The Martial Unity

They were all silent for a while, trying to process the fact that they were still alive. Rui appeared calm and relaxed but in reality, his mind was a maelstrom of chaos.

('Holy shit, we beat a Martial Squire.') His eyes widened as the full gravity of their situation dawned on him. ('The Martial Union is going to go nuts when they learn about this.')

Still, the context made the situation less absurd. The Martial Squire they were facing was nerfed and shackled in several ways.

If she had been given even a month of training and even a single Squire-level technique of the weakest grade, she would have crushed them.

Rui recalled how weak he was when he first broke into the Apprentice Realm. Back then, he hadn't mastered even a single Apprentice-level technique. Any Martial Apprentice could casually toy with him with Apprentice-level techniques.

The Martial Squire was in a similar situation with the Squire Realm.

('No, her predicament was even worse.') Rui shook his head. ('At least I didn't have a new body to get accustomed to.')

If she didn't have those handicaps...

Rui sighed. "We have a mission to complete. Let's get going."

The others stirred, before nodding.

"Where's the grade-ten Martial Apprentice?" Nel asked, scratching his head.

Rui turned towards him. "That was the grade-ten Martial Apprentice."

Nel's eyes widened. "She broke through to the Squire Realm?!"

"Yeah." Rui nodded. "Thanks to this facility. It was almost certainly set up to research the breakthrough to the Squire Realm and they very recently succeeded. She must have been a Squire candidate." Rui said. "That's why the Martial Union sent us to destroy it and the researchers. They must have learned of its existence and location fairly recently."

He turned towards the other end of the facility. "There are a few more researchers alive, we'll extract the research data from them as planned, kill them, and set out. We don't have too much more time."

They all nodded, before heading in deeper.

Finding the hidden researchers didn't take any time at all. Their seismic signatures were loud and clear to Rui.

"I know you speak the international dialect." He told them. "Where are the research logs? I want all of them."

The researchers simply stared at them in shock, before one of them managed to choke out a question. "What happened to the Martial Squire?"

"The logs. Now." He exerted some mental pressure on them. They quickly scurried before procuring two sets of large boxes.

"Is this truly all there is?"

"Y-Yes!" The head researcher gulped. "That's everything from the inception of the research facility till today!"

Primordial Instinct could sense earnestness hidden beneath all the fear.

Rui opened the boxes as he began skimming through all the documents, hastily storing the precious research data in his Mind Palace.

"What are you doing?" Kane asked in the Kandrian dialect.

"Verifying the research data." He lied.

"Really?" Kane peered at him suspiciously. "Even though you can't read Vinfranese?"

"There are other ways to verify whether these are, in fact, legitimate documents or just some nonsense," Rui replied. "You wouldn't want to return home with a bunch of documents about the sanitation logistics of the research facility instead of the research data we seek, right?"

"No." Kane admitted.

"It won't take long." Rui told them.

Rui intended to memorize all the data. He was truly curious about the research that the facility had engaged in. For now, as Kane said, he couldn't under a word of what was written. But if he learned to read Vinfranese, then he would have access to all this research data on the breakthrough to the Squire Realm!

This would surely be beneficial to him in the long run.

Normal Martial Artists did not possess the background in mathematics and science to understand even a single page of the research documents but that was not true for Rui. Rui had come from a world with a far superior scientific and research foundation. He himself possessed an extremely rich background in research. As long as he could understand the language, he should be able to make some significant gains from all the research.

The only problem was his lack of understanding of esoteric technology based on all the wondrous esoteric phenomena in this world.

('I can get Julian to help me out.') Rui smirked. As long as Julian aided him with the more fantastical parts of the research that were unique to the world of Gaia, he would have no problem understanding the core of what was happening and what exactly Martial Squires were in the first place.

Ten minutes later. He had skimmed through all the documents, having memorized everything.

BAM!

He gave them a painless death.

"They're legit." He said, nodding. "Let's get going."

"Finally!" Nel exclaimed, elated. "This was getting boring!"

They grabbed the boxes, heading towards the elevator.

"We're taking that as well." Rui gestured to the corpse of the Martial Squire.

"Why?" Fae frowned.

"There's a chance that our story sounds too hard to believe." Rui told them. "The part where five Martial Apprentices from the Academy defeating a Martial Squire, that is. Even if they believe that the research facility managed to crack the secret to the Squire Realm based on the data we are procuring, it may not be enough to corroborate our story of how we took the Squire down. They may suspect a number of other circumstances outside of our merits. Taking her body is absolute irrefutable proof of our story."

Rui took off the outer garments of his uniform, clothing the naked corpse before lifting it and tying it to his back. "There."

Soon, they set out.

Rui grabbed the mission tracking device before hitting the button that indicated the successful completion of the mission. The Martial Union would now be aware of the success of their operation. All they had to was return.

A grin broke out on Rui's face. He couldn't wait to see their faces when they realized what they had accomplished.