Chapter 6 - Mission

Knocking the office door, they were greeted by an old white-haired gentleman, his clear red reptilian-like pupils indicating his demon race. His posture was impeccable as he stood perfectly straight; contrary to his aged appearance. A gold-rimmed monocle sat perfectly in front of his left eye as he donned a black custom long tail-coated butler uniform accessorized with a small silver chain dangling from his right chest pocket.

"Good Morning, Gentleman and MiLadies," The butler gave them a low bow as he slowly turned back into the room, "Your Majesty, It is Master Alastair and the rest of Squad 0," His deep grainy voice announced their arrival,

"Let them in."

The butler gracefully took a step to the side as he pushed open the door.

"Ah, the Infamous Squad 0." Heliro glanced up from his paperwork with a mischievous smile, his eyes observing each member as they entered through the old oak door.

"Your Majesty," Alastair, knelt down on one knee, as the rest of the squad mimicked behind him.

"Rise."

The squad stood up.

"Come over here. Let me brief you all on the mission." Heliro motioned them to walk closer whilst clearing out the piles of paper and spreading an A5 sheet of grainy, yellow-stained paper across the desk

"This here is Thilai Valley located on the border of our Empire and the Neltrol Kingdom," Heliro instantly began the briefing, pointing at a spot on the map, "We have received intel that a pack of vampires resides deep within the ravine located here." He explained glancing back up, analyzing their facial expression - specifically at Seilon's reaction,

"Vampires?" Seilon's eyes predictably widened, visibly shaken for a split second before calming himself down, "There are still vampires living out there?"

"According to the residents in the towns around that area, adventurers and herbalists have mysteriously gone missing in areas around the ravines for the last few months, and those that somehow made it back end up losing over 20% of their overall blood, with puncture wounds around their necks and missing memories. All common traits of a vampire victim." Heliro explained, "So here is your mission. Find out if the rumor is true or not. If it's false. Return and report. If the rumor is true. Give them two choices. Either join us or... you all know the motto, Leave no witnesses." Heliro looked up from the map with a smile. "Easy enough?"

"Yes, sir," Alastair replied without hesitation leaving no opportunity for the rest of the group to speak up.

"Good. Prepare to head off within the next hour. It would be at least a 2-day journey since we need your squad to disguise yourselves among the humans." He said, "Under any circumstances, do not raise suspicion. If you succeed this without any problem, then your next mission will already be prepared for you."

"U-Um, Your Majesty? Why do we need to disguise ourselves as humans? Can't we just run there? With our speed, no humans will be able to see us anyway." Len asked, a confused look on her face,

"Good question. Heibrook City. The city that's just a few hundred meters away from the valley, had recently installed a demonic sensor around their walls. Even the tiniest bit of Demonic Energy could set off an alarm in the vicinity, and with a vampire's hearing, they would definitely become alert when something major like that happens. Not only will it alert our targets, but also the humans; and when humans become unnecessarily involved, it causes such a headache." Heliro pointed to the location of the city on the map as he rubbed his head in frustration.

"But these horns and eyes aren't exactly retractable-." Len's voice rang out once again.

"-and that's why we have these items." Heliro cut in, giving Len a small 'let me finish' glance as he pulled out a dark brown leather sack from beneath his desk.

"Inside are illusion artifacts designed by Professor Rean. They have the power to make you look human appearance-wise, and only appearance-wise. However, this artifact only has an effect on those with mana strands of 10,000 and under. So be careful of Holy Humans and Elves; Particularly High Elves and Dark Elves."

"Your Majesty, what is a Holy Human?" Reisa asked curiously at the unknown word presented before her.

"So, as you all know, according to Professor Rean's mana calculation device, or the MCD as I've now decided to call it, an individual's overall ability is calculated into a unit we call 'strands'. So if we use the measurements of the MCD, a human's average amount of mana strands is around 200. So as they become stronger, the number might one day reach 1000. There they would feel a road-block that prevents them from getting stronger. By going to a church, they gain an approximate 30% chance to be blessed by one of their 'gods'. If they are successful, they become known as a Blessed Human. This allows them to unblock that limit and expand their strand limit up to 5,000, where they will once again face a block when they hit that number. Then they go to a church again where there's less than 10% of a chance of being blessed once more. If they are successful, they become what we call a Holy Human, their number of mana strands is then instantly increased all the way to 10,000, becoming twice as strong as before, allowing them to continuously gain more power with no limits." Heliro explained, drawing a diagram on a blank sheet of paper. "These Holy Humans would most definitely see past these artifacts. They're extremely dangerous. Avoid at all costs." He circled the drawing of the Holy Human repetitively.

"Wait." Len frowned tilting her head as she tried her best to understand the diagram, "So from Blessed Human… 5,000 strands… to Holy Human…10,000 strands… There's no in-between?!" Her jaws widened as she stared back up at the Emperor with disbelief, "That's totally cheating!"

"It's the way of the humans," Heliro shrugged, "They've got the support of those damn 'gods' of theirs. Anyway, now you're all filled in, grab an artifact and get on your way." He said, tipping out the artifacts from the sack and sitting back on his seat.

9 identical black ring-like objects tumbled out of the back, scattering all over the table.

Alastair picked one up and put it on his finger. The ring immediately began to glow as it shrunk to his finger size and automatically cast an illusion around his body. However, as he already somewhat resembled a human beforehand, all the illusion did was darken his skin two tones darker and shorten his nails and teeth, whilst the distinctive tail of a demon faded away.

Looking around at the others, some of their changes were quite dramatic, Finny and Rinny for example, had each lost their respective horn, both their hair was now identically black and their eyes had shifted into an ordinary chestnut brown. Everyone had gained a human-like appearance, especially Leon, who was previously a Demonic Beast-man. A special variant of beast-man, where one of his parents was a demon and the other was a beast-man. This meant he had inherited his mother's demon ability while having the appearance of a beastman similar to his father.

He had morphed into a tough-looking spiky red-haired man in his early 30s with a bit of a stubble and his muscles were as impressive as ever.

Whilst Tonia, a 3rd generation Demonic Elf - a species of elf who had undergone the Demonic Implantation experiment to gain demonic powers, resulting in their future descendants also receiving their powers retained her elf-like appearance, but her unusual demonic eyes and snow-white hair converted to the familiar aquamarine elf eye color and the pale blonde long flowing hair of an elf.

Looking pleased with the transformations, Heliro kicked them out of his office after giving Alastair a piece of paper and ordered them to start their mission.

Changing out of their uniforms once more and into some ragged clothing, the squad began heading out to the nearest human settlement in preparation for the long journey ahead.