“We will be heading off first then, Chief Season!”
“Good work. Don’t forget to give notice to the 8th Corps on your way.”
“Yes sirr~”
Kang Ahjin was a mood maker. She was quick at becoming close with anyone and always gave off an energetic and positive aura. That was no exception even when facing Yu Jitae, who everyone in the Association found hard to approach.
“You should head off now as well Chief. These days you always get off late, right? Even though you used to go home right on time.”
“I will soon.”
“If I was a chief advisor, I wouldn’t even come to work. Getting paid for doing nothing has always been my dream, you see. Ah, your collars aren’t straight.”
Saying that, she came closer and straightened out his collars.
“Well then, I’ll be heading off. Ah, please be safe on your way as well, Miss Haru.”
Kang Ahjin was also very respectful to Bom even though she had suddenly appeared. Since she was always kind like that, Bom also returned a smile and bid farewell.
She left, leaving behind Yu Jitae and Bom inside the office.
“Should we practice acting together before we go?” asked Bom.
“Why,” he asked back.
“Nothing. It’s just that there were some awkward spots.”
“We did well though.”
“Do you really think that? That both of us did well?”
“We did. They were all fooled.”
He was serious.
A smile appeared on her lips. She murmured, ‘What should I do…’ but he had no idea why she would say such a thing, because he knew he had done a very good job at acting.
“In any case, it was unexpected.”
“Which one?”
“I knew you were smart but I wasn’t expecting you to deceive them so naturally. You didn’t even have much time so when did you practise that.”
“Because that’s what I do everyday… Ah, by the way.”
Bom suddenly walked towards him. He was sitting on the sofa of the office and Bom, after suddenly walking to him, casually rested her bum on his knee.
“Oppa.”
He gave her the permission to call him that way if it was just the two of them and ever since, Bom sometimes called him oppa although very rare.
“Do you know the people here very well?”
“Sort of. Why.”
“You know the ones that help you directly, what kind of people are they?”
“Who. You mean Antonio Jefferson and Kang Ahjin?”
“Yes.”
“Why are you asking that,”
“We will be on the same boat now so I want to know more about them.”
Yu Jitae looked into her eyes.
When Bom wasn’t there, the agents of the Association all praised her for her eyes. Jefferson found it too mystical and burdensome while Kang Ahjin mentioned that it felt like her eyes would suck her in.
He had gotten used to her eyes after living with the dragons for so long but sitting right next to each other like this made him understand yet again what their words meant.
“Nothing too different from what you already know about them. They are like assistants and they’re like my limbs.”
“Hmm, since when were they your assistants?”
“Been quite some time.”
“Then, are you close to them?”
“Who knows. I guess inside the Association for work-related matters, yes.”
Bom blinked her eyes and muttered, ‘Been quite some time…’ before slowly lowering her gaze. She faintly closed her left eye with her right eye still open.
She fidgeted her fingers before quietly opening her mouth.
“I should become friends with them as soon as possible then…”
Hearing that, Yu Jitae felt slightly odd. It gave him the feeling that Bom might not be in a good mood but when she lifted her head back up, she had the same usual look on her face.
“The kids must be hungry. What should we get for dinner?”
Was he just sensing things?
***
The strategy council and the military police of the Association backtracked Edrei’s communication records, movements, people he came into contact with and personal life and had pulled out as much data from him as possible regardless of his impending death.
All the gathered data merged in the hands of Zhuge Haiyan. She, who had a computer in her mind, combined all the information fragments and identified approximately 870 places that Q could be in.
Immediately afterwards, 200 agents including a secret ops squad, the five transcendents and Yu Jitae spread all across the globe. They had to move fast. Q would soon hear the news of Edrei having been caught and will immediately begin erasing their traces.
“It’s already begun actually.”
Zhuge Haiyan, with her mind connected to 12 computers, said while biting her lips. It seemed that Q was very quick-witted.
It was only half a day ago that they had tracked down Edrei. How often did Q manage the people that were connected to them that they discovered the Association’s search already?
“Hurry.”
“Yes!”
They had to collect as many traces as possible before they were erased.
“Huh? Wait, this…!”
Thanks to running around as if there was a rocket attached to their feet, early next morning, the Association discovered an astonishing CCTV video hard drive.
It contained a shocking video.
“Why. What is it.”
One of the superhumans of the strategy council replied to Zhuge Haiyan’s question.
“It is a video of a person presumed to be a high executive of Quasar!”
“What?”
After having a look at the video, Zhuge Haiyan bit her lips.
No. In her eyes, this was not a simple high executive of Quasar.
“Send it through right now.”
“Yes ma’am!”
A person that might be Q was recorded on the CCTV clip.
*
Mana was the manifestation of will. Thus, things without a will tended to escape from the interference of mana quite easily.
Because of that, electronic devices were the bane of superhumans. They had eyes and yet there was no ‘will to see’ in them.
Yu Jitae was in the 5th Command Room conducting a conference with Christoph, BM, Carrefour and Jeanie – four of the five transcendents when a message was suddenly sent to them from the strategy council.
Astonishingly enough, it seemed that they had gotten their hands on a video of someone that was estimated to be Q.
“Signalman!”
In response to the command of the old man Christoph, the signalman hurriedly played the video.
It was a conference room, dark due to the curtains covering outside light. There were 5 men, 2 women and one person whom they could only see the back of, but that person was sitting at the seat of honour and immediately became the focus of the clip.
Unlike others who were in soldier uniforms, that person was wearing padded hoodies.
“Is that the guy?”
“Quite small actually.”
They fast-forwarded through the conference. There was no sound to the video but enraged behaviours could be seen under the dark lighting of the room. One of them appeared to be shouting while another threw the papers in their hands and complained. It was unknown why they were fighting each other but one of them even stood up and pointed fingers at the seat of honour.
Looking at the screen, the five transcendents analysed the clip.
“The sword that big guy is carrying is Eme-580 right?”
“Yeah. Looks like a genuine one bought from the Hermes franchise.”
“So it seems they have quite some cash. Their mouths are slightly disjointed; probably a fake face or something. Ah, wait. Stop. Hmm… the thing on the waist of that lady at the back is ‘Desert Shadow’ isn’t it? You know, the armour set from the Great War.”
“Looks just like it. You have great eyes. It is likely for that woman to be a ranker in 200s then I guess.”
“Who was the last owner of Desert Shadow again?”
“Who knows. It was either Anna Crema or Yong Jungkook but… that’s already 8 years ago.”
“I have no connections with Anna Crema but Yong Jungkook I can ask right now.”
Saying that, BM was about to call someone when the person sitting at the seat of honour slowly stood up.
“He got up.”
The person walked towards the superhumans.
In an instant, the superhumans raised their weapons and dashed towards the approaching person. Red mana intertwined with blue mana and shot as large swords appeared from thin air. Right when the conference room was about to turn into chaos,
Suddenly, the world inside the screen came to a stop.
“Did you pause it?”
“Signalman you freaking fool!”
“Uh, umm… It, it’s still playing…!”
The timer at the bottom of the screen was still moving.
Before long, the person whose face they had yet to see began to move and approached the crowd that was frozen stiff.
Following that was something completely unbelievable.
The person presumed to be Q grabbed a superhuman by the neck and immediately pulled it out.
“…!”
Blood rushed out as a part of the spine followed the head out of the body. That marked the start of the massacre. The person grabbed others by their bodies and ripped them apart; it was slow and vividly visible.
“What the f…”
“Mhmm…”
The 5th Command Room had assumed the victims of the video to be high rankers. Top rankers had their [Tenacity] reaching the heavens and their bodies were generally tougher than steel and yet the person whose face was hidden from view divided their bodies like toys.
Toys.
That was the best way to put it.
As the superhumans began to die, the mysterious person began to do something odd. The person pulled one of the victim’s intestines out and swung it around in the air before strangling another person with it. Then, they pulled someone’s fist out before trying to insert it into the mouth of the man who had shown the fiercest protest by throwing papers down.
The man was still alive and tried to resist but his chin was soon grabbed before being pulled towards the ground. The entire body of the superhuman that was stuck in mid-air seemingly screamed as his lips and cheeks ripped apart. His chin sunk down and revealed the inside of his mouth.
The person wearing the hoodie then inserted the fist, nonchalantly, as if they were putting an apple into a pig’s mouth.
“What a madman…”
“A disturbing sense of taste.”
The attitude of killing people and playing around as if they were toys made the watching executives frown.
“That strength though…”
“More like, why is it that none of them can move?”
“Is that related to brainwash?”
A time label was added to the clip by the signalman. From 4 minutes and 17 seconds to 9 minutes and 39 seconds – everyone was killed in that time span. After excluding the time the man spent playing around, the time taken was reduced to exactly 2 minutes and 2 seconds.
“Please have a look at this,” said the signalman.
What is it? Thinking that, the transcendents turned around and found the mysterious person turn slightly to the side, before wiping the blood that was on their face with their arm.
“It’s too dark to see anything… Make it brighter.”
“Yes sir!”
Even then, it was hardly visible. One of the person’s arms was covering the face and the camera was too high. The only thing that was really revealed was the person’s nose but that was when something strange entered Yu Jitae’s sight.
“Signalman.”
“Ah, yes sir!”
“Go back to 10:08. And play the clip at 2 frames per second.”
The signalman followed his order as Yu Jitae gazed deeply at the video.
The mysterious person opened a small gap in the window of the dark room, before bringing a cube out from their waist and bringing it to their nose.
He remembered seeing that somewhere.
“Zoom in more. Make it so that the thing they’re carrying is easier to see. And go through that section 1 frame at a time.”
“Yes sir!”
The transcendents looked at Yu Jitae with curiosity. The cube in the person’s hand was the size of a palm and appeared to be transparent from the way it reflected light. In addition, there were various holes on it.
“Is there anything on your mind, Season?” asked BM but Yu Jitae didn’t respond.
What was it? He had seen it somewhere…
Where was it?
After a deep thought, something flashed through his mind.
“…”
He focused even more at the screen that was cycling through the same section. A transparent cube… and bringing that to the nose…?
Yu Jitae immediately took a picture of the screen with his watch and sent a message to Kaeul.
[Me: Kaeul]
[Kaeuli ♥: What is itt ahjooosii ♥]
[Me: Tell the cleaner to take a picture from the same angle as this photo.]
[Kaeuli ♥: ???]
[Kaeuli ♥: Whyy?]
[Me: Hurry up.]
Soon, a message was sent to his device.
Inside the photo, he could see the back of the golden-haired girl’s head, as she gazed off into a distance over the window and the thing she was carrying in her hand… was quite naturally, the preservation device for Wyvernip that Yu Jitae had bought for her.
Even though he didn’t tell her to do so, Kaeul naturally held it in her hand similar to the way it was taken in the photo. Why? It was because they were both transparent; both were of a similar size and were both used by bringing it to the nose.
[Kaeuli ♥: Ehehahehi. Is dat okeyyy//???]
[Me: Ye]
He turned off his watch.
A woman with purple eyes appeared in his mind.
There’s no way… he thought but…
Myu.
She was a woman with such an average personality. She regretted being unable to obtain what she wanted, and bothered to share information about how to preserve it for as long as possible and expressed her gratitude. She even appeared like a virtuous person.
There was nothing strange there that he found.
Is that ‘mysterious person’ inside the video actually Myu?
Did a woman like that enjoy such a vicious way of killing humans? Although there were countless mental people among superhumans, a personality gap that big was on the extreme side even among superhumans.
“Jeanie.”
Yu Jitae called a woman who was sitting on the other side of the 5th Command Room. Officially ranked 15th, she had the alias, ‘Nuclear Bomb’.
[Jeanie Inssirem]
She was the only mage from the five transcendents – a great mage admired by the whole world who had the Dungeon Free Pass while also being the captain of the ‘Last Squad of Humanity’.
The middle-aged woman in her 40s, as elegant as a noble in a painting, replied.
“Speak. Chief Season.”
“Let me borrow your name once right now for the Tower of Mages.”
“Why the Tower?”
[No. 12. Myu (28, Female)]
Reminding himself of the details he saw before, Yu Jitae opened his mouth.
“I need to see one of the Royal Guards of the Golden Cross.”