Eryndor looked at the people he had spent two months with. It wasn’t much, but he had indeed built a bit of bond with them.

    "Follow us till the headquarters of the Human Federation, you can go your own way after that."

    He nodded at Liliana.

    Although he did want to go to the Academy right away to meet with his roommates and start further training, it was a protocol to head towards the headquarters after special missions like these.

    There, they would check for any abnormalities in the members, and take further actions depending on the results. For their mission which involved contacting an Eldritch Entity, it was even more necessary.

    The next few hours, he sat in an armored bus while looking outside at the passing scenery.

    The planet seems to have grown larger.

    It seemed someone else had the same doubt, and even voiced it out.

    "The distance between cities seemed to have grown even larger compared to the last time I saw it. Is Earth still expanding?"

    Ken asked an agent who had arrived to pick them up.

    The agent nodded his head.

    "The strange thing is, the expansion doesn’t take place in an area of dense human consciousness.

    "Which means it hasn’t taken place in the cities, towns and such. This has allowed our infrastructure to stay intact.

    "It is the places which have minimal human consciousness that are going through expansion. Of course, this doesn’t count the Eight Outer Domains.

    "The expansion keeps hitting them the hardest, making it difficult for their cities to stand firm.

    "This is one of the reasons even the hostile ones among the Eight Outer Domains have stopped killing humans, and prefer to instead capture them to bring them to their cities.

    "Or outright conquer human cities to establish that as their stronghold."

    Eryndor thought in silence after hearing the answer.

    So that means this expansion is favoring the humans of Earth in a sense?

    That would explain why the distance between cities, where no humans resided was expanding, and the cities stayed intact.

    She still had a possibility of meeting him in the future, so she resolved to keep an optimistic outlook on life to help cope with the current sadness which burst out every now and then.

    Eryndor tilted his head. "Questions?"

    Hellen chuckled at the young man.

    "C’mon. You, a newbie, just went on a mission which involved coming in contact with an Eldritch being. Do you really have no questions?"

    A thoughtful look emerged on Eryndor’s face.

    Indeed, with his mission being proof, there were some questions he could ask now without coming off as suspicious.

    "I see, thank you." Eryndor smiled at Hellen.

    It was really worth it to have acquaintances or even be on the good side of people. The help and advice they gave sometimes couldn’t have been done or thought out by yourself.

    "Ken."

    A lady called out to Ken from across the room.

    As he stood up, the man looked at Eryndor and said.

    "It has started, you’ll probably be called in the end."

    Eryndor nodded. His sight travelled to Liliana who was writing on a piece of paper.

    She had been doing that since he saw her in the spaceship’s dining room for breakfast. When asked, it turned out to be a report for the mission.

    Damn, it’s such a pain in the ass to be a team leader.

    Eryndor wondered if they would have to start writing such kinds of reports as well for the missions available in the Academy.

    Maybe not for the first years. There should be some report writing lectures where we’ll be taught about how to write one later in the course.

    Then again, our first mission was pretty tame if not for the overall Rodrick’s issue. The Academy might need reports only for the big missions.

    As he was deep in thought, Ken came out from the room shortly after. As per safety protocols, he was sent to wait in another room.

    He saw that Liliana was also done with the report, so she was called in next.

    Eryndor was looking forward to what would happen during his time.