Alice, Blake, and Mary swooped down from above, landing in front of Ashton who was nonchalantly chewing on a piece of garlic bread.
"...wow," Alice said in an unimpressed tone. "Are we perhaps disturbing your meal, Sir?"
"Nah..." Ashton chuckled. "Do your thing, I'm just a passerby, don't mind me."
"Geez, dude. Seriously? It hasn't even been a day since you officially integrated back into society and you already encountered something troublesome?" Blake frowned as he peered in the general direction where the cult's base was.
"Can't help it...I've become quite sensitive to corruption. It's everything that I could see not too long ago so, of course, I will notice it. Especially in this place? It sticks out like a sore thumb." Ashton explained while still eating.
"So, how are we going to do this?" Mary asked Alice and Blake.
"Let me handle it." Alice suggested, "It's my responsibility anyway. You two can just secure the perimeter, make sure that the civilians wouldn't be harmed just in case shit hits the fan."
"Roger that," Blake replied as he casually took out a large shield. Mary nodded as well and armed herself.
"As for you..." Alice looked at Ashton, "Just stay put I guess."
"Okay." Ashton readily agreed.
'They're strong enough to handle this little cult. They should be fine without my help. But I'll keep an eye out, just in case.' Ashton mused to himself.
Once they made their initial plans, the three of them scattered and moved toward their position, leaving Ashton where he was, watching in an interested fashion.
Alice turned into a streak of sharp light that instantly appeared within the cult's base. Blake threw a large Tower Shield high up in the air which formed an invisible dome to cover everything within a mile's radius. Mary jumped and instantly reached the top of the tallest building in this area, she stayed there to observe the surroundings, watching like a hawk on a hunt.
'Hoh...' Ashton was mildly impressed. He could tell that these three were used to moving like this. Clearly it wasn't the first time that they're been working together.
Calmly resting his back on his chair, he opened his palms and caught an earpiece thrown to him by Mary who was on top of a building.
Linking the earpiece to his smartwatch and accepting the connection request sent by Mary, he placed the earpiece on and heard her voice.
"I wish I can be as easygoing as you are."
"Yeah, I'm jealous too." Blake's voice interjected.
"Now, now..." Ashton replied, "You were the ones who told me that I should be resting, and I'm doing just that. Plus, I'm not part of your team, I'm just a bystander, a concerned citizen if you will. Good luck, Heroes."
Ashton laughed when he heard an exasperated sigh from Alice on the other side. He shrugged and continued watching while enjoying his meal.
The crowd was mostly unaware of the current operation taking place within their immediate vicinity. Alice seems to have done that on purpose.
'Maybe she doesn't want to stress out people when there's no need to.' Ashton guessed, 'Well, it isn't a bad idea but she's also risking their safety. She should at least have asked Blake to clear out the area before they started this operation. At least, in that way, should there be any casualties, it'd be minimized.'
'...well, if she's skilled enough to clear the entire cult stealthily all by herself, then there shouldn't be any risks of casualties at all.'
He watched as Alice moved like a venomous python inside the apartment complex. She's like a ghost that flickers in and out of existence. She was moving very fast. Ashton could see how she was referring to the video he made earlier.
Unlike Ashton though, some cultists could vaguely sense Alice's presence. They know that there is an intruder but they don't know where she is. Stoll, they were alarmed.
Unlike Ashton who was undetected despite making questionable things, Alice wasn't as sneaky as she thought she was. There were already a few moments when she was forced to neutralize a target as quietly and as quickly as she could.
'Stealth isn't her greatest suit...she's making a lot of noise.' Ashton judged.
"Alice, stop pretending to be an assassin. Just stab 'em!" Blake commented on the comms.
"Shut up! Don't tell me what to do." Alice replied, but even though she said that it was obvious that she heeded his warnings and sped up her killing.
Ashton could hear Mary chuckling on the other line too.
'Oh?' Ashton was intrigued especially when he saw Alice's sword moves. 'As expected of a Sword Saint. Her Sword Arts is at least at the Phenomenon Stage.'
Alice turned into a streak of light, merging with her sword as she sliced through several enemies all at once, slicing space itself to shorten the distance she needed to cover.
This was a clear display of her Sword Art reaching the Phenomenon Stage. She mowed through several cultists like they were nothing...granted, it's not really much of a fight, it's more of an assassination than anything.
Alice never asked questions herself, she just jumped in and started killing. In Ashton's eyes, that is both a good thing and a bad thing.
Ashton continued watching calmly. And while Alice, Blake, and Mary constantly talked in the comms, Ashton didn't say a word. He'd only speak if someone directly referred to him. Other times, he'd just watch.
There were a lot of cultists around in disguise as renters within the Apartment Complex. Going through one room after the other was particularly tedious even though Alice is a Grandmaster Knight, it's also time-consuming as well.
Time passed by and eventually, Alice did manage to kill all the cultists within the Apartment Complex without raising any public alarms.
"Good job." Mary said over the comms.
"It's not over yet." Alice stated.
"Hm? There's still a cultist alive?" Mary asked in a confused manner.
"Yes! Uh...yeah, kind of. I'm not sure actually." Alice bit her lips in confusion.
"I feel it too. Something's still wrong here." Blake interjected.
"Well, what could it be?" Mary asked, sounding nervous.
"I don't know. I just feel like I am missing something incredibly important. But I don't know what it is." Alice sounded frustrated.
Blake didn't say a word and continued to search for whatever it is that they felt amiss.
"Well, at least you're still clean." Ashton butted in at this point. There's a clear trace of sarcasm in his tone.
Honestly, if it weren't for him speaking all of a sudden, they would've all forgotten that he was here.
"Clean? What do you mean by that?" Mary asked.
"I mean, look at her!" Ashton stated, "She's completely spotless. Not even a hint of blood can be seen in her uniform. Which is weird if you ask me since I can clearly remember her going through enemies so I thought, surely, there should be some bloodstains and some guts all over her but nope, can't see any of that shit."
"It's probably the uniform." Ashton continued, pointedly ignoring the dumbfounded faces of his friend. "I mean, your uniform does look fancy so it must have a couple of enchantments."
"...it's not the uniform," Alice whispered.
"Yeah, no shit it's not." Ashton snorted. Dropping the sarcasm in his voice. "Look closely around, woman. Where's all the blood and corpses of your victims? You went through all the trouble of killing them so where did they all go?"
"..."
Ashton rolled his eyes and once again, adopted a sarcastic tone: "Oh, no! That can't be! Surely that's not it."
"All of those blood and flesh couldn't have possibly ended up in one of the ritual altars that we have decisively selected to ignore earlier when we were doing the so-called 'planning' of this entire operation, right? There's no way! That'd be so obvious and we would be so stupid to forget such a simple thing."
"We couldn't have possibly ignored such a simple thing since clearly, we're using Spiritual Sense — a trick that has been taught since high school, constantly, so something like that shouldn't have escaped our senses!"
Ashton rolled his eyes as he audibly took a sip of his juice. Ignoring the blushing faces of both Alice and Mary due to embarrassment.
"...must you be so sarcastic about it." Blake uttered softly in the comms.
"I wouldn't be if it weren't for the fact that you guys' incompetence will cost the lives of the civilians." Ashton flat out told them, "Speaking of civilians, Blake you might wanna do something about an explosion that's about to happen in the next two minutes. Countdown starts now."
"...Shit!" Blake immediately panicked.
At this point, none of them dared to ignore Ashton's words anymore. Clearly, he's better compared to them so it would unwise to doubt him.
Alice tried her best to locate the ritual altar that Ashton was talking about but when she arrived there, it was already too late.
Ashton was correct, all the blood and flesh of the cultist she killed ended up here.
He's also correct when he said that this entire Apartment Complex is going to explode within the next two minutes.
