BIOLOGICAL SUPERCOMPUTER SYSTEM

"Are you sure they went this way?" Greg asked.

"A hundred percent..." Zachary replied.

Greg nodded and said, "Okay then..." He turned to the others with a somber look. He and Zachary were accompanied by three other people, and they had been tasked to kidnap Erik Romano, the awakener.

They went out of the city through a secret passage the Crystal Cross gang used when they wanted to smuggle something or someone out of the city. They actually had to walk through the sewer to do that and were now full of filth. The smell alone could make anyone sick; even thaids steered away from them.

The group walked into the forest, searching for their target undisturbed by beasts. However, they had to pay attention to not being found out by soldiers and teachers. They had been briefed by their boss about this outing. The whole Red Palace, including teachers and soldiers, were there, but since the forest was big, they didn't see people.

Their contact at the Red Palace gave them a device that could track down the student's signal from their phone. It was one used by the teachers to find the students in case something happened, but this guy gave them a spare one.

After all, he would get paid if it worked well. If anything else did happen, no amount of money could cover what kind of punishment he would receive.

After walking for half an hour, they finally came across the trail Erik's group had left, meaning they were on the right track. They even went where Erik and his team killed the Nok's group. From there, finding them was easy, and it didn't take a lot of time.

Currently, there were 2 thieves and 3 assassins in the group. Zachary and Greg were the thieves, while the other three were the assassins. The first of the three was called 'Death,' everyone called him such because of his incredible ability to kill people.

It was common knowledge that if you got targeted by him, you were as good as dead. The man carried two daggers, both made out of highly mana-conductive materials. As for his age, no one knew how old he was since he usually wore a mask.

Next was a man who only knew as 'Slice.' Everyone called him this way because he was a psycho killer who liked cutting off heads and limbs just for fun. His weapon of choice was a sword, which he wielded with great skill. Not many could stand against him once he started swinging that thing around.

Last was 'Laser,' but no one could understand why he was called that way. He wasn't much different than the other two, but his brain crystal power was very nasty, as he could inflict pain onto others with his mere thought.

The three agreed to join the kidnapping mission since it was a high-profile mission, but aside from Death, which didn't really care, the other two were a bit conflicted since they couldn't kill the target. However, there were other people with him, so they could have a little bit of fun, at least they hoped.

After a short while, the five finally reached Erik's group; they were currently killing a group of thaids effortlessly, making the five kidnappers look with amused looks.

"They aren't that bad..." Slice said.

"Yeah," Death added, "they're pretty good fighters, despite their age..."

As the group approached closer, they heard Erik giving orders to his friends.

"Isn't that the target?" Laser asked Greg.

"He is..." he replied.

"That guy knows how to order other people around..." Laser said.

"I can see that..."

"Ok, guys, we must make this quick. Go there, beat them up, and grab the awakener. Is everything clear?" Zachary said.

"Oh... c'mon, we came all this way, and you won't even leave us to have some fun?" Slice said.

"Yeah, I would like to see their face squirming in pain," Laser added.

"Seriously? We are in the middle of an important mission, and all you can think of is having fun?" Zachary replied.

"But I don't wanna miss my chance! There are even pretty girls among them!" Slice said he had a sick taste for young girls.

"Well, you'll be missing your chances this time. We can't fail this mission... Someone very powerful has paid for this, and the boss won't tolerate failure since he issued this quest."

Everyone froze upon hearing the boss being mentioned; he was a scary guy. Even Death was slightly scared. It wasn't very often that these kinds of quests appeared, and not many people were willing to do them since there was the risk they could mess up a quest issued by the CCG leader. Usually, these quests were hard, but the pay was high. In this case, though, not only was the pay astronomical, but the quest was relatively easy. For people like them, trained assassins and thieves, getting out of the city, and navigating through the forest, going unnoticed by patrols was as easy as breathing. Coming there was like a walk in the park. But if they failed, there could be severe consequences for them.

"Fine, let's move out then," Slice said. "I don't want to waste more time than I already did..." he added.

The five then started sneaking their way closer to the students, who were fighting against a large number of thaids. They tried to be as stealthy as possible.

[WARNING. HOSTILE PRESENCES DETECTED.]

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<Emergency quest: Escape.>

-Rewards for completion: 3000 experience points, 500 DNA points, and 3 strength stat points for Escaping the encounter.

-Failure Penalty: Unkown.

WARNING: KILLING THE ENEMY IS NOT POSSIBLE. THE POWER LEVEL IS TOO HIGH. RECOMMENDED APPROACH: FLEE.

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"What the...?!" Erik exclaimed. He turned just in time to see five figures sneaking toward them. He didn't know these people.

Judging by their looks, they weren't soldiers nor teachers, and they couldn't obviously be students. He got already warned by the system that they had bad intentions; however, the fact that they were trying to sneak behind them didn't leave a shred of doubt about their goal.

Erik started wondering who the hell these people were, but immediately understood why they were here; the Biological SuperComputer.

Then everything started to click. They were probably the guys responsible for robbing his house, but were they also the ones who killed Mister Fox? And besides, who sent them? Was it really Amber's family? Or was it the Crystal Cross Gang? If somehow they confessed the old man's killing, everything would be clear, but he doubted they would do it.

"BEHIND US!" Erik shouted.

"THEY NOTICED US!" Greg screamed. He and the rest of the team started running.

"What?" Judith exclaimed, turning around. The young woman wasn't alarmed by these people initially since they were humans; however, she changed her mind as soon as she saw them running toward them.

There were at least two hundred meters of distance between Erik's group and the unknown attackers, so they still had time to do something.

That was a high-tension moment. On the one hand, they were still fighting the thaids, so they couldn't get that distracted; at the same time, if they ignored the newcomers, things would end up bad.

"Judith, summon the hounds! Anderson, I need you to take my share of the thaids! Can you do it?"

"Yes, don't worry!" Anderson replied. The monsters they were currently fighting were not that strong. However, since they didn't think they would be attacked by humans, Erik decided to fight only large groups of weak monsters. If they didn't pay attention, they could end up heavily injured. The first thing Erik did was take the pine cones from his backpack. He channeled as much mana as possible and started throwing the cones toward the unknown assailants.

"WHAT THE FUCK?!" Shouted Greg. He had never seen something like that. It was a scary sight for him and his team.

However, Erik wasn't done yet. There was still hope everything would go smoothly. He just needed to be quick.