The Messenger of Death

"What do we do now?" Alex questioned. They wanted to use a mission as a means of getting out of the school and now that there wasn't any insight, they didn't have any alternative.

"Let's leave and return later, perhaps by then, a mission will emerge," Adrian suggested.

Alex sighed as he agreed with what his teammate suggested, there was no use waiting here for a mission. If they did wait, there was a probability that nothing was going to pop up.

"Alright then, back to the suite we go." He turned and started making his way back to the guest inn.

Not long after they started to make their way back to the guest inn, Alex and his team made an abrupt stop when someone called out to them.

The person was a staff of the academy. "Aren't you guys here for a mission?" She asked.

"Yes, but there aren't any left." Drake turned and replied.

"Who says that there aren't any? I can see that your team looks quite capable," She looked at Alex. "The missions on the general board shouldn't be your go-to. Or more accurately, missions should be assigned to your team. Here, come over here, I might have a good mission for you guys." The lady urged as she brought a few papers from her storage pouch.

The members of the seraphim team looked at their selves weirdly before they returned their gaze to the lady. They didn't know if they should be suspicious of this person's intentions or not, even if she was a staff of the academy.

Nonetheless, Alex went closer to this lady. He didn't care about the content of the mission, so as long as it can grant them permission to leave the academy he was willing to take it.

When he was within reach, she handed the paper on to Alex.

"This mission came in not too long ago, one of the major requirements was that the team that was going to take this mission must have a nirvana realm cultivator. Initially, I thought that the mission was just going to stay here without having anyone pick it.

The reason being that every team with a nirvana realm cultivator made it to the qualifiers of the selection competition. Most of them are trying to increase their strength and stay in peak condition for the competition, so they wouldn't burden their selves with missions." She explained.

Alex felt like the lady was talking too much, he didn't care about the reason. His goal has been met and what he wanted to do was leave the academy at the moment…

"Can you help us with the registration?" Alex asked as he stored the paper away in his storage ring.

"Yeah, sure. I can certainly do-"

"Then we'll take our leave now." Alex interrupted and turned.

"Thank you." Emma and Adrian bowed their head at the staff in an attempt to cover up for Alex's rudeness.

Surprisingly, the lady wasn't offended by what Alex did, she was actually relieved that he took the mission and went away…

She recalled what happened a few minutes before Alex's team arrived here. The vice-principal approached her with the same mission slip that she handed to Alex.

"I want you to give this mission out to the team that will be here in the next few minutes. There is a nirvana realm cultivator in that team. Convince them and have them take the mission." Argus ordered.

The lady was shocked at first because Argus came to her, then again, because he wanted her to trick, or more accurately 'convince' a team to pick a mission.

She took the slip and looked at the paper, wanting to check the difficulty of the mission before she agrees to do anything like that. She didn't want to kill innocent kids over her job.

After inspecting the contents of the mission, she frowned. The lady didn't see anything life-threatening about the mission, what she didn't understand was why it was to be given to that particular team.

Normally, missions that get assigned to teams are the ones that are difficult to complete. The school decides which team will be most suitable for the mission and then ask the team if they are willing to take the mission or not.

Assigned missions come with above-average rewards, so a lot of them get accepted by the team in question.

According to the contents of the mission, it was a very easy one, although it was far from the capital city, its difficulty was easy. And the reward for this mission was, suspiciously high.

The lady thought that Argus was trying to help a particular team by giving them this mission.

"Make sure that they accept the mission, if not, you would be having a one on one conversation with the principal. This is his wish." Argus added.

Indeed, this was the principal's wish. Argus of all people in the academy wouldn't help Alex, he hated his guts and hated the fact that he had Nana backing his criminal acts.

The principal cannot get involved in worldly matters, that is the rule, and yet he couldn't stand by and watch as the capital city falls into ruins. That's why he had the Seraphim team go for a mission in the capital city the first time.

He knew that he couldn't get involved, however, that wasn't the same case for Nana. She could do as she pleased, and no one in this plain realm would be able to punish her.

At first, with the purpose of involving Alex and Nana in the problems of the capital city, the principal's aim was to use Nana to threaten and possibly destroy some of the people and family in power. If that had happened, the capital wouldn't be facing the problems that they were facing now.

As a cultivator, he's meant to be able to let go of things, but the principal was emotionally tied to the capital city of the western continent. That's one of the reasons why he had refused to stay in ordain plain realm after he ascended.

Unfortunately for his plans, Alex resolved the issue, temporarily, and also met the conditions of the mission to be completed.

Weeks after he had temporarily resolved the issue, it resurfaced, only this time the threat that came along with its resurgence was greater than the previous one.

This time, the principal wanted to make sure that Nana gets involved. This mission and the location of the mission that he gave to the seraphim team wasn't a simple one. If anything, it was plain suicide…

Argus watched Alex and his teammate leave the vicinity. Although he hated Alex's guts, he didn't hate him to the extent of sending him to his death.

…

Meanwhile, Alex regrouped with Gustavo in front of the guest inn.

"How did it go?" He asked.

"I couldn't get any additional information or confirmation on the authenticity of the news. But one thing is clear, something fishy is going down in the capital city." Gustavo answered.

Alex stayed silent for a few seconds before he turned and faced the rest of his teammates. "Is there any preparations that any of you would like to make before we leave the academy?"

"No, not really," Emma answered immediately.

"I have all I need with me, always." Drake pointed at his storage pouch.

"Great. We should be on our way then." Alex stated.

"On our way to where? Where are we going to?" Gustavo asked.

Alex wanted to tell him that he wasn't included in that 'we' but recalled that they were teammates and he couldn't deny him his right of going along with them.

"We got a mission," Katherine answered him.

"Really, and what exactly are we going to do for this mission? What our objective?" Gustavo asked excitedly, he hasn't been out of the school in a while.

"I don't know. I haven't checked it yet." Alex removed the mission slip from his storage ring and the rest gathered around him.

He then proceeded to read the contents of the mission slip;

"Mission Location: Poduct village.

Main Objective: Resolve the problems of the Poduct village. If there is no problem, investigate their conditions.

Mission Duration: The team is required to spend at least 2 weeks and at most a month.

Mission reward: Unknown (Depends on the performance of the team.)"

['Last time we went investigating, we were pursued by berserk zombies'] Alex thought.

Alex read it and thought that the mission was very easy. When he raised his head and saw the dejected expressions of his teammates, he started to doubt his thoughts.

"What? Why are you guys making this kind of expression?" He questioned.

"You don't know? Poduct is located a few kilometers away from the borders of the Eastern continent. That place is filled with bizarre people and things. Not only that, the journey from here to that place will take at least a week." Drake explained.

"This mission is a scam," Katherine exclaimed.

"Hmm, why don't we head to the capital city first? After all, the reason why we picked a mission was to go see Camron. If everything is fine after we have met him, we can proceed to do the mission." Adrian suggested.

"I concur," Emma added.

And so did the rest, they all agreed with what Adrian suggested.

As they made their way to the gates of the academy, they saw a carriage in front of the gate. It looked like it was waiting for someone. None of them arranged any carriage for their journey, so they didn't pay it any mind, not until the coachman approached them.

"Excuse me, forgive me. I just wanted to know if you guys are the seraphim team?" The coachman asked.

"Yes, that's us. Why are you asking?" Alex looked at the man suspiciously.

"Great. The school arraigned transportation for you guys, out of consideration. I will be the one taking you to the poduct village. This is arrangement cannot be refused." The coachman said with a smile on his face…