Jin’s POV
   Jin’s first job arrived in the form of a phone call. At midnight. He was sleeping soundly on his bed until the ringtone of his phone woke him up.

   “Hello?” he asks groggily once he answers the call.

   “I’m so sorry for calling you this late at night, Minase-kun. The thing is, a large creature is rampaging around inside a factory at the Chiyoda Ward.” he hears Sergeant Wakaba’s voice from the other side of the phone.

   “Do you have any description of the creature?”

   “According to some witnesses, its height is around three feet, it’s fairly humanoid, it has muscular arms, green skinned, and it’s female.”

   “A female troll, then. Could be the same one that destroyed the metal gate a few days ago for all I know.”

   “I’m coming to get you now, so please get ready.”

   “No need for that, sergeant. I have my own mode of transportation. Please concentrate on heading to the factory. I’ll meet you there.”

   “Are you sure about this?”

   “I’m pretty sure. You mentioned a factory, right? At Chiyoda? I’m on my way.”

   Jin disconnects the call and slowly gets up from his bed. He didn’t bothered to get changed from his sleepwear since he’s be wearing his armor on the outside anyway. He got changed into it in a flash after accessing the Vault, helmet included. He goes to the entrance to his room and opens the door softly so that he doesn’t accidentally wakes anyone up. He takes a step outside and mutters a few words.

   In the next instant, the entire neighbourhood is covered with a thick mist. Anyone inside will have trouble seeing everything around them. Except Jin. He can still see clearly with the help of a simple sight-enhancing spell.

   Now that he decreased the chances of a witness seeing him, he makes himself float at midair with Wind Magic. He keeps on floating upwards until he’s way above the cloud.

   “Now then, which direction is Chiyoda again?” he murmurs.

   He takes out his phone and checks his GPS. He then flies towards the general direction of Chiyoda with a speed that could probably outpace jet fighters. In an instant, he’s already at Chiyoda. At least, that’s what his GPS indicates. He has never been to Chiyoda, so he couldn’t tell at all. Now to look for the factory.

   Besides enhancing his sight, Jin is also enhancing his hearing. He’s just glad that no much activity is going on this late at night, or he would gone deaf for sure. A few seconds later, he starts to hear some inhuman snarls and grunts. He flies towards the general direction of the voice and sees a factory right in front of him, or should he say the remains of a factory.

   From a big hole at the middle of the place, Jin could see most of the factory’s interior. He sees bags of cements, lots of bricks and steel beams. It could have been a factory used by a construction company. The troll herself is standing in the middle of all those things.

   Trolls are large, green-skinned humanoids with strong, powerful limbs. They’re easily two to three heads taller than the tallest humans, and their arms are so strong rumor has it they could crush all the bones of an elephant with them. Female trolls are typically bigger and stronger than male ones, and judging by her size she’s definitely a female. She’s wearing a primitive loincloth made of bear skins and that’s about it. Her face is quite hideous, at least from the perspective of a human. For all Jin knows, she’s considered a beauty among trolls.

   Jin lands in front of the factory. The troll immediately hears him and snarls at him, her arms ready to tear him apart. Her saliva and tears are dripping all over the floor and forming a puddle.

   Wait a minutes. Tears?

   Upon hearing closely, the troll is actually crying. She’s biting her lips now, but Jin could tell that she’s tearing up from the soft whimpers that came out of the corner of her mouth every once in a while. The poor thing, she must have been so confused by her surroundings. Most importantly, she’s being separated from her family back at Ifezan.

   “I’m sorry that it has to end this way. The least I could do is make your death swift.” he tells the troll.

   He knows quite well that they can’t communicate with each other, but he said it anyway. It’s more to make himself feel better at this point. He reaches out his hand and makes Felfarthen appears.

   Upon seeing the double-bladed sword, the troll lets out a deafening roar and charges towards Jin. He slashes horizontally, seemingly at empty air at first. In the next second, however, the troll stops moving. Her head then falls from her neck and rolls to the ground like an oversized bowling ball. The rest of the body falls to the ground after a single second. A block of ice formed on where the stump is. Jin thinks that this factory has been destroyed enough already. It doesn’t need any more mess.

   After the job is done, he keeps Felfarthen away and sits on the ground to wait for Sergeant Wakaba to arrive. He hopes she gets here soon as he’s getting sleepy. It’s not helping that he has to go to school in just a few hours.

   Finally, after waiting for around ten minutes, a car arrives and stops in front of the factory. Sergeant Wakaba steps outside from the driver’s seat.

   “Looks like it’s already over.Thank you for your hard work.” she says while looking at the corpse of the troll.

   He shrugs. “It was nothing, to be honest. Who’s going to take care of the body, anyway?”

   “Well…”

   As if on cue, Jin sees three black, armored vehicles approaching them. One of them is much bigger than the other two.

   “Are they anyone you know, sergeant?” Jin asks Sergeant Wakaba.

   “Remember the scientist the PM mentioned? They work for him.”

   “Ah.”

   The vehicles stops in front of them. Lots of people wearing white hazmat suits come out from them with lots of weird-looking equipments. One of them walks towards them while the others stay back. The guy is probably their leader or something.

   “Sergeant Wakaba Chinatsu and the Hero, correct?” he asks them. “I’m afraid that you have to leave. The UCI will take care of the rest.”

   “On the contrary, you people are the one who should leave.” Jin tells him bluntly.

   “You don’t understand the situation here, do you? We-”

   “Again, you’re the one who doesn’t understand a thing. I’m telling all of you to buzz off.” Jin interrupts him.

   He makes Felfarthen appears at his hand and takes a step forward menacingly. The leader or whoever he is takes a step back while looking very alarmed. His colleagues are equally shaken.

   “The thing is, I don’t trust your boss one bit. As a result, I don’t trust you guys as well. I don’t care if you’re backed by the PM. All of you can rot at a corner for all I care.” Jin hisses.

   During times like this, wearing a helmet really helps since it makes his voice more threatening. It’s like he’s D*rth Vader.

   “Now make yourselves scarce. Go back to your master with your tail between your legs.”

   The leader gulps while looking completely freaked out. He backs away slowly to where his colleagues. All of them then leave without making a single fuss.

   “Thank you for doing that. There’s no way I could have said all that and chase them away.” Sergeant Wakaba tells Jin gratefully.

   “Please think nothing of it. By the way, who’s their boss?”

   Sergeant Wakaba told him about a French scientist named Jacques Bouchard and the things he has been doing so far. Jin grunts angrily while keeping his sword away.

   “All the more reason to refuse his request, then. There was a guy like him at Ifezan too. He was a cruel nutjob who stops at nothing to create the perfect creature.”

   “You said was. What happened to him in the end?” she asks curiously.

   “Let’s just said that his experiment days were over.”

   “Fair enough.”

   “What are you going to do about those?” Jin asks while jabbing a thumb back at the factory.

   “I feel sorry for the owner, but I can’t do anything about the factory. Hopefully, he or she bought insurance. As for the corpse, I’ll have it disposed of properly.”

   Jin lets out a yawn and stretches his body.

   “Well, looks like everything is over for tonight.” he mutters.

   “I hate to be pessimistic, but don’t count on it yet. There may be some other creatures that may appear after this. We’ll be counting on you again when they do.”

   “Of course. I’m getting paid for this, so this is the least I could do.”

   “Now then, you should head back. You have school later, after all. You’ll need all the rest you could get.”

   Jin groans. “Please don’t remind me.”

   “Say, have you been going to school normally after you came back from Ifezan?”

   “Yes. What about it?”

   “You’re actually going there yourself instead of using the clone you showed us?”

   “Well, yeah. I hate school and all, but that doesn’t mean I should cheat.”

   Sergeant Wakaba seems a little taken aback by his answer.

   “How about I give you a ride back home?” she offers.

   “No, thank you. No offense, but I’m pretty sure that my mode of transportation is much faster than yours.”

   “Suit yourself. Go back first, I’m staying back to make sure that the corpse is properly taken care of.”

Estyshana’s POV

   When Esty arrives at school this morning, pretty much everyone is talking about an image they saw on the internet. Esty still has next to no idea what this internet thing is. All she knows is that humans climb, or rather surf(?) it to look for things and do lots of stuffs. Either way, the image involves a human who wears a metallic helmet and armors with a transparent double-bladed sword in his hand while standing in front of a wrecked building that looks a lot like a warehouse.

   Esty’s eyes drift towards the Hero. Even with the helmet on, she could still tell it was him. The sword is already a dead giveaway. No other person that Esty knows uses the same sword. Speaking of the Hero, he had been sleeping on his table ever since she first went inside the classroom. Even the commotion of the entire classroom couldn’t wake him up.

   “Say, Esty-chan. What do you think?”

   A human female suddenly blocks Esty’s view of the Hero. Esty was startled by this sudden entrance.

   “Pardon me, what did you just say? I was deep in thought, you see.”

   “Like I asked, what do you think of this picture?”

   Esty remembers this human female as Watanabe Anri. She is one of Chifuyu’s many friend inside this classroom, and she is mostly eating and chatting with them and a few others during lunchtime.

   “This gentlemen seems to have an odd taste when it comes to choosing his weapon.” Esty tells her.

   Truth be told, she had always been wondering about it. She was told that the humans have a Holy Sword called Ashrune. She’s pretty sure it was given to the Hero. And yet, she has never seen him use it. Not even once. He much prefers to use the double-bladed sword he calls Felfarthen.

   “Well, there’s that too. I’m more curious about his identity, though. Who is he? Why was he there? Why did he wreck the factory? Was he fighting someone or something?”

   Esty finds this human to be rather inquisitive. According to Chifuyu, Watanabe was always curious about the unknown. She is also extremely interested in all sorts of juicy gossips found inside the school. Hence, she has joined the Occult Club and the Newspaper Club.

   Esty has watched enough drama shows to know that this Watanabe is exactly the type of person who will get involved in something she shouldn’t and gets silenced. Not that she cares about the fate of a measly human.

   Back to the picture at hand. The surroundings had no source of lights whatsoever, so it was very hard to tell. However, Esty could more or less notice a huge lump of flesh inside the factory. The Hero was just done fighting it when this picture was taken. No, fight was a wrong choice of word. Knowing the full extent of his strength, he probably didn’t even break a sweat with the creature.

   “Can’t you edit the picture to make it clearer, Watanabe?” Esty hears a male classmate of theirs asking Watanabe.

   “You think I didn’t try that? Of course I already have! The thing is, it was no use. Whoever that took this picture was clearly using a camera with very low-definition. Gah, if only I was there with my beloved camera!”

   Meanwhile, a few of the human females inside the same class with them are questioning the human male Yoshii Ryusuke in a rather flirty manner.

   “Say, Yoshii-kun. You’re the one in the picture, right? You must be, since you’ve always been such a knight in shining armor.”

   “Totally. Who else would it be?”

   “Um, I’m happy that you think so highly of me girls. Unfortunately, that’s not me.”

   “Now you’re just being modest.”

   Based on their conversations, Esty is convinced that those females know nothing of the proper interrogation technique. Tying him up at a rack or inside a wheel for an hour will usually do the trick.

   The females are right about one thing, though. That human called Yoshii feels much more like a Hero than the Hero himself. Compared to the Hero, Yoshii is flashy, charismatic and popular. Everywhere he goes, females get swooned and males cheer at him, although some of the latter are sneering at him behind his back. Even so, he is by far a much better crowd-pleaser than the Hero. The humans of Ifezan has most probably made a grave mistake when they chose the Hero instead of Yoshii.

   “You’re not going to sneak out your house so that you could have a chance of taking the picture of, whoever this is, are you?” Chifuyu asks Watanabe.

   “I definitely want to, but my parents threatened to disown me if I go out without permission again.”

   Chifuyu sighs.

   “Ah yes, the incident that got you grounded for two whole months.” she mumbles drily.

   “What incident are you talking about?” Esty asks curiously.

   “The thing is, Anri here went outside on a night when there was a blizzard just because she heard that there was a UFO nearby. She was almost frozen to death.”

   Ah, UFO. She heard that term being mentioned in television last night. Apparently, it’s a large plate that could fly around and abduct innocent humans. Esty personally thinks that it is absolute bogus, but what does she know?

   “I couldn’t help it, okay? I was assured that the tip was accurate!”

   “When was it ever?”

   “Next time! I would find proof that UFOs exist for sure!”

   Chifuyu lets out another sigh. She looks very tired of dealing with Watanabe.

   “Would you like to come with me one day, Esty-chan?” Watanabe asks Esty all of a sudden.

   “Just refuse her, Esty.” Chifuyu tells her immediately.

   “Aww come on, Chifuyu! Don’t be such a spoilsport!”

   “Could you not try to bring her over to your side?”

   “What are you, her mom?”

   “Her guardian, actually. I can’t have you corrupting her.”

   “Just ignore the stick-in-the-mud, Esty-chan. Maybe we could start from something easy like the Seven Mysteries of the school.”

   “I’ll, um, think about it.”

   Bouchard’s POV

   “...So in short, you failed the retrieve the body of the creature.”

   Jacques Bouchard, the director of the newly formed Unknown Creatures Investigation, or UCI for short, is sitting behind his office desk inside his office. In front of him are three of his Japanese employees. Currently, all of them are grovelling in the Japanese way known as a dogeza. All of them have their knees on the ground, their arms stretched out in front of them, and their forehead are touching the ground.

   “Y-Yes, Monsieur Bouchard. We are very, very sorry.” the employee in the middle says to him fearfully.

   “Oh, don’t be. I know you tried your best. None of us have any countermeasures to deal with the exalted Hero yet, so tactical retreat was the best and only course of action you could take.”

   “What should we do the next time he intervenes?”

   “Hmm, perhaps we should change our approach. Instead of bulldozing to the scene, we can be more discreet about it.”

   “Maybe we could disguise ourselves as the organization they hired to dispose of the bodies. That way, we could obtain them without anyone raising an eyebrow.” the one on the right suggests without raising his head.

   Bouchard beams at the suggestion. “What a splendid idea. Please see to its execution at once.”

   “Right away, monsieur.”

   “If there isn’t any more thing for you to report, you have my permission to leave.”

   The three of them get up from their grovelling and bows at him. He returns the gesture by smiling. Instead of smiling back, however, all three of them winced a little. Their face has also gone slightly pale.

   After they have left, Bouchard takes out a small mirror from the drawer of his desk and smiles into it.

   “I wonder what’s wrong with my smile. I’m trying to be friendly, but everyone just recoils whenever I smile at them.” he mumbles to himself.

   He shrugs and puts back the mirror. He has much bigger things to worry about right now. He lies back on his leather chair and thinks about his plans from now on.

   “Even though we’ve just started, that’s no excuse at all. We need to speed things up, or that person will be displeased.” he continues to mumble.

   Jacques Bouchard was born with an intellect far superior to those around him. He has never flaunt it to the face of someone else, but he was shunned anyway. Not that it matters. He was and still is a loner. He has no time for companionship.

   When he was ten, he dissected his first frog at a Biology Class where he shared a classroom with a group of teenagers. Everyone else was coiling in horror at having to dissect a frog of all things, but not Bouchard. He has enjoyed it from the bottom of his heart. In fact, the dissection opened up a new door inside his tiny mind. He started to capture all kinds of small animals he can find. Squirrels, rabbits and even badgers. He then brings them back to his house and dissect them until he was satisfied. His parents did nothing to stop their child. By contrast, they were very proud. The Bouchard family was well-known for producing top scientists. Young Jacques certainly has the making of one despite being so young.

   And then, he got bored with animals and moved on to humans.

   It happened when he was thirteen. He often sees a beggar near his mansion. One night, Bouchard approached the beggar with some food. The beggar accepted them gratefully and ate them, not knowing that they were drugged. After the beggar was out cold, Bouchard dragged him back to his house and did the usual.

   This time, his parents were far from proud. They were in fact beyond horrified for what he did. Even until now, Bouchard could not understand the fuss his parents raised. Humans are technically animals too. Why can’t he dissect them as well? When asked, his parents told him about laws and morality and other sentimental nonsense he couldn’t care less about. He was, however, more discreet about his hobby after this incident. As for the disappearance of the beggar, it was covered up by his parents. They gave the police enough bribes to buy a house for their trouble.

   He graduated from Sorbonne University at the young age of 16. Even so, his parents were indifferent. He was basically dead to them after the so-called horrible incident. They didn’t disown him but that was it. For the next forty years, Bouchard kept himself busy by researching about humans and animals anomalies. His participation at the field won him several awards, but he was never content. Until that person showed up six months ago.

   To be exact, he didn’t show up to Bouchard in person. Another hooded person appear out of nowhere while he was inside his room and showed him a crystal ball with the image of that person on it. That was how they communicated with each other. That person promised Bouchard that soon, creatures he has never seen before will appear in his world.

   “Study them and dissect them as you wish. As you do, do your best to create something that will shake the world. A serum that grants immortality, for example, or perhaps the perfect human being.” that person told him.

   Now that Bouchard has calmed down and thought about it, he was supposed to be sceptical. However, something about that person’s words moved him, especially about the part where he’s told to create something that will shake the world.

   “I shall do as you say.” he told that person humbly.

   “Excellent. I just love obedient servants. And obedient servants should be rewarded accordingly.”

   The hooded person make a large bulging sack appear out of nowhere and hands it over to Bouchard. He opens it and finds lots of precious gems inside.

   “Use those to build required facilities, hire your own servants, anything you need for your research.” that person instructed.

   Bouchard was very grateful for the funds. He wasn’t left with any fortune after his parents have died, and what little money he got from his research might not be enough to cover all the expenses.

   Bouchard lowers his head at the crystal ball. “I thank you, master.”

   “One last word of caution before we end this conversation. When the creatures arrive, so will a Hero.”

   That piqued Bouchard’s interest.

   “A Hero, you say?”

   “He is a pawn I have summoned from your world to do my bidding. He came from a country called Japan. He may be still a boy, but he has tremendous power. Do not engage him until you are ready.”

   “I shall keep my eyes out for such an individual.” Bouchard promised.

   “That is all. I wish you all the luck for your research.”

   At the next moment, the hooded person disappeared. It was like he or she has never existed in the first place. The only thing that proved to Bouchard that everything was real was the large sack he just put down on the floor.

   Bouchard spent the next few months getting prepared without doubting the words of that person. Using the immense wealth he obtained, he created the UCI and expanded its influence. He built the HQ at Japan after heeding the words of that person. It was not easy, however. He could never explain how he got all the money to do all the things he did, so he had spent a sizeable portion of the wealth to make sure that the authorities will not ask any unpleasant questions.

   Granted, it was made easier when the creatures did start to appear. They were wrecking havoc all over the place, and the Prime Minister of Japan was scared witless by them. That’s when Bouchard came in. In return for not asking too many questions, Bouchard promised the PM that he will deal with those creatures. The PM was all too happy to oblige.

   When the Hero whom that person mentioned first appeared, Bouchard was beyond elated. He was warned that the boy is powerful, but what he did was way beyond Bouchard’s expectation. After the boy has started to work for the PM as well, Bouchard wanted to use this opportunity to study his blood samples extensively. Unfortunately, he was refused. And now the Hero even tried to sabotage his research.

   “One of these days, I shall deal with you once and for all.” Bouchard hisses softly.