Chapter 040: Team Headquarters

“Its nature is much like the S.H.I.E.L.D. depicted in films—a continent-based intercontinental coalition for the management of extraordinary and mysterious events.”
“Except for Antarctica, nearly every continent has one: Africa has the African Extraordinary Union, Europe the European Extraordinary Union, and Oceania the Oceanic Extraordinary Union.”
“For Asia, there’s the Asian Extraordinary Union, and LDH is one of its permanent council organizations, under which there are second-tier, third-tier, and national-level extraordinary institutions.”
“However, the American Extraordinary Union is split into the South American and North American Unions, while the Oceanic Union is subordinate to Europe, and the African Union is loose and fragmented.”
Willy said, “So, in truth, only the American, European, and Asian Extraordinary Unions really matter; the rest can basically be ignored…”
Bai Yuxi started, “Then…”
“For crying out loud, Bai, are you ever going to stop with the questions? We’re here! Out of the car!”
The members of the Seventh Squad all but fled from the taxi, leaping out in near desperation.
Throughout the ride, Bai Yuxi had been like a relentlessly curious child, unleashing an endless barrage of questions that nearly drove the usually talkative Willy mad!
Standing before the main gate of Jiangcheng University, Bai Yuxi looked up at the towering entrance and was struck by a sense of unreality, as if he had crossed into another world.
The chaos of the previous night had been more exhilarating than everything else he’d experienced in his life combined.
Strangest of all, the “hypoxic narcolepsy” that had plagued him for years had vanished without a trace.
Where once he needed ten hours of sleep to feel awake, he had gone sleepless through the night without the slightest hint of fatigue!
Yet watching the students come and go across campus, Bai Yuxi knew he could never return to his old life. Now, everyone he saw seemed like an extraordinary individual.
There was no time to mourn his lost youth; Luo Fei and the others hustled him along to their headquarters—a secluded, aging building from the last century at the foot of Jialuo Mountain.
He glanced at a small, inconspicuous sign in a hidden corner of the old structure: “Jiangda Cosplay Enthusiasts Club.”
“This is your headquarters?” he asked.
“Why does it look more like a scam den to me?”

“I remember these old buildings used to house the ‘Half-Mountain Community,’ the ‘Institute of Cultural Studies,’ and the ‘Prime Minister’s Former Residence,’ didn’t they?”
Bai Yuxi turned to Luo Fei and the group, his expression odd. “Shouldn’t the club rooms assigned by the university be in another area?”
“This is still the Half-Mountain Community,” they replied,
“It’s just that a portion of the buildings have been allocated as headquarters for registered task forces.”
“Of course, outwardly we still hang the cosplay club sign—after all, most of our equipment would look bizarre to outsiders.”
“We’re only borrowing the name; the real Cosplay Enthusiasts Club isn’t here, and we don’t need to attend any club activities.”
Unconcerned, Jitui and the others led Bai Yuxi into the old building. “Simply put, it’s one sign for two organizations…”
Perhaps it was still too early in the day, for the building was deserted, lacking the motley crowd Bai Yuxi had imagined.
“Each registered task force under LDH has its headquarters in a different part of the Half-Mountain Community,” someone explained.
“This building, ‘Half-Mountain No. 18,’ is the headquarters of our Firebird Task Force. Members of other teams won’t come here.”
“There are only seven trainee squads under the Firebird Task Force. Most are busy elsewhere, and some even have their own private bases.”
“In other words, apart from our own poverty-stricken, under-resourced trainee squad—unable to afford a private base—no one actually uses this so-called team headquarters.”
Seeing Bai Yuxi’s confusion, Willy shrugged. “So it works out for us—a trainee squad occupying a regular team’s headquarters.”
“Hey, Willy!”
Having his squad’s situation laid bare, Captain Luo Fei grew flustered and yelled, “Will you ever stop running your mouth?”
“What’s the big deal?”
“Once Bai joins our squad, he’ll learn all this anyway. Why pretend otherwise?”
Willy shrugged, unconcerned, then paused as a thought struck him. “Or… are you worried that after hearing all this, Bai will think we’re hopeless and decide not to join us?”

Luo Fei covered her eyes, unable to bear the sight.
Damn it! Who was the genius who thought it was a good idea to recruit this dopey foreign giant for the Seventh Squad?
Someone with the intelligence of a gorilla was seriously dragging down the squad’s average IQ!
Yet thanks to Willy’s loose tongue, Bai Yuxi had been given a crash course in the special relationship between the LDH Extraordinary Affairs Division and the registered task forces.
It turned out that though the LDH Extraordinary Affairs Division and its registered squads were nominally in a superior-subordinate relationship, in reality, the connection was not so close.
Except during large-scale EN-UMA mutant creature extermination missions—when LDH, short on manpower, would temporarily draft the registered teams for help—
most of the time, these squads operated independently and weren’t bound by LDH’s directives. Even when participation was mandatory, it was never without compensation.
Each time they took part in a purge mission, they earned rewards—honor points, achievement credits, and the like—based on their battlefield contributions, boosting their base privileges and allowing them to exchange for resources, equipment, even extraordinary technologies!
Bai Yuxi was left with a strange expression. This LDH Extraordinary Affairs Division really was a bit like a “mercenary guild,” just as Willy had said, with the registered teams serving as “mercenary companies.”
And squads like his own Seventh—trainee extraordinary squads—were more like “mercenary parties” hastily assembled by independent players to tackle daily missions.
Because the “Jialuo Mountain Base” was the central hub for the “Central Summer Region,” one of the seven extraordinary districts in the country,
it oversaw a jurisdiction of 560,000 square kilometers, spanning the regions of Wu, Chu, and Wei, and was responsible for extraordinary affairs in forty-nine cities.
With so vast a territory to manage, the LDH Extraordinary Affairs Division simply didn’t have the manpower to handle everything, no matter how hard its direct forces worked.
As a result, in addition to the Jialuo Mountain Base in Jiangcheng, there was the Orange River Base in Wujun’s Tancheng, and the Fengdu Base in Weijun’s Shangcheng—three regional bases, each overseeing a number of city-level branches.
In other words, while it was all publicly known as the “LDH Extraordinary Affairs Division,” the actual management of Jiangcheng was handled solely by the city-level office: “LDH Extraordinary Affairs Division—Central Summer Bureau—Chu Regional Department—Jiangcheng Office.”