258

Side Story 15

9. I'm going there to meet you right now (1)

The United States of America, inside the official residence of the nation's president – the White House.

Several bigshots gathered in this iconic white building created for the President of the U.S. of A to live and work.

"...."

Every single one of these important government officials occupying a spot inside the briefing room all carried tense expressions. Among them, one person carried the gloomiest expression.

The American President continued to rub his face, wondering over and over again if he had made the right call.

'Rifts formed on an empty sky, and unidentified objects began appearing from there.'

It was an unprecedented historical event. But, was it the right thing to handle this incredible event without saying a word to the public at large?

No, before that, did they even possess the capability to deal with 'the objects that came out' from there?

All he could do was anxiously wait for the arrival of the commander in charge of the operation. And, when the entrance to the conference room opened up and General Chester Harrison entered, the President quickly got up from his seat to welcome the military man.

"Harrison, just what the hell happened back there?"

The final report sent in from the location of the event was...

- The situation has been normalised. I repeat, the situation this side has been normalised.

....That report, sadly enough, lacked the most important 'how' of that normalisation process.

That was why so many bigshots, including the POTUS himself, were nervously waiting for the arrival of the military man inside this conference room.

Chester mouthed a brief greeting to his boss and scanned the room for a short while, and stood in front of the room.

"Rather than me trying to describe the situation to you, it'll be far quicker to play the video contained in here."

What he was holding was a small USB stick. The President grew curious about its contents in an instant and hurriedly nodded his head.

Not just him, though, but everyone present within the room was staring at the tense-faced general's hand. He slotted the USB stick in the terminal and video footage began playing on the giant screen installed on the wall of the conference room.

"This is the footage captured by the surveillance drones and robots."

Chester Harrison spoke those short introductory words and stood beside the screen while swallowing down his own nervous saliva.

He couldn't even begin to imagine how these folks would react to the footage about to be played. Well, he'd seen it several times before coming here, and he was still unsure how to take it, even now.

However, what was really important here was that it did happen.

The evidence of that was contained within this USB drive, and as the commander in charge of this operation, it was his duty to reveal it to this gathering of higher-ups.

The beginning of the footage started off with the 'cracks' in the sky.

"Keu-heum...."

"Huh-uh!"

Several gasps of shocks came from here and there as giants seemingly made out of rocks emerged from the rift reminiscent of dimension itself shattering away.

If it weren't for the heads-up they received in regards to the existence of those bizarre creatures, the inside of the conference room would've descended into pure chaos by now.

But the truly shocking scene happened after that. In front of terrifying giants, ones so scary that you'd forget to even breathe while looking at them, stood the lone figure of a person.

'Judging from his body size.... a boy?'

'An East Asian, maybe?'

The Secretary of Defense couldn't hold it back anymore and pointed at the screen while asking his questions.

"That man!! Who is that man?? Where were our troops, Harrison? And why was there a civilian standing in the middle of those creatures?!"

It was as he said; this footage wasn't a record that everyone in this room was expecting to see in which the mightiest army on Earth – the American military – smashed apart and drove back the creatures of another world.

No, this video was all about a lone, nameless man whose face they couldn't even see.

With excellent timing, the screen now showed pitch-black 'soldiers' suddenly rising up from the ground behind that lone man. General Chester Harrison, his gaze fixed to the screen until then, spoke as if he was letting out a pained moan.

"....I'd like to know that myself as well."

***

"Does it look like I'm alone to you?"

When those words came to an end, nearly ten million Shadow Soldiers simultaneously lined up right behind Jin-Woo.

The number of Titans that emerged from the rift in the sky was around several hundred. So, it was ten million versus a few hundred. In any other normal circumstances, the 'ten million' should've easily overwhelmed the opposition with this number.

The problem today, however, was the fact that each Titan possessed powers equal to that of higher existences.

Ba-thump, ba-thump!!

Facing a battle for the first time in a long while, Jin-Woo's heart began pounding away quite loudly. He sent a mental communication to Fangs, currently in charge of commanding all the Magic Soldiers.

- How are your preparations going so far?

[There is no problem on this side, my liege.]

Not just Fangs, but all of the Magic Soldiers were entrusted with performing and maintaining magic spells to minimise the shock waves that no doubt would be generated by this battle.

He had no choice but to do this, since this world had no Mana, and it was simply far too fragile as it currently was.

Also, the uninvited guests came here with the purpose of literally devouring this planet, so they wouldn't go about flinging around unnecessarily powerful magic spells, either. Inevitably, the battle about to take place would be a confrontation involving physical powers between allies and enemy forces.

A contest of pure raw strength, in other words.

- Good.

Thankfully, he didn't dislike such a type of fighting, to begin with. A smirk formed on Jin-Woo's lips.

One of the Titans completely misinterpreted the meaning behind that smirk and in the blink of an eye, smashed its fist down in pure rage.

BOOM-!!