United Kingdom, 20xx AD.

A tall man, he wore a reddish-blue knee-length short-sleeved overcoat with a hood that he put on the top of his head and a black strap decoration that looked like a shoulder and chest strap gun holster that was attached from the chest part to the shoulder and back part of this overcoat. The hood of this overcoat was covered up to the top of his head so that this man's face and his quite long bangs were still visible. The middle part of his overcoat was open; he wore a shirt underneath, a black vest, black long jeans, brown boots, black elbow guards, and black knee guards. This man, in his 20s, was Erdyn Zherjhyl.

Erdyn walked along the sidewalk among the surrounding modern urban buildings, carrying something unusual on his back. A rectangular block-shaped thing, almost the size of his body, and covered with a black cloth to disguise it. As it was already very late at night, the surroundings appeared quiet, with only a few people and vehicles passing by. Several people walking past Erdyn were surprised when they saw the large object on his back.

After walking for a while, Erdyn arrived at a vast industrial area with various factory and warehouse buildings connected by sidewalks and asphalt roads. Erdyn stopped his steps and looked around as if to make sure of the situation. The surroundings were quiet, with just a few vehicles and people passing by on the road and sidewalk, as far as his eyes could see. Erdyn pulled the small rope attached to the black cloth covering the large object on his back; the cloth slipped away, revealing what lay beneath.

Erdyn carried something that resembled a big guitar briefcase over his back with a sling. This guitar briefcase had a unique shape, and it appeared heavy, but Erdyn somehow could carry it on his back without him appearing to feel heavy at all; it was made of glossy metal with sturdy carvings, with a center shape and another shape attached to its edges that surrounds the center shape, making it larger than the average guitar briefcase.

Its center part was shaped like a guitar briefcase, the base was tapered, and the briefcase’s neck was slightly curved on both of its opposite long sides. Additional straight carvings filled the curved part with a slightly thinner thickness than the curved part located on the edge of the briefcase’s neck.

This big guitar briefcase was formed from two bodies connected with sturdy metal joints. The right body part of this briefcase, near the neck part, had a circular, sharp carving, and along its edge was a sharp carving of six white dove wings on the middle body surface of this first briefcase, which has a jet-black sword-like carving. On the left body part of this briefcase on the end part was in the form of a sharp carving of six black crow’s wings, the same size as the carving of the dove’s wings, which spaned to the middle surface of the briefcase, the carved dove’s wings and the crow’s wings were connected in the middle and forming like x shape, with some embossed carvings in the middle of the x-shaped wings carvings. The briefcase’s surface had a carved pattern engraved, resembling a glossy white sword, larger than the sword carving on the middle body of the guitar briefcase. This briefcase had a mix of black, silver, grey, and white, with a small gold-and-white trim and two stripes running down and across the top of the briefcase.

Its middle body and edges were the same size and shaped like a guitar briefcase. The additional part surrounding the guitar briefcase part had greater thickness than the guitar briefcase-shaped part, with the middle part of this briefcase shaped like a hinge connecting its right and left parts, making it resemble a rectangular box with blunt corners. These additional parts were gray with several embossed black line patterns. The top and bottom surfaces of this briefcase had the same shape and carved patterns with briefcase handles on both long sides.

Erdyn continued walking alone, occasionally glancing at the surveillance cameras installed on every building and the traffic lights in the area; his expression turned astonished as he thought.

"I don't know what they want from me; I'll make sure now…."

Erdyn stopped his steps and hid behind the outside corner walls of the nearby building, observing another factory building located a few buildings away. Unbeknownst to Erdyn, a black panel with half a meter in height and one meter in length appeared and hovered next to him, displaying white text:

[ [System Message]

[You have been chosen as the system user. Do you wish to accept it? (By accepting it, you'll receive various additional benefits, such as increased power, skills, items, etc., which will be very useful for you.)]

[Accept] [Decline] [Remind me later] ]

Erdyn appeared to realize something and turned to the panel, only to find it had already disappeared. Erdyn looked around for a moment with a puzzled expression, then returned his focus to the building he was observing.

He took out a smartphone from inside the pocket behind his overcoat with his right hand and tapped its screen with his right thumb. Soon after, the buildings around him experienced a power failure, dimming the atmosphere in the area and leaving it almost dark. He immediately ran toward the building he was observing.

Some time ago, inside the building that Erdyn observed.

There was an expansive hall with two-story-high ceilings inside an abandoned electronics factory, now turned into quarters. There were several rows of automatic assembly machines resembling movable clamp arms and outdated manual assembly machines.

In the middle of the hall were some computers with dozens of monitors mounted on a semicircular metal frame, each screen arranged at a regular distance from one another, and in symmetrical lines and columns. Near these computers were dozens of men operating the computers or on guard as they chatted; some wore suits, some wore jackets, and some wore soldier uniforms covered with thin but sturdy armor pieces.

On the upper left sleeve of the military personnel uniforms were the emblems of various flags of the world’s nations, and the upper right sleeve had a symbol-shaped emblem with a word on its surface. Each of them was carrying a pistol holstered in the holster attached to their thigh and tactical belt with assault rifles as their primary weapons. Some soldiers carried their assault rifles in standby stances; some leaned near their owners, and some held them casually like canes.

One of the men had slightly long, stylishly styled hair and wore a leather jacket, a tucked-in black T-shirt covered in a thin but sturdy bulletproof vest, a tactical belt, long black jeans, and black boots. This man, in his thirties, was Hardy Aylward, one of the tactical agents of an organization. Hardy observed the monitors before him closely with a serious expression. Another man wearing a suit walked up to him from behind.

“Have you made any progress?”

Hardy comrade’s question caught his attention.

“Yes, I kept trying to observe them while comparing, and it seems to align with what we expected. I’ll report the approval to the central command later during the observer teams meeting.”

The man in the suit smiled.

“Good, finally, our work will soon be done.”

The man in the suit patted Hardy on the shoulder.

“By the way, we want to buy dinner. Do you want to come with us?”

Hardy smiled and shook his head.

“No, I still want to monitor again to better the results. I’ll leave it to you.”

The man in the suit nodded with a somewhat astonished expression.

“Very well then, Mr. hard worker.”

The man in the suit walked away and met some of his other comrades, discussing where they would have dinner. Hardy smiled and watched the monitors before him again.

Shortly after, several monitors in front of Hardy suddenly turned off. Hardy was surprised; he tried to fix it by typing some commands on the keyboard, but there was still no change. Hardy glanced toward one of the men behind him.

“There is a technical problem here; can someone help me?”

Almost everyone’s attention was drawn to Hardy. One of the men, wearing a leather jacket and carrying a tablet computer, walked up to him with an astonished expression.

“Weird, there was no technical issue within our quarters; the cause must have come from outside.”

Hardy’s expression turned astonished; he noticed other monitors that were still on, and he appeared to realize something.

“Wait a minute, the monitors that are off are the ones that displayed the surveillance footage from this city.”

The man in the leather jacket appeared to notice something; he immediately checked the tablet computer in his hands.

“Strange, even though there is no power outage in the city tonight.”

Hardy was surprised; his expression turned astonished.

“Unless the one causing this technical issue is nearby….”

The man in the leather jacket was shocked.

Shortly after, the lights in this room and the computers suddenly turned off. Each of them turned on the flashlight attached to their guns. Hardy and the others were alertly observing their surroundings. Hardy’s expression turned serious as he spoke in a raised voice.

“Be careful, something or someone is causing this!”

The others stood with ready-to-fire stances with their guns.

Outside, in front of the plain metal double-door entrance of this factory building, two soldiers were on guard and did not notice Erdyn's arrival, who walked while crouching above a personnel box truck parked nearby and carefully observed the two soldiers.

Erdyn took a large object on his back and carried it with both hands. Erdyn jumped toward the two soldiers while hitting the large object he was carrying, hitting both of them at once, causing them to fall unconscious. Erdyn immediately put the large object in his hand back to his back and entered the building through a nearby entrance.

Behind the door, Erdyn walked quickly and carefully toward one of the assembly machines, then knelt and hid behind it. Erdyn took his large briefcase from his back with his right hand and held it by its handle on one of its long sides.