- 6.8km above the sea level, Zaniya Mountain range –

- inside the transport aircraft -

- 0538hrs, local time -

“2 minutes till the [world gate]” announced the pilot, the dropship is zooming through the clear skies that await the sunrise, some clouds were present, scattered here and there. As it is flying quite high, some people on the ground at the villages the dropship passed by noticed a trail of condensation and a distant roaring from the skies from it. some disregard it and continued doing their activities while some slightly feel unpleasant as it reminded them about the [Black Dragon] that wreck havoc a hundred years ago from their ancestor’s stories. At the cargo bay, each member of the team is doing their own thing. 60k is fiddling with his phone, Point is sleeping with his arms crossed, while Jaeger and Coyote are experimenting with the attachments for their weapons that are included with their cargo.

“right, I think we could use these later on, but for now, let's just stick with LPVOs,” Jaeger said while reattaching his rifle optic. The word LPVO (stands for Low Powered Variable Optic) made Coyote grimace at him and the optic he screwed back to his rifle.

“Really? You like that s**t?”

“Hey! LPVOs are cool! Though, E*techs are cool and all but this is great for most situations”

“you do realize that we’ll eventually end up in a CQB environment right?”

“you do have a fair point” Tightening the screw of the rifle scope to its mounting with the Allen key on the last few spins, he sat back on the seat he was strapped on earlier. “though, I think we might end up with a minor skirmish on the woods instead”

“How are you sure about that?”

“I don’t know, it’s just my instincts”

Suddenly, the Dropship shook violently, slightly throwing off Coyote’s balance. “damnit! Fly properly ya dimwit!!” he cursed, looking at the currently closed cockpit compartment. Clicking his tongue, Coyote returned to his seat beside 60k, loading his new LMG or Light Machine Gun.

“WE CAN HEAR YOU JACKASS! Turn off comms first before you act like an ass! That aside, 1 minute till we reach the wall of energy” Coyote was slightly surprised, to think the pilot could hear him cursing and shouting back at him through the intercom. Though he wasn’t embarrassed or anything, he just grumbled. “you really have anger issues huh?” Jaeger added, slightly chuckling with an amused look. The man didn’t reply and buckled up instead, preparing for the Dropship to enter the barrier’s inner zone.

The aircraft is now just 20km away from the world barrier, it’s also on a slight incline angle, as it’s slowly gaining altitude since they don’t want to get noticed by the people who might be living in the mountains. As it finally reached the edge, the rattling inside it started to slightly go violent but not anything serious. Though, what’s concerning is that Christina suddenly contacted them via their radio communication through the FOBs Command Centre.

{Hello? Can you hear me Achiles??}

“This is Alpha 1-1, loud and clear, and the whole team too, what is it command?”

{huh, you’re talking way too militaristic, ah! now’s not the time for that! Listen up! I’ve already told you that the [World Gate] could also cause space-time to be unaligned with the current one right? you might end up in the past if you’re not lucky}

“… WHY YOU DIDN’T SAY THAT EARLIER!?!!!”

{I’m sorry! I just woke up and remembered about it! Time there still moves relatively the same and not at the same time, I don’t know how it works but it works like that from what I have seen from people coming back from inside the spell’s influence}

Jaeger quickly headed towards the cockpit compartment, slamming open the blast door, surprising both of the crew. “What’s the sitrep!?” he shouted. Both Pilot and Co-Pilot looked at each other confused then back at Jaeger. “everything’s fine, what’s the matter?”

“didn’t you hear what command said?”

“yeah, we did, but nothing is wrong with the avionics, even the compass is still working normally” Jaeger then look closely at the avionics and was rather surprised that something is off. “sh*t! the clock is going haywire, she’s right about this”

“what do we do now? Returning while being in the barrier’s energy field is kinda…”

“Just pray that we won’t end up in a time travel bullsh*t…”

Luckily they didn’t, the clock is still the same but the date isn’t since they didn’t align it to the local calendar so it’s still the same with Earth’s calendar format. The three sighed in relief, having themselves stuck in the past as it isn’t a great idea to change anything in the timeline. Jaeger then returned to his seat, not saying anything.

The flight is now rather silent as half of the team is asleep. Though, Jaeger ran his thought around as he was bothered by the reasoning behind this conflict, and why he is willing to serve a nation for the first time in his military and mercenary days as he usually declines any mission that is paid by any nation back on Earth. Hours then passed, the pilot announced that they have found the first mission location and is now trying to locate a landing location. The aircraft then turn south to find an open location between the woodlands near the village the target is, but they can’t find any so the gunner decides to…

“how about we burn a section inside the forest with napalm?” he said to the Pilot, who was looking at him with a surprised look. “burn the forest with what now??”

“Napalm, like… you know…?”

“do we even have napalm bombs with us in the first place!?”

The Co-pilot pressed the touchscreen MFD, switching the radar view to their weapon view and pointed to the internal bay hardpoint indicator that says [Mark-127], the upgraded laser-guided version of the Mark-77 napalm bomb, with a look that says [I told you we bring one]. The Pilot sighed, “You secretly asked for the ground crew to load those behind me didn’t you?”

“Don’t be mad bro, Napalms are quite useful you know? Especially burning hou-“

“Okay stop, don’t continue those words. Just tell me where to drop it”

“Damn, no fun” Even though the Co-Pilot is quite down because of it, he complied and gave the weapon controls to the Pilot. the Dropship then headed where the trees are thicker, while so, its internal weapon bays located on its wings opened, revealing the missiles and bombs that it carries. At a certain moment, the Dropship dropped one bomb from the left weapon bays. The bomb glided down gently, opening up its folded wings as it was guided by the laser designator from the Dropship’s Electro-Optical Targeting System which has a stabilizer since it's also part of the dual 35mm auto-turret of the dropship underneath the hull of the aircraft as it needed to precisely guide the bomb onto the point where the pilots wanted it to drop to while also maintaining visual on the target it was sent to.

As the bomb fiercely landed at the location, a massive ball of flame fumed up to the skies and the trees around started burning rapidly and the otherworldly creatures ran away from the location of the fire. It took 15 minutes for everything to settle down, thankfully, nobody is around and the dropship is using its Optical Camouflage system. The Dropship then gracefully landed on the burnt area of the forest, blowing the rest of the burnt trees down as it already turned into charcoal. The engine resided, along with the cargo bay opening. Jaeger and Coyote, which is currently fully armed, checked the surroundings to make sure that no one witnessed the Dropship landing on the burned forest, stepping outsides while using their thermal mode on their visor. Scanning the perimeter.

“Northwest side’s clear” confirmed Jaeger, switching off the thermal mode and pushing the visor up away from its deployed position. “same here for the other side” added Coyote, who’s doing the same thing, lowering his weapon down. They then walk back inside the dropship. Coyote relaxed for a moment back in his seat beside the sleeping 60k until Jaeger who just finished checking his MFD and his wrist watch glanced at him.

“Alright, since we’re the only ones that are ready right now, I’ll inform the pilots that we’ll go to the POI first. Ah, just bring a sidearm and the photon sword or whatever the f**k it was called as our weapon. Be right back” he said, he then headed towards the cockpit compartment, leaving the grumbling Coyote who thought he could get some sleep.

Half an hour later, they’re now walking through the forest. It’s rather a quiet walk as the two are wary of their surroundings, both of them had been attacked by various creatures for the last few minutes, from jet-black wolves that have horns, bears with razor-sharp claws with a size twice the size of the average bear, and occasionally, a three-eyed deer with massive antlers that shoots magic, all of which they deal with efficiently since their swords could cut through 40cm of reinforced titanium alloy. Most of the creatures are either dead or retreated after receiving a massive blow done by both Jaeger and Coyote. The latter aforementioned man groaned as the village is nowhere to be seen.

“damnit! Where’s that village for f*ck sake!?” he cried, moving away another branch that nearly hit his face. “It’s been 30 minutes since we walked in this damned forest! I’m getting tired of being attacked by these monsters!”

Jaeger ignored his rambling, still in his elevated situational awareness mode. His subordinate stopped his rambling, though he changed his topic, “Hey, I just realize that your sword is different, why is mine a Lightsa-“

“mate, if you continue those words, my sister would be pissed and will go on a rant for an hour in your face about how it works differently from a lightsaber. Just call it a photon sword or something when you meet her.”

“damn, I nearly stepped on a landmine did I?”

“A massive one, yeah”

The two continued their journey, cutting the branches that are in their way with their survival knife since there was no need to waste the power needed for their futuristic swords. ten minutes later, they finally could see a rather wide empty grass field up ahead of them, indicating that they were nearly out of the forest. As they were finally out, the sun that beamed through the barrier on the atmosphere shone brightly more than when they were inside the forest, making Coyote put his hand up to block the sudden change of brightness.

“oh, a road! let's walk on it now, it may lead us to the village.” Ordered Jeager as he saw a nearby dirt road, which seemingly isn’t exhausted at all. The exoskeleton did minimize their exhaustion but Coyote is rather fatigued from all of the fighting with the creatures. Even so, he complied and walked slightly behind his leader. “Alpha flight, this is Alpha 1-1, we’ve passed what is supposed to be waypoint Echo, Proceeding to walk along the dirt highway.” He said as he press the button of the hands-free that’s part of the radio, connected to his ear protection.

Static was heard for several seconds until the Pilot of their Dropship replied, “Copy, we’ll start broadcasting the helmet cam of yours back to the [Nest], I hope there’s no delay on our connection whatsoever”

Later on, the two didn’t take long enough to finally see the village entrance, they also could see two carriages being held on the gates by the guards. Coyote is rather concerned if they entered through the front gate that they would be looking out of the ordinary and the guards would be suspicious of them, he told Jaeger that they should just sneak at night instead. But unlike him, his leader reassured him to just trust him. They proceeded to head to the entrance, waiting in line alongside the last carriage. Soon enough, it was their turn and the guards halted them before entering, just like any inspection procedure.

“Are you travellers? I’ve never seen you before, and your equipment is an interesting one” one of the guards asked them. Jaeger, who now switched into his disguise mode, put up a cheerful attitude that was quite fake, Even Coyote could see it. “No, no, no, we’re newbie adventurers you see? This armor was passed down by our family so no wonder it’s quite weird since it’s rarely used. Also, I heard this village has an interesting weapon shop so we visit here! we wanted to maintain our swords and buy some spares for our next dive into the dungeon.”

“Oh I see, Mr Craghelm sure is a competent weapon smith, after all, people know that he created the equipment for the famous Wyvern knights. Anyway, if you’re looking for him, his shop is beside the guild.”

“Ah, thank you then,” right before Jaeger took a step forward, the other guard halted him. “you forgot to show us your ID card” he slightly squinted his eyes at Jaeger, who just chuckled nervously and scratched his head below his helmet.

“ah, y-you see… we lost our ID card in the forest, because of the Wolves with horns that nearly got us when we were walking down the road here” the Guard’s eyes grew wide, and he gripped Jaeger’s shoulder slightly hard though he could feel the guard is slightly trembling in fear.

“You… you saw a wolf with horns…?”

“y-yeah??”

“what colour was the wolf?”

“it’s uhh… black as I remember, I don’t know, we ran away as we saw it running chasing something.” The stern guard then look at his comrade, who nodded back at him. “alright, you two get inside quick, that’s a [Shadow Wolf], a C-class monster, good thing you ran away instead, both of you could’ve died if you decided to fight it. It was a smart move.”

“w-what about the ID card?”

“we can deal with that later! Right now, we need adventurers that could fight it! a pack of it could obliterate this village in 5 nights!” he cried while hurriedly shoving the two inside the village’s entrance. Coyote, who’s currently dumbfounded, could only stare at his leader at how easily he deceived the guards while he’s currently smug for a small moment. “you know, you could’ve won an Oscar for your acting”

“oh shut up, you’ll get to used to it when you got infiltration missions like this”

“but still… about that weapon part…”

“hmm? It was a random thought I came up with, I didn’t think it worked either”

“Seriously? It’s a coincidence??” he just sighed, not wanting to continue how reckless it was “Anyway, let’s go, I’m starting to get weird stares from people here”

It’s true, people around started to murmur as they saw them, their armour is out of place, and even though the two didn’t bring any magazine pouches, their exoskeleton and everything stands out so much from the other adventurers that were passing by. The two then quickly ask the nearby woman about the nearest inn, to which she replied slightly hesitant while pointing in the direction for them. They then headed to the inn, which Jaeger paid with the currency from the planet that was given by the Kingdom. He was informed by the Kingdom representative that 10 copper coins are enough to rent a room for 5 days or so, it included consumption for breakfast and dinner. The two take a slight rest, setting up their room to their desire.

Later at noon, luckily for them, the window of their room has a view of the POI that’s part of their mission, one of the branch churches of the [Church of Light]. Coyote monitors the situation from their room while Jaeger walks around to see anything suspicious among the crowd and the church itself. They kept communicating with the guys back in the Dropship, giving them information about the village and whatnot while they sent their mission video log back to base. The team agreed after 3 days of gathering information about the village they would conduct a thorough investigation on the church itself. Time is ticking and the tension is rising as it gets real tense for the ones who watch their video log of the mission back at the FOB, including some of the Kingdom of Apolyon generals.

The four decided to rendezvous at an abandoned shack not far from the Church before the infiltration starts. And with that, 60k and Point prepped up some of their equipment and brought Jaeger and Coyote’s weapons along with them.