The people around the field were completely silent, most of them hardly able to take a breath.

A moment later, the commander did a sharp cough while holding on to her stomach area. “Oh man. I really underestimated you.”

Marcus laughed out loud from the side of the field and shouted to Natalia. “Your enemy is weak! Go for the kill now, Natty!”

She turned back to glare at Marcus.

He shrugged. “What? She was the one that wanted to die,” he pulled out one of his daggers. “Want me to finish her up for you?”

“Are you alright, Commander Han?” Natalia asked, ignoring whatever Marcus wanted to say next.

The commander groaned as she was standing up. “Yeah… you just knocked the wind out of me. Ugh.”

The people around the field breathed a sigh of relief seeing their commander stand back up again, seemingly uninjured and only slightly bruised from the last hit done by the new Knight. Marcus and General Hull also walked over seeing that the so-called ‘combat training’ was over. General Hull carried an expression between surprise and relief, and Marcus was lazily walking over, apparently bored at how Natalia hadn’t done anything real to the commander.

“I’m impressed, Lady… oh.” she recovered a little bit with a face of realization, “We’ve not properly introduced each other,” she stood up straight, and did a salute. The movement was similar to a normal military salute, only that for Knights, instead of putting their arm to the head they would put it across in front of their chests. “First Rank Duchess and Knight Commander of the Peace Knights, Han Jeong-Hwa.”

Natalia raised her eyebrows a bit, not expecting Jeong-Hwa to do such a respectful thing for her. She quickly recovered and did a similar salute back to the commander. “Imperatrix Natalia Laroy.”

Marcus didn’t bother to respond in the same fashion, keeping the same lazy posture he usually carried, so Natalia turned to him and gave his rank. “And this is Imperator Marcus Nossa.”

Natalia glared at him when he didn’t even bother to remove the helmet, which made him sigh. “Fine, fine,”

After removing the helmet, he looked at Jeong-Hwa with some hostility in his eyes, since he didn’t get a chance to thoroughly crush her or kill her.

Jeong-Hwa was stunned for a moment, not for the hostile look but because of their titles, so General Hull followed up after they greeted each other. “The Imperator is a new Knight rank that The Corporation created. They’re supposed to be the strongest human being that they could make, and after watching the bout from just now, I think they weren’t exaggerating when they told me they could very well be their greatest asset.”

“Oh…” Jeong-Hwa did a soft laugh. “I was so confident in being able to beat up any Knight that came here, since there wasn’t supposed to be anyone with a higher rank, but here you are, in a completely different realm from me… Still…” she narrowed her eyes to have a better look at Natalia.

Natalia was slightly taken aback being looked at like that. “What is it?”

“You seem familiar…” said Jeong-Hwa as she turned to look in the same way at Marcus. Then looking back at Natalia again, carefully staring at her face. “Wait, aren’t you that First Rank Duchess from a few years that supposedly got executed?” she said with surprise in her eyes. “And I heard that Marcus Nossa was a rogue Knight that the Global Alliance Corporation couldn’t handle.”

Marcus laughed. “I can’t believe the kind of bullshit that Cleavy spreads around the world!”

Natalia shook her head. “There were… special circumstances for us regarding The Corporation…”

“She means to say that we did all the ugly and real shit that would give the most power and profit to those corpies only to be thrown to the trash once they realized we were too much for them,” Marcus said with a smirk. “Too bad they couldn’t kill us.”

“I see…” responded Jeong-Hwa with a thoughtful expression on her face.

General Hull noticed that the atmosphere had gotten somewhat uncomfortable. “None of that matters anymore. We’re now in a completely different world, and we need to get moving. Commander Han, let’s go debrief them on what they’ll be doing from here on out.”

“Right! Let us move to the command center and get this operation going,” responded Jeong-Hwa following General Hull out of the field. However, as she started walking she noticed that the Knights and the soldiers were all still standing around the field, not moving and just talking among each other while looking in the direction of the Imperators. This made her mad again, so she shouted towards the people standing around. “And what are you all standing around doing nothing for!? Get back to your duties before I force you to do them!”

At Jeong-Hwa’s angry shout, the people jumped up and started busily moving around into either training on the field, or running to catch up to whatever duty they were busy with before being distracted.

“Going to have to beat some people up after all…” Jeong-Hwa sighed, shaking her head and walking to the command center.

* * *

The four people from the field were in a closed room standing around a table holding a display showing a rough map, with General Hull and Commander Han being at the far side and the Imperators standing on the opposite side being told what they had to do. Marcus was keeping a lazy posture, not really paying attention to what was being told, while Natalia was seriously looking at the map.

“Seems simple enough. We’ll just have to follow this road until we meet up with any of the natives and if there are any, try to open up a friendly relationship with them,” said Natalia with one hand right below her chin, lightly touching it with one finger.

“Man, that's just so boring! Why would I want to meet up with a bunch of common ass people that I can find anywhere back in our world! I came here to see the demons, slice ‘em up and shoot ‘em up!” Marcus said with annoyance in his voice.

Jeong-Hwa shook her head. “Well these are not just some ‘common ass people’. They seemed to have been able to use supernatural powers and the fact that they could summon that huge angel and use it to destroy the demons is an asset that would be better not aimed at us.”

“Wait… What? They have magic?! And there’s an angel that can kill demons too?!” Marcus said with surprise.

Natalia turned to look at Marcus and narrowed her eyes. “How didn’t you know that? Cleavon showed us the footage from the first expedition and that was clearly in it.”

“Well I didn’t see it. As soon as he showed me demons and shit, I told him to shuddup and bring me here,” Marcus shrugged before getting excited, “but it seems that there’s many more interesting things on this side as well! Come on! Let’s go kill an angel instead!”

“No. Didn’t you hear Commander Han—”

“Please Natalia, call me Jeong-Hwa.”

Natalia was stunned for a moment, but still continued talking to Marcus. “Okay… didn’t you hear Jeong-Hwa? We’re supposed to go make friends with them, not kill them.”

“Whatever. I’m sure there’s a way to get to them to summon that super angel and fight it while still being friendly… maybe if I… yes… no…” Marcus’ voice got low and he seemed to be murmuring things to himself, completely ignoring the people staring at him.

The people looked at Marcus for a moment, only for Natalia to shake her head and point at the map. “So I know that your teams found this road over here. But what do we know about the surrounding area? Is there a road on this side as well?”

General Hull answered this time. “We’ve found a few wild creatures in the ‘Paradisi forest’, as some of the men have started calling it, here’s some of them.”

Pressing a couple of things on the map, the display changed and this time the images of a wolf, followed by a bear, a boar, a rabbit and a fox were shown.

“Seems to be fairly normal creatures… weird for a completely different world to have the same kind of creatures as ours…” said Natalia while looking carefully at each of the images.

“That’s what you think, but…” Jeong-Hwa pressed another button on the screen.

The image of a human was shown next to each creature. The wolf, the bear and the boar were several times bigger than any normal sized animal on earth, while for the rabbit and the fox, they seemed to only be slightly larger than the ones you’d find on Earth, but not by an amount that would make people stare in wonder.

Natalia was surprised. “Is that right? Could it be that the distance played a trick on you?”

“No, several Duke patrols have encountered such creatures around in the forest. They seem to be fierce beasts and would be able kill any normal human in an instant if found. Lucky for us, they fall down after a few shots of our guns, so we’ve deemed them to be of general low threat if shot at before they get close to you,” answered Jeong-Hwa with a calm tone in her voice.

General Hull followed up. “As for any other roads, we’ve found another one coming from what we believe is the east side of this world; however, we’d advise against going that way until we know more about the zone, since the marks left on the ground were definitely placed there by something large, likely to be the demon army from the first expedition.”

“Okay, I understand,” nodded Natalia, then turned to look at Marcus who still seemed to be distracted. “We should set out now, anything else we should know?”

“Oh! Yes, I’d stay away from eating any of those large creature’s meat, their biology is showing something odd about them. As for the smaller creatures, they seem to be just fine. However, we’ve hardly had a good look at all the flora and fauna here, so you’re going to have to weigh the risks with that.” Answered Jeong-Hwa while pointing at the creatures on display.

“Very well. Let’s go Marcus,” said Natalia to bring back the man’s attention back to the conversation.

He snapped out of it and looked back at them again with a bored face.

Natalia did a salute towards General Hull and Jeong-Hwa. “We know what to do, and we won’t fail. This world won’t be a danger to humanity.”

Jeong-Hwa returned the salute, before saying, “Bring us great success Natalia.”

General Hull did a military salute. “Imperatrix Laroy, Imperator Nossa.”

“Finally! No more boring chatter!” exclaimed Marcus, walking out of the room without bothering with any of those salutes.

Natalia was about to follow after Marcus, but stopped herself, seemingly remembering something. “Oh, by the way, can you send a report to Doctor Hobbs back at HQ about the incident that we had at the portal entrance?”

“That won’t be a problem, since it was quite the tense situation,” answered General Hull with a nod. “Oh and also, before you leave, speak with Count Mason near the exit of the base if you need supplies.”

“Thanks,” Natalia responded with a nod of her head, then going after Marcus who was already moving towards the base gates.

* * *

As Natalia was walking out on the base, she saw that Marcus was arguing with the Knights at the gates. The one that was being talked to by Marcus had his arms raised in a placating manner with a scared face while the other was simply watching, not sure about what to do.

“Marcus. We need to talk to a Count Mason over here in the supply depot,” said Natalia, saving the Knights at the gate that sighed in relief seeing that she distracted the man threatening to kill them if they didn’t let him pass right away.

“Huh? For what do we need supplies for? These armors do all the deeds for us, so we just need to go out killing,” Marcus said with a slightly confused face.

“They do, but we still need to eat from time to time, so it’s better to be safe than sorry,” Natalia then shrugged and continued, “but if you don’t want to, then at least don’t bother the knights at the gate while I go gather things for us to carry.”

“Fine, fine, I’ll wait five minutes, and after that I’m gone.”

Natalia nodded and went a few meters towards a slightly large building that looked like a plane hangar. She went inside and saw the piles of crates with different names for all the supplies that the base could need, seemingly enough for months. Near the gate, a big strong man, with short blonde hair and the shadow of a beard was exercising with dumbbells while keeping watch of the crates. The man then turned to look at the entrance where he saw Natalia standing, as she was looking around the place.

“Yo!” shouted the man, “Come looking for supplies?”

“Yes, I would like something light, since I don’t need that much, so some water and a few energy bars would be enough,” answered Natalia while walking over to the man.

“Not a lot then, I guess you’re also going to be training then? But are you going to train while wearing such a fancy armor?” said the man as he was putting the dumbbells down and walked over to a desk.

“No, I’m going out deep into the forest, and as for the armor, it’s thanks to it that I can afford to carry little.”

“Oh I see, that would explain why I had never seen a design like that before,” the man said as he was picking up a few things from under the desk to hand over to Natalia as he continued, “I’m Count Nolan Mason by the way, I’m in charge of this here depot, and while it might not be a lot of work, it’s important work, so if you ever need anything from it, please don’t force your way to get it, since I’ll have to beat you up as I’ve done with many others before!”

The man laughed while Natalia raised an eyebrow at what he just said. She could hardly believe anyone would have the need to steal from it, much less when they were over at such an important base. What’s more, the man’s rank wasn’t so high for someone in charge of something this important.

“Can a Count rank beat someone like a Duke, or even a Marquis?” asked Natalia while she was putting the few things in a belt that Count Mason handed over to her, strapping it around her waist.

“Oh I sure can! The only reason I’m not a Duke or a Marquis yet is ‘cus them higher ups didn’t have the time to promote my rank, but I’ve done the Duke training,” Mason said as he was waiting for Natalia to be done with her preparations. “Would that be all Lady…”

“Laroy, and no, I need another set for someone else that couldn’t be bothered to come here.”

“No problem, here you go,” he picked up the same things for Natalia and handed them to her. “I hope everything goes well out there for you guys!”

Natalia nodded, picked up the things that he had placed for her and walked out of the depot.

Count Mason looked at her walking out and then said to himself, “Phew, at least I hope they go better than for me. Beating up spoiled brats sure has set me back in my career a bit,” he sighed then picked back up the dumbbells, “Well, nothing more to do than to keep going!”

* * *

Natalia and Marcus had been walking for a while now after leaving the base, they were surrounded by the colorful trees and leaves of the bushes that filled the forest, each one giving off the feeling of a completely different world. The two of them were walking at a somewhat fast pace. They seemed to care about not missing anything of importance on the way, so their movements were careful. The road that the people at the base told them about wasn’t in sight yet, so the forest was also slowing them down a bit.

“Would you look at that…” Marcus said while pointing at an animal somewhere deep in the forest.

Natalia turned to look at it. It looked like a stag; however, it’s fur had blue, purple, and red spots on it, making it blend with the forest. But it's more important feature were the horns, which had a slight green glow on it.

“Is that like a forest spirit or something?” asked Marcus as he kept walking in the same direction, seemingly uninterested in getting close to the animal.

Natalia on the other hand stopped and turned to look in the direction of the animal, taking a fighting stance.

“What are you doing, Natty? Feeling like messing with the thing?” Marcus asked as he turned to look at her actions.

“We might not find proper food later on, so I think we should get it while we still can,” she answered while pulling the weapons from her back.

Marcus laughed. “Sure, whatever.”

However, right before she was ready to strike, she stopped herself, looked at her weapons and then turned to Marcus. “You do it.”

“Huh?! And why would I bother with such a thing? You’re the one that wants to hunt it.” Marcus said somewhat taken aback, then laughing out. “Don’t tell me that you got cold feet about killing the cute little critter.”

Natalia shook her head. “No, it’s just that my weapons would cause too much damage to it, so I think your daggers are better suited to ensure we can still do something with it later.”

Marcus laughed out even harder. “No! I ain’t going to bother with that. You deal with it.”

Natalia kept looking in Marcus’ direction, and while he couldn’t see her face, he knew that she was glaring at him. After a few seconds of staring, she gave up as she also knew that there was no way to convince him to do something that he didn’t need or wanted to do, so she looked around the forest. She bent down and picked up a slightly large rock, then she smashed part of it with her other hand, turning it into a bit of a sharp rock.

She then looked back at the oblivious stag. “This will have to do then.”

Right before she moved Marcus said, “You’ll also have to carry it by the way.”

She threw the rock, while Marcus shook his head, chuckling to himself.