Chapter 284: Suspicion

"I am afraid it's not possible. Nonetheless, I am only a little captain. It's impossible to skip a few ranks even if all people here vouch for me." Kai shook his head.

"Fair enough. But do you have any thought about your promotion? Although it's true that your contribution is the biggest, only a few know about this. That's why the base won't be able to give you a huge leap in the promotion." Nathan nodded in agreement.

"It's fine. I am not worried about it." Kai smiled, assuring them.

"Well, I will make sure they give an honest promotion." Ria cracked her fingers, ready to beat people in charge of this.

"Haha… Look at you right now. It's really different killing the S rank magical beast in the past and in the present, eh?" Nathan made a smug smile, teasing Ria Ross.

"Old man… Do you want to die?" Ria narrowed her eyes and released her killing intent. She looked serious because her past experience was a bit out of the limit for her.

"I didn't want to remind you about your past. My point is now that you have Kai, you are cheered up. Do you know how messy you were a decade ago?"

She snorted. "You have escaped death this time."

Nathan shrugged while glancing at Kai. "Anyway, I noticed something weird earlier."

Kai tilted his head before finding Nathan's word was not only to him. Instead, it was a kind of reminder to everyone as the group suddenly fell silent, glancing at Nathan.

"Don't you think they know a lot about us? I mean A LOT!"

They immediately furrowed their eyebrows, realizing how they actually understood them from the conversation. Ria and Kai are especially conscious about this because they met the mermaid and that turtle longer than the others, so they could somehow understand Nathan's view.

"Aren't you overthinking it, Nathan?" Ethan tilted his head in confusion.

"True. The information must come from that professor. Since he is dead now, there won't be any leak of information again." Erica tried to solve the doubt.

"I agree with her." Jose nodded.

"No. You guys didn't fight them from the start, so you didn't know anything. But they said they have been observing us this whole time. If they are not related to our base this whole time, they won't know about my name." Ria strengthened Nathan's point.

"I have the same thought. There are a few occasions that I think they know too much." Kai added.

"But how do they actually learn our information?" Erica asked. There were too many flaws in this argument, so she didn't want them to just jump into the matter without knowing anything.

"First of all, I don't think this is the work of that dolphin…" Kai started the topic by diminishing the first doubt.

"Yeah. The dolphin doesn't have enough range to know about us moving, so I don't think it is related to him. Besides, I have killed the dolphin, so we don't need to worry about it anymore." Ria added. "In any case, I think it's worth investigating."

Before they started this simple meeting, Kai raised his hand and asked, "Are you sure I can participate in this matter?"

"It's fine. You are more than qualified to know about this." Paolo laughed, patting his shoulder a few times.

"Yeah. This is not official anyway." Jose nodded in agreement. Kai's ability was far too good to be excluded in this matter.

"Alright. We are going to discuss how we are going to investigate this spying activity done by the protectors? No matter how you put it, they are still magical beasts, right? It's hard for them to appear with that body," Paolo said with a nonchalant expression.

"It's true, but didn't you see the mermaid? She was standing with two legs like she was a human. In fact, I couldn't differentiate her if I didn't know her appearance beforehand." Ethan's observation denied Paolo's claim.

"That's true. Still, from what I have found, there is not a single protector who has that kind of ability beside her. Can't we classify her as a special case?" Jose narrowed her eyes.

"I think we can, but for them to monitor us… I think this special case was sent." Ria agreed with Jose.

"In that case, what should we do? It's not possible to see all the people in the base face to face while figuring out if it's a human or an impostor." Nathan presented another problem.

"That is true. There is nothing we can do about that." Ria let out a long sigh.

"What if their ability is like Sofia Campbell?" Kai finally broke his silence.

"!!!" The group widened their eyes in surprise, never expecting this. However, the only one that could understand such camouflage would be Kai.

Only Ria knew the extent of Kai's hearing, so she immediately dispelled the doubt. "I don't think it's possible to investigate them like that even if you are in charge of this operation. Sofia Campbell is a special case because she was approaching you openly, and you knew the sound of your teammates, so it's useless."

"This is getting nowhere." Jose tapped the table with her fingers.

"Nathan. What if you are sent to be a spy? What will you do?" Ethan asked.

"Me?" Nathan looked down, falling into deep thought for a minute before finally answering him. "I will disguise myself and blend in. Well, I don't hear a single high level information, so they must haven't infiltrated our high level."

Ria took another look at the previous battle and realized that. They indeed knew a lot of information, but not a single of them was top secret information. If not, they might already know that Kai had encountered Rapakha on Easter Island and the fact that he knew many things about protectors.

"I agree with him." Ria finally gave her verdict.

"That is still not confirmed. What if they have an agent from our own rank?" Kai suddenly presented another problem that caused a headache to everyone in the group.

"Are you saying one of us actually made a deal with them?" Ethan narrowed his eyes.

"I mean… The professor is an example. Since there is one, there might be two or more. That's why this slowly turns confusing." Kai sighed, leaning his back on the chair.

"Do you think there has been a weird incident in the base recently? Or maybe a few people that acted weirdly?" Nathan asked.

"I don't think so. I am not really interested in the government, so I don't really pay attention to it." Paolo shook his head.

"I am the same."

"Me too."

The group agreed that all of them were the commanders of the field, so they didn't really have any time to follow the matter in the base. Ria, on the other hand, didn't want to be related to politics.

"How about we discuss this with the president first? Because there is a chance that our own men are actually a double agent, we should not disclose this to anybody else except the president."

"Yeah. We need to be careful."

"How about this…" Kai suddenly thought of a brilliant idea. "Because we can't sow any discord among us because there is bound to be a problem if we start suspecting each other, I believe we need to stay silent for a while and only tell the president.

"After some time, we can then tell the vice president before telling another person and continuing until it spread among the members inside the white house itself. Just make sure that you tell them that this is an important secret only for them and threaten them that they will be killed the moment words go out.

"I know that we might not be able to stop the rumors, so we need to be fast. The faster we are, the faster we can search for a spy."

"That is a good idea. The spy will either escape or create a rumor to confuse us. If we move fast and control the spread of the information, then we can narrow the people that have the potential to be a double agent." Nathan nodded his head with a serious expression.

"I will talk about this to the president then." Ria volunteered. In fact, she was the only one qualified to talk about this to ensure the secret of the information. If the white house was clear of suspicion, they could start working on the investigation in the other areas… Though, they would give this matter to the one more suitable than them in dealing with a matter like this.

"I have no problem too. Rather than creating a ruckus to something that has yet to be proven, it's better to clear our most important place first, the white house." Jose nodded.

"I agree with this plan. My army will be stationed in the north soon, so I don't think I can be of any help." Paolo also raised his hand with a serious expression.

"Well, I will be reinforcing the border as a Defensive Specialist, so I will be the same as Paolo for the time being because we are not stable yet because of this raid mission." Ethan let out a long sigh.

"In that case, I will return to South Carolina and hole up while doing an investigation of my own." Nathan shrugged.

"Then it's decided." Ria nodded before looking at their table filled with food. "Since we have finished our discussion, let's celebrate first."

The group grabbed their wine and cheered.

A few hours later, a group of trucks finally arrived, sending them back to the nearest base where the soldiers could finally be sent back to the main base. Kai and the others finally returned home after a long battle.