CHAPTER 23

"How did you get this strong ? How did you suddenly become legend rank.", Igsem asked. She couldn't believe it.

"I cultivated for a year. While unconscious. And we were able to gain mana due to that being. That voice.", Arata said and he explained the whole situation to their unit. The whole defense of the country was gone though. There was no one who could save the country when attacked now. There was no big army, and it was just for show. Nothing compared to the countries which the Alvarez empire was surrounded by. It was definitely gonna fall.

"It doesn't look like it is the time to sleep. We have to go meet the other squads. With our speed now, we could reach Lonsong city in 2 hours. That's the base for all S ranks.", Rachel said.

"What ! You can travel at more than 250 km/hr now ! WOW !", Solork exclaimed. The squads left are mostly in the favour of retaining the country. Though there may be some more families joined up with the alliance to destroy the country.", Arata said.

"You guys go ahead. We will try gathering some information from nearby squads, who should be our friends.", Solork said.

The current situation is pretty complicated, Solork thought. Thus, he started making a count of families and squads who could be on our side or the enemies' side.

Our side : Mahler, Lebia, Yuley, Andre, Xia - total of total of 15 squads.

Their side : Khun, Elric, Ruoyun, Agnis - total of 20 squads.

There were 4 more squads who could be on either side. Solork and others went around the country to the allies' hideouts and group up. Arata and Rachel went to see the leader of Mahler squad - Alphonse Mahler.

Raiku, Yuri, Edward and Thalamus also split up to go to their allies in various cities away from the capital and gather up at the Capital. This night was surely the busiest night.

In around 2 hours, Arata and Rachel reached the Mahler and Andre's hideout. There were two buildings which looked like fancy hotels from outside. The left one belonged to Mahler and right one belonged to Andre. They decided to get into the Mahler hideout first. They stepped into the building, but were ambushed by Alphonse Mahler himself. Arata and Rachel were prepared to be ambushed as soon as they entered the door, it would have been weird if they weren't. But Arata and Rachel clearly had faster movements, so they managed to bring Alphonse down with the knife a millimeter away from his neck.

"Impossible ! Legend Ranks, at such a young age without a background ! Who are you guys ?", Alphonse asked.

"We are just assassins with enhancing capabilities from the Zipang squad. This is Rachel and I am Arata", Arata said.

"Hoho !", Alphonse said. Rachel and Arata were also able to tell now that Alphonse did have a realization, that was probably the enhancement, as he was pretty fast, but not that assassin scroll one.

Arata and Rachel quickly explained the situation to Alphonse. Alphonse actually had a long beard and looked pretty old. Alphonse called in the Andre squad too. Anna Andre, the leader, was a summoner of a healing goddess, which was superior to Igsem but similar. She had an unknown charm which serenaded everyone in her presence. There was Androssi, a defender, Nightingale, an enhancer, Leafa, a summoner and Scroll, a genius Transmuter. Most of the squads bought spiritual weapons from her.

"I see. We had a drawn out battle against the Khun and Ruoyun squads but we were mostly healing and they had escaped before giving information. We informed Mahler this, and Alphonse quickly decided to send his troops to the capital as that had most range of betrayal. They were small families, and would easily get influenced by outsiders. Besides, the enemy heads are Tsukishima and Milana", said Anna