Chapter 70 (2/2)
“Ha! What a joke.”
Rivelia snorted in response to Isaac’s answer, only to have her face realise the gravity of the situation when Isaac remained silent.
“Seriously?”
Rivelia asked again to confirm, and Isaac answered as he touched the coat he was wearing.
“Why do you think I was caught by the warlock? When this expensive gear I bought wasn’t doing its job, there was nothing I could do.”
“… Did the warlock do something to you?”
“Well, a few things. He did shout at me to hand over the Queen’s Artefact. I have a question. Just what is the Queen’s Artefact?”
“That… I don’t know much about it either. All I know is that each and every artefact of the Queen’s collection are objects that would s.h.i.+ft or completely change the common understanding of the world.”
Rivelia wondered how much information she should share with Isaac regarding the Queen’s Artefact. She decided to only share information that someone at the level of a common agent of Central would know to Isaac. Since she’d already shown signs of knowing about it, she couldn’t act oblivious. Isaac nodded at Rivelia’s explanation.
“So what do they look like?”
“… What are you going to do when you find out?”
“I’ll need to know what it looks like to hand it over, right?”
“We don’t know the shape of the artefact. It could look like an ordinary object or very foreign. We don’t even know what function they have.”
‘Or it could be both.’
The artefact had the shape of something that used to be so common but simultaneously something so foreign in this world. The fact that it was an object from the past world he was in was special enough, but it also possessed properties which couldn’t be explained.
Isaac placed his chin on his left hand while he looked at his right, spinning the pen in his hand. Rivelia stood up from her chair.
“Anyhow, don’t bother yourself with the Queen’s Artefact anymore. Any curiosity you have about it will only bring bad news.”
“Sure thing.”
Isaac responded detachedly while keeping his eyes on the pen. Rivelia frowned, looked at where Isaac was looking. She saw his hand and spoke.
“Central will begin an investigation regarding the warlock soon. Please don’t make a scene and comply with the investigation. And make sure you don’t act so rude, since incidents involving warlocks are sensitive even within Central. Got it?”
“Yes, yes.”
“And, why do you keep flicking your hand like that? If it’s some form of PTSD from something in the past, you better have it checked out at a hospital quickly.”
Tap!
Isaac looked up at Rivelia after hearing those words. The pen escaped from his hand, fell from the table and rolled near Rivelia’s foot. Yet Rivelia didn’t show any signs of noticing the pen; she was only at odds with how surprised Isaac was.
“What is it?”
“… It’s nothing. I’m just surprised you were worried about me.”
“Hmph!”
Rivelia snorted, as if Isaac’s words didn’t have the slightest value in them. Once she disappeared down the stairs, Isaac reflexively laughed out loud after a moment of silence.
“Kukus. Was that why? Wow! How amazing.”
After spending a good bit of time laughing, the pen that had escaped from Isaac’s hand evaporated only to return back into his hand. Isaac went back to thinking as he twirled the pen around.
Rivelia didn’t perceive the existence of the pen at all. An object that remained hidden, even against a sword master. It explained how neither Central nor the warlock could find it no matter how hard they tried.
No wonder Central couldn’t find the pen and lens despite ransacking that room. An object that could not be seen by the people of this world. This confirmed that whoever made the Queen’s Artefacts was someone from his past world.
Although one question was answered, it also meant that things have gotten even more complicated. Since there was no way to hand over the Queen’s Artefact, Isaac had to endure all efforts made against him to take it from him.
“… Was it a good thing that I used eggbombs instead of mana circles?”
Isaac grabbed at his coat. Although his magical artefacts were disabled by the effects of the mine, it didn’t mean all of Isaac’s offensive options were null. The magic circles that Isaac had drawn were functioning properly even inside the mine.
But he couldn’t smoke, as his limbs were tied together. Without the choyu cigarette, Isaac didn’t have the mana to activate the magic circles.
Although Isaac did free himself thanks to the warlock’s stupidity and managed to light up a smoke, he couldn’t activate the circles. The circles drawn onto Isaac’s coat were the most basic of basic magic circles available.
Using such trivial magic against a warlock who regularly fought against Central was like throwing toilet paper at a concrete wall, and it would only prove to the warlock that not only did Isaac have the Queen’s Artefact but that he also knew how to use it.
After snickering to himself, Isaac grabbed at another cigarette.
“Ah. What an interesting world this is.”
Isaac muttered to himself as he got off the sofa and approached the balcony on the roof. He looked down onto the Ceta District, a sprawling plaza where the energetic sound of the pedestrians echoed throughout the growing city. Seeing the result of his efforts would have brought pride in the eyes of an ordinary man, yet Isaac’s eyes were eerily apathetic.
“I don’t know who the creator of this pen is, but I’d really like to punch that person when I find them.”
This world was Isaac’s, no Joon-young’s vacation. Living quietly in peace would have been nice, but he also considered that living with a few ruckuses here and there wasn’t so bad either.
But this was going too far. To have an important object that could only be seen by him. It’s no wonder that everyone around him were so desperate to find it since it was a strategic weapon. With the constant crazy feats he had already performed, it was like an arsonist heaping flammable substances next to an armoury. This was a farewell to a peaceful life for him. And the cause was the creator of this pen.
Within the dark room, the sound of flipping paper echoed as a man shuffled through one doc.u.ment after another. The man seemed to be done looking through the doc.u.ments and stacked the doc.u.ments together when an old man with a pale face staggered into the room. The man in the room stopped what he was doing and spoke to the old man.
“It seems you’ve made quite the scene.”
“… I have nothing to say.”
The man looked at the old man who seemed to be waiting for his punishment apathetically.
“Why don’t you take off that sh.e.l.l of yours first?”
“Yes sir.”
With that, the shadow under the old man’s feet crawled over him, covering him from head to toe. When the shadow eventually dissipated, the middle-aged man who recruited Rivelia into Central showed himself.
“How’s the wound?”
“We’ve managed to perform first aid.”
“And the result?”
“… I apologise.”
The middle-aged man hesitated at first, and then he made his apology with a voice which whimpered. The first man snorted, tied the doc.u.ments on his table together with a string, and spoke.
“So you’re telling me that despite almost dying, you never managed to confirm whether the target has the Queen’s Artefact? And you couldn’t even find evidence of the ident.i.ty of the demonic turncoat’s accomplice?”
“…”
“Well, fine. We’ll leave it at that then. What about the angelic turncoats’ response?”
“…”
The middle-aged man hesitated to speak and remained silent. Annoyed by this, the man looked at him with displeasure on his face.
“Let’s ignore the Queen’s Artefact and demonic turncoat involvement for now. You’re telling me that the angelic turncoats remained idle when surveillance target 728 was almost buried underground from a cave in incident?”
“… There was only activity among the people within the City Hall when the news reached the city. No one else within the city tried to persuade the populace to aid in the rescue attempt.”
The man frowned with displeasure when he heard the explanation from the middle-aged man and muttered.
“Does that mean that the conclusion made by the Directorate of a.n.a.lysis was correct?”
“Sorry?”
Unable to understand the man’s muttering, the middle-aged man asked. The man spoke as he leaned back into his chair.
“The Directorate of a.n.a.lysis has come to the conclusion that the angelic turncoats have given up on New Port City due to our presence, and have gone into hiding again.”
“That’s impossible. If they’ve sacrificed a follower already, I’d imagine they’d have invested much of their resources into the city already. There’s no way they’d give up on it all and go back into hiding.”
“That’s the key factor. The angelic turncoats spend tens of years and ma.s.sive amounts of resources to grab hold of a target and deify them. Seeing how they sacrificed a follower, I’d imagined that the angelic turncoats have spread their roots deep into New Port City too. But the Directorate of a.n.a.lysis has come up with another theory.”
“…”
“That surveillance target 728 appeared in New Port City just as they were starting to work their way into New Port City.”
“Even if they’ve just begun their work, isn’t it a great opportunity for them to accelerate the deifying process for the angelic turncoats?”
“Angelic turncoats always create a hero, try to turn them into a deity, and then control them in the end. I’m sure they tried to do the same here as well. And they’ve given up on it.”
“What could possibly make them…”
The middle-aged man stopped trying to ask for the reason. The answer was too obvious. There were too many reasons why it was impossible. The target burnt down the city. He turns a blind eye at all sorts of criminal activities, even controlling them to a certain extent. Plus, he cares so little about his own life that he almost buried himself alive in the mine by detonating eggbombs.
Turning that man into a hero? Even the middle-aged man could understand why the stubborn angelic turncoats would give up on it.
“Giving up on it would have been easy and simple if they were just starting at this point. Not only that, but my brother intervened officially too. With so much attention placed on them, there’s no way they could hold out anymore.”
“But they’ve sacrificed a follower.”
“Don’t you think it’s an excellent move on their part? If they’ve decided on a retreat, followers are excellent cards to use. Followers who have already chosen their target are just baggage. By leaving us with expendables and putting up a facade that they are lurking within New Port City, they can fixate our eyes on the city while they move somewhere else and try from another place. I think they say ‘cut off one’s tail’ and ‘live to fight another day’ in a situation like this.”
PR Note: The original raw is ‘shed one’s skin,’ but it has been changed to ‘cut off one’s tail’ for common clarity’s sake. Both idioms have similar meanings that derive from real life phenomenon (geckos allow predators to rip off their skin while escaping, and lizards can “drop” part of their tail to confuse predators.) The “injured” parts can be regrown given their species, respectively.
“Does the Directorate of a.n.a.lysis believe that the angelic turncoats have completely escaped from the city?”
“I a.s.sume so, since they are very guarded against us. Thanks to that, it’s just us who are in trouble. If the report had come a little earlier, we wouldn’t have agitated the surveillance target so unnecessarily. All we’ve done now is raise 728’s guard without gaining anything in return.”
“Are you sure we didn’t just feed oil into a burning fire? 728’s actions are so unpredictable that even the Directorate of a.n.a.lysis have given up on predicting his moves.”
The middle-aged man grit his teeth as he remembered Isaac’s face. The sinful man who didn’t hesitate to negotiate with a warlock, only to betray the warlock moments after. He was more evil than a warlock himself. It had been a while since the middle-aged man felt so enraged like this.
The man placed his chin on one hand while tapping on the desk with another as he pondered. He seemed to come to a decision as he spoke.
“It seems that the Directorate of a.n.a.lysis has come up with another interesting find other than their conclusion about the angelic turncoats.”
“What is it?”
The man silently handed over the bundle of doc.u.ments to the middle-aged man’s question. After careful examination, the middle-aged man spoke back with disbelief in his eyes.
“I… I can’t trust this. These are completely baseless a.s.sumptions.”
“I would like to think the same too, but has the Directorate of a.n.a.lysis ever come up with a wrong conclusion in their a.n.a.lysis?”
“…”
Never. Central’s Directorate of a.n.a.lysis had the ability to come up with the cause, result, and make a web of connections from just a single sentence they find. If the Directorate of Surveillance were Central’s eyes and the Directorate of Strategy were its limbs, then the Directorate of a.n.a.lysis was its head.
They couldn’t completely reject the conclusion that the Directorate of a.n.a.lysis had come up with. But if the report in front of the middle aged man’s eyes was true, this was a grave situation where even Central would be fractured into pieces.
“Does the Director of a.n.a.lysis know of this?”
“The Director of a.n.a.lysis is human, but all agents within the Directorate of a.n.a.lysis are non-human. Why do you think that’s the case?”
“… Because humans are political animals.”
“Exactly. Brolen, especially, is pro-Queen, so they can’t leave it to chance. Which is why the Directorate of a.n.a.lysis gave the information to me instead.”
“What will you do now?”
“Investigate. Investigate as to why the Queen has joined hands with the demonic turncoat to smuggle her artefact outside.”
The middle aged man pondered before he responded.
“But there are too many interconnected missions, and we can’t move so carelessly.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ve already received approval from my brother. The Directorate of Strategy is already at work with the plans, so you are to move once it is finished.”
The middle aged man pondered after receiving his orders from the man.
“Although carrying out the orders aren’t a problem, there are two significant issues.”
“Two? Not just one?”
The man spoke back with surprise to the middle aged man.
“What will you do with the Director of Surveillance? Target 728 is already subject to close surveillance by the Director of Surveillance, and all a.n.a.lysis and missions involving him are forbidden. If we move, there will be significant backlash.”
“No matter. We may get a scolding later, but the most important factor is the Queen’s involvement in this incident. Ignore it. What’s the other issue?”
The middle aged man hesitated before he continued.
“It seems Lady Rivelia has noticed.”
The man frowned deeply in response.
“I see. I guess with the mission failing, she was bound to find out. Can it become a problem?”
“She will most definitely discover our existence before we initiate our next mission. What’s more, Lady Rivelia is directly connected to the Director of Surveillance. Above that is the Queen. If we provide her with even a single hint, then the Director of Surveillance or the Queen will notice our act.”
“I swear, that stubbornness runs deep in the Pendleton Family, both the father and daughter mind you. I guess there’s no point in stopping them right?”
“They are as persistent as they are stubborn.”
“I guess there’s no choice. I will meet her to buy some time, and we will need to make our move in that time. I guess this is the first time I’m meeting that little girl since she was a child. I heard she’d grown quite a lot?”
“She has grown to be praised as the greatest beauty in the Empire.”
“I look forward to it.”
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