Autophagy

"Come. We have a mission," Aston said after entering the room. Compared to two years before, his face had become much more mature. There were only a few more signs of childish nature left on it. His demeanor was also different from before. If he was like a sharp dagger before, his aura was more like a sturdy spear now.

Song Lei threw the empty bottle aside and jumped up.

"Sure," Song Lei said. He picked up his shirt from the chair he had placed it on. As he was about to put it on, he smelled it for a second. This caused his face to sour. "Do I have the time to take a bath?"

"No need to hurry," Aston said as he walked further into the room. Being the best fighter trainee, Song Lei had been allocated with a private room of his own. This room had its own living facilities alongside a training room. It basically had everything Song Lei would need. He also didn't need to use the cafeteria. After all, he could just use his own kitchen to cook whatever he wanted.

Leaving the training room, Song Lei went to take a shower. It didn't take long for him to come back to Aston's side.

"I'm ready. Let's go," Song Lei said. Aston woke up from his daze and hurried to Song Lei's side before they started towards their instructor's living quarter. It would take them about thirty minutes as the place was out of Section A.

"What is it this time?" Song Lei asked. Since last year, they would have to go out to take missions from time to time. These missions would span from assassinating targets to toppling down organizations. Obviously, Song Lei and Aston would accomplish these missions with relative ease.

"I've heard that it's an assassination mission. I'm not sure though..." Aston said.

"The usual one huh..." Song Lei muttered. Assassination-type missions were the most common type of missions that they would receive.

"I heard that it's something big this time," Aston said. Song Lei briefly looked at Aston.

"Is the one that said that Otto? Or is it the instructor?" Song Lei asked.

"Instructor," Aston said. This caused Song Lei's face to sour.

"Things suddenly got much more serious," Song Lei said. Otto was just a henchman. Although he was well-versed in a lot of skills, he had no idea about fighting and assassination. If the person who said that this would be a dangerous mission was Otto, Song Lei would've just shrugged it off as his ignorance. However, now that the person who said this was their instructor, he wouldn't be able to not take this seriously.

"Yeah..." Aston muttered. He seemed to be slightly absent-minded. This piqued Song Lei's curiosity as he took a few fast steps and stood beside Aston.

"What's the problem?" Song Lei asked.

"Not much..." Aston muttered. "I've just made a discovery while I was experimenting on something. It is a bit unfinished and I'm not exactly sure about the results so I won't talk about it now."

"Really?" Song Lei was surprised. If a discovery troubled Aston this much, it must've been something very important. "You can tell me whenever you want."

"We're here," Aston said. Song Lei turned his head and looked ahead. In front of them was a relatively big building. Although it wasn't nearly as big as the Section A building. It would probably be able to accommodate eight to ten people.

"Huh..." Song Lei muttered. "Wouldn't they normally be out barbecuing somewhere around the premises?" He asked.

"Probably. Not today though," Aston said. Song Lei shrugged and followed Aston inside the building. Ascending to the highest floor, they knocked on their instructor's door. Shortly after, the door creaked open.

"Oh! You guys are here. Come in!" The instructor welcomed them. Song Lei and Aston went inside the room. "You are really lucky that you've received such an exciting mission," he said as he gestured them to sit down on a couch.

He then went to another room and came back with two cups of coffee. He put them on the table.

"Are you serious?" Song Lei asked.

"Haha! Of course not!" The instructor said as he plopped down on his couch. "This will be one hell of a mission even for you guys."

Song Lei and Aston's expressions stiffened. Their instructor was always acted this way. So they had already gotten used to it. The thing that made them anxious was the context of their instructor's words.

"You're going to be infiltrating the Buckingham Palace."

*Crack

"What the fuck!?" Song Lei shouted. He wasn't sure which was the reason for him shouting. Was it the fact that he had spilled his piping hot coffee on himself or was it that they were going to be infiltrating probably the most guarded place of the whole United Kingdom? He didn't know. "Shit!" Song Lei shouted once more as he ran off to cool his thigh off. After a horrendous minute of holding water on his burns, Song Lei walked back to the living room.

"I burnt myself..." Song Lei muttered absentmindedly.

"Yeah we saw that part," their instructor muttered. "Anyways. As I have said, you are going to be infiltrating the Buckingham Palace."

Hearing his words, both Song Lei's and Aston's mouths twitched in sync.

"You're joking... Right?" Song Lei asked. as he slapped the table while slightly getting up from the couch he was sitting on. 

"Haha..." The instructor laughed awkwardly. He scratched his cheek and didn't answer Song Lei's question.

"You're not joking..." Song Lei muttered as he plopped back down on the couch dejectedly.

"Unfortunately."

"Why aren't you guys doing it yourself?" Aston asked. "I mean... We are just trainees after all. Wouldn't you have a higher chance of doing it yourself? Or is it just that you want us to die now that I've finished my task? If so, you can say it. We'll be understanding."

"Haha. I like that genuine attitude of yours, Aston. That's not the case obviously. You're still an important card of the Eye Organization," Instructor said. "You see... People get old with time. The youngsters nowada...-"

"Come to the point," Song Lei said as he folded his arms in front of his chest.

"You guys are the best we have right now," he said.

"Huh..?" Song Lei and Aston exclaimed at the same time. "What do you mean 'the best'?" Song Lei said.

"You guys are the best special agents we can use of now," the instructor said. "No one amongst the people in the orphanage has the synergy you guys have between you," the instructor said. He laid down further on the couch. "And no one is as strong as you. Especially you, Lewis. After using those dopings provided by Aston that much, you've probably become much stronger than a normal person by now. And I don't even mention your expertise in martial arts. Honestly, I wouldn't be able to beat you in a fight."

"Umm..." Song Lei didn't know what to say. He and Aston looked at each other dumbfoundedly for some time. Communicating with their eyes for some time, Song Lei turned his head back towards the instructor.

"Why don't you guys ask for help from the organization? I'm sure that they will be able to find someone better," Song Lei said.

"We can't do that," the instructor instantly refused. "And even if we could, we wouldn't. You can be sure. What they have wouldn't be much better than you guys."

"Why can't you do that?" Song Lei said, ignoring the second part.

"That's because this mission can't be noticed by the Poison Eye. He would never let it happen," The instructor said.

"For what reason are we going to the palace for?" Song Lei asked.

"Yeah... We still didn't talk about that did we?" The instructor muttered. He got up from his seat and went to another room. He came back two minutes later with some documents in his hands. "Take these and read them. I'll explain it further after you guys finish reading it."

Song Lei and Aston hesitantly picked up the documents and started reading one by one. As they kept on reading, the frowns on their faces became more and more prominent. After they finished reading, they threw the documents onto the table.

"Are you guys done?" The instructor asked as he took the documents back. Not getting any answers, he continued anyway.

"Your target is to secure a bottle of solvent that has fallen into the hands of the UK government," the instructor said. "As you may have guessed, we don't want any other group to figure out what it can be used for or how it can be produced. If such a thing happens, the whole existence of the Eye Orphanage may become endangered."

"How did it even fall into their hands?" Song Lei asked.

"We were sending it to one of our related laboratories so that it could be researched. We wanted to figure out its composition and make it so that we didn't need to rely on Aston to reproduce it. Unfortunately, it got intercepted midway and fell into the hands of the UK government," The instructor explained.

"Sigh...."