Next day, at the Golden Mercenary base,

  Mike was at the top of a low building looking down at the journalist doing the interviews.

  He didn't want to look closely; he was just waiting for it to end.

  But some things caught his attention.

  It seemed a creature got inside the Aether territory.

  It was common sense that supernatural creatures were rare on this part of the continent.

  Less common to see in Aether.

  After the guild left, the common people found some bases, camps, and even secret labs that used to belong to the guild.

  The guild abandoned most of those places after taking the important stuff, but some important things for the current society, like the antiPhySEC material, were left behind.

  But getting back on track,

  The interview was mostly about the activities of the mercenary corps and so on.

  It was prepared beforehand who would be the ones interviewed, and who would be the ones in front of the camera.

  After all, it was no different from the usual national military of any country,

  Interviews were fully prepared beforehand.

  But overall, he became interested in the topics, and that's why he decided to stay and listen.

  The location of the creatures was still in the aetherian jungle.

  There were some cities close, but the creatures never went to deep into human cities.

  But only the topic about the creatures was interesting for him.

  The other topics just got him bored.

  In the end, there was a talk about a certain wanted criminal last seen in Aether.

  It was new data to him; he quickly used his phone to search for related information.

  He was part of the organization but his only work was to train the members in melee combat.

  But also, he was part of the ones hunting criminals, wanted criminals worldwide.

  Different from common criminals, the ones with confirmed supernatural abilities were mainly chased by the supernatural mercenary corps worldwide.

  He still decided that it was too early to chase after criminals with his current strength.

  But that was a decision made months ago.

  Now, he thought it would be fine.

  After all, he had special tools and weapons as well as a legal permit for it.

  In the interview, it seemed that the criminal, Anthon Makarevich, was last seen getting into the jungle close to Aether territory, but was not seen after all.

  From Mike's perspective, the promises in the interview to capture the criminal seemed just empty promises.

  And it was true, he got the information about Makarevich.

  He was a wanted criminal indeed, but what made him doubt to get permission from the corps was, that Anthon Makarevich worked for an organization from Redzen.

  The Chaos Minds.

  It was an organization from Redzen and most people thought that country wanted to defend the organization.

  It was not fully confirmed if Makarevich was really from that organization, but he was still wanted one way or another.

  The interview was finally done, but before the journalist left, Mike already left, heading towards a certain office.

  A woman was working on there.

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  "I want to check the current wanted criminal list of the corps" He said without even greeting.

  The woman made a quick answer and handed him some papers after printing them.

  Mike took the papers and searched.

  In the list should be all the cases of wanted criminals being hunted by the corps.

  Most of those were being hunted by the current authorities within the country.

  And the list should be updated every second of the day.

  He searched but found no trace of the one he was looking for

  "Is Anthon Makarevich not wanted by the corps?"

  "Sir, the list is fully updated, the last update was an hour ago"

  The woman was not the culprit of any mistake in the list, it was printed by her but the information came from the organization.

  Mike left with the list. He wanted to start some investigation soon but was not an idiot.

  If the man was not on the list, it was probably Aether's government trying to protect the criminal.

  And he felt like not winning against the current tyrant.

  Plus, this organization was made by Rose herself. Even if she was a saint in the point of view of citizens, she was the daughter of Steve Slades, the closest person to Aether's Tyrant.

  Still, he didn't want to forgive criminals like that, much less after reading the info about Anthon Makarevich.

  After some hours, he went home.

  Today, he asked for permission to go to the aetherian jungle with the next group.

  It took some time for him to get allowed.

  All permission he asked for, needed to be approved by Rose herself or a substitute she left for it.

  The substitute was Kat, so luckily, she approved quickly.

  He was ready to take action in the world after surviving the training tonight.

  He even told Claire about the operation tomorrow. And she was fine with whatever he decided to do.

  ...

  Next day, evening, he was in the helicopter with the team,

  Flying over the aetherian jungle.

  "Ok listen up!" Said the captain, leader of the operation.

  "Instructor Mike has a different mission than us, so try to not get in his business, is that clear?"

  All 7 other members excluding Mike answered,

  In clear voice and synchronization.

  "He will help us if necessary, but it's just hunting down some wolf-like creatures, so if you are so weak that need help for that, you better not get out of the helicopter!"

  Whatever they were talking about after that, Mike paid no attention.

  He was looking through the information on his laptop.

  It was a laptop given to him by the organization, made for military use.

  Not even the military in Aether got so much privilege as the one given to the supernatural ability user mercenaries.

  On the laptop, he was searching through the files of different objectives.

  He got the file about Anthon Makarevich after asking directly for it.

  Whatever, he was comparing all the information after discussing it with Claire.

  Anthon was seen getting into the jungle just a few days before the creatures went into the jungle too.

  Even if it was not related, they still could search for opportunities to do their evil deeds.

  After some minutes, he closed the laptop and took a look at the window.

  There were other two helicopters.

  In one of those, were 5 persons aside from the pilot.

  4 of those people, were the criminals taken out of the prison.

  In difference with him, they had no guns or special tools, they only got the device to track them attached to their legs, and some tools to help the corps in tracking the creatures or assist them in other things.

  As he was thinking about nothing useful, the helicopters were approaching the ground.

  He was getting up to rappel from the helicopter when suddenly, something quick and blue jumped from the ground at one of the helicopters.

  The thing was fast and got into the helicopter breaking the front glass.

  Red could be seen from away, covering the vehicle.

  The one that Mike was in had already started deploying units, while the other decided to gain altitude again.

  Mike was quick and got in the rope as fast as he could, he was the last one descending.

  "Take altitude! Now!" He ordered the pilot before even starting descending.

  But he could not descend too much, not even a meter, when a creature already reached the vehicle.

  ...

  On Mike's house, at the front door. A man was standing by the door after ringing the bell.

  It was Ford, the one who got contracted into the special bodyguard organization at the same time as Mike.

  Claire would just ignore and act as if she wasn't in the house.

  It was not difficult for her.

  But as soon as the man got into the range of her scanner and stayed in front of the door, she took a moment to think.

  She never knew about him, about the relation he would have with Mike, about anything about Ford.

  But still, if nobody altered her sensors, it was the same life form she scanned as before.

  Ford already visited Mike before, but when he did, he was wearing a mask to cover his face and held an assault rifle.

  She knew nothing about Ford aside from it.

  And never knew he already met Mike before in a friendly situation.