Chapter 202: Beginning (II)
Erin slowly walked toward the couch. She knelt down on the plush carpet so she was eye-level with the little girl. Claire flinched and tried to hide her face.
Erin reached out, her hand trembling slightly, and gently brushed a strand of golden hair behind the little girl’s ear. Claire blinked, leaning ever so slightly into the warmth of the touch, but remained completely silent.
A heavy, suffocating sorrow pressed down on Erin’s chest. This was exactly why she fought so fiercely. This was why she was willing to risk her life jumping into gates.
The Exterminators glorified the combat, treating the gates like hunting grounds, but this—this broken, empty child—was the true reality of the war. If Erin didn’t find the source of the gates, the world would eventually run out of orphans to adopt.
"I have to go to the summit," Maddox said quietly from the doorway, pulling his S-Rank Commander’s coat over his shoulders. "Stay here with her for a while. Don’t go back to the lab. You’re off-duty for the night."
The heavy doors clicked shut, leaving Erin alone with the child. Erin sat on the floor for nearly an hour, humming a soft, quiet melody until the little girl’s exhausted eyes finally fluttered shut and she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Once Claire was safely asleep, Erin slowly stood up. Her fierce, inquisitive nature, momentarily suppressed by grief, returned with a vengeance. Maddox was attending a Summit. A meeting of the three highest-ranking Commanders of the NEA.
Those meetings were incredibly rare, only called during times of extreme geopolitical crisis.
Erin walked over to the mahogany desk. She didn’t intend to steal anything, but she was the Captain of Gate Research. If the higher-ups were hiding data about the gates, she needed to know. She tapped the screen, but it required a biometric scan. Undeterred, Erin pulled a sleek, silver decryption drive from her lab coat pocket—a tool she had built herself to bypass lower-level security grids. She plugged it in, her fingers flying across the holographic keyboard with terrifying speed.
Within minutes, she had bypassed the audio-visual feed of the underground secure boardroom. A window popped up on the screen, showing the live feed.
The room was a sterile, heavily shielded bunker. Sitting around a circular table were the three S-Rank Commanders of the NEA, including Maddox. But sitting opposite them was a man Erin had never seen before. He wore a pristine white military uniform adorned with golden medals—the insignia of the International Exterminator Corporation, the absolute highest global authority.
"We cannot contain the panic if this leaks," the International Representative was saying, his voice tight with an unconcealed, raw terror. He was sweating profusely. "The government of the central Continent won’t allow the data to go beyond them."
"You can’t hide a fucking Reverse one way gate!" the First Commander of the NEA slammed his fist on the table. "Do you hear yourself? Its the third one that has opened so far! We have to look inside, it is for the good of humanity."
"How much?" Maddox said, his voice cold and analytical. He leaned forward, projecting a holographic map onto the table. "Money solves everything right, like you keeping the 6-star Dungeon break a secret."
"Impossible," The International Representative suddenly stood up wiping his forehead with a handkerchief. "You... how do you even know about that? That is supposed to be not even known beyond five people. Did... did you perhaps know Vincent Greyhart."
In that moment, everyone else in the room was shocked and confused. But the International representative’s face looked as if he had understood something.
He sat down and sighed. "Knowing your age... it makes sense you knew him."
"Vincent Greayhart." The First commander of NEA contemplated. "The fabled hero, I always thought why was he called a hero, now I see, it is related to a damned 6-star gate. And Maddox knew him?"
Maddox closed his eyes and nodded. Of course he knew the guy, he was him after all.
Back in the room, Erin leaned closer to the screen in Maddox’s office, her breath catching in her throat as she stared at the blurry images being projected in the boardroom.
Her mind was this close to being thrown over. 6-Star gate? How could there be a 6-star gate? shouldn’t the world be blown to bits by now? And why are they hiding it? And Maddox knows that hero Vincent? Most of all, what is a Reverse one way gate?
Questions spiraled in her mind. She knew it... the higher ups were indeed hiding such important things!
"I am not against that decision," Maddox shrugged, his eyes narrowing. "Its a good thing the existence of the 6-Star gate and the Reverse gates is kept hidden. But at least allow us to look into it."
"Of... of course." The representative tried to smile. "We don’t even need money, your connections to the hero is enough leverage that the government would allow you to look into everything our team finds on the other side."
"That’s a given," the third commander intervened. Now that they had the upper hand, why would they back off. "Even the government of Eastern Continent gives us the data from the gate there."
"What we need is the permission to send our own teams inside." Maddox declared. "After all... a reverse one way gate might have the answers to a lot of questions, so the more the better."
Up in the office, Erin Volter staggered backward, her hand flying to cover her mouth. Her eyes widened to a fraction of their normal size, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.
She had finally deduced what was going on. They called it a Reverse One way gate. like the One way gates that allowed the Calamity beasts to come to earth from their planet.
’This... this means that there are gates that can allow us to travel to the world of Calamity beasts and not just in a confined area... but the whole world?’ She was terrified, excited and confused.
For years, the greatest minds in the world had believed the gates were random dimensional fractures. But if there was a door leading back to the source... it meant the gates were a bridge. It meant she could finally cross over and find the truth. The missing piece of her life’s work had just been handed to her on a silver platter.
She looked back at the sleeping little girl on the couch, her resolve hardening into an unbreakable, diamond-sharp determination. Maddox had told her it was suicide to step into a gate. But Erin Volter had never been one to listen to warnings.
She was going to the Central Continent and no matter how, she was going inside this Reverse One way gate!