Chapter 2612: Chapter 833: Special Tactics Squad

’Moody’ is an ability possessed only by high-level wizards—more precisely, it is something you have a slight chance to touch upon only after advancing to a Big Wizard, akin to an intuition of destiny.

And right now, Zheng Qing hasn’t even passed the Registered Wizard’s exam.

He didn’t think he had the ability of a Big Wizard yet.

The only reasons he could think of might be related to the developmental stage of his forbidden curse seed or the little Green Snake sleeping in his ear.

Either way, it didn’t seem to be a bad thing for him.

Having thought this through, the young man’s heart settled back into his chest.

On the podium, the Alpha wizard didn’t waste much time. After a brief explanation of the incident, he began to assign tasks to the teaching assistants present.

Zheng Qing noticed that at least half of the people stood up at this point, didn’t take the task, and left the meeting room straight away.

"They..." he cautiously poked Hilda, who seemed to be dozing off beside him, with a hint of confusion in his tone.

"Huh? They? Oh."

The practice class teacher woke up, saw the direction Zheng Qing pointed, and instantly understood but didn’t immediately explain. Instead, he asked, "Do you know how many assistants are in the Assistant Team?"

"About a hundred or so." Zheng Qing gave a vague number.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to give a precise answer; he genuinely didn’t know. Not only because the members of the Assistant Team spanned across four colleges and research institutes, but also because it was a highly fluid position.

Often, there were assistants who gave substitute lessons, just getting familiar faces with everyone, and then they suddenly disappeared from the campus, nowhere to be found—some joined a professor’s lab, others were temporarily assigned to other tasks by the school, and some had simply resigned and joined a hunting team in the New World.

Being a young wizard who could become an assistant at the First University, their abilities were undoubtedly exceptional talents sought after by many hunting teams in the New World, and even by institutions within the Alliance.

In some sense, Hilda indeed counted as a core member of the Assistant Team.

"Bingo!"

Hilda snapped his fingers and started a lengthy explanation, "The Emergency Gathering Order is issued through an ancient magical spell formula from the office of the Assistant Team. Besides being powerful, ancient also means rigid. According to the initial rules, the Emergency Gathering Order is issued to every member of the Assistant Team, and if you don’t want to be disciplined, you must immediately gather at the specified time and location upon receiving the order... But, as you’ve heard, tonight’s task doesn’t require everyone to be dispatched. Those assistants involved in magical experiments or other important work can choose to leave after listening to the task. Of course, they need to supplement a sufficiently detailed task report afterwards..."

"Does my ’Little Hand Task’ count as important work?" Zheng Qing couldn’t help but interrupt the practice class teacher’s incessant chatter, pondering whether to have Doctor Xiao fill out a task report for him.

Hilda cast a sideways glance at him.

"What do you think?" He snorted through his nose.

The young assistant closed his mouth resentfully.

...

...

Similar to the Trident Crisis Support Team’s special operations groups, the Assistant Team also prefers to organize members in groups of five in a standardized hunting team model when carrying out tasks.

Zheng Qing was fortunate, but also naturally joined Hilda’s subteam.

Apart from himself, carrying the ’Yu’ mark, the other four members of the team clearly belonged to the same sequence ’Alpha,’ ’Yi,’ ’Ren,’ ’Gui’—not only that, Zheng Qing was already very familiar with these four people.

The Alpha wizard, just from his commands while directing the entire investigation work from the podium, Zheng Qing guessed he was the acting leader of the Assistant Team, Zhang Yu; ’Yi’ goes without saying; ’Ren’ was a stout warlock, and ’Gui’ was a slender witch, both openly displaying their close relationship. The witch had a head of purple hair, matching the conditions of the other two assistants responsible for escorting him on the special admission aircraft, Victor and Violet Jessop.

This subteam was also the last to leave the meeting room.

"Good evening, teachers." The young assistant bowed respectfully in greeting.

"No need to be so tense, you’re part of the Assistant Team now too."

’Alpha’ wizard—who was Zhang Yu—patted him on the shoulder, his tone warm but with a hint of seriousness: "Although you have some hunting experience, have been in the Black Prison, and hunted Black Wizards, the tasks of the Assistant Team should be your first time participating... so, follow us carefully, observe and learn a lot, listen to commands, and don’t run around."

Zheng Qing clasped his hands and nodded honestly: "I’m also a hunting team leader, I know how annoying disobedient hunters can be."

Upon hearing these words, the other four laughed.

The slightly awkward atmosphere within the team suddenly dissipated a lot.

The Assistant Team dispatched a total of nine subteams for this investigation, with the other eight teams having already started searching in eight sector areas around the incident location, according to the Divination Group’s opinions, to explore any missing clues and expel magical creatures and tribes attempting to hunt at night.

Meanwhile, Zheng Qing’s team, after meeting with the investigation team from the School Works Committee, rushed straight to the Northern Hunting Team’s incident site for an on-site inspection.

The joint investigation by the Assistant Team and the School Works Committee seemed to involve a lot of people, but considering the scale of the Silent Forest and the time, these more than a hundred wizards melted into the darkness as if they were grains of rice sprinkled into the sand, becoming inconspicuous, quickly merging with the pitch-black night.

To improve the efficiency of the inspection and considering that this area had been the focal point of the school’s Protection Array, the leaders of the Assistant Team and School Works Committee decided to disperse the teams once more, pairing each member into small groups of two, each responsible for a small area.

Zheng Qing was paired with Hilda.

The Silent Forest, in the middle of the night, was anything but lovable. The beautiful word ’serene’ turned frighteningly ominous at this moment—whether it’s the shrubbery lurking under the trees or the rustling canopies in the distance, they all unavoidably called to mind those terrifying giant beasts lying in wait with gaping maws, ready to strike.

Even with glowing mushrooms and light globes scattered all around, it was difficult to lessen the oppressive feeling brought by this world.

Zheng Qing tried to use small talk to ignore this bothersome mood.

"Am I replacing Thomas in your hunting team?" he trailed beside Hilda, while vigilantly keeping an eye on both sides, attempting to start a conversation.

"Thomas?"

Hilda responded in a muffled voice, "Replacing him for what? We’re not a real hunting team. Our temporary arrangement, described with the formal words in the report, is called an ’Assistant Team Special Tactical Squad,’ similar to the ’School Works Committee’s Patrol Subteam’ or ’Trident Crisis Support Team’..."

Zheng Qing knew these terms, he just hadn’t connected them to himself before.

"...But you could say ’replacing’ as well,"

The wizard with the Yi mark shifted his tone breezily, gobbling up his previous words, "Most of the time, Thomas partnered with us several, and placing you in this subteam today, I reckon Zhang Yu thinks you’re young and worries you’d be snatched away by the Nightmares of Silent Forest... Don’t think I’m joking, the Silent Forest at night is far scarier than during the day. If it weren’t for worries about losing too many clues over extended time, Zhang Yu wouldn’t have gathered us here to respond to the scene in the middle of the night."