Chapter 14 The Reds

-Two weeks since Mordred left Remnant- 

In the forest near Vale, a small convoy of four vehicles drove upon the dirt path. The lead vehicles were two small offroad trucks and behind them were two large trucks carrying people armed and wearing modern tactical armor with some adjustments for fighting grimm. They wore a helmet and mask that hid their face, the only distinguishing feature they had were the color patches on their helmets, each a different color. The trucks were also carrying a few boxes of supplies.

Their destination is a village that was attacked by a horde of grimm. The villagers initially made a request for Huntsmen to help them, but their deployment would take too long due to a shortage of hunters in the region at the moment, so they resorted to the next best thing... mercenaries. 

During the drive two trucks split off, going in another direction, they had another objective. 

"Why are we out here again?" The familiar voice that was complaining was Grif.

"Because the higher ups decided to take this request to aid the village. Not only do we get paid, but it will build up the company's reputation which means more requests" stated Simmons.

"No, I mean why are WE out here and by We, I mean ME, I thought I was supposed just be guarding the factory".

Simmons could only shake his head at Grif's laziness.

"You clearly didn't read the contract"

"Man, I think I should just quit"

"Well if you do quit there will be consequences since your contract hasn't expired yet. But if you still decide to quit, I still have that job application for a bakery"

"I'm not going to work at a bakery Simmons"

"You two! Shut it back there! We are in the middle of a combat operation!" This new voice had a deep, rough southern accent that sounded both commanding and frustrated. The man was sitting in the front passenger seat of the truck. 

"Yeah yeah, whatever Sarge" Griff dismissed him and went back to sleep, or he tried since the dirt path was bumpy. 

"Hmph, Donut how much further?" Sarge asked to the man driving the truck.

"We have about two more miles sir!" Donut said excitingly.

This was Red Team. Before Mordred left, she gave her subordinates instructions to begin training and forming teams. These teams had rushed training because there were no individuals within the company that had experience in training soldiers. Something she will fix once she's back. What was the company name? 

"Why are we such a hurry Sarge?" Grif asked. He was curious of why Sarge wanted to hurry to the village after all the more time they take to get there the more time Grif has to laze around.

"It's so that we complete this mission and return back to HQ before those pesky blues beat us!"

"Blues?"

Simmons began to explain to Grif that Sarge had some sort of vendetta with another team within the company, the Blue Team.

"What? Why?"

Sarge looked straight at Grif and said slowly.

"Because... their... Blue..."

There was silence. Grif waited a bit, expecting more from his answer, but the silence was all that greeted him.

"That's it?!"

"Yes"

Simmons and even Grif wanted to continue asking why. Surely that couldn't be the only reason, right?

"We're here!" The excited voice of Donut stopped them from questioning more.

"Let's get to work" Sarge declared as they began to enter the village gates.

...

...

-Orario, inside the dungeon, Floor 12-

~Whistle~

"I've got quite the haul"

Mordred had filled up three duffel bags. Each filled with magic stones from the monster that spawn on the 11th and 12th floors.

Mordred had been hunting nonstop, slowly going down the floors of the dungeon. She now had enough money to not have to worry about finding a cheaper inn. Now she was stockpiling money and any drop items she found.

She began her walk back up to the surface, dispatching any monsters she encountered as she snacked on a piece of bread. 

Her skills had become better at fighting monsters. Not only that but her mana core and mana burst ranked up.

[Mana Core (E) -----> (D)]

[Mana burst (D) -----> (D+)]

Other than her plan to acquire better a better suit of armor and sword, she also had another plan she wanted to try. She wanted to see how effective firearms were against adventurers. She was confident that high caliber guns would dispatch most level 1 adventurers. But what about level 2 or what if the level 1 just had crazy high endurance.

And what better testing ground then the crime ridden Orario, where evil gods and their children run around causing chaos.

She made it back to the surface and had noticed few adventurers entering and leaving the dungeon. It was quite rare to see adventurers going in the dungeon in small groups or even solo. Most familia's had decided that their children could only enter the dungeon with the familia's main attack team which consisted of a large portion of the familia's members. This was due to safety reasons.

Though this did cause some problems as adventurers were progressing slower and a familia's attack team couldn't just go whenever they want. Since a large portion of the familia would be gone they have to schedule when they go and ensure that strong adventurers go with the attack team in case, they are attacked by high level adventurers as well as leaving high level adventurers at home to protect their god. 

Going into the dungeon solo was basically seen as suicide especially for those who belonged to more prominent familia's. But for Mordred who was a nobody that did not belong to any familia and did her best to lay low, she wasn't a target anyone was concerned with.

She arrived at the guild where she greeted Rose once again. they went through their normal procedure, Mordred was brought to a side room where Rose would give her the money and answer any questions that Mordred would have, though most of the time it was Rose that had questions.

With money in hand Mordred left back to her inn room.

...

-Rose POV-

'What a strange person'

Rose thought as she stood behind the counter, her head resting on her raised arm. 

'She has no falna yet she can handle the dungeon with ease'

A few days ago, Rose was absolutely flabbergasted that Mordred had reached the 10th floor. She thought Mordred was lying when she said that she had no falna so Rose asked if she could check. She knew that this was a breach of guild policy, but she had to know. Mordred happily agreed to her request and to Rose's shock, Mordred indeed had no falna.

'I can't even say that she was somehow lucky that she made it this far and survived. The amount of magic stones she brings every day is proof enough of her capabilities and I doubt she stole them, she doesn't seem to be that type of person'

'And if that wasn't strange enough, she always seems to be happy, always having a bright smile on her face every time she comes by, as if she is oblivious to the depressing state Orario is in'

"What a strange person indeed" Rose whispered to herself.

...

Night had descended upon Orario. Mordred stood on top of a building wearing her black cloak to cover her body and she wore a half mask that covered the top part of her face, a mask she bought while looking around the market. 

Morded observed the chaos that ensued. During the day the city was relatively quiet but at night was when all hell broke loose. 

She checked her gear, this time she brought out her firearms as well. If things went wrong, then she could just return to Remnant early.

"Well time to clean up the streets!"

She leapt off the building and raced to her first target.