?272 Chapter 272 – The Perpetrator
Nick scratched the back of his head.
"I mean, I can see where you are coming from, but there isn't really much I can do about that," he said.
"I couldn't have known about this ambush. If I had known about that, I would have brought you two with me."
At that point, Nick furrowed his brows.
A thought had appeared inside his mind.
Yes, he would have brought Jenny and Trevor with him, but…
Would that have actually improved the result?
With Nick constantly running around, the enemy couldn't fully make use of their power, but if Jenny and Trevor were there, they could.
The enemy would have probably killed Jenny and Trevor with their overwhelming numbers advantage, and since Nick would have realized the danger, he would have probably become extremely nervous, which might have resulted in him attacking an enemy without being certain that he could kill them.
Nick's expression became more awkward and sympathetic.
'Honestly, if I had brought the two of them, I might have actually died,' he thought.
Trevor noticed that Nick's expression was changing.
Trevor was a pretty intelligent guy, and he had an inkling about what Nick might be thinking.
"Let's drop this topic," Wyntor suddenly said. "We have more important things to talk about."
Trevor and Jenny looked at Wyntor before sighing.
Right, there were more important things to discuss.
"Nick, do you have any idea about why another Manufacturer would want you dead?" Wyntor asked, turning to Nick. "No matter how much I think about it, there doesn't seem to be any valid reason to attack you."
"It's not the city since they need to stay neutral."
"It's definitely not Kugelblitz."
"Anatomy and Ghosty's Lab are too big to care about Dark Dream. Even more, they wouldn't want to offend my father just for a couple of Adolescents."
"Gemini is very secure right now, and they need to consolidate after acquiring their Elder. Additionally, they also wouldn't want to offend Kugelblitz."
"Solace wants an Elder, not more Adolescents. The thing that keeps them in the lower levels is only their lack of an Elder, and using their resources for anything else would be a huge waste."
"And the Spartans can't afford to fight us for even more reasons. They just recently got their first Adult, and they need to consolidate just like Gemini. On top of that, the difference in strength between us isn't that huge, which would make a fight very troublesome."
"No matter how much I think about it, I can't find any reason why a Manufacturer would want to attack you."
"It doesn't matter who it is. It would be a dumb decision from any of them," Wyntor explained.
Nick looked at the table with furrowed brows.
There were four important pieces of information that Wyntor didn't know.
First, Wyntor didn't know that Nick had been given the task of finding Envy's captured servant in Crimson Fungus City from Simon Francium.
While the details of Nick's talk with Simon were unknown, people knew that Nick had talked to a Protector.
What if the Manufacturer that suppressed Envy's servant became suspicious of Nick?
That would be a reason to kill him.
Second, Nick didn't mention one important piece of information.
He hadn't forgotten how the first hail of bullets from the gunner had been aimed at his legs and lower abdomen. In fact, even the sniper bullet was aimed at his lower torso.
This meant that the enemy didn't want to kill Nick.
They wanted to capture him alive, which led to the third piece of information Nick had kept from Wyntor.
This entire business with Envy.
Wyntor didn't know that Envy wanted to capture Nick.
With these three pieces of information, Nick could already tell who the mastermind behind this incident was.
Envy.
Or, more precisely, Envy's servant.
If Envy were here personally, it could probably just strut into the city, kill everyone, and grab Nick.
So, it couldn't be Envy itself, which only left its servant.
Nick was over 95% sure that this was the doing of one of Envy's servants.
Sadly, there were still a couple of open questions.
Envy's servant had to be extremely powerful.
Capturing Nick shouldn't be very difficult.
So, why didn't Envy's servant grab Nick on its own?
Why use Extractors?
Even more, if Envy's servant could manipulate Extractors to such a degree, why wouldn't it directly manipulate Dark Dream's Extractors?
And finally, there was one more piece of information Nick kept secret.
He already knew who the Extractors belonged to.
The guards had shared their findings with Nick, which included the list of Veterans found in the Outer City and the identity of the corpse Nick had handed over.
The corpse had been of an Extractor who had once belonged to the Spartans.
Even more, the Chief Zephyx Extractor of the Spartans had been in the Outer City.
On top of that, Nick remembered the spear in the leader's hand and his battle stance.
Lastly, when Nick had seen Kallum Sondur's name, his face popped into Nick's mind.
While it had been difficult to see the leader's face under his cloak, Nick had seen enough to say that the leader of the ambush and Kallum Sondur looked very, very similar, both in Aura and in appearance.
Nick was 98% certain that he had been attacked by the Spartans.
One of Envy's servants must have entered the city, but instead of grabbing Nick themselves, they infiltrated the Spartans and somehow caused them to attack Nick.
Did the Specter control their minds?
Did it offer a favorable trade?
Nick couldn't be sure about the specifics.
'They attacked me once and failed,' Nick thought with furrowed brows. 'I'm not sure if they will do that again.'
'There has to be a reason why Envy's servant can't directly enter Dark Dream.'
'Okay, assuming there is something or someone in Dark Dream that keeps Envy's servant at bay, what could they do to get to me?'
'They could try to directly grab me, which was what they did yesterday.'
'However, there's also something else they can do.'
'Destroy Dark Dream.'
'If you can't get someone out of the house, why not destroy the house itself?'