Shades of the New World

In any case, the group silently floated beyond the walls of the city as Sannah lead everyone to an inconspicuous building in one of the better areas of the town. Something that Evin guessed was the area designated for the rich and able residents of town. The group went inside the building through the back door and Evin saw an almost empty building that seemed to house only some stacks of supplies and some lodestones. 

Ertu started to work some Magical devices that created a bunch of illusions around the building. She was making sure of their effects one by one, as she was walking around the building.

'Is this a secret base for Paradra members or something?' Evin thought as he looked around curiously.

"Welcome to one of the Paradra's temporary base of operations," Sure enough, Sannah declared it as such, after entering a room that only had a table with a few chairs around it. 

"I feel we haven't really been properly introduced to each other," Evin said, "My name's Evin and I was put into your team under Nasst's orders."

"My name's Sannah and I'm the lesser-imposer leader of team Eleven of the Paradra. We fall under Nasst's command, so usually we do information gathering and other secretive stuff under his orders. I specialize in the World of Space and the World of Emotions," Sannah replied with a smile and urged the other two to speak.

"I'm Ertu, code name Eleven Three, and I specialize in the World of Fire and the World of Water," Ertu said and shook hands with Evin in a stiff manner. 

"My name's Bulokhenottar, but you can just call me Bull. My code name's Eleven Four and I'm the World of Life and World of Earth specialist here. Nice to meet you, Evin," Thug #1 said and shook Evin's hands smilingly.

"Nice to meet you. Guess I'm code name Eleven Six," Evin replied back.

Sannah nodded and told Evin about the missing members.

"As for the other two, the tall one's named Dzuko, and he's the vice-captain of the team. He specializes in the World of Storms and the Heavy World. Yazuran, on the other hand, specializes in the Luminous World only. His code name's Eleven Five."

"No specialist for the World of Thoughts?" Evin asked.

"Well, everyone's expected to be decent at it here in the Paradra, but Ertu here usually takes on the task for the team. She's very talented at it as well," Sannah explained.

Evin nodded, finding it sensible.

"Well, I guess I can start talking to you about the mission now," Sannah said and cleared her throat, "Our objective is to first find a secret base located somewhere around this town, and afterwards go inside to see what it contains. The base is believed to be abandoned by an unknown organization and should be made mostly out of metallic materials. Previous bases from said organization gave a very distinctly off aura from it. Nothing in the magical sense of the word, it just felt out of place. So make sure to report anything suspicious to me."

"Moreover, we were instructed to tread very carefully upon entering said secret base, as there were many cases of previous ones containing traps and lockdown mechanisms inside. So, if you manage to chance upon its entrance somehow, don't be rash. Report it to me and we'll work on a plan afterwards. Do you have any questions?"

Evin wondered if they were supposed to just walk around the area, until they stumbled upon the thing, but he decided to not bother asking, since surely, the team had its plans regarding that. 

'And also, isn't it a bit overkill to send a lesser-imposer for this job?' Evin wondered.

After all, he felt that there really wasn't any need for the team to personally search for the base. They could delegate the task to other teams and after that, the elite team could take over and explore the base.

"Fundamentally, that's all there is to it. A bit of a boring job, one that's usually relayed to the Half-core led teams below us. But… the other spies under Nasst have found that mages from the other Countries and Tower City are also targeting this secret base. The elite kind, like us. Thus, the need for all this secrecy and carefulness," Sannah explained.

'Ah, makes sense.'

Evin could see where this was going. After all, if one team had a lesser-imposer in its ranks and the other side didn't, then the outcome of that clash was quite obvious.

"We'll talk about how we'll search for the base in a bit… I'll also have Ertu here explain to you how we operate in general. But first, we need to talk about how you're going to fit into the team," Sannah said, "Normally, you would need to have studied for a long time inside the Paradra Tribe to even enter the normal teams, but thanks to Director Nasst pulling some strings in your favor, you were allowed to join an Elite team from the get go." 

"Of course, this poses a few big problems for us as well, since there's absolutely no synergy between us to speak of. If we ever try to fight a similarly matched team from another country, you're more likely to become a liability, rather than an asset. Sure, you're pretty capable as we've seen today, but as long as you're not strong enough to settle the fight alone, it's hard for you to blend in with the rest of the team. Do you agree?" Sannah asked.

"I'll do my best to get used to how things work in this team," Evin said.

"No. For now, it's best if we just forget about cooperation entirely. Since we don't have any time to work on our unity, it's best if we don't do anything is what I'm trying to say."

"Uh-huh?"

"Thankfully, you're a Dark Mage so it's very easy for you to hide on the sidelines and do your own thing. During a fight, maybe you can try to assassinate one of the unsuspecting members of the other team, or maybe you can just act as a scout of some sorts and inform us of your findings," Sannah shrugged.

"Ah, that means I would just be a lone third party in a fight that's on your side," Evin got the gist of things. It was a bit dangerous for him, but if he thought about it a bit, it was the best possible path for the team.

"Exactly. But remember, your upmost priority would be to keep yourself safe. Only act if you're ninety percent sure that whatever you're trying to do would work. Also, if you want to assassinate someone, never go for it if you've never seen them fight before. Always assume that those elite mages have one method to save themselves from certain death and three methods to kill you in a second," Sannah reminded in a grave tone.

Evin took on the words to heart and nodded heavily.

"Well, even though I say these frightening things, honestly, you're quite strong judging from the fight today. You just need some real-life experience to consolidate your strength."

"Thank you," Evin replied with a sigh.

'Either praise me or just diss me to the ground. Stop being so inconsistent with your attitude,' he complained inside.

"At any rate, the search for the base will be done in a similar way. We'll be searching for the base as a five-man group, while you'll be tasked with searching for the other mages who might be interested in the base. Every night, we'll regather here and share our findings. If you ever get into trouble, you can let us know by tearing this scroll," Sannah said and gave Evin a piece of paper.