The Rise Of A Porter

Back in Los Angeles, Headquarters of the Guardian Syndicate...

More than a dozen people were sitting inside a room which was dimly lit because of the light coming through the various screens inside the room. Each person has at least five monitors or screens in front of them, with their eyes glued to the screens. They didn't glance anywhere else, just at the screens which displayed a variety of scenery in front of them. From deserts to wetlands, from populous cities to rarely inhabited jungles. Some were shot from a traffic camera, while a few screens displayed an infrared image.

This was the surveillance room of the Syndicate, and the people working there all had special skill related to surveillance and together they were known as Guardian's eye. Every member of the Guardian's eye had been allotted a particular area that they were required to monitor.

They only had one duty, continuously analyze the various data which made its way to them and if there was any peculiarity, they had to immediately inform their superiors about it while continuing to analyse the situation.

As of now, they were watching the live broadcast of various regions of America, including the eastern region. They also had a bunch of drones that helped them in monitoring the areas that were once the part of United States of America, but now monster's ruled over those lands.

Kellie Monroe, a young lady in her early twenties and the newest addition to the guardian's eye, was watching one such drone that was hovering over the place that was once known as Florida, but now it was referred to as The Lizard's nest. Nothing much ever happened in that region apart from skirmishes between the Lizardmen and the Nagas and it was easy pay for her but it was also tremendously boring.

But that all changed a few days ago when Kellie was informed that she was required to monitor and assist a couple of people that were making their way into the swamps for research purposes.

She was eager to know who these people were so she did as she was asked to and started monitoring the man-woman duo while being their tactical support, providing them with information whenever it was requested. Sadly, she was never required to do so even so she silently kept observing the duo. Due to the dense canopy of the swamps, Kellie wasn't able to see the faces of the duo and had to use infrared vision to see what was going on, but to her surprise, the duo soon appeared out of the swamp, a dozen lizardmen chasing after them. It was at that moment when she saw the duo for the first time.

She immediately recognised the woman who had been effortlessly killing lizardmen left and right with her black sword as if they were made of butter. It was Nina and with her was a man who exhibited a variety of talents.

Kellie was having a hard time figuring out who the man was. He was wearing a black robe and had a pair of guns in his hands. Right, when she thought the man had to be a gunslinger, the man exhibited the powers similar to that of an elementalist, but it didn't stop there. The man then proceeded to summoned a variety of creatures to aid the duo in battle while they leisurely chatted around waiting for the summons to destroy the lizardmen.

After seeing them only one thought crossed her mind, 'Is this really the lizard's nest? It's supposed to be the most dangerous hunting grounds for warriors but these two are moving around as if they were visiting an amusement park and not a monster-infested region.'

She had never seen anything like them before, or more like the man. She didn't have much idea about combat, after all, she was new in the surveillance team but then again she had seen a couple of fights but they were nothing like what the man was doing. She had heard about people having different talents and affinities, she also knew that the guy wasn't as strong as the S or SS ranked warriors but he was... different. It was like the limitations and strength of ranks didn't bother him in the slightest.

Watching the duo's escapades in the swamps was a great escape from her boring life for Kellie. She was mesmerized by their strength, the way they kept killing monsters one after another without any break was just fabulous. Initially, she thought it was just some extra work, but now she knew watching them was both a source of entertainment and inspiration. She had never truly respected the ones fighting on the front lines, as they failed miserably to contain or stop the breakout that eventually led to the division of her country.

However, she now knew how dangerous the situation was for them and how regardless of that they kept pushing forward and clear one obstacle one after another.

All this excitement, made her forget about her duties as the tactical support and she felt more like she was watching a gamer's stream online, her carelessness eventually got the duo in trouble as they were soon ambushed by a group of lizardmen but thankfully they were able to handle the situation themselves. Little did she knew that the man in robes had no idea about the existence of 'tactical support', that he was supposed to be getting because no one had informed him about it.

But now it was all over.

Her supervisor had just called her into his office. She thought that the duo had reported her to the superiors, for her incompetence and that she was going to get fired for it but instead she was informed that the project has been put on hold and that she was no longer required to continue to monitor the swamps exclusively as no one would be entering or leaving the swamps for a while since the project that had been put on hold.

She let out a heavy sigh once she was back on her work station, monitoring six different locations simultaneously.

The order essentially meant that the fun time was over for her and she had to return to her old surveillance job and watch the monsters fight with each other rather than watching the mysterious man and the right-hand person of the General of The Armies, Nina Black, slaughtering them.

'At least, I got to have some fun right?' Kellie thought and switched the monitor to infrared mode before momentarily focusing on the screen when she realised that she didn't want to monitor the swamps at that moment and decided to switch screens but before she could do anything, she saw something weird.

In the middle of the swamp was the heat signature of a single human which was indicated by a yellowish-orange glow, Kellie thought it was weird as her supervisor had just informed her that no one was supposed to enter or leave the swamps, but then she was saw something weirder. The orange heat signature of the human was surrounded by over 200 hundred heat signatures similar to that of the lizardmen. They were going to ambush the human!

"Oh no!" Kellie exclaimed and jumped out of her seat, "Call the superiors! We have a situation here!"