Chapter 28

"This wasn't part of the plan."

"What do you mean Shinobu? They're not getting in our way anymore! Besides once they wake up they'll forget everything that happened!"

"Yeah but we can't just leave them here."

The three men were now snoring away on the floor. Douma had put them in a deep slumber. The only concern would be finding a place for these men where nobody would suspect anything.

With the current state of the city, the flames would consume them or worse, those silverfish. Apparently the only option left was to take them along while they were still asleep and drop them off somewhere.

Douma had just the idea. He inspected the vehicle and smiled at Shinobu with a thumbs up.

"Let's drive to our next destination," The young founder said. "We'll leave them at the side of the road maybe?"

Feeling doubtful about this, Shinobu just nodded her head she couldn't think of a better solution. Perhaps if these men had just asked them nicely none of this would've happened.

"Alright then. Atashi you're not getting away that easily!"

Shinobu rolled her eyes. Hearing the name 'Atashi' left a bitter taste in her mouth. She couldn't forget all the horrible things he said. Even if he didn't mean it those words were still painful to hear.

The last of the trio were placed at the back of the vehicle. Douma shut the doors and walked over to the driver's seat. 

Taking one last look at the city, Shinobu recalled the memories she had of the place and Hasu Mountains. Eiko will be reunited with her brother again.

---

In a dimly lit area of what looked to be a headquarters located in the outskirts of the city, a group of people watched the footage on the desk full of reports and pictures of recent cases involving the extraterrestrial creatures.

"We're close to getting ourselves a live alien creature that humanity has never seen before," A man in a suit stood up from his chair and walked towards the stack of pictures on the left side of his desk while the other people in the area continued observing the surveillance carefully. 

"But it has brought consequences to our planet. Look at the number of casualties."

Arranging the pictures, the man placed them neatly on the table and examined one of them closely.

Mr Moikawa, the founder of this mysterious headquarters, smiled at the sight of everyone working effortlessly to find a way to get the marine aliens to their base. The man was determined to get a hold of them to help him with his latest ideas that involved extracting fine minerals that nobody supposedly knew about and it didn't matter what the outcome was as long as the revenue came in.

"They should've looked at the deeper picture," Taking a sip of his coffee, Mr Moikawa sat back down on his chair and picked up a few items from the drawer. "You see the alien creatures are helping us to harvest those rare lotuses. Once we're done with this they won't be of any use. They'll just be in our possession. We have used our specimens for business deals and developments a few times but not for long our dimes still count."

Everyone looked at Mr Moikawa and nodded slowly, a little nervous from what he had just said, but they didn't deny it kind of made sense. Mr Moikawa had been watching the world's movements on this ongoing issue and he was nowhere near impressed by the solutions, the only thing that helped was the sudden storm.

Which Mr Moikawa had a strange feeling about, snowstorms didn't just happen abruptly, there was more to it than what's explained to the general public, and he just had a clue to what's causing it.

In his hand was a mechanical item with wires and hardware attached to its surface. Mr Moikawa studied it closely and placed a few more on the table beside the records of the alien creatures. 

"Over here are trackers that we're going to use," There was another item on the table, a bottle containing some sort of fragrance which piqued the curiosity of everyone else in the office.

"Don't worry they've already been tested on the mice and beetles in the lab, this will work. Besides, with this fragrance, the alien rat things will see us as friends, isn't that great?" Mr Moikawa clasped his hands together and waited for a response.

"B-but what if it doesn't work we don't know how these creatures are going to respond to something like that." One of the men stuttered as he took a step back getting ready for a potential outburst.

"Are you doubting my idea? You're one to talk!" Mr Moikawa spat, squeezing through the narrow path he was not buying it.

"S-sir it's just we've never come across something l-like t-this!" The same person who was organizing the pictures on the table got out of the way before Mr Moikawa could drag him out of the spot.

Everyone scrambled to the corners in fear of what Mr Moikawa was about to do next. He was getting furious by the second, tracking the alien creatures had completely slipped from his mind.

"Whoever's not interested in this project can gladly leave the door is open." Mr Moikawa pointed at the door as everyone glanced at each other mumbling among themselves.

To his relief, nobody was going to abandon their tasks over some dispute. The clumsy-looking man adjusted his tie and sat back down on his chair, flipping through records of the alien creatures and something else that intrigued him.

"You see, there's more to this problem than what meets the eye," Flipping through the pages of the document, Mr Moikawa stopped at a particular page that caught his attention the most.

He got up and looked out the window, smiling to himself while everyone looked at the image, one of a town that was destroyed and burnt. 

"The Hasu Mountains, a place that society rarely talks about, which is understandable anything associated with it always turns out to be some sort of tale," Mr Moikawa walked towards the table and picked up the document again. "But today I'm going to show the world what really lies there, starting with the valuable resources they have to offer."

On a nearby computer screen, there were a few images of rare plants and rocks in a forest. The lotuses gave off a luminescent glow that covered the pond in a myriad of colors. Mr Moikawa certainly wanted to get his hands on these precious flowers, they're worth a fortune and are incredibly rare.

"Once we get full control over the monsters, they will be our treasure hoarders. Knowing how terrifying they are to people, no one's getting in our way that's for sure. But there is something that I'm a little worried about which might get in the way of our plan." Mr Moikawa flipped over another page that showed the city covered in frost. 

Scratching his head, Mr Moikawa stared at the picture for a while trying to decipher this strange phenomenon. The satellite image just wasn't clear enough he was starting to think someone did a terrible job at capturing the image. 

But the more he looked at it he realized this wasn't a mistake in the handling process, everything in the picture was clear except that strange incomprehensible avalanche. Was it even an avalanche how did it get there? 

Slowly he read the information at the bottom of the image, paying most attention to the timeline which was after the attack in Hayori Town located in Hasu Mountains, implying that this snowfall had something to do with the event.

"Could it be..." Taking a closer look, Mr Moikawa jumped from his seat and grabbed the painting on the wall that was done by a renowned artist after his trip to the Hasu Mountains. He was now desperate to put the pieces together thinking it could lead him somewhere.