Free Web NovelChapter 60: Chapter 59 - Conference
Point-of-View: X
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"Wait, really?"
"Yeah, that’s what I heard. A team of Category 1s led by a Category 0 found and attempted to capture an Outlier, but they were nearly all wiped out like it was nothing. There were only two survivors, the Category 0, and one of the Category 1s, but the latter lost most of both his legs, so he’s pretty much useless now," I relayed what I’d heard.
Today’s the 29th of May, about a week after the latest attempted Outlier capture mission. I only heard about it yesterday, when I accidentally overheard a couple of random Meta-Humans talking about it.
And earlier today, I brought up what I’d heard to Trevor, who confirmed it but didn’t really give me any more details when I asked. Jerk.
Anyway, it was currently a little past midday, and I’d decided to pay Adelmira a visit, as I typically do at least once a day, and discussed the rumor I’d heard with her. She’s the only one of the three Outliers that Eden captured that I actually get along with...that Osian bastard is a total sleazy shithead, and Astra is, uh...kinda psycho, to put it lightly.
"So, then, this Outlier was powerful enough to take out a team of Category 1s? I mean, all the Outliers probably are, but...," Frowned Miraliz skeptically.
"Yeah, they shouldn’t have enough control over their Auras to fight effectively. And yet, this one apparently wiped out multiple high level Meta-Humans without even breaking a sweat," I surmised...yeah, something about this whole thing doesn’t add up.
I mean, when it happened, less than three weeks had passed since the Meta-Orbs were scattered...is it really possible for someone to gain control over their Aura in that short a time without any help? I guess it’s not totally impossible, but as far as I know, it’s completely unheard of and unprecedented.
"Wonder if Eden will go after this Outlier again. I’m not seeing anything new on social media, so they probably didn’t find this one through the internet...do you think they just randomly came across the Outlier?" Wondered Miraliz curiously.
"I’ll try snooping around and try to hear more information on what happened, all I know at the moment is the bare minimum," I sighed wistfully.
"Yeah, there’s no point in speculating about it, is there? Hey, by the way, why exactly are we getting today off from training?" She asked me.
"Hm? Oh, I don’t really know the specifics, but Trevor has some big meeting with the higher ups and other Category 0s. He seemed pretty annoyed when he told me that he has a meeting, so it’s probably going to be a long one," I informed her with a shrug.
I couldn’t help but wonder what his meeting was about...but there’s no point, and I doubt he’d give away any important details to me, anyway... freeweɓnovēl.coɱ
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Point-of-View: Trevor Compton
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I locked my room door with a sigh before heading for my desk and sitting down as I lifted open the lid of my laptop, pressing the power button and waiting for it to boot up. I then took out my phone and checked the time...hm, only a minute before the meeting is supposed to begin.
Once the system started up, I opened up the video conference app and logged in, typing in the code for the virtual meeting room. As it loaded, I let out a sigh of relief as I saw that I wasn’t the last to enter.
Still waiting on three others, out of a total of twenty-two. The majority of the higher ups, Category 0s and a couple of Category 1s were included in it. Before long, everyone had joined the call, as I switched on my audio and video.
"It looks like we’re all here...well, then, let’s begin right away, shall we? We have finished deciphering all the Meta-Orb research material that we stole from the Harmony lab we raided...unfortunately, we didn’t learn anything significant, nothing that we didn’t already know from our informant. That is, except for one detail. How the Aberration Skill that was used to create the Meta-Orbs works and the appearance and name of the user. If we can find and capture them, then we will be able to create our own Meta-Orbs in due time," Surmised the senior-most higher up.
"Huh? Don’t tell me that we’re being sent out on a wild goose chase to try and find this guy?! You know that conventional capture methods are useless against Harmony...if they realize that we’re after this Aberration Skill user, Neo Cronje will simply transport them to a different country!" Pointed out one of the other Category 0s.
"You misunderstand me, I only mentioned this in order to have everyone keep an eye out for this Aberration Skill user, I’m perfectly aware of how futile searching for them blindly will be. Now, to get on to the main topic of this meeting...it’s finally time, we’re going to begin our ultimate goal of world domination. We’ve waited long enough."
Huh? Is he insane? He does realize that there’s a reason why we haven’t gone for it yet, right?
"Is that some kind of a joke? So long as Harmony remains an obstacle, we can’t-!"
"Let me elaborate. Using Dark Skill techniques, we’re going to brainwash and puppeteer the leaders of various nations...in other words, we’re going to slowly but surely take over the world from the shadows, and once we’ve accumulated enough political power, we take over. After that, it’s simply a matter of hunting down and wiping out the Meta-Humans of Harmony."
"With all due respect, sir, it won’t be easy to take over countries like that...for starters, we don’t even have enough Dark Skill users that are competent enough to pull it off," I spoke up with a frown.
"No need to worry, Arisu Kimura will lead this effort, to make up for her miserable failure to capture the most powerful Outlier sighted yet."
"Wait, what? H-hold on a damned sec, no one told me about th-!" Arisu began to protest indignantly.
"In addition, Ash Silver will also be a key part of this mission. Arisu will use her Dark Skill brainwashing techniques on the leaders and their high ranking subordinates, and once that’s done, then Ash will use his Dark Skill: Condition technique to establish and lock in their loyalty to us. After that, we’ll simply post some Category 1s to control the leaders from the shadows, relaying our instructions to them."
"Are you sure about this? If Harmony catches on to what we’re doing, then...," One of the other Category 0s trailed off doubtfully.
"That won’t be a problem...our informant will give us information regarding which countries are and aren’t occupied by Harmony Meta-Humans...countries with none or few of them will be our first targets."
Oh, boy...it looks like he’s decided to go through with this, regardless of what any of us say. A lot of the other Category 0s were trying to talk him out of it, but the other higher ups weren’t complaining...he must have already discussed it with them, and they must have ultimately agreed to it.
Stupid old bunch of has-beens, they’re only going to get us exposed and killed. Just because we’ve failed to get into a position to take over the world in all these decades doesn’t mean that we have to force it due to impatience.
We’ve spend the last century or so building hidden bases all over the world...which, admittedly, was an idea we ripped off from Harmony. If we hadn’t, then we’d be really struggling to keep ourselves hidden right now, thanks to all the technological advancements in regular human society.
And we’ve kept regular humans from stumbling across our hidden bases by using a Dark Skill technique called Ward to compel any that wander close by to walk away, though that technique is only mildly effective on Meta-Humans, so it’s primarily used to keep normal humans away.
Even though most of our bases are in remote, isolated areas, civilization keeps expanding their territory, tearing down forests and jungles to do so.
Well, we also have small groups of our lower Category Meta-Humans running companies and stuff in regular society, along with some that are tasked with studying various fields, some going into science, some in technology and so on. Harmony likely does that same with their members, otherwise how’d they have researchers with the know-how to create the Meta-Orbs?
We’ve slowly but surely managed to integrate ourselves into regular society, hiding in plain sight, while continuing to construct our various hidden bases throughout the world, but...the way things have been going, it may very well be impossible to remain hidden for too much longer.
And well, that might be the exact reason why the higher ups have decided to move forward with the world domination plan. In the meantime, they’ll probably have me and some others continue to train the Outliers in order to prepare for when we do move out of the shadows. That’s all well and good, but I can’t help but doubt the feasibility of this plan.
Then again, if our informant in Harmony comes through for us, this might actually work...speaking of which. I wonder who it is? Only a few of the higher ups know the identity of our informant, I’m guess he or she must have warned them that they would stop giving us information if we revealed their identity.
It’s an undisputed fact that they’ve betrayed Harmony, there’s no way we would have known where to find that Harmony lab otherwise. And yet, I was having a lot of trouble placing any trust in whoever this is, just because they’re not loyal to Harmony doesn’t mean that they’re necessarily loyal to us.
Whoever it is, I can’t help but wonder what their true motive is. I just couldn’t shake the feeling that by going through with this plan, we were playing right into their hands. Nah, maybe I’m just overthinking things...
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