"Laura, wake up. It's 6 o'clock; we gotta get ready."
"Is she still sleeping, Louis?"
"Yeah, I think she is having a nightmare or something; she is sweating like crazy!"
"Give me a second, I'll fix this." Fuyuko's soul string reaches for her head and drags something out, which she then pulls to her mouth and munches on.
"Mogu, mogu, bleh." She then spits it out on the floor.
"Ew… you are disgusting, Fuyuko! If you are going to do that, at least swallow it!" Sofie scowls.
"Shut up! Anyhow, try again now."
Laura seems way calmer now; it seems like whatever Fuyuko did worked.
"Laura!, wake up, let's go!" Louis tries once again.
"Hmm, take this!" Laura kicks Louis back."
"Ouch! Hey, Jeanne, can you give it a shot?"
"Haha, about time!" Jeanne goes ahead and grabs Laura by the armpits and raises her up.
"?" That seems to have done the trick; she seems awake now.
"Wake up!" With that, Jeanne starts shaking Laura like a rag doll.
"BRBRBRBR, LET ME GOOOO!"
"Good job, Jeanne! Now, let her down; we need to start working!" Fuyuko compliments while clapping her hands.
"Ok!" Jeanne then lets go of Laura, and she falls down on all fours like a cat.
"Very good! Now, line up, everyone!" Fuyuko signals, and the team forms a line looking towards her.
"As standard, introductions! Instructor first!"
"Instructor Sofie Farstar, innate technique ranged specialist; main technique: light wave control."
"Captain Jeanne Hood, innate technique melee specialist; main technique: mystical beast polymorph."
"Laura Yamashita, sorcery ranged specialist; main technique: spell break."
"Louis Coval, aura melee specialist; main technique: aura enhancement."
"Your mission today will be investigating the traffickers and neutralizing wild mana beasts you find. We got info yesterday from one of the neutralized targets that Sofie brought to the guard station; they have two small buildings hidden nearby, but she did not know the location. If we find one, we can consider the mission successful!"
"We will now split into two teams for bigger area coverage. The first team, Sofie and Miss Yamashita, and the second team, Jeanne and Louis-are we clear?"
"Um, Ma'am!" Louis raises his hand.
"What?"
"What about you?"
"I'll watch this spot and search around with spells. This mission is for team 13, not for school staff like me… Well, not like I won't help if something happens, though, so go knowing someone has your back."
"Understood."
"And now… Jeanne! As team captain, where should each team go?" Fuyuko asks.
"Hm… From where I scouted, I would say I and Louis should go check eastward, and Ms. Instructor and Laura should go north!"
"Why do you say so?"
"I think the biggest chance of finding sorcerers should be north, as Sofie is stronger in combat; her going with Laura, who has many utility spells, should be a piece of cake, and if not, they should be able to retreat without much trouble."
"Well thought! What do you think about that instructor?"
"Okie with me! Also, best I go with Laura anyways; they seem to have someone who can cast large area silence spells. If Laura goes without someone who can dispel it, it seems she won't be of much help."
"Hey! Don't underestimate sorcerers! I can cast silent spells! …It is just harder…"
"Hahaha, sure, sure! Anyhow, prepare some recon spells; we should be going on our way!"
"I can do that!"
And so those two leave.
"Ok! Our turn now, Louis! Put some aura in those feet and follow me!" Jeanne turns into a huge wolf this time and goes ahead.
"Hey! Wait for me! Bye, teacher!"
"See ya!" Fuyuko waves away as well.
Jeanne and Louis rush away; Louis has less trouble keeping up than he expected.
[Maybe she is going easy? And… with that size, maybe she could just carry me on her back…? that might be fun…]
After walking for a bit, they get close to a clearing, with signs of battle left and right on the trees nearby. Jeanne turns way closer to a human but still has dog ears, and her nose is black, looking a bit funny. Louis can also see a tail poking out, resembling a black corgi's tail.
"Well, a bit further ahead is where I fought yesterday. Let's take a look around for tracks of the enemy."
"Yes! Understood."
As Louis goes around, he sees some claw marks on trees, a few footsteps here and there, but nothing that pulls too much attention.
After a few minutes of looking, he decides it might be more helpful to try and check on Jeanne; maybe he can get a tip or two.
"Hey Jeanne, I…!!!"
Looking Just a bit over to the other side, he sees Jeane and, along with her, about 6 people lying down, bloodied.
As he gets closer, he sees some are mauled, others cut at the neck, and others with broken limbs.
They all apparently had one thing they all had in common after all.
[All dead…]
And after the initial shock passed, there was one thing that scared Louis the most.
[I thought I… I think it is not the first time I've seen something like that, maybe it's not even the worst thing I ve seen before…]
"Louis, are you ok?" In the meantime he was distracted; Jeanne had already come up to him, seemingly worried.
"Ah, sorry, I just…"
"Don't worry, buddy, I get it!" Jeanne puts her hand on his shoulder.
"?"
"I should have thought about this as a captain. As you lost your memories, you might have gotten a bit squeamish at this kind of work. Fuyuko thought about this as well, so she picked a mana beast mission first."
"Ah… Yes… I guess…" Louis wonders if getting used to this kind of thing is good, but he figures it might be better to not think about it too much.
"Don't worry! It's normal for boys to not like this kind of stuff; over time you can get accustomed to it again, and then we can get on to working on the coolest things! You will see!"
"Huh?" Something in what Jeanne said bothered him, but he is not sure of what.
"Anyhow, think you can help me check for their stuff? I tried to check for smells, but these guys seem to have been living in some cars close by; we can check that later if we don't find anything."
"Sure." Louis responds with an awkward smile.
[This is kind of disgusting…]
Checking on the corpses, as it seems they died yesterday, besides the wounds, they don't seem like what he would expect from the horror movies in his last life. After looking for a bit, he saw that Jeanne had already separated their wallets and weapons on her side.
The only curious thing he found was that one of the traffickers seemed to have some sort of puppet lines in some parts of her body; it seemed like under the skin and a bit of flesh, she was made of wood or something.
[Another puppet person? Maybe they are normal around here?]
"Jeanne, found anything yet?"
"Not yet; from their wallets they just had the usual stuff… Ah!"
"What?"
"By the way, Louis, don't try to take the money in their wallets; the guards will check the corpses. If they are empty, we can get in trouble."
"…"
"…?"
"If they are empty?" To that response, Jeanne just winks.
[So, Just leave some for the guards, huh… I don't even know if that is right or wrong around here…]
"Well, I won't take anything anyway."
"Eh..? Really!? Great! I'll treat you to something later then!"
After a few more moments making sure there isn't anything of note, they depart to check the cars.
"Hey, Jeanne, so you just left the place like this yesterday? What if some of their friends came to check out?"
"Oh, don't worry, the guards closed out the perimeter already; there is a spell around this area that checks if people come in or leave."
[So, some sort of magic police tape…? Something like a camera? But I can't ask it like that…]
"So they can just watch the place from far away?"
"What, you mean like they should get an entire FS crew every time some mess happens? Ha, wouldn't that be useful."
"FS?"
"? Far-sight, what? Forgot about that too?"
"I guess."
"YOOOO, Hear me out! You and me, we gotta watch some stuff again! Listen! There is an act you really liked! You can watch it again as if it were the first time!"
"That doesn't sound bad…?"
"Hehehe…" Jeanne is grinning happily.
Walking on the way to the cars, Louis gets a bit worried he hasn't seen a living mana beast yet.
[Maybe if any were close by, Jeanne would have said something already.]
Once they arrive by the cars, he sees the windows are broken in; the other thing that comes to his mind is that they are very square-like: one van and two old-looking, blocky cars.
"So, Jeanne, did you break those windows?"
"Yeah, I thought I should at least give it a quick look before going back to check on you guys. Right after I broke the windows, that crazy lady snatched me."
We went to check out the cars; Jeanne went for the van, and I went to the closest car.
After a little while rummaging, Louis finds a medium-sized book with the written laws of the sect of the thousand beasts.
"Hey, hey, Jeanne?"
Her head pokes out of the window. "Watcha need?"
"Know anything about this book?"
"Huh?" After squinting her eyes for a bit, she seems to be startled? "I-I uh, dang!"
"What's wrong?"
"There might be a relative or two of mine involved in this mess! Hopefully it isn't anyone I care about, I guess…"
"…Uh…"