Chapter 12: Abrupt E-Grade Mission

Odin's heart skipped a bit as his eyes flickered with a shadow of apprehension. Since the feds were at his door, they were likely to question him about the wolf attack incident. However, he didn't wish to discuss the happening with a second soul as it concerned the secret of the mysterious orb containing the golden book entity.

"Are you okay, young man?" Russell Maclean, the taller of the two feds, asked while observing Odin's face closely.

"I'm okay," Odin said, coming back to himself. "Why do you intend to question me? Have I committed a crime that I don't know about?"

After recalling that the apocalypse was in three days, he regained composure. He'd figured that the feds wouldn't get a chance to use any evidence they collected against him as the whole government and related systems were about to break down.

"Aren't you going to let us in?" Norbert Kober, the shorter fed, regarded Odin with a relaxed, calculating expression. "Surely, we can't continue conversing here in the doorway."

Odin sighed, shaking his head. "It's not that I don't want to let you in. But rather, my elders have implored me never to let strangers in the house. Even if those strangers were feds, they would have to have a search warrant before entering an American citizen's residence. So, do you have a search warrant?"

The eyes of the taller fed narrowed slightly. "Young man! All we're doing is for the good of American citizens," he said righteously. "We're not here to arrest you or question you like a criminal. We only wish to ascertain what caused the death of your colleagues in Yellowstone. We're only requesting you to cooperate so that we might neutralize a threat that might endanger many American lives. As a survivor of the incident, you owe that much to your colleagues that perished in Yellowstone."

Odin's expression turned forlorn on hearing the FBI agent's little speech. For a moment, the feelings of guilt and grief flooded his mind as he struggled to make a decision.

Should he narrate everything to the feds? But then, how would he explain the disappearance of the gigantic wolf? He was at his wit's end, especially since he couldn't disclose the existence of the mysterious orb to a second soul.

"Odin!" His adoptive mother's voice sounded from behind him as he was still contemplating. "They say they're here to talk. So, just let them in."

"Aunt Lucy!" Odin's tone was disapproving as he turned around to face her.

"Don't worry!" She said before stepping forward and pushing the door wide open. "If they don't behave while in my house, I'll throw them out. Gentlemen! Are we on the same page?" Her tone was abnormally bossy as she exchanged gazes with the feds.

"Ma'am, we get you," the taller of the feds said with a forced smile.

"Good," Aunt Lucy said, nodding. "And you have to remember that my son has just experienced a traumatic event. There might be some gaps in his answers."

"We understand, ma'am," the fed responded. "We're just here to have a simple conversation. No need to worry."

"Then, come on in," Aunt Lucy said, stepping to the side.

The feds exchanged glances before smiling and marching through the doorway. Odin could only stand on the side helplessly.

-----

A minute later, Aunt Lucy arranged the feds in the living room. She then sent the sisters upstairs to their bedroom before hurriedly preparing two hot cups of coffee for the gentlemen. After that, she settled beside Odin and glanced at them.

"So, gentlemen," she said with a smile. "Let's get this over with as quickly as possible. What do you wish to hear from my son?"

"Thank you, ma'am, for the coffee," Russell Maclean, the giant fed, said before turning toward Odin. "Can you take us through the events just before the wolf attacked you in Yellowstone, Odin?"

"Many things happened before the wolves attacked," Odin said, leaning back into the sofa. "Where should I start?"

"Start from the point when you first heard the bullets and wolf howls," the fed said.

Odin sighed before beginning to narrate the events of that unfortunate morning. He described the gunshots, the wolf howls, Nicole's reminder about the animal mutations, and their escape to the parking spaces. He then recounted the scene of the sorry state of their vehicles and their punctured tires before verbally depicting the actual assault by the wolf.

After that, he talked briefly about the bizarre lightning before ending his tale with the mysterious disappearance of the wolf. He did not mention the mysterious orb even once.

"Odin!" The taller fed said after taking a sip of his coffee. "If I'm getting you right, you said that the wolf disappeared abruptly. Is that right?"

Odin nodded.

"Then, what do you think happened to the wolf?" The fed pressed, leaning forward in his seat. "Was there anything unusual that happened at the time?"

"There was the lightning and thunder," Odin said, his expression that of recollection. "It flooded the skies and enveloped the whole parking space in a suffocating atmosphere. After the lightning subsided, the wolf was nowhere to be seen."

"Then, Odin," the shorter FBI agent chimed in, his eyes narrowed into a calculating expression. "Please, clarify one point for me. When we talked to your friend - Nicole Davies, she said that there was a streak of lightning energy that shocked the wolf to death. She even recounted that you got out of the vehicle to check out the wolf's corpse, and that's when you collapsed. Why are your accounts different, yet you were together the whole time?"

Odin could feel beads of cold sweat forming and dripping down his back on hearing the question. His heart went on a thunderous wild caper within his chest as his expression flickered several times. What he feared had just transpired. The feds had already talked to Nicole and got her side of the story. It would be hard to feed them his own bullshit.

"Answer the question, Odin?" The shorter fed pressed, his eyes exuding an ice-cold chill. "Why are your accounts different?"

"Enough!" Aunt Lucy chimed in to save the situation. Her tone was harsh as she glared at the feds. "We already agreed that this isn't an interrogation. Odin has just experienced a trauma that put him in a coma for three days. Don't you think that his story having gaps is a logical fact?"

"Sorry, ma'am," Russell Maclean, the taller fed, hurriedly cut in to save the situation. "My colleague just went overboard out of habit. Please, calm down."

"Hmmm!" Aunt Lucy gave a loud harrumph, surprising Odin. Her current aura was like a tigress' as she glowered at the feds. She was the polar opposite of her usually docile self.

"If something like this happens again, I promise to sue you for causing mental trauma to a recovering patient," she added.

The two feds could only smile ruefully in response.

"Odin, let's talk about something else," the taller FBI agent said after a short while. His tone was very cordial. "What put you in a comma? We understand that you were standing upright one moment — and then the next, you were on the floor! What exactly happened?"

"I don't..."

Odin stopped abruptly in the middle of the sentence as something else had caught his attention. He couldn't control the loud pounding of his heart as he glanced at the familiar glowing lines of dark red text that had just manifested before him.

-----

[Abnormal Energy Fluctuations detected in the Fabric of Space]

[Conditions for E-Grade Mission have been met]

[Reaper's Origin Order Initiating an E-level Killing Assignment]

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[Pending Missions: E-Grade Mission -> Annihilate the three purple-eyed mystic rats. (Failure Condition: Death)]

-----

Every muscle in Odin’s body turned taut after he read the notification. Eyes narrowing, he abruptly rose from his seat and began surveying the entire length of the living room. He had complete trust in the Origin Order since it was a gift from the mysterious golden book entity. So, he was sure that the mutated rats were hiding somewhere around the house. And if it so happened that he failed to defeat them, he would surely leave this world to meet his maker. There was no doubt about that in his mind.

"Odin, what's wrong?" Aunt Lucy asked from beside him. Her tone was one of worry.

"Aunt Lucy," Odin whispered while still looking around. "Please, keep quiet and stay beside me."

The fear of the unseen enemy pressed hard on his temples, causing cold beads of sweat to mat his forehead. However, he was also quite puzzled. Going by the prophetic vision, the apocalypse was supposed to descend in three days. But why were mutated creatures appearing at his house long before then? He was really terrified out of his senses.

"Young man!" Norbert Kober, the shorter fed, said, touching his hip-mounted holster. "No need to panic. We're not here to arrest you. Please, sit back down, and answer the question."

"Gentlemen," Odin snapped back in annoyance. "There's danger approaching. Please ready your guns as we might have to fight for our lives soon."

"Danger!"

The two agents exchanged knowing glances before refocusing their scathing gazes on Odin's form. At that moment, their expressions expressed their thoughts. They seemed to be assuming that he wasn't right in the head.

Odin simply ignored them and decided to lead his adoptive mother to the kitchen by the hand. He needed a weapon from the kitchen to fight the rats. A meat cleaver or a large knife would surely raise his chances of survival.

"Odin, please, calm down," Aunt Lucy said, starting to resist his tug. "Even if there's danger, the agents can help us avert it. Just take a breather and calm down."

Odin sighed, shaking his head. He opened his mouth, preparing to answer and explain the source of his fears. But just then, the corners of his eyes caught a slight shimmer in the space near the front door. Time seemed to freeze at that moment. Before Odin could blink, a white silhouette materialized out of thin air as if it had just teleported to the place. The whole abruptness of its appearance was like a spectacle out of a fiction movie.

"Fuck! Isn't this one of the rat emperors I saw in the prophetic vision?"

Odin found it impossibly hard to tamp down his fear as he glanced at the familiar creature with narrowed eyes. It was a giant rat, the size of a medium-sized Australian Shepherd, with white silken fur covering every inch of its body. On its head were three purple beady eyes that lined its face to form a triangle. A single glance was enough to tell Odin that it was the juvenile form of one of the future rat emperors that would lay havoc in human cities during the apocalypse.