Mariya stood there happily, waving to the people in the room.
『Mariya? You're the specialist in charge of clearing the contracts?』[Oswald]
Mune smiled to himself, satisfied with his deduction.
『Aha. So that's what you were hiding from us, wasn't it?』[Mune]
『Hi there, senior Mune, senior Oswald. Hello there, junior Nova.』[Mariya]
He was slightly still in shock, but he managed to pull a greeting.
『Hello...』[Nova]
She nodded her head.
『I'm the one who will be in charge of clearing the contract. Please leave it to me.』[Mariya]
『You are? Is your Seed synergistic with this kind of mission or do you have another way to do that?』[Mune]
She had a confident, yet playful smile as she nodded, once more.
『I have my ways.』[Mariya]
Ferrel pried Sarena's hands off of his face before sighing and starting to talk in a dry, tired tone.
『...Right. She can take care of it. My job will be to keep her safe and keep everyone else uninhibited during the operation. Me and the couple over there will make sure that you all stay safe, but we will rely on you all to keep the mission afloat..』[Ferrel]
He coughed into his arm before continuing forth.
『This is an extremely rare occasion, as we rarely have to rely on students for missions like this, but… this is troubling, isn't it?』[Ferrel]
He glanced up at Sarena, who seemed to be a bit nervous.
Raina started to talk in response.
『...Right. Even less often that we have two families participating in one as well.』[Raina]
She stared at Edwin, who jumped in surprise before waving his hands around.
『These are the most accessible and outstanding students that I could get a hold of. Once I had Oswald, he called the other two, whereas Sarena can handle blood energy. It was a coincidence, I swear!』[Edwin]
Ferrel crossed his arms together and raised an eyebrow.
『She can handle blood energy…?』[Ferrel]
Nova looked back and forth between Sarena and Ferrel as a strange tension seemed to float around.
Edwin nodded as well before clearing his throat and drawing everyone's attention to him.
『We're going to do the raid after we plan out all the roles.』[Edwin]
He looked over to Raina, who was busy trying to calm down Reagan with her hand stroking.
『...Raina. You have a good variety of abilities, from healing, to defending, and even defense and other specializations. I'll leave it to you to lead this operation.』[Edwin]
She looked over and subtly nodded.
『Leave it to me.』[Raina]
Edwin laughed out loud before shuffling around some papers on the table in front of him.
『Alright! Reagan. You're a strong Specialist that can subdue people weaker than you, and an even stronger Striker. This seems to match up with Oswald, so you two will be in charge of subduing the people under control of the target.』[Edwin]
Oswald responded on behalf of Reagan, who was still repeating his breathing exercises with Raina in an attempt to calm down.
『Right.』[Oswald]
Edwin nodded once more.
『Miss Sarena Night will be in charge of neutralizing the threats that the target, Yudola, create. According to a prior investigation, Nova can do the same, but keep afar. It seems like he's the target of her attack, so it is obvious that he's in the most danger. 』[Edwin]
The room went completely quiet for a moment.
Reagan leaned forward a bit, his clothes shuffling together making a sound that seemed deafening.
『...He's her target?』[Reagan]
Edwin shuffled some more papers, seemingly reading from a report of Yudola's case.
『The girl seems to have a sick fixation with Nova, writing his name in bloodied letters all over the city. It's either she's hunting for him, or setting a trap for us. Either way, we can't ignore this, as we have no idea how many she's killed already.』[Edwin]
Nova's mood immediately began to sour, hearing that she had killed people to bait him out.
Before he could even say anything, Reagan slammed his hand on the table and stood up.
『...I'm not going to stand for this.』[Reagan]
The room's attention all fell on him.
He stared daggers straight at Edwin.
『How could you let this go on for this long, old man?!』[Reagan]
Edwin was surprised for a moment, but he just shook his head solemnly.
『...If Nova didn't discover her, she may as well have still been undiscovered. It was a stroke of luck that they managed to even make it out alive.』[Edwin]
『She's a civilian, right?! She seems to be about Nova's age as well, so how is she this powerful?!』[Reagan]
Edwin flipped through the papers in front of him before locating one and passing it over to Reagan.
『There is a lot of discussions amongst the forensic team right now, but the main question is just what you asked. So far, we've narrowed it down to a Specialist seed that allows her to excel at what she does, an extremely powerful training method, a strange constitution, or… a cursed technique.』[Edwin]
Reagan's brow furrowed.
『...A cursed technique?』[Nova]
Nova couldn't help but ask, but Reagan followed up almost instantly.
『It's a technique that greatly enhances certain things, such as your mana or strength, in exchange for things that are completely "off-limits" to tamper with.』[Reagan]
Mune's eyes lowered at the paper, as he put his hand on his chin, as if he was contemplating something.
『...Off limits…?』[Mune]
『Typically, the body, blood, or dangerous things like that. And sometimes...』[Reagan]
Edwin leaned his chair back, causing a creak to resound around the room, interrupting Reagan's sentence.
『The soul.』[Edwin]