191 Chapter 191: Daybreak (1/2)

I slowly stirred awake, rubbing my eyes groggily before reaching for my glasses and putting them on. People still asked me why I wore them – it was because I could put all sorts of cool functions in them, like infrared vision, motion detector, visual sensors, targeting systems etc.

Blinking the sleep out of my eyes, I became aware of a slight weight on my shoulder. Anastasia had dozed off right beside me, her head leaning on my left shoulder and her body tilting in my direction. She was wrapping her hands around my arm for some reason, as if it was some hug-pillow or stuffed animal.

Oh, right. We spent the whole night and wee hours of the morning hunting through the underground passageway of Azpire City, using the data to locate and root out the Goblin nests. Thankfully, there weren't any awakened Goblins and they were still slumbering inside their eggs. Without the twins to wake them up, they remained dormant.

Obviously we couldn't just leave sleeping monsters lying around underneath Azpire City, so we destroyed each and every one of them, demolishing the rooms they were in and sealing them for eternity. Okay, that was a bit of an exaggeration, but at least we did our part to minimize the chances that someone would come along and resurrect them as an undead monster army to terrorize the poor city from below.

After we combed through all the locations specified in the data that Anastasia extracted from Mell and Nell's smartphone, we were too exhausted to return to the surface. We were literally running about the entire space of the city, albeit underground, without any stop or rest. Our smartphones received no signal this deep down and we couldn't make a call or contact the people on the surface. We would have to report to Feng Hai at the very least.

But we were so, very tired…he would forgive us for taking a short break, right?

”Gah?!”

As it turned out, it wasn't a ”short” break. The moment I looked at my smartphone to check for the time, I received a rude shock. We had been asleep for almost twelve hours. It was already past evening. We had stopped to rest at 9am and now it was almost 9pm. We must have exhausted ourselves to oblivion.

”Hmm?”

Anastasia was muttering something in her sleep, and then she shifted her head. Opening her eyes, she glanced at me for a moment, and then smiled.

”Good morning, Richard.”

”It's already night, though?!”

”Eh? It is?” Anastasia calmly checked her smartphone and frowned. ”Oh, you're right. We must have been more tired than we thought.”

She stood up and stretched herself, creaking her neck from side to side to ease the tense muscles.

”We should hurry to the surface and report to the boss.”

”Oh yeah…but even though we've eliminated the Goblin threat, we still have yet to find out what the Assassin's target was, or who the Assassin was…”

”We'll slowly look through the data once we get back to the hotel,” Anastasia assured me. ”But for now, the both of us could use a bath and a change of clothes, wouldn't you say?”

”Ah…”

She had a good point. After all that running around underground and fighting off hordes of Goblins (well, only the first time, but we still had to work hard in exterminating the nests and their eggs), we were pretty grimy and sweaty.

I hoped I didn't stink too much.

”Let's go.”

Anastasia offered me a hand, which I accepted gratefully, and pulled me to my feet. As Anastasia cheerfully spun around to lead the way out of the underground tunnel, her dress flitting around her ankles, I was suddenly reminded of Alicia.

Of course the two girls were completely different, almost polar opposites of each other. Anastasia was a lot more aggressive, bolder and more confident, whereas Alicia was a lot more reserved and passive. Aside from that first kiss, Alicia didn't really take the initiative. Obviously I also shouldered some of the responsibility for being passive, but because the both of us didn't actively reach out, we didn't really start dating until pretty much later. Our personalities and mannerisms were somewhat similar. On the other hand, Anastasia was always openly clinging to me or seizing every opportunity to get physically close.

I wasn't going to start taking things for granted and assume, though. It was entirely possible that Anastasia had her own motives for trying to get close to me. It was also possible that she behaved this way to any guy, or was teasing me without any real intention of getting into a serious relationship. She was a former Assassin, after all. She had been trained in the art of seduction and luring men to lower their guard around her.

She could possibly be behaving this way unconsciously without realizing the deeper implications of physical intimacy. I would feel so embarrassed if I asked her if she was interested in me, and she looked at me as if I was an idiot before saying something along the lines of, ”you? I like you, you're a nice guy, but I've never thought of you as a potential romantic interest before.”

Yeah, if that happened, I would want to crawl into a hole and die.

We managed to get to the upper levels of the underground complex we were currently in, following the corridor toward a flight of utility stairs. We had already ascended a ladder and another set of stairs earlier, and if my memory served me correctly, we should be about one or two levels away from the surface.

Then my smartphone vibrated, notifying me of several missed calls and an urgent text message from Feng Hai, asking me to contact him as soon as possible. Anastasia also received the same thing, her pretty face scrunched when she stared at her incessantly shaking smartphone.

”They must be really worried about us,” I remarked dryly. ”I'm so touched.”

”I wonder if that's the case.” Anastasia frowned as she studied the list of missed calls. Okay, that was an exaggeration. The both of us only received about two missed calls each. ”Something tells me it's not so simple.”

”Well, I guess we're about to find out.”

Swiping across the screen of my smartphone, I conjured a huge holographic screen as I began calling Feng Hai. It didn't take long for him to answer. After a few seconds, Feng Hai's worried face filled the screen.

”Oh, the both of you are all right!” he exclaimed, relieved, when he caught sight of the two of us. Both Anastasia and I exchanged puzzled glances.

”Why wouldn't we be?” Okay, that was a stupid question, but still… ”We informed you yesterday that we will be proceeding underground to wipe out the Goblin nests, and that it might take quite some time. We also told you about the possibility that we would be beyond communication range because of the underground environment.”

”Yes, yes. You did. Of course.” Feng Hai nodded fervently. Anastasia and I continued to share a bewildered gaze at his reaction. However, Feng Hai turned serious and stared at the both of us intensely. ”As of 10.16am, today morning, we lost all contact with the operatives we had in Azpire City. We also lost communication with the entire city…as if there was a communications blackout. There was also reports of monster attacks shortly before all contact was lost, and any reinforcements we sent toward the city have met heavy resistance on the way there.”

”Goblins?” I asked, feeling deflated. Despite our efforts we were still unable to eliminate all the Goblins before they emerged to the surface and wreaked havoc.

”No.” Anastasia shook her head. ”Even if there were Goblins who somehow escaped our net and hatched, there is no way they would be able to cause a total communications blackout.”

”Anastasia is correct,” Feng Hai agreed grimly. ”And more than that…before we lost contact, the monsters attacking weren't Goblins but Hellhounds and Bloodhounds. There were reports of Revenants and Grim Ghouls as well. Mostly rank D and C monsters, but there were no sightings of any rank B or rank A monsters, which makes this even more peculiar.”

In other words, there wasn't any monster powerful enough to destroy a city's standing militia and security forces present. Theoretically, anyway.

Then what could have caused the total silence of an entire city?