Mission

Alastor's return surprised quite a lot of people, but not Axel and Karna, who knew of his 'vacation' beforehand.

After being asked to describe his Dungeon, it's environment and the demons within, Alastor received a reward from the Alliance itself, a reward granted to everyone who was clearing Dungeons.

'Quite a large amount of money just for one Dungeon.'

Alastor's account in the Alliance Bank, barely being 3 months old, was looking quite rich.

Alastor felt the changes within him after ascending to Viscount rank. 

Firstly, his 'corpse' body situation was resolved, and his base human form was also getting stronger with training. His Demon Viscount form was also much stronger than his Baronet form in every way.

But perhaps the greatest gain, was his Ohr Jinn ability being unlocked, the Guidance of Fools.

Alastor spent his days training, or accepting mercenary missions. He ensured not to neglect his network, further increasing his affinity with those he deemed useful, or ones he believed would be useful in the near future.

While he remained at the top of the ranking, he also frequented the library. Little did anyone know, that while he acted as if he was reading or studying, in truth, he was frantically searching for 'something'.

Eventually, even Alastor had to give up and wait until the original protagonist of the novel arrived, to get the thing he was looking for. 

Days and weeks passed, and finally, the end of the year arrived.

The remaining students after the 'Dark Night' tragedy a few months ago, were all assembled once more by the Headmistress, in front of a large stage. 

Illia addressed the students standing before her, "It's been a wild year for you students, hasn't it? Random demon attacks, new stuff to learn, midterms. But you have survived all of those. So first of all, good job. Clap for yourself a little."

After a round of awkward clapping, Illia continued, "Now, the end of the year is upon us. You will receive one final mission that will test you on everything you learnt this year, to decide if you will enter the next year, or graduate."

"Go find any random Professor, and tell them your year and rank, they'll give you your mission. You have a time limit of one month to finish the mission, no matter what it may be."

The students remained still, waiting for her to complete her speech and teleport them to their Professor's, when she said,

"What are you still standing around for? Get moving! I'm not teleporting you anywhere!"

"And did I mention, the Professor's have a limited number of missions for each year?"

With that, a massive rush began as the students began running to find the Professor's.

The second and third years, who had already been through htis ritual, seemed much calmer, having an organized system in place as they leisurely strolled towards the Professor's offices.

Illia was about to teleport away, when she saw heard someone calling her name.

She snapped her fingers, and Alicia appeared on the stage before her.

"What?" Illia asked.

Alicia said, "Well, Headmistress Illia, I saw in the Professor's offices once that you taught a class called Synthesis to the third years in the past. So, you count as a Professor as well, right?"

Illia looked at the girl before her slightly differently, finally recognizing her, 

'So this is the other one with the Life Root. Hmmm, how did she get this information? That class only happened once before I shut it down. No way there are remains of it in the offices. Those kids passed out of the Academy too.'

"Where did you find this out, kid?" Illia asked Alicia.

Alicia hesitated while answering, as if contemplating someting, "My.....friends. Yes, my friends informed me."

Illia could feel the presence of the other six waiting nearby, and teleported them to her. She felt one resist her teleportation a bit, and frowned before forcefully pulling that one to her.

Alastor, Karna, Amber, Axel, Tori, and A looked at Illia in a bit of confusion (Except Alastor, who had been the one to resist her teleportation).

Illia thought over the situation before deciding to reward the out of the box thinking, "Fine then. I'll give you guys a mission."

"Keep in mind, it will be tougher than what the others give you. You sure you wanna continue? Especially you, over there."

She said as she pointed to Axel, who wasn't even in the top 10 rankings.

Axel looked to Alastor, who nodded subtly, and agreed, "Yes!"

Illia smirked as she began explaining her mission in detail.

"You get to have two months just for this mission."

.........................................

"Are we sure this is a mission, and not an Alliance operation?" Amber grumbled as they approached their destination.

Axel told her, "Well, she did say it would be more difficult than the rest."

Amber retorted, "Yes she did, but still. Granted, we have monsters like Alastor, Alicia and even the brute here, but this isn't just about power. To dismantle a criminal organization is different, especially one as deeply entrenched as the Spiders."

Alastor joked from where he was laying down, "Hey, at least she gave us this comfortable of a mode of transport. Basically an all expenses paid trip if we go about this properly."

Alicia responded, "We absolutely cannot take this mission lightly. The Eucoir Spiders are a dangerous organization. And we're heading right into their main base. We must be vigilant, alert! There shall be no tomfoolery, especially you A!"

A, feeling called out, "I have no idea who Tom is! How could I have fooled him, huh?"

Alastor asked, "Karna. What do you see?"

Karna, who was looking out of the window up until now turned to reply, "Another hour or two, and we'll arrive. This airship thing is really fast."

Soaring through the skies, was a gigantic blimp, filled with a fraction of Illia's mana and inscribed all over with Runes to ensure it's durabillity and smooth flight.

'She could have just teleported us there, but I suppose this isn't too bad.'

'She made us use this so first, we waste time, instilling a sense of urgency. Secondly.....'

As the airship arrived at the lawless city of Eucoir, the Spiders were immediately notified about the 'rich people' entering the city.

'....so she doesn't get too bored.'

'Fine then. Challenge accepted. I was getting bored anyway.'

Alastor stood as the airship landed, and exited. He looked at the crowd gathered around the landing area, as if none had ever seen an airship before.

'They probably haven't. Poverty is the norm here.'

As he heard Alicia saying something about disguises from inside the airship, Alastor noticed one person in the crowd acting suspicious.

He picked up Alicia's voice, "And we must remain as low-key as possible!"

The others exited the airship, to see Alastor hoist a man's corpse over head with his spear.

"Consider this a declaration of war against the Spiders. Come at me whenever you want."