Noctem Squad

Somewhere in the depths of Qam District:

A man in a black coat, a smiley mask, and earrings with dangling crosses held his palm towards a bloody alleyway—the area lit up in a strong, overwhelming aura that made everyone's gravity feel ten times heavier.

"S— Squad Captain Smile, the two new recruits…" asked a man that could barely stand on his feet—he couldn't withstand the force that was being put out.

"Oh…" Smile glanced towards him, then towards the two in question—both of them were on the ground, being squashed with nosebleeds dirtying the already-bloody ground further.

He walked up to them and tilted his head, "my bad," then pointed a finger at them and it lit up in a white color—a white beam instantaneously hit them, which caused them to glow in pure whiteness for a brief second—a barrier of the unknown was activated and they consequently stood up without a problem.

Smile moved back to the exact spot he was in earlier, and resumed—the man in question, Smile, was exerting his aura at full force while analyzing the environment to the molecule.

Soon after resuming the process, the surrounding gravity intensified even harder—everyone around him began having their eyes rain like a fountain; it was the toned-down byproduct of Smile's sheer MANA power.

"S— so, that's the leader of N— Noctem, one of Im City's Superpowers, Smile, q— quite im— im— im— impressive, I say," said someone from rather respectable amount of meters away, while on one knee and tears flowing non-stop.

"Sure is—one of the few here that reached the maximum Level and had their ELO go beyond the typical scale: Level 10 with 1321 ELO, Smile the Nox," replied a man with moderately gothic clothes that stood in the presence of Smile without as much as a sweat or the slightest problem.

Subsequently, the other man threw up and then, with all his willpower, asked, "t— tho— though, c— can't believe y— you're so… u— unaffected…"

The man of dark; resembling the gothic style, whose name was Kross of the Moon, glanced at him and answered, "it's not difficult as long as you're strong enough; you should really stand your ground, though, weren't you level six or something?"

"I…" he then threw up yet again, just for the aura to suddenly vanish without a trace—not even a drop of Smile's presence was present any longer, it was suppressed to the extent of him being the equivalent of an ant or a bug.

The struggling one, whose struggles had now dispersed, stood up looking all pale and continued, "i— is it over?"

Kross re-affirmed him with a smile.

Afterwards, Kross was asked just one more question, "are you guys… well… really just an investigation squad? Aren't you a little too strong for that?"

Upon the question, silence began brewing for a moment or two—followed with a big slap on the man's back and a bunch of giggles from Kross, "that's cuz' our responsibility goes beyond just that—unlike other investigation squads, we also…"

Kross, with an overly serious and almost eerie expression, got closer to the guy and then had a massive grin pop-up on his face, "...punish all the criminals of the Immigrant City at our own discretion—we can as far as execute them, as long as we deem it the necessary course of action."

Just as he said that and had silence yet again down in the atmosphere, a raven loudly skreeked and proceeded to fly by everyone. Even a gulp was overly vocal in a situation like that—it was heard well.

Kross subsequently walked up to Smile and, with a deep voice, asked without a single waver of confidence, "so, Smile, did ya pick up anything?"

He, Smile, who was the only masked one there, answered without any qualms in his voice, "as usual, I did figure it out but there's just one problem—the perpetrator doesn't appear to have a System, not even a seed of one—they're one of the irregulars, so with with magic alone, we virtually have no chance of figuring out who's responsible for this."

Kross proceeded to let out a troubled but mildly entertained chuckle, "that's wild—we have a pretty substantial list of irregulars though, right?" As he progressed with his question, his aura intensified—Smile wasn't the only superpower among them.

"We do," replied Smile with a gentle and soft voice; his voice was truly like the sun compared to the voice of Kross, whose voice would be the moon in this context.

Then, Kross yelled to everyone, "Noctem Squad, we're moving out!—we have some things to figure out!" One would expect Smile to be the one to let out commands such as that, but in the ladder of Noctem, Kross was the voice of the squad—the right hand man, the one dirtying his hands in the stead of Smile as long as the necessity for the very Leader didn't surface.

Meanwhile somewhere far away:

"Are you sure you don't want a new weapon, Dantes?" Asked Nemo with concern.

"No, no, I want to keep this because uhh… it's kind of… well… a memento for me," I answered in a troubled and grieving voice.

We were shopping before setting out on our first mission together—the rank of the mission was C-, which was relatively high for new Players; Nemo insisted against it, but he just so happened to not be very good with peer pressure.

"Aww, Dantes… I'm sorry to hear that… want a hug?" Soyeon interrupted us.

I replied instantly, "imma hug this cactus instead, thank you though," proceeded to walk up to a potted cactus and embrace it directly with my face—my face began bleeding quite profusely, but sacrifices had to be made.

"W— what…" She answered in confusion.

I wish these idiots had a sense of humor—Xter would've laughed his ass off, come on!

"D— dantes, what are you thinking!" Yelled Nemo while casting healing magic on me—how boring!—as much as I expected him to heal me.

Soon after, we left for the first mission… It was a rather simple mission of delivering a package—the possible threats were thieves, bandits, and just good-for-nothing criminals.

Nemo was frantic—the academy, along with a tournament, were on the way, and we were a brand-new team without any dynamic.

Something had to be done quickly…