Chapter 5: A Teacher's Lesson? [1]
The light was still on as I woke up from my nap. I rubbed my eyes and looked at the phone to see the time.
It was 1:43 in the morning.
Rubbing my belly I went to the bathroom to empty my bladder.
Afterwards, when I washed my hands at the bathroom sink.
I finally noticed something.
The bathroom mirror revealed a unknown appearance. A quite trained individual with a decent look. Blonde hair and brown eyes.
Simply put. A normal looking man from the west.
"Is that me?"
I touched my face and inspected my muscles. It seems that I didn't notice the different proportions of my body when I got out of that jail.
How I didn't notice until I looked myself in the mirror is a mystery to me. Probably because I was too occupied with my thoughts... or just plain stupid.
Comparing my old self with this body, it felt quite nice to see that I have trained up muscles for basically doing nothing.
I feel as if I understand the muscle heads much better, who always take pictures of themselves to show off their muscles after seeing the nice abs on myself. So I tried to flex some poses.
However, I quickly grew bored of doing it and went to the desktop computer to browse some random news websites instead.
Click.
Click. Click.
"..."
"...huh?"
[!Global News!]
—Royata is revealing their long awaited Mech Mascot Oridachi!
—Worrying increase of feral Monster attacks near City Delsey!
—New rising popular Korean Irregular, On Seungri aka Seunah have made it in the top ten of Korea's Irregular Leaderboard!
—...
Remembering that I am living in Delsey right now, I naturally read about the monster attacks that is happening near the city. Luckily, the article treats me like an idiot and explains at the beginning as to what the "Monster" means in this context.
Officially, the scientific community labeled these monsters in Latin as "Monstrum bestia".
Appeared right after the end of the first cataclysm and rapidly spread at the start of the first Tedeum Invasion.
Now, following up what the article is telling me is that those monsters have become more aggressive near City Delsey due to them harassing and assaulting civilian and military transports more often.
It is unknown what caused such behaviour so they went on some rant and hypothesised what could push these monsters to such unusual actions.
What caught my attention in the many hypotheses presented, is the word Tedeum. A often reoccurring word in which I had no info on.
"Oh. Now that I think about it, I forgot to research about the Tedeum's... eeeh, whatever. I'm too tired. I just go to sleep and look into it later."
I turned the computer off and promptly went to bed. It didn't even take a second before I slept like a rock.
[System Notice]
[Synchronisation in progress...][0%]
[Timer: 1:00]
[WARNING! ERRATIC PSYCHOLOGICAL DEFECTS WILL APPEAR IN THE PROCESS!]
...
...
[0%]
[Timer: 0:31]
...
...
[0%]
[Timer: 0:09]
...
...
[0%]
[Timer: 0:01]
•••
At 6:30, Warren already woke up in the morning and prepared his own breakfast. Peppered omelette with 2 sausages and two buttered toast.
When he was done, he would prepare his own sports uniform and carry a very large duffel bag where he stores his weapon inside.
He could open carry it if he wanted to but he likes to keep a lower profile for his own sake. Not that it would matter anyway due to his natural appearance attracting many varying gazes.
After all the preparations are done, he goes outside and jogs his way towards the Simulacrum Training Facility.
One of the best and most advanced training facility in the whole world that can project and simulate nearly any kind of environments to be interacted with, while posing no danger to the user and has the capability to improve ones physical and mental attributes respectively.
Though there are inferior versions of such an advanced building made all over the world for other Irregulars and Regulars to use. But it simply wasn't the same as the one in Delsey.
How such an advanced technology is created and then incorporated in the first place is a close guarded secret.
The building itself is a very large complex with many areas to explore. And without saying, it is one of the few most secure places in Delsey.
About to arrive at his destination, Warren saw three individuals, waiting near the entrance of the facility. He slows down for a second to get a better look.
One of those three is someone that Warren is already quite familiar with. While the other two are strangers he hasn't met before.
Though, due to those two's distinct snow-white hair colours, he can already guess who they might be. He had heard of the famed "Snow Wolf Siblings" from the German Remnant Liberation Force's Official websites when he was still training in the Academy.
Praised highly by the G.R.L.F.
He still remembers how the trending unofficial fan rankings for Irregulars, made by various different communities around the world had put these two unique duos as a fan favourite.
Going as far as becoming the Global favourite later on and competing amongst many other famous Irregulars.
Especially the German communities. They are the most dedicated fans to these Snow Wolfs.
"If I remember correctly, they were ranked 44..."
The siblings and the pitch black haired woman noticed Warren approach them. The black haired woman in question, was none other than the former "Top 1" cadet Xema Regium in the Irregular Military Academy.
She is considered one of the best prodigies to have graduated the Academy, who's then transferred at the European Delta HQ.
More commonly known as City Delsey.
Xemas pitch black hair and the blank coldness in her black eyes, would make you believe she's the reaper incarnate.
She wore a chest strap over her shirt, covered with many double edged throwing knifes and a custom fitted cargo pants with a flair of techwear style.
It had a lot of pockets and straps for carrying extra throwing knifes outwardly.
All the while maintaining top flexibility, mobility and movement.
When Warren finally came close enough to speak in a casual manner, he avoids eye contact with Xema due to him feeling quite uncomfortable simply from her eyes alone.
At the very least, he can look between her eyebrows. Which is an enormous improvement on his part.
Still, he can intuitively feel her menacing stare.
The blind brother of the Snow Wolf siblings greets him first.
"Good morning, it's a pleasure to finally meet you!"
He immediately went for a handshake.
Without suspecting a thing, Warren shook it. Right in that moment, he could feel a "invisible" gaze from the man.
The blind man withdrew his hand first. He smiled at him.
"This is my sister Lena and I'm her brother, Wolfhart. I've been waiting to see you Warren."
"Wait, you wanted to see me?"
"Mmh~ correct. Xema has mentioned you a few times. It piqued my interest—"
Lena, with her beautiful white snowy hair interrupted Wolfhart mid-sentence.
"Wolfhart, that's enough. Leave these two be. I don't want to train with this woman and certainly not with any of her friends."
"Eh? But Lena...."
She didn't even look at her brother's direction when he questioned her motives. Lena only tapped his shoulder two times as a signal to leave.
Her eyes were solely fixated at the woman in front of her.
The gaze of a wary wolf.
Meanwhile, Xema didn't care that Lena looked at her disapprovingly. Instead she took control of the conversation to explain the current situation.
"Simple matter of fact is, I want to improve my teamwork and this is a rare opportune moment. I'm just asking to co-operate with the Snow Wolfs so we as juniors can learn from the renowned and experienced seniors."
Lena scoffs at Xema's last bit.
"Please, we aren't that much older than you."
Maintaining sharp eye contact.
While all this happens, Warren was kind of speechless.
He never thought that Xema lacked anything, especially for her to be asking for help. But upon further consideration, it would make a lot of sense why she would want to improve her teamwork.
It's Xema after all. She may be powerful but being a lone wolf can only get you so far in a battlefield.
"I'm fine with us two training together, but Xema? I doubt that you can convince the Snow Wolfs to train with us."
Xema glared at the siblings with a cold look.
Lena glared back, almost defiantly. Only her brother Wolfhart seems to be in a happy calm state.
"Oh, actually, I would be very interested in teaming up with you two. I'm quite open to help my juniors because teaming up with my sister all the time, gets a little stale hahah—AUGH!"
Wolfhart got slapped by his sister at the back of his head.
"This is for not listening to me."
Smack!
"And this is for being an ass"
Smack! Smack!
"Okay, okay! Stop! Stop hitting me already! Otherwise I'll be blind and braindead!"
He shielded the back of his head from her fast hand whips.
"Even better."
Smack.
Feeling relieved after committing violence against her brother, she calmed herself and spoke up again.
"We won't be teaming up with you."
Xema immediately responded back.
"That's Fine. We can be two separate teams instead. See it as some sort of a competitive team game."
"...I can work with that."
Wolfhart was mending his head that her sister relentlessly attacked. While Warren is still unsure if it was a good idea to team up with Xema at the end.
After everything is settled, they finally went inside the training facility.
It may not look like it at first that the facility is one of the most secure places in Delsey when going inside, as there isn't a row of guards patrolling the areas.
In fact, only few human guards are needed as most of the security features are automated and managed by an advanced AI protection system.
Even if a massive EMP were to hit the facility itself, every critical electronic systems have been hardened and most automated security features are shielded from such an attack.
Lowering the chances of a malfunction considerably.
There was simply nothing to worry about.
•••
Someone knocked on the door. I woke up half-asleep. The noise was a pain, but ignorable.
"Hrrmmh..."
"I know your in there Wyland, open the damn door."
I don't know who this guy is talking about. I don't know Wyland. So I went back to sleep.
At some point. He'll realise, he's knocking at the wrong door. It will be over soon.
"Do I really need to break a finger again?"
"Ugh... you got the wrong apartment. There is no Wyland living here..."
"Alright, enough fooling around."
The door suddenly opens up.