Fern

Fern was looking at Oscar quite dumbfounded. Everything that happened in the last few hours was hard to believe. No, they were even hard to imagine.

First, she was kidnapped by a bunch of suspicious people. They were acting weird and talking about some unbelievable things like magic. But then she saw a pig-faced man. After that was blurry for her. She was so freaked out that her mind shut itself.

But now her classmates and some other people saved her from all of this. Well, she can't be sure that she is saved. Those friends were able to do incredible things too. Just like the pig-faced man.

"Y-you guys... What are you?!" (Fern)

"We are Ironbound. We protect humans from evil spirits!" (Jason)

"I didn't know we had a name for our group." (Nox)

"Neither me." (Aiken&Oscar)

"What? I think it's a good name and we can use it. A name for our group will be necessary at some point." (Jason)

"He has a point. It's a good name too." (Oscar)

"Well, it's not bad. I think we can go with it." (Aiken)

"I think it sounds, how you say it, cool? In Spirit Realm I heard a lot of shitty names. Compared to them it's wonderful." (Nox)

Hearing the weird conversation over a group name Fern became even more confused. They were acting so relaxed that she even doubt that the battle she show was a hallucination. But there were scars on her body and she felt pain, so it must be real, she thought.

"*sigh* I think this is not the thing you guys should be focusing on." (Lydia)

"Oh, right! We need to explain things to you, Fern. But we should first get out of here." (Jason)

"By the way, we are fighting against spirits for some time, police must already found traces of abnormalities, right? Will they go after us?" (Lydia)

Everyone froze with what Lydia said. They were so busy with spirits that they forget human matters. It was impossible for police to find traces of their battles'. Since they were caused by magic they would definitely be recorded as abnormalities for humans.

Because of these facts, a single question appeared on the team's mind. Why didn't the police intervene so far? It was pretty easy to notice a bunch of high school students running towards the places where later abnormalities appeared.

"I can't believe we never thought about this. I will immediately look into this. We'll talk when I find something." (Aiken)

Aiken immediately left. Others went to their base. When they arrived one more person was waiting inside the house. This was Owain. Because he didn't have the magic they didn't take him with them. So he stayed back at their base.

"The cool beauty of the class? What's going on here?" (Owain)

"She was being kept in the building when we arrived." (Nox)

"That's horrible! Are you okay?" (Owain)

"I think I am. But I don't understand what is happening." (Fern)

"We'll explain everything. First, you should sit down." (Oscar)

Oscar began narrating the whole story from the very beginning to till now. From his fall to the cave and discovering the mana and magic to fighting against the spirits to protect their world.

Fern had trouble understanding the story. But in the end, she had to accept it. She took a deep breath to calm down. Learning magic was one thing but some weird alien creatures? That was difficult to comprehend. She always feared the aliens but now they are real but with the name of the spirit.

"As I said, this is too different from the ordinary life you have. I can't guarantee complete safety to you. But I can erase your memory of what happened and you can continue your life as nothing happened. Or you can join us but I have to warn you it's dangerous. We are risking our lives to save others." (Oscar)

"I have a question. Why are you risking your life to save others?" (Fern)

"Because I know the pain of losing someone you love. And I have to power to prevent others from suffering the same pain I did. It's not like I'm a saint who's willing to give away his life for others. I also don't know if the people I'm trying to save are innocent or not. It's... just I want to do what I can to preserve and protect what we have in this city." (Oscar)

Everyone fell silent. Except for Nox, others thought. What am I fighting for? They were fighting to save the people and the city but was this the real reason? Is there any other reason for them to risk their lives against spirits? Everyone had questions on their minds.

"Can you give me some time to think this through? I... don't think I can think straight now." (Fern)

"You are right. It is a hard choice." (Owain)

"You have one day to decide. We don't exactly have much time to waste." (Oscar)

"O-okay." (Fern)

"Jason, can you walk her home? We can't leave her alone now." (Oscar)

"Okay. Let's go, Fern." (Jason)

Jason and Fern left the house. Oscar looked outside of the window and watch as they walked away. The living room fell into silence once again. Now that topic of fern was over everyone thought of the battle at the graveyard. It was a failure. The boss of this human vessel project of spirits got away.

"He is definitely part of the Rebellion. The Council can't achieve something on this scale. The war on the Spirit Realm is getting worse. And since some years ago Rebellion sided with minority factions consisting of High-Class spirits. The Council is barely keeping up with the war on the Spirit Realm. They have almost no leeway to meddle with Earth. Only the troops who are searching for Odin's Eye are on Earth. The rest of the spirits who crossed the rift must be from Rebellion.

And his summons is especially strong. He used some kind of reverse summons technique to escape from us. He is the biggest threat we faced so far. We have to kill him at the first chance we get. If not we have to run away from him." (Convict)

"What's worse than spirits freely roaming on Earth is them bringing their war here. Can we close the 'rift' so that we can stop them from getting here?" (Oscar)

"It should be possible but I don't know how to do it. And there are already six rifts connecting the two realms. Since we weren't part of any factions our knowledge is limited." (Nox)

Oscar sighed with frustration. It was difficult to find a solution to their problems. And now that there is High Spirit on the loose everything will be troublesome. What worries him is the problems he could see. After all, he can't really deal with the things he can't see, for now.

{If you were stronger, you could have caught him before he could escape. Now he is free and he WILL hurt a lot of humans who has nothing to do with this.}

'What are you suggesting then?! You can't even give me power. What am I supposed to do?!' Oscar screamed in his mind. From the outside, he looked calm but there was a fierce storm inside him.

{You have to fix your body so that you can receive the power I can give.}

'Who are you? Why are you helping me? What do you want from me?!'

The voice from the necklace didn't respond. Whenever he asks these questions he never gets an answer. He sighed with frustration and promised himself to heal his body to fix everything.