Jerry had already made his decision.   

He left Vanguard, his friends, and threw away the reputation he had built up over the years. It wasn’t an easy decision, but not one that was uncommon.  

The teleportation of a whole planet’s population to another planet was no easy feat. Agnostos, which was three times the size of Earth, naturally hadn’t the same continental divisions.   

The number of people that were transferred was sheer overwhelming. Migrating so many people at once would, without a doubt, create a lot of complications. Thus, every country had set a limit of Earthlings they would and could take in.  

As per rule of the thumb, people who were physically near were transported to the same destination.   

But there were also cases of unlucky people who were separated from their friends and family. Some were cut off due to the limited entry, others were at a distant place at the time of transfer. Thus, a slew of depressing stories could be found among many; Jerry was one of these somber stories.  

He was far away from his family, somewhere in the Middle East. He was a first lieutenant in the US army. The situation in his designated place in Agnostos wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good either. The country he had landed in was the second defense line against the demon army’s advance, directly behind the countries at the frontline.  

Rebels, scarred civilians, foreign soldiers, corrupt politicians, and orthodox religious believers who denied the reality— his operation area was already in a politically tense situation on earth. It naturally didn’t take long before the situation escalated and several riots occurred. The soldiers had to jump in to maintain order and stabilize the situation in cooperation with the native soldiers, but it was too late. Without proper instructions from above, it was hard to keep the peace for the hastily formed troops.  

By the time the local lords took action, the first defense line had already fallen under the relentless attacks of the demon army. Three countries were erased from the map and with them, thousands of Earthlings died. Those who were sent there ceased to exist as soon as they had arrived.   

As fellow Earthlings next to them, some were scared and some felt bitter as they had failed to help their closest ally. But for Jerry...it was agonizing on another layer.  

Among the victims was also his mother.  

***  

Ace didn’t press him anymore, instead, he gave him an advice, “Pax is not easy. No matter how hard they suppress it, the reports of their corruption are piling up.”   

Jerry sighed, “Vanguard isn’t what it originally was either.”  

There was a moment of silence. Both couldn’t deny what the other had said.  

The one who spoke first was Jerry, surprisingly, “Did you two really not find the legacy?”  

Ace sighed, slightly fed up by the times he had to answer this question, “We wouldn’t be here talking about remuneration if we did, would we?”  

“I guess so,” Jerry answered succinctly.   

Ace invited him to eat together, but Jerry courtly declined as their current positions made it a bit awkward to meet casually. There was nothing else to say and they separated into opposite directions.  

Jerry walked along the bustling main street. There were rows of food stalls and stores, but he just went past them until he disappeared into an unsuspecting side alley. His steps stopped in front of the single person present. They were waiting for him.  

“Ace lied. It’s very likely that he has the last legacy. Follow him and find out who that person is that they have brought back from Earth.”  

The person he spoke to was completely concealed by a hooded poncho, but it couldn’t hide the coquettish attitude of her.  

“Suree~ But don’t you forget to pay me.” She smiled mischievously, “I also take physical compensation if it’s you, Aaron.”  

Jerry looked coldly at her, “Don’t call me by my real name.”  

She giggled, then disappeared through the shadows.   

***  

The negotiations resumed after the break and they concluded the issue that took a whole day of back and forth in just three hours. Pax toned down the demands and made concessions, to the benefit of Vanguard.  

Even though Vanguard was the top organization in terms of combat power, the power of society’s masses was with Pax. Frankly speaking, they would have to pay more for publicity’s sake.   

Vanguard’s delegation naturally was wary of Pax’s sudden generosity. It all went effortlessly in their favor. They weren't fools, the world doesn't give out free meals without anything in return.   

Ace wanted to ask Jerry directly, but Alver stopped him. They couldn’t ask them openly as it could lead to unnecessary friction when the discussions finally were progressing.  

So, they finally moved to the next agenda.   

Alver gave them the reports of Mistore Forest. The other delegation members of Pax also gave them reports of other regions.  

The number of incidents was higher than they had estimated. Especially the damage near high populated areas was increasing.  

“The citizens are pressuring us to do something. They are too scared to go near forests regions without an escort. Smaller towns already have a food shortage because the merchants reduced their delivery tours.” Jerry said as he pointed to a certain section on the documents. “Magical beasts that are usually indifferent started to be hostile and aggressive towards humans. In the beginning, only weak beasts attacked, but increasingly stronger beasts and variants have been appearing over the course of the past three weeks.”  

“Do we know the cause?” Ace asked.  

“Not yet. We’ve been sending out several reconnaissance units, but...” There was a pause of hesitation in Jerry’s speech, “Some of them went missing.”  

Alver’s eyes widened, “That’s the first time I heard of missing people. Why haven’t you mentioned it before?”  

“We lost contact with them just yesterday. One of the reconnaissance teams had found traces of demonic aura the day before and had been on standby until reinforcement arrived. But now both units came back and reported the casualties,” Jerry explained.   

His calm expression was numb of emotions as he relayed the message they had received, “The site of their disappearance had a not inconsiderable amount of blood splashed across the ground. It’s very likely that the missing members are dead.”  

Jerry looked at Alver and Ace. It was obvious that he wanted Vanguard’s cooperation.  

Alver was pondering, “What do you suggest?”  

Without talking in a roundabout way, Jerry told him, “A liaison militia to investigate and exterminate this crisis.”  

The people in the room were stupefied. It took them several awkward exchanges of glances with their delegation members before they processed his suggestion.  

Vanguard’s third member who was only a support character the entire time was the first to react. He laughed.  

“Vanguard and Pax?” His remark was cynical. “Is that the reason Pax suddenly became generous? To get the leading role in a newly found militia and poach some of our members?”  

Pax’s delegation members jumped up halfway from his taunt, but Jerry motioned them to stop.  

“This is not about Pax or Vanguard. We can’t ignore it when several supply chains are affected by it,” Jerry countered.  

The man scoffed, “So it’s money after all. I didn’t expect less from a trai—”  

“You can stop now,” Ace interrupted, “It's a severe problem neither of the organizations can ignore. Cutting off our delivery routes will have a perilous impact on our side’s overall battle performance. We can’t abandon the normal citizen and production workers either.”  

Ace stared coldly at the man who was picking a fight with Jerry. The pressure he gave off changed the whole atmosphere to a chilling degree. When everybody seemed to have calmed down, he turned to Jerry.  

“Can you tell me where they found the trails of the demonic aura?”  

Jerry handed out another report, “They went to the Sepurin Jungle in the east.”  

Alver, who stretched out his hand to reach out came to a halt. “The Sepurin Jungle that is close to Mistore Forest?” 

“Yes, that one,” Jerry answered. “Is there a problem?” 

“There is,” Ace put down the piece of paper, “Tommy and Jiushi went to Mistore Forest to investigate.” 

Jerry paled at his words. 

tiaf

Your scum susfishious author is here with another late chapter~

Heads up: it's christmas season so I will be busy at work, updates may be whack again 

I try to compensate with longer chapters, but uh who knows if my walnut brain can manage 
I'm sorry I used up my stockpile for webtoons and gaybait novels