Highland Shelter

Qianyu was analyzing the situation at the secret headquarters of the Army Alliance at the Highland Shelter.

It had been almost four months since she had assigned Alex on a secret mission. Following which the headquarters of Negima Corporation in the shelter collapsed under a gigantic explosion.

In response, Negima had sent all of its officers, most powerful individuals in the first card dimension to the Highland Shelter to consolidate and protect their interests.

Negima was not a big player in the Card Dimensions. It was a large conglomerate on Earth, but only managed to exert major influence in the Highland Shelter. It was still trying to establish an influence in the second card dimension, but as of now, they had been unsuccessful.

However, in the past few months, Alex, who she suspected had caused the explosion at Negima didn't appear at all. Negima released information that one of the officers had betrayed the mission and killed all the others on the mission.

However, with five peak card apprentices in the highland shelter, Negima quickly recovered and began intensely pressuring the other organizations at the shelter for influence. In particular, one of the officers had acquired some form of power and had almost surpassed the limits of the first card dimension, but still managed to stay at the highland shelter.

A tussle for influence between the powers was not uncommon. But what seemed worrying was the rise of a black market and some of the areas around the shelter were being poisoned by dark attribute energy.

Qianyu suspected that the Negima Corporation was behind the mischief, but had no evidence for the same. In the past month several people had been infected by the dark attribute which interfered with their own powers in an almost parasitic manner.

Unfortunately, Qianyu was completely blindsided. She had no idea why the dark attribute sprang up suddenly and why it was creating this kind of parasitization within other attributes. While the Dark attribute was shunned on Earth and a specialty of the Black Market, it was not known to display such characteristics before.

At this moment, a soldier came in to report. "Major, two individuals with previously unknown identities have been captured exiting the portal from Highland Shelter.'

Qianyu was shocked. "Lead the way!" She said authoritatively.

Outside the portal in a high security office, Qianyu observed the two individuals from behind a one way mirror. The two looked extremely haggard and old, but the confounding thing was how did they enter the card dimension without having any record?

"Who are you two?" The investigator intimidated the two.

One of the older men sighed. "I don't care for this good cop bad cop crap. We are from another shelter, but we were lost and ended up on the shelter belonging to a different civilization."

Qianyu's eyes were in shock. While the investigator was a little disbelieving as well. "Explain everything from the beginning." He spoke sharply.

One of the men sighed and began explaining his story, how they ended up lost and found the shelter in the middle of a desert. That it belonged to a human civilization from a different planet called Mead. How he spent over a decade searching for a way back, but the area was too difficult to explore and he was too weak. He spoke about the difficulties of integrating into that society and learning about their way of life to eventually be able to get stronger.

He also described the encounter with a mysterious individual who was presumably from Earth and guided them towards the Highland Shelter. The man then took out the map and handed it over to the investigator.

Qianyu heard the whole story with a dumbfounded expression. "Another shelter belonging to a distant civilization! This is very sensitive news. Classify all the information about these two to be above top secret and investigate the person who guided the two back to Highland Shelter!"

She urged the investigator to find out about the other man. He said he married a woman in that civilization and managed to settle there. He helped the first man to hide as well.

"We need to detain these two." The investigator said to Qianyu.

"Investigate the veracity of their claims. If it is true we have no reason to hold them. However, make them sign non disclosure agreements" Qianyu thought.

Qianyu was certain that this information will create a huge imbalance in the highland shelter, and with Negima already creating a lot of instabilities, she didn't want any more issues cropping up to complicate the situation.

Qianyu spoke to her deputy. "What is the status on curing the ones infected by the dark attribute?"

"We can only seem to help them purify the dark attribute on Earth. As of now only Card Advents and higher ranked Light attribute card users are able to help purify, however, they are few in number and too expensive to hire for most victims."

Qianyu sighed. Card Advents were the next stage after Card Novices who had rank 4 cards. So as of now the only way seemed to be purifying the darkness attribute infection using a Rank 4 card with purification effects..

"Has the government considered any subsidy for healing the injured?" Qianyu asked.

"So far only for those affiliated with the Army Alliance. The other organizations are also help their members, but the ones left helpless the most seem to be Adventure House and Unaffiliated explorers." The deputy replied seriously.

"Adventure House... " Qianyu shook her head. Adventure House gave infinite freedom, but its nature was extremely transactional. If one wanted a service, they had to pay for it. Even in such situations, they remained cold hearted.

"Ask for a meeting with the higher ups. We need to escalate the information up the chain of command. A new shelter has been discovered, but we aren't sure about whether they are hostile. We need to extract as much information as possible from these two." Qianyu shook her head and immediately left for the headquarters of the Federation Parliament.