...…

"I think I am in love~!"

When those words left Arthur's mouth, the entire room suddenly turned dead silent as everyone looked at Arthur with different expressions on their faces. And before everyone could even recover themselves, Arthur immediately removed his arm around Molton's shoulders before fixing his clothes a little.

After that, he cleared his throat with a slight cough before introducing himself. "Hi! I am Arthur Springfield. This is my first time seeing an angel in disguise. May I know your beautiful name?" while extending his hand at her.

Seeing that, the faces of the others inside the room turned even weirder while looking at Arthur.

On the other hand, the 'angel' in question was currently raising one of her eyebrows while looking at Arthur's hand which was waiting to be shook by her.

Even though Arthur was left in an awkward situation since this girl seemingly had no intention of shaking his hand, he was still smiling at her as if he didn't mind it at all.

When Molton saw that and realized what his sister was thinking, he immediately decided to cut in and quickly introduce her to Arthur. "Senior Brother, this is my twin sister that I mentioned before. Her name is Jillian. She is very beautiful, right?"

Then he turned his head at his twin sister and said. "Sis, this is my Senior Brother that I am talking about. What do you think? He seems cool, right?"

After that, Arthur patted Molton's shoulder with his extended hand while saying. "What are you talking about? Calling her beautiful is an understatement. She should be a goddess who descended on the mortal world."

Meanwhile, Jillian raised her eyebrow even higher when she heard Molton's words. She still remembered that she met Arthur at the Twin Dragon Plaza before. And her first impression on him was-… Not so great.

And now that she learned that this guy was actually the reason why her twin brother was now 'betraying' her, her current impression on him became even worse.

Given that, he raised her eyebrows further upwards while saying. "Oh~! So, you are the one who is 'contaminating' my brother's mind, huh? Now that I can have a clear look at you, I can immediately tell that you are really a bad influence."

Hearing that, Arthur immediately waved his index finger at her while saying. "Ah-Ah~! You are wrong about that, my angel. It is not 'contaminating', but it is called 'enlightening'. I am just teaching him how the real world works so that he can survive on it."

Shin and others watched everything with their faces turning weirder and weirder every passing second.

Meanwhile, Jillian wanted to refute Arthur's words but was unable to do so. It was because the door of the conference room was suddenly opened followed by Nathan's entrance.

And when he saw commotion that was going on, he immediately said. "It is good to see you getting along already before the mission starts. But, please take your seats for now since we are going to do a mission deliberation first."

Hearing that, everyone immediately complied with his orders and started taking their seats. Though, Arthur shamelessly sat on the chair beside Jillian. And when the latter saw that, she immediately threw him a very fierce glare – but she didn't voice out her complaints because Nathan was waiting for them to take their seats so that they could finally start their meeting.

When Nathan saw that they were finally ready to listen, he immediately snapped with his fingers turning the lights off. After that, a virtual screen suddenly appeared on top of the center table – showing some information on it.

"Since everyone of you is already informed about the basic information about this mission, I am going straight to the main topic," said Nathan while sweeping his gaze at everyone. And after a brief moment of pause, he immediately continued. "We are raiding one of the strongest Martial-Art Family of the Souring Continent, the Leon Tribe."

Shin and the others immediately become shocked the moment they hear the name of the family. Even though they heard that they were going to deal with a major Aristocratic Family, they still didn't expect that it was going to be this big.

In fact, Lorrain couldn't help but straighten her back while voicing out unconsciously. "The Leon Tribe who is comparable to our Springfield Family and Potter Clan? That is crazy!"

"Yes, you heard it right. It is that very Leon Tribe," confirmed Nathan while nodding his head.

"That is crazy! Why do we need to raid them?" muttered Leonard to himself with a very soft voice.

But given Nathan's current Martial-Arts attainment, he could easily perceive what Leonard had said and immediately answered. "It was because we found out that this family is secretly conspiring with Shadow Alliance."

This time, it was Shin and Arthur's turn to become fully shocked. They were both raised from the Military family so they were aware about the major organizations on the dark side of the word; especially Shin who was trained by the Black Serpent Mafia before which was also a part of that gigantic group.

What's more, this particular underworld organization was so big that it could threaten the World Government.

Given that, Arthur couldn't help but raise his hand asked with a doubtful tone. "Uncle! If that is the case. Isn't this mission too massive for us to take part in? It is the Shadow Alliance that we are talking about. Moreover, it also concerns the Leon Tribe. This mission is too risky for someone on our level."

Hearing how he was addressed, Nathan glared at Arthur and scolded him. "Who are you calling uncle? We are currently in a military deliberation, don't get confused!"

Then he proceeded at answering Arthur's concern. "You don't have to worry too much about that. Your assignment is naturally not going to be directly involved with those two major forces. Instead, you are going to deal with something on your level."

"Oh~! I see," muttered Arthur after hearing those words. At the same time, he suddenly heard a sweet sound of giggling beside him.

He turned his head at the source and saw Jillian giggling at herself after seeing Arthur making a fool out of himself on that question. And that sight stunned Arthur a little and threw him into a daze state for a moment. 'D*mn! How can there be a beautiful creature living in this world?'

While he was in that state, an invisible air fissure bullet suddenly hit head very hard and knocked him over his seat.

"Arthur Springfield! Can you at least focus on the meeting for a moment and stop spacing out! If you are not interested in this, then you are free to leave this room and be dismissed for this mission!" shouted Nathan at the same time.

Hearing that, the others tried so hard to suppress their laughter as they were afraid to get hit by that invisible attack too.

On the other hand, Arthur stood up from the ground and embarrassedly sat back on his seat while taking a quick glaze at Jillian and thinking to himself. 'It is quite rare for me to be embarrassed like this. And on all occasions, why must it have to be in front of my goddess?'

Moving on, Nathan resumed discussing their current mission. "As I said, you guys don't have to concern yourself about the bigshots of the Leon Tribe as we are going to send our own monsters to deal with them."

"On the other hand, you should be concerned with this," added Nathan while tapping a few buttons on the table.

After that, the information shown by the virtual screen in front of everyone suddenly started moving and showed a bunch of pictures and profiles of different people.

At the same time, Nathan resumed talking. "For the last few years, these people were reported to run away from their homes. They are individuals with average levels of talent but have some decent family backgrounds."

"These people never show up again after running away from their homes. Even the military have a hard time finding them."

He then paused for a moment to do a few taps on the table to change what were shown on the virtual screen – this time, it showed a bunch of pictures of some masked individuals as Nathan started talking once again. "These pictures were taken from the Sun-Moon Continent two years ago."

"It is the time when some individuals invade one of the major research institutes of the Sun-Moon Content and stole some of their data during that time."

"And these guys were the confirmed people who invaded that time," added Nathan while pointing at the picture at the virtual screen.

After another few taps on the table, the pictures on the virtual screen started to organize themselves together with the previous pictures and profiles earlier. And when Shin and others saw that, he immediately came into a realization.

At the same time, Nathan confirmed it for them. "Based on our investigations, these people are most likely the ones who are reported that run away from home these last few years."

At this point, Angela asked the most important question. "But why did they run away from their homes in the first place? And why did they suddenly become like that after they reappeared."

"Based on the intel that we got, these guys were some guys who were quite jealous of other people's talent – they were quite insecure of people who are more talented than them."

After that, the information on the virtual screen suddenly changed one again. This time, it showed some unsolved murder cases.

"On the other hand, these people are killed by some unknown killer. All of them are talented individuals in different fields."

"At first, those runaway kids are the major suspects because the dates when these kids died matches the time when they are reported to run away from home. The reason for killing? Their insecurity of the other's talent."

"But evidence that the policemen and military got, prove these guys innocence. And those cases became a serial murder case since all of the victims die on the same way."

Nathan paused for a moment and looked at Arthur before saying. "But-… That is not the case anymore."

Understanding that look, Arthur immediately came into a realization. "Could it be!"

And Nathan confirmed it instantly. "That is right. This case is completely related to that incident."

...…