Chapter 39 First Assignment

The first assignment Aarav was tasked with as a SOUL probationary agent was outside of Caito. After going through rigorous training, he was assigned on a field mission. He was given a communicator. It had an appearance of air pod. He just had to place it over his ears. As he placed it on his ear, a holographic image appeared in front of his eyes. It had an AI inbuilt in it.

"Hi. I'm Iris. How can I help you?"

A very charming female voice came out from his earpiece.

"Hi. Help me log in to the system."

Aarav felt weird to communicate with an artificial being. He had never used google assistant or Siri before. It was a novel experience for him.

The system started. Iris then gave him a run-through of all the functions he could use. As the connection to StarLink was down, many functions could not be used. But the most basic things like map and calls were functioning. It was more than enough for him.

He had heard about the malfunctioning of Starlink a lot of times. But it was still not repaired.

The problem was that there was an only one engineer who was in charge of the maintenance of the Starlink. Other engineers had left the planet on leave. After some time of their departure, StarLink malfunctioned. The only engineer was nowhere to be found. Without Starlink, it was difficult to report the issue in real-time. There was a time-lapse between Taiba and the rest of the galaxies. The issue might not have been found out at all. Sometimes communication went through, sometimes it didn't. Anyway, it didn't affect the people of Taiba much as most of the areas had not adopted modern technologies.

After tweaking with his new device, Aarav was ready for his first mission.

"You ready?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Good. This is the place. Go check it out."

Ulnas shared coordinates with him with his communicator and was ready to head back, when Arav interrupted," Wait. Aren't you coming with me?"

"It's not difficult at all. You will be fine by yourself."

Arav was now sure why he got demoted. This guy was hardly enthusiastic about his work. He was sending a newbie alone on his first mission. Arav was more than okay with his nonchalance. Staying with Ulnas was tiresome. He was the least friendly guy he met till date.

Arav was given a Pegasus named Zorian, a flying horse as his mount. They considered him too young to handle an airship on his own. The Pegasus was not a native of Taiba. It was brought by an aristocrat, as a pet, but the moody Pegasus kicked the owner and injured him. It was then, sold away, and somehow he landed into the hands of the city guard. It was ageing, but it was still a fine breed. It was under good care.

Arav was assigned Zorian to put it to use. He had tried to ride it. It was a comfortable ride as he didn't find him moody at all. On the contrary, it was very caring towards him.

Riding the white Pegasus in the sky, he flew past the various places. Hills, rivers and all-natural beauty came to his sight. Zorian went higher into the sky, fly along with the clouds as it played chase with the clouds.

Chuckling, Arav stroked it, "Are you having fun? Let's go take care of the mission ASAP, and we will play to your heart's content."

Zorian neighed and took him further north. On the way, Arav noticed a vast patch of the jungle, burnt. There was a crack in the ground as well as a crack in the air. A thin fiery streak was in the air. Arav knew what it was.

It happened when a pocket dimension collapsed. It was the place where North town existed. Now all that was left was a burnt patch of ground. He read in reports that the whole area burned down, breaking the dimension. Streaks of fire still kept leaking out of the remains of the dimension. It was difficult to fully destroy the dimension.

He flew further away. At a distance, he could see white mountains. They were tall and the range was very long. It was difficult to see the end of it. The people simply called the mountains 'the end of the world'. It was a name with no real meaning in it. It just felt like there was nothing beyond it. But people knew there was a valley beyond it. People lived over there as well. But these people had no interaction with the people over this side. Both side peacefully existed.

Aarav was supposed to go over that side. He was excited to see that place.

He flew over the tall mountains. The vast stretch of white was never-ending. He saw few hunters dressed in animal skin near the mountains. The valley was colourful. It had beautiful trees and flowers. There were houses and huts made of thatches near the river. People could live in the valley. It was the only place on the planet which was livable. There were no pocket dimensions needed to live there as there was no toxicity. It was surrounded by the mountains all around. So the toxin didn't reach the place.

Arav checked the report. There were signs of toxin found in this haven. He had to check the authenticity of the report, and take the sample back to the research centre.

"Zorian, let's go down."

Arav flew down. As he got off the Pegasus, an old man dressed like a monk approached him.

"Are you from SOUL agency?"

"Yes. We received a report."

"Please this way."

The old man was very timid, his head was down all the time, and his hand was counting rosary beads. He soon leads him to a cottage.

The cottage was small and cosy. Sunrays coming from the window lightened the room. There were only basic amenities in the cottage. There was not a single valuable thing in sight. It was provident that the person living inside was a hermit.

The old man who led him inside the cottage led him two a small table. He sat down on the floor in seiza style. Arav too sat down. There was a teapot on the table. It gave off a very refreshing aroma.

"Care for some tea."

"Yeah, sure."

"First let me apologize to you. The report was false. It was my misunderstanding."

"What do you mean?"

"I saw some dead fish in the lake. They were very special fish bought from another planet. They cannot survive in Taiba because of toxicity. It could only grow in the lake of this place. But a few days back, they were all dead. I was terrified. And I assumed that the toxins were leaking into the valley. But it turned it was not true."

"….."

The old man was hesitating to say. He was nervous.

"The fishes died from overeating."

"Overeating?"

"Yes."

"So, the report was false."

"Yes. I'm truly sorry for your inconvenience."

"…."

Arav didn't know what to do with the man. He was humbly apologizing, even the tea tasted good. There was no point lying to him. If he was lying, the lab results would show it.

"If you don't mind, can you show me this lake."

"Yes. We just came from that way. Please come this way."

They then went outside to check the lake. The lake was shining like crystals. It was clean and so clear that even the bottom could be seen. Various fishes were swimming in it.

Arav took a picture of the lake. He then crouched and took a sample of the water. He also took a sample of the nearby soil. Even if the report was false, he had to take the sample.

"It's so beautiful."

"It indeed is. I was of your age when I first came here."

"That must be a long time back."

"Yes. Before the annexation of Elysium govt."

"…"

Arav kept silent suspecting he was in for a long story. The man seemed to reminisce his youth. He looked like someone at the last leg of their life. That would be approx 500 years. Indeed it would make a very long story.

"There wasn't a single time my fishes died like that. I never overfed them. Maybe I'm getting senile."

The long story didn't come.

"Why did you think it was because of toxin?"

"Because it happened for the first time. Also…"

"Also?"

"I'm not sure. It was strange that day. I only feed them twice a day, about the same amount. But they died. Maybe I forgot and repeated my routine. Forget it."

"What was so strange about the day?"

Arav was intrigued as well. He observed that the old man was timid but was meticulous. His cottage was properly arranged, not a thing out of its place. The man was observant. If he found something strange then something did happen.

"…There was the sound of footsteps in the night. They didn't belong to the people here."

"You can recognize the sounds of footsteps."

"To be exact, there was the sound of boots. People wearing boots. Nobody wears boots in the valley."

Arav then looked at the simple wooden slippers worn by the monk. The other people were also wearing similar slippers. The people living in the valley were mostly monks. They didn't own much to themselves. If the monk was right, then it would mean people from outside came in. But for what purpose? Killing fishes?

The monk looked around him. He then spoke in a lower voice," Come this way."

Arav was again led somewhere. This was the backside of the cottage where a muddy path led to the nearby jungle. Arav followed the monk. Soon, the monk stopped in a distance.

"Here."

Arav saw what he was showing. Indeed there was a boot mark. There were traces of boot mark that were hastily hidden. Whoever they were, they forgot to remove all the traces.

"My attribute is wind. So I can hear things miles away. With growing age, my skill only improved. I am not sure how far I can hear. That night I heard something. I didn't understand the language, so I didn't know who they were. In the morning, I followed the direction of the sound and found my suspicions to be correct."

"So you think, some outsiders came in and poisoned your fishes."

Arav clicked pictures of the footmarks. He looked around for clues.

"Here. I didn't understand the language but wrote it down to the best of my memory. I hope this is just my paranoia."

Arav simply took the piece of paper and scanned it using IRIS's function. It was soon translated.

'Hurry up. We have to do it before daybreak.'

'okay okay. Don't nag me.'

'For such a simple task, they are giving us so much money. I will go crazy.'

'Shh! Chicken Don't make much noise. We have many other places to be. Fire Elementals village is very far from here. So hurry up, if you don't want to work overtime.'

'Done. I have sprinkled the drug into the water. Let's go.'

The content was not very clear. There were many useless words in the sentences. But overall, it sounded suspicious.

"How many voices did you hear?"

"Four."

"Alright, I will report the matter. You can rest assured."

The old man's suspicions pointed to one direction- the rebels were up to something. The End of the World valley was a beautiful place. Probably the most beautiful in Taiba. It would be tragic if it becomes something like North Town.