Chapter 115: Top 30

The Ashcroft Family stood in front of the mission board while the final preparations for Black Veil were completed.

Their current team ranking was #31.

One position.

That was all that separated them from the Top 30.

The mission displayed above them was far more demanding than the missions they had completed over the last several days.

[Objectives: Investigate Black Veil, locate the missing expedition team, recover the relic-class Mana source, preserve the relic, rescue surviving personnel, eliminate hostile forces, recover evidence regarding the incident, and return safely.]

The known threats read like a list someone had compiled specifically to ruin everyone’s morning: Abnormality activity, unknown hostile Awakeners, spatial instability, unconfirmed Bloodkin presence, and a relic-class Mana source sitting at the center of it all.

Everyone understood exactly why this listing had been reserved for Top 30 teams.

They were #31, which meant the Association was essentially telling them they were almost ready. Almost.

A group near the far side of the preparation area caught Reinhard’s eye, equipment worn from use rather than neglect, every member moving with the quiet efficiency of people who’d been doing this for years.

Their insignia read Ironcrest Expedition Team, #18.

Their captain looked the group over before walking up. "You’ve climbed quickly."

"We’ve had good missions," Yuna said.

"That’s not what I mean." His eyes moved across Emily, Maki, Lily, then the Nephilim. "You’re strong." A pause. "But strength isn’t enough."

Nobody took offense. They’d heard some version of this lesson several times already, and coming from a #18 captain with that many years behind him, it carried more weight than usual. "Black Veil punishes teams that mistake power for preparation," he continued.

"How many times have you run it?" Mara asked.

"Twice."

"And?"

His expression went flat. "We lost three people the first time."

The whole group went quiet, except for Reinhard, who was still reading the mission details like he’d missed the memo on solemnity. He turned back to his team. "You heard him."

Lily straightened instantly.

"Don’t embarrass me," he said.

"Why would we be the ones embarrassing you?" Maki asked.

"Because I’m your leader."

Rhea laughed. He pointed at Lily. "Especially you."

"I’ve improved!"

"You have." He pointed at Maki next. "Maki too."

"Here we go," Maki sighed.

"And Emily."

"You’re enjoying this too much," Emily said, smiling anyway.

"I have a very talented team."

Rika leaned toward Emily. "He’s going to keep doing this, isn’t he?"

"Yes."

"I don’t mind."

"Why are you two like this?" Maki asked, and the tension around the group eased all at once, even the Ironcrest captain’s mouth twitching before he turned toward the gate. "Good luck," he said, and meant it.

Black Veil looked nothing like any expedition zone they’d worked before. A dark Mana haze hung over the sky like a storm that never quite arrived. The broken ruins floated several meters above the ground.

And stretches of ancient road vanished into distortions before surfacing somewhere entirely different. Even sound misbehaved, footsteps occasionally drifting in from behind when nobody stood there, Mana signatures overlapping until ordinary Mana Sense stopped being trustworthy.

Maki studied the four visible routes ahead without spiraling into every possible outcome this time. She watched how the Mana itself moved instead. "We have four visible routes. Only two are actually stable."

"How do you know?" Seraphine asked.

She pointed left. "The Mana isn’t moving with the terrain."

Seraphine studied it, then smiled. "Good."

"I made one decision," Maki said, pleased with herself.

"Excellent," Reinhard called from behind them.

She closed her eyes. "Don’t start."

They pressed forward and quickly found the first trace of the missing expedition, broken weapons scattered across the ground with no bodies anywhere near them.

Maki crouched beside one. "The damage is wrong. These were broken from different directions, but the impact points don’t match the terrain."

"Multiple attackers?" Seraphine asked.

"No. One attacker." Maki looked toward the distorted ruins. "It was moving through space."

The Ironcrest captain stared at her. "How long have you been doing expedition work?"

"Four missions."

"...Four?"

She nodded. His eyes slid slowly toward Reinhard.

"She’s good," Reinhard said, beaming like a proud sponsor.

"Please don’t," Maki muttered.

They’d barely finished examining the scene when his expression shifted as Emperor Insight activated.

Hostile presences lighting up against the landscape.

"There’s something above us," he said.

Everyone looked up but saw nothing. Three of them opened there mouth to speak before area shocked. Then the broken structure overhead shifted, and an Abnormality dropped straight at them.

Both teams reacted instantly. Reinhard stayed perfectly calm.

"What did you just use?" the captain asked.

"Just looking."

The captain clearly didn’t buy that for a second. The Abnormality vanished into a spatial distortion before anyone could chase it, and Reinhard raised a hand.

A single line cut through the distorted space, the structure itself splitting open under Space Tear, and the creature’s escape route collapsed, shoving it back into normal space.

"You cut the space itself," One of the men said.

"It was easier than chasing it."

The fight that followed was short, but it proved something more interesting than Reinhard’s raw power. Everyone else had stopped waiting on him to move first.

Maki picked out the distortion that mattered instead of trying to map all of them. "Left side."

"Three seconds," Seraphine confirmed.

"Two."

They moved. An Abnormality rushed Lily, and she didn’t charge in. She waited, let its Mana core flash exposed for half a second, and her sword cut clean through it.

"Beautiful," Reinhard said immediately.

Lily smiled. "Stop encouraging her," Maki said.

"Don’t listen to her," Lily shot back.

"Lily."

"I’m improving."

Emily slid past the next attack with Spatial Interval, shifting the distance between herself and her opponent after the strike had already begun, Rika adjusting beside her without needing a word.

Yuna watched the formation flex. "Formation two."

Everyone shifted, and the Ironcrest captain watched quietly, noting that this wasn’t just raw power anymore. It actually functioned.

When the number of hostile signatures spiked, Reinhard activated Emperor’s Insight, his mind mapping the battlefield in one pass, enemy positions, Mana intensity, movement, threat levels, all of it folding into a single picture.

The captain noticed how calm he looked. "How many?"

"Twenty-seven." A beat. "Twenty-nine now," he added, as two more Abnormalities broke out from behind the ruins.

"You counted them without seeing them?"

He shrugged. "They’re loud."

Then Black Veil shuddered. A wave of distorted Mana rolled through the ruins and more Abnormalities surged out, dozens turning to hundreds in a matter of seconds.

"There’s too many!" Lily shouted.

"Formation’s breaking!" Mara called.

"Fall back!" Yuna ordered, and nobody argued.

Reinhard reached into his storage and pulled out the Gunga Gourd.

Rhea stared at it. "What is that?"

"A solution," he said, and opened it.

The air changed instantly, a powerful suction tearing out of the relic and dragging the swarm toward it, one Abnormality disappearing, then five, then ten, the whole mass collapsing into the Gourd at a speed that bordered on comedy. Twenty. Fifty. More.

Within moments, the pressure around the team simply vanished.

"What the hell is that?" the captain asked, staring.

Reinhard closed the Gourd. "Gunga."

"That doesn’t explain anything."

"It doesn’t need to," he said, looking thoroughly pleased with himself, and walked off without further comment.

Maki followed. "Where are you going?"

"To dispose of them."

He stopped beside a narrow crack in the terrain that looked, at a glance, like an ordinary ditch. Then he looked down. There was no bottom, only darkness stretching past where any light reached.

Lily leaned over the edge. "I can’t see anything."

He opened the Gourd. The Abnormalities poured out and fell, and kept falling, and nobody ever heard them hit anything.

"...How deep is that?" Rhea asked, staring into the dark.

"No idea."

"You didn’t check?"

"No."

"Then why’d you throw them down there?"

He looked at the ditch, entirely reasonable about it. "Because they were going down."

Seraphine covered her mouth, failing to hold in a laugh. Emily smiled. Rika actually laughed out loud, and the Ironcrest captain looked like a man quietly reconsidering every decision that had led him to this specific pit, on this specific day, with this specific lunatic.

They returned to the expedition route, where a hostile Awakener tried to bolt through another distortion.

Reinhard looked his way, and the space around the man twisted under Spatial Pull, yanking him backward through the air straight into Reinhard’s waiting grip.

"You’re coming with us," he said, and the man went unconscious a moment later.

"Alive?" Mara asked.

"He’s useful alive," Reinhard said, which solved one of the evidence objectives before they’d even reached the relic.

They pushed deeper into Black Veil and finally found it, the relic-class Mana source. The moment they stepped into the chamber, every sensor on the team spiked at once.

"This isn’t C++," the captain said, reading his own gear in disbelief.

"B-Rank," Mara confirmed, and the ground shook as a massive Abnormality tore out of the ruins, its body wrapped in dense Mana armor, space warping with every step it took, wounds sealing shut almost as fast as they opened.

Ironcrest attacked first and got pushed straight back. Emily and Rika struck together, but the shell absorbed the impact without flinching.

"Three seconds!" Maki called, spotting the opening.

"Take it!" Yuna ordered, and the team hit it together, holding for a few hard seconds before the creature’s Mana surged and the formation started buckling.

"Everyone retreat," Yuna said instantly.

Nobody argued.

"You aren’t going to keep fighting?" the captain asked.

"Not like this," she said, and pulled everyone back in formation, holding the line together until there was enough distance to breathe. Only then did she turn to Reinhard.

"Reinhard." He stopped. "Now."

He stepped forward as the B-Rank Abnormality charged, met it with Demon Roar, the shockwave tearing through its attack and stunning its momentum dead. He closed the gap with Space Tear, cutting off its spatial escape before it could even consider using it, and finished it in a single blow, driving the creature straight into the ground.

Silence settled over the battlefield.

The captain stared. He’d fought B-Rank threats before. He knew exactly what that fight was supposed to look like, and this had barely resembled one.

"What rank are you?"

Reinhard paused for effect. "Pending."

"...Pending?"

"Still waiting on the Association," he said, like a man checking the status of a package.

Before the captain could respond, the creature twitched again.

Something was wrong.

"There," Emily said, spotting a secondary Mana core that had survived.

Reinhard activated Fooling, warping the creature’s perception so Emily appeared meters from where she actually stood, drawing its attack toward the illusion while she moved the opposite direction entirely.

"Rika."

"Already there."

They struck together, the second core shattering, and the Abnormality finally went down for good. He lowered his hand without needing to finish it himself. He’d only had to open the door.

The mission wasn’t done yet.

There was still survivors still needed rescuing, the relic needed careful recovery, evidence needed securing, the captured Awakener needed processing.

Maki ran the routes, Yuna coordinated the formation, Mara directed the Nephilim, Emily and Rika secured the relic chamber.

Lily escorted survivors, Rhea managed the rescued personnel, and Seraphine started examining the Abnormality’s remains.

Ironcrest folded in without hesitation, the two teams working together like they’d done this for years instead of one shared afternoon.

The final report came through shortly after.

[Mission Completed.]

[Survivors Rescued.]

[Hostile Forces Neutralized.]

[Evidence Recovered.]

[High-Difficulty Performance Bonus Awarded.]

Then the ranking updated.

[Team Ranking Updated.]

[Ashcroft Family — #31 → #29.]

[Top 30 Status Achieved.]

[Fame Increased!]

[132, 456 —> 163, 234]

[Current Fame: 163, 234 / 1,000,000]

[Description: The fanbase of Emily has reached over fifty thousand people and growing steadily. But of course haters has began appearing with videos downplaying and criticizing her.]]

Nobody said anything for a few seconds. Then Lily looked at the display. "We’re Top 30."

"We’re Top 30," Rhea echoed, grinning.

Maki stared at the number before finally letting herself smile. "We actually did it."

"Good work," Reinhard said.

"That’s all?"

"No." He started clapping, loud and completely unbothered by the crowd. "Top Thirty!"

Lily laughed. Rhea cheered. Emily smiled as Rika joined in, and Seraphine laughed outright at Maki’s mortified expression while Yuna just shook her head.

Archon stood off to the side, unmoved as ever. "Acceptable."

"That’s basically a celebration from you," he said.

She said nothing, which somehow confirmed it.

The Ironcrest captain wandered over once things settled. "You have a strange team."

"They’re good people."

The captain looked at Maki. "Keep her."

"Excuse me?"

"Your analyst."

"She’s ours," Seraphine said instantly, before Maki could even process the request.

"You two are getting possessive," Maki said.

"You’re useful," Seraphine said, perfectly serious.

"That’s better."

The captain turned back to Reinhard. "And whatever you’re hiding..."

Reinhard met his gaze without blinking.

The captain’s mouth curved slightly. "Keep hiding it."

His smile didn’t change at all.

The mission report was final, the ranking sat at #29, Top 30 finally achieved. Then Reinhard glanced toward Emily and another notification appeared.

[Investment Objective Completed.]

[A-Grade Investment Successful.]

[Calculating Returns...]

Reinhard smiled as he thought.

Just what I wanted to see.