A warm welcome...

They had to use another transporter because of the new survivors. Robin was driving one of the two transporters. As Aiden was unable to drive the transporter, the second one was in 'Auto-follow-on' mode.

The rest of the journey went without much of a hitch. As soon as they had escaped the area of influence of the mana cloud, they had contacted the stronghold, using the emergency communicator of the transporter, and informed the stronghold.

Yet they didn't stop, continuing towards the stronghold no. #09. Soon enough, they could see the outline of the stronghold.

It was only when they were just a few kilometers away from the stronghold that the soldiers stopped them.

Because of the loss of the dog tags, they had to go through multiple cross-checking at the gunpoint, even a cross-referencing of their DNA.

It was only after they had confirmed their identity multiple times, that the pair of transporters started to move again, under the escort of the military vehicles.

"Wow! You guys have literally been living in the wilderness for more than a month. How the hell did you guys pull that off?" They took Aiden and Robin in one of the escort vehicles, while other soldiers drove the transporters.

The soldiers were extremely curious about it. After all, they had heard about the presence of those abominable beasts outside the stronghold. Yet the two men in front of them have survived all of it.

"Isn't that research post close to the Mining stronghold #04? If you had gone there rather than coming here, you would have been dead by now. It had already fallen to the monsters."

'I had expected this much.' With such an expression on the face of Robin as he looked at Aiden. Aiden, however, stayed silent through the whole thing without saying a single word.

Robin smiled at them, "Well, we figured that if we go there, then they might send us to the mine if we don't have any dog tags."

They joined in the laughter, as one of the soldiers added, "No matter what, your luck was really something."

"Yes." Another soldier nodded, adding, "The day they attacked you, more than 2000 soldiers died, you two are the only survivors. In times like this, no matter who is going outside, those monsters are slaughtering indiscriminately."

"Yeah, they killed two battalions in the last week without leaving one alive, and even the mages with them couldn't do anything about it. It was a complete massacre."

"Yet you two leisurely walked around, driving two transporters full of food for the monsters." Their eyes were shining, as they were excited to hear about their heroic tale.

'Sorry, I can't tell you about it.' Robin apologized in his heart, but didn't miss the key point, "Two battalions? How?"

One of them shook his head as he looked at Robin, "Naturally, you don't know. In the last months alone we had lost almost 37 research posts and mining strongholds no. 04 to the monsters."

"They decided to make a battalion mixed with mage warriors, mages, and special soldiers to take over the lost outposts."

"They put lieutenant or captains as the commanders. Everybody thought they were trying to shift the blame, but they succeeded. They won back 24 of the outposts and research posts."

"And that wasn't even the most shocking part of it. They sent soldiers who had returned to Earth on a secret mission as commanders or vice-commanders. Every battalion had at least one of them."

"Can you imagine that they had been sending soldiers back to Earth before the last mission?" This was something that even Robin had never heard before. He turned to Aiden, expecting some kind of response from him.

Alas! Aiden was sitting there with a relaxed expression, as though all this stuff didn't concern him at all. It was then someone else added, "They also sent back the last troop that was going back to Will, here to help."

[We are here. Get out.]

The driver informed them that they had reached their destination. And their gossip came to an abrupt stop. They moved down the car and went through routine searches. It went without a hitch.

Unlike others, a soldier led Robin and Aiden to another room that was attached to the inspection hall behind the high wall of the stronghold. Inside the bright room, there were a couple of people waiting for them.

"Aiden Law?" hearing someone calling his name, Aiden looked to find a uniformed soldier with a couple of stars on his shoulder. "Hello, I am Bonto. And this is the assistant of General Blackmoor. We like to have a chat with you."

Whether it was Bronto or Blackmoor, Aiden wasn't aware of them, but he could guess the reason. Aiden just nodded without saluting him.

'Just because you've been on a mission on Earth, do you think you need not to follow the rule?' Bonto frowned in his heart. Without sparing any more glances, he turned to Robin.

"You must be Robin Hunt, right?"

"Yes, sir." Robin greeted with a military salute. Looking at him, a smile appeared on Bonto's lips, 'That is how you do it. A specially trained soldier.' He returned the salute and said, "Good, good. Come and take your seat."

"Yes, sir." Robin's loud voice made Bonto's smile brighter as he sat down.

Inside the room, the assistant was the first one to talk. "Before we start, we want you to confirm once more the location of the deserted research posts."

The top of the entire table was a holo-map. It displayed a map of the rough terrain of the lands around the research post.

There was no information on the posts, but as soon as Robin touched the area close to it, the names of the posts appeared on the map.

"Hmmm. Both of them were the first few outposts that the monsters had attacked." The assistant nodded, "Can you explain in detail what you observed there?"

Robin looked at Aiden for a moment before he explained all the things. How they escaped the encirclement, then wander around with rough estimation. He added a brief skirmish with a few ice wolves to make it more realistic.

However, he entirely omitted the portion concerning the battle of Aiden and the monsters in the second research post, as well as the arguments with the researchers. They listened to him in great detail and then pushed forward a couple of files in front of them.

"Everything you have seen is the classified pieces of information of the federation's research unit. We would like you to sign a confidentiality document and never talk to anyone about it." The assistant said in a calm voice.

"So you are saying that the half-human and half-ice monsters are part of the Federation's secret research?" For a brief moment, Robin's choice of words made him reveal his genuine expression.

"I can't say a lot about it, but the federation is trying to find a cure for mana poisoning."

"But there were those who were perfectly fine. Were they trying to let them have the mana poisoning so they can cure them?" It wasn't just the general, Robin's choice of words even shocked the assistant.

Aiden, too, looked at Robin and smiled. Then he picked up the file and signed it. The assistant was still trying to explain, "They might have some underlying symptoms. What they call it? Yes, asymptomatic cases, maybe."

"Okay, I understand." Robin noticed that Aiden had already signed it so he had no intention of playing with them any longer.

"Thank you for your cooperation." The next thing the assistant pushed forwards was a couple of dog tags. "As we have heard that you have your ID. please use this."

"I think there is something wrong with my serial no." Robin checked his dog tag.

The general smiled and shook his head, "There is nothing wrong. Thanks to your effort, we can get valuable information. So the general had decided to make you a commissioned officer."

'So, are they bribing us now?' Robin raised the dog tag in front of his eyes. Looking at it, Robin couldn't stop his lips from curving up.

'It's not like there is nothing these guys can do. Making a commissioned officer without passing the Military officer's college...' Robin took a deep breath.

However, he couldn't stop himself from throwing a jab, "Isn't it a bit too much? Won't there be gossips about it?"

"If they can survive in the wilderness for more than a month, we can give them as many…"

"Then what about him?" Robin pointed at Aiden, "It may have been hard without him… No, it would have been impossible without him."

The hesitation and dissatisfaction on their face and the knock on the door came at the same time. Without giving those inside the door a chance to respond, the door flung open.

"Hello. I am Gilgar Rodd. 2nd lieutenant. Third platoon. Mage squad." The man flashed his badge in confidence and handed over a tab to the assistant of the general, "We have an arrest warrant for Aiden Law."

Turning to Aiden, he added, "We have instructions from the top to escort Aiden Law."

The assistant inspected the document, then transferred it to the general.

"And where are you transferring him?" The general asked with a frown on his face. When he checked the seal on the document, he wished he hadn't.

"We can't disclose that." Gilgar didn't spend a single extra moment and escorted Aiden out of the room. Neither the assistant nor the general could say anything to them.

"He must have too many wellwishers." All Robin could do was shake his head when he saw that Aiden followed them out with no resistance.