Chapter 24: First mission
Chapter 24
Ronan barely had time to dry off before the dorms erupted into organized chaos. Footsteps thundered through the halls, lockers slammed shut, and voices called out as everyone scrambled to finish whatever they were doing and assemble in the briefing hall.
When Ronan arrived, the room was already buzzing. Squad 4 members were lined up in semi-formation, all eyes drawn to the front where Sienna stood. Her face was blank—calm, unreadable—but something in her stance felt heavier than usual. Her arms were folded tightly across her chest, and her gaze was fixed on the floor for a moment before she looked up.
"We've just received intel," she began, her voice clipped and firm. "There's a rogue group of system users—underground, working outside the rules. They've been targeting specific districts with system-warped monsters. These things... aren't natural. Someone's been tampering with them. Enhancing them. Twisting them into something else."
A ripple of murmurs spread through the room. Even the most hardened members shifted uneasily. Monsters were one thing. But monsters altered by the system? That was a whole new level of dangerous.
"They're not like the low-level trash we sometimes clean up," Sienna continued, cutting through the murmurs. "They're powerful. Unpredictable. We don't know their motive yet, but make no mistake—they're after something."
Ronan's jaw clenched. His gut twisted. This had to be connected to that man. He was the only one who could be responsible for creating systems monsters like that. He wondered, where these ones going to be as strong as the one that had killed him? if they were, then this mission was far from easy.
Sienna's voice cut back in. "We've been ordered to neutralize the threat. That means track them down, figure out what we're dealing with, and if possible—eliminate them. But listen closely: we don't know where exactly they are, we are only aware of the district they were last seen. This is search and destroy, with emphasis on search. And we're not getting backup."
The tension in the room thickened.
"If things go south," she added, voice sharper now, "we fall back. We are not dying for this mission. Understood?"
A quiet silence followed. No one raised a hand. No one dared ask anything.