Even though Ayaka asked for it, she didn't have that much time to learn as she needed to go for the mission. However, this incident also gave Ayaka another surge of determination. She wanted to chase, grab, and eventually stand beside him just like the others.

...

The next day.

They met in that room again to have a briefing. After that, they went toward the military base near the school and waited for all the people who wanted to go to the military base in Edmonton to arrive.

Kai and Tasha felt how frustrating it was having to wait for it. As Michelle said, they needed to do this and that before they could set off. And because of the wait, their original plan had to be pushed back. If they were in the top 100, they would get their own helicopter for their transport and would be able to fly anytime they wanted. Because of this, all of them were determined to get into the top 100.

The commander in that base was planning to lend them a humvee, but Michelle politely rejected him since they had Tasha's teleportation.

It only took them a few minutes before they arrived at Prince George. They arrived at a town. Most of the buildings were rubbles already, but they could see that the destruction was not by natural causes. They could see that several buildings were ruined by something big. There were even a few giant footsteps on the ground.

"Kai?" Michelle instantly looked at Kai.

"No. They're at least five kilometers away from us since I can't hear a single thing." He shook his head before looking at Ayaka. "Ayaka, I need you to search from the sky. The leader is a big one, so it should be able to be spotted easily. There are also no flying magical beasts nearby."

Ayaka nodded and released her Fire Wings.

"From the footsteps, they passed this town yesterday. They should be a bit far from us, but as long as we follow these, we should eventually meet them. Should I use my teleportation so we can catch up to them?" Tasha asked.

"No. We should pursue them on foot. We need to get used to fighting side by side first. I'm not sure we can pull an immediate maneuver if we somehow teleport near or even right at them." Kai shook his head.

"All right." Tasha and Michelle nodded in agreement.

Kai then shouted, "Ayaka, we're going toward the west. Make sure you keep up with us."

Ayaka nodded, and all of them started moving.

"We should have a radio or something. I know we shouldn't use them in the front lines since the radio waves might be picked up by the magical beasts, but we don't need to care in this kind of environment," Kai complained.

"Indeed. We're a special roaming unit anyway, not the army in the front lines. We can get one while the Military Academy can't. This is why I don't like the Military Academy. They have too many restrictions." Michelle shrugged her shoulder. "Well, I don't want to confuse my family and my personal business, so if we want to buy something, we should get them from the money we get from missions."

"No objection." Kai nodded.

They were chatting while running toward the west. Ayaka didn't pay attention to them and focused on her task alone.

The highways were very silent. Kai could not hear anything other than their footsteps and the cracking sound of the bricks as it had become brittle after many centuries. He treated this as a peaceful place, a place where there were no monsters.

It was after two hours of running that Kai and Ayaka noticed the same thing. Kai stopped on his track while Ayaka dove down.

"Sound Insulation Room."

Tasha and Michelle instantly realized why they stopped and immediately went inside Kai's barrier.

"I have a sight of the big white wolf five kilometers from us," Ayaka said as she stored her binoculars in her bag. She brought this binocular since she would most likely need it if Kai asked her to scout. She had thought of this after their practice class in North Korea.

Kai nodded. "There are a number of footsteps around it, but I feel that there are around 50 of them, so there must have been a mistake in the information we received. What are we going to do?"

"Hm… To be honest, we usually ignore the information as they're usually pretty inaccurate. Still, a difference this big is a problem," Michelle replied.

"Still, is there a problem?" Tasha crossed her arms.

Kai and Michelle smiled. "No."

"I have two plans, safety and speed, which one do you want?" Kai asked them.

"Speed." The three of them immediately said as they understood Kai's personality. Even with the plan prioritizing speed, he still considered their safety, so they didn't need to worry.

"All right." He nodded. "Here's the plan. Ayaka will place her magic bombs on this highway. We will then lead them to this place and kill them in one sweep. Sister will ready her teleportation magic in case there are some wolves that didn't get blown up and teleport them inside the explosion. That way, they will surely perish.

"But the giant wolf surely wouldn't be killed with just this. So, Ayaka, Michelle, and I will immediately attack the giant wolf after those explosions. Meanwhile, Sister needs to check if there are any wolves that manage to survive even after all of that, and provide cover while we're fighting the giant wolf."

"No objection," Michelle said while the others nodded their heads.

"By the way, what's the safer plan?" Ayaka asked, wanting to learn everything from him.

"Lure them to a city and bury them with rubbles. It should be enough to kill all the small ones. We'll then fight the giant one together," Kai said. "Well, we can also make you and Sister fly to the sky and rain them with magic."

"..." Ayaka pondered for a moment. She understood the logic of his plan, but if it were the first one, they would need to search for a town that had tall buildings. There's a town like that, but it was a bit further behind, so it would take too much time. It would be a bit difficult to kill them from the sky since the wolves might just run since they can't reach her. Ultimately, it would just be a waste of time and magic power.

Ayaka nodded. "I'll make a few marks so you know where the magic bombs are."

"Good. Since there are no objections, we'll set a timer from now. We can arrive at their position in ten minutes at full speed, so set it up for twenty minutes." Kai said as he put a timer on his watch.

He then looked at the highway and calculated the distance. "We'll put magic bombs from this place to a hundred meters from us. Place it with intervals of five meters."

"Understood."

"Sister, you can search for a position you think is best. Michelle and I will lure them," Kai said as he looked at all of them.

"All right, time… start!" He started the timer and immediately disappeared with Michelle.

...

19:59, on the way.

Michelle looked at Kai, "I think twenty minutes is too long. We're talking about wolves here, without even reaching that place, I'm sure they would hear our movement and chase us for sure."

"No. This is fine. I've been fighting together with Sister, but that's all. Ayaka still needs some adjustments while we haven't fought for a few years. The rest of the time will be used to make sure everything's going according to our plan."

"I see. Then, are we going to stall them for a few minutes before coming back?"

"Yeah."

Michelle nodded, indicating that she understood.

When they were only a kilometer away from the wolves, they suddenly heard a loud howl.

"Aooo!"

The sound made Kai close his eyes to check the wolves' condition.

"They're coming," Kai warned.

"All right. We'll pull back." Michelle nodded as they started retreating.

The wolves started chasing them upon the order of their leader. There were around fifty wolves here while the leader followed them from behind.

There was nothing abnormal from the wolf leader other than its big body. They just felt the ground shaking a little every time the wolf leader stepped on the ground.

However, they indeed miscalculated something. It was the wolves' speed. Even though they were quite a distance away when they were luring them, the distance was gone instantly after a few minutes. There was still around a kilometer before they arrive at the endpoint.

"Michelle, take this." He threw his noise-canceling headphones toward her.

She nodded and immediately put it on. Without him saying anything, she knew he wanted to do something with sound.

Kai nodded as he made magic circles on his ears. He glanced back to see the wolves beginning to appear in his line of sight. He needed to slow these wolves down. A green magic circle appeared on his hand. Just before the wolves managed to catch up with him, Kai flicked his finger.

"Lullaby."

Ding—!

A high-pitched sound rang in the wolves' ears. Although the sound was not loud enough to cause potential damage, it was still capable of stopping the wolves for a few seconds. This gave Kai and Michelle more time to make more distance between them.

Not long after, they finally arrived at the location. They saw red markers on the ground, signifying them the location of the magic bomb. They quickly passed through all the bombs, stopped, and watched the wolves. They made a high five as they said, "Boom!"

00:00

Several magic circles appeared right beneath the wolves' feet. It started from 10 meters in front of Kai to the end of the wolf pack. The magic circles exploded in succession.

Boom! Boom! Boom!