 'money'.
They all understood.
Mara mumbled, "Bribery huh....."
"How the hell do you have that much? For every person here, it amounts to an absurd number of money."
"For the record, 'I' did not pay them. It's my boss. Besides, for him, this is a petty amount for something revolutionary he has planned."
"""...."""
Nobody questioned Yemon any further so they walked behind him.
After a minute, they had an ordinary concrete wall. Yemon stood there and scanned his surrounding.
They all had question marks on their head, wondering what he was doing.
Then, he approached near the concrete wall very closely and waited.
"Retina scan checked, pulse checked, facial recognition checked, fingerprints checked."
A monotone female voice emerged from nowhere, which surprised the group except Yemon.
"Access granted."
Suddenly a part of the concrete wall opened up like a normal door.
"Wow, it's high tech..." Virus said that, so it was obvious that this was undoubtedly and evidently a complex technology.
The reason why he thought that was because of the way Yemon got analyzed.
He did not say anything or do anything conspicuous to initiate the process of analyzing.
Furthermore, he did not bother to put his hands to the wall to scan his fingerprints, yet the system somehow scanned them.
It has some great technology in terms of fingerprint recognition and a high-quality zooming effect.
While Virus was a little impressed at the mechanism, the others followed behind Yemon who just entered through the concrete door.
It was a staircase that goes down. It was pretty dark, however, on each side of the wall were small illuminated bulbs to make it more visible.
"A little fancy, don't you think?" Virus brought that up.
Yemon replied, "That does not hurt anyone, right?"
They all continued down for another few seconds until they arrived in front of an elevator.
"Are we going underground?"
"We are already underground."
"Well, not that few. Do you plan on getting us near Earth's core or what?"
Yemon stayed silent to the questions that Jo asked. Well, Jo thought of it as just a joke. But the way Yemon kept his mouth closed moments after he talked about Earth's core was suspicious.
Then, Jo's imagination ran wild.
"Hey! We are going deep inside the Earth!!??"
He kept on rambling about going to the core of the Earth. His tantrums were becoming annoying so Gui shut him off.
"Of course we are not going there, idiot. It's impossible to even go near there because it's too hot."
"...Oh,...you're right..."
"...*Sigh*..."
Yemon entered the elevators and the others followed suit.
Yemon pressed a button and the elevator started to move downwards. Everyone silently stood on their corners and waited for the elevator to reach its destination.
"..."
"....."
It was a quiet atmosphere.
Yemon thought that this is going to be the team that he is going to train. The team that Zaizen opted for with such a delicate and important mission.
He was sure that Zaizen had reasons to pick unusual criminals, moreover Magic Users to fulfil his mission. It would be far fetched to think that these people would succeed in the tasks flawlessly.
He did not even know if they are up to that kind of level.
After all, it concerns international affairs.
There would be multiple obstacles down this peculiar journey but Yemon was mentally prepared for anything.
Even death.
"...."
"....*Sniffs*..."
Gui sniffed as he caught a stinky smell that started to waft in this elevator. He wasn't sure what it was so he sniffed again.
*Sniff* *Sniff*
Jin noticed that Gui was twitching his nose. So he also inquired.
"-!!?"
Immediately those two covered their nose and exclaimed.
""Who the fuck farted!!!""
Everyone looked at the two, surprised at the question they threw out. To reaffirm that their suspicion was right, everyone checked by smelling the air.
A stinky smell was so unbearable that they covered their nose even though they had masks on.
"Seriously!?!?" Virus glared at Jo and blamed him for this atrocity.
Jo noticed him and quickly denied it.
"What? I did not do it!"
Everyone including Yemon glared at Jo with bloodthirsty eyes. The pressure he felt was enormous.
Still, he well up the courage and strongly held his ground.
"I swear to god I did not do it! If I did it, then why the hell am I pinching my nose!?"
"Because you could not handle your fart yourself." Gui attacked him.
"I am telling you that it is not me!!"
Mara watched these two argue and could not be asked about this group.
'Did I make the right decision?'
She was having a headache over this stupid group and most of all, that pungent smell that kept stinging her nose like an enraged bee.
"Whoever did this, reveal yourself!" Yemon wanted to find out about the culprit.
However, Gui was hell-bent on making sure to make Jo spill the beans.
"I'm telling you that Jo did it! I am 100% sure!"
"Shut the fuck up. Stop blaming me! It can be you that farted and you are trying to hide it by making me the culprit!"
"Hah!? You are just spouting nonsense now. Either way, you are not getting out of this!"
Lumen and Gello were silently getting disgusted by that smell.
"This is disgusting..."
"...The worst...."
Jin, who was still trying to cope with the smell, detected Shi's red ears. He was covering his nose like everyone else but his eyes were swaying away from the rest of them.
'He is embarrassed? Don't tell me...'
Jin stopped the verbal fight between Gui and Jo.
"Both of you stop it."
"Why should I? He is the one responsible!! I know for sure." Gui was confident but the next thing that Jin said shocked him.
"I know who is the cause of that fart."
"Huh?..."
"I told you it wasn't me!! Thank you, Aniki!" Jo was grateful towards Jin.
Everyone concentrated on Jin. They waited to reveal the culprit. He pointed at Shi and said.
"Shi, was it you?"
".....You are doubting me!?"
It was him.
"It's definitely that old man! Look!! Even Aniki said that. Go there and smell it yourself!"
"Stop pushing me!!"
Jo grabbed Gui and wanted to push him towards Shi but Gui resisted.
"Go and clear your doubts!"
"Fuck off!"
They were battling it out again. It was becoming the norm for them now even though they met only once.
"Seriously? That's disgusting, old man."
Mara pinched her nose even harder as she stared at him with contempt.
"I could not hold it in. That's all! And s-stop calling me an old man! I am just 26 years old!!"
"I suppose at that age, your sphincter gets weak." Jin made a statement.
"You are only one year younger than me!!"
"Shit, I must be getting close to being old."
"It's not entirely the case! 26 is still a healthy age for god sake!!"
For the time being, Shi became the centre of a smelly plague that no one wants to approach.
.....
The elevator door opened and everyone hurriedly exited that stinky space. They gained some distance from the elevator.
After doing so, they gasped for air.
"...Hah.....Hah.....hah....."
"..."
Shi who was still in the elevator looked at them with dead eyes.
"Come on.....It is not that.....bad..."
"What the fuck do you eat old man!?"
Jo was still gasping for air. Hearing that, Shi got off and said, "You are all exaggerating."
"Yeah right." Virus does not believe its words as he said it sarcastically.
It took them some time but finally, they were able to settle with that matter.
"Well well well, What is this?"
Jin was surprised as he observed his surrounding. They arrived at a spacious underground facility.
There was gym equipment, that filled a certain part of the room.
All of them took a look as they walked through this underground chamber. Yemon let them wander and check out this place.
"What is this place? It looks like some kind of lodging location, except it is underground."
Upon further investigation, they all found 10 empty rooms. When they stumble on these rooms, Yemon pointed them out and confirmed their purposes.
"These rooms are for each of your accommodations, Choose any of them you want."
"Wow..." Jo was impressed with it.
It looked more like an apartment with more than the necessary facilities.
There were 2 bathrooms, 1 for women and 1 for men.
There was 1 kitchen, 1 washing machine just outside one of the two washrooms next to the bathrooms. Another spacious room which looked like a living room since it has got a T.V hanged on the wall while multiple comfortable sofas were surrounding it.
Also next to the living room was the dining room with a long table that can fit 10 people.
Except for the rooms, all the things seems to be designed to live and cope with other people.
To that, Gello squinted his green eyes and was upset.
"Hey...Yemon."
"Yeah?"
A voice that came deep from the abyss, trembled from anger. His eyes twitched like he was inconvenienced by the situation.
"Are we going to play house? What the hell is this?"
"Wow, no need to be so upset about it. I'll explain about that too."
It was the first time that anyone had seen Gello like this. Since Yemon said this shelter was designed like this for a reason, Gello calmed down.
"Mah, everyone come sit down."
He aimed his gaze at the dining table and sat on the seat which was at the end, upfront.
"I will tell you all about what are we going to do here."