novelnext Chapter 187 : Infiltrators (2)
Chapter 187 : Infiltrators (2)
“Hoho, the newcomers are here? Come on, have a seat.”“But aren't the Special Volunteer Army members prohibited from coming in here?”
“They said Chief of Staff Dale personally escorted them. There must be some reason, right?”
“I never understood why there are members who aren't allowed in here in the first place. We're all fighting for the same goal.”
“No, no. It's because people get too relaxed if they stay here. They're trying to keep discipline from falling apart.”
“Haha, that's true!”
“But you haven't said a single word since you got here. Are you always this quiet?”
“It's not that…”
“You'll all be asleep soon.”
“…Asleep?”
“What are you suddenly talking abou—”
Thud.
Thud.
Boom.
The moment Michel's spell took effect, all six of them lost consciousness.
Rubia nodded with satisfaction.
“That did it.”
Immediately afterward, Meriel and Edel sealed the entrance with Locking Magic and Silencing Barrier, while the rest of us quickly stripped the unconscious members of their uniforms.
“…We got lucky.”
“Sometimes things just work out like this.”
After passing through the iron gate, there had fortunately been no one on the other side.
Less than three minutes later, we found a lounge.
Everyone inside happened to be wearing Resistance badges.
And by sheer coincidence, there were exactly six of them.
As a result, less than thirty minutes after entering through the secret passage, we had already completed the first step of our operation—our disguises.
“On our side, it's one man and five women, but our disguise targets are four men and two women…”
“…Should we just be thankful they weren't all men?”
“Baudouin's Mask can't change our voices or body types…”
“Still, it's fortunate there aren't any giants among them. At first glance, none of us look particularly out of place.”
“So we just need to hide our voices?”
“We can only hope we won't have to speak.”
After tightly binding all six of them with the ropes we had brought, we deliberately covered the lounge windows with countless cracks so no one outside could see inside.
“Baudouin's Mask is a continuously active Artifact, but the Replicas only last four hours. Don't forget that.”
“That means we realistically have about three hours. We have to leave enough time to escape.”
“And it's much harder to get your bearings underground, so I think we should decide on a fixed rendezvous point.”
“I'll handle that.”
Michel cast an Engraving Magic spell on the lounge door.
“I've set it to send a faint signal to anyone whose mana has been registered with the engraving. The signal weakens as the distance increases, so we should be able to estimate each other's locations.”
“Then we'll regroup at the entrance to this lounge before the four hours are up.”
Watching everyone nod in agreement, I added another suggestion.
“Once we leave, let's split into pairs. If all six of us move together, we'll attract attention. It'll also make it harder to move quickly if we have to escape later.”
Thus, we split into three teams and divided our routes.
First, Team One—Rubia and Meriel—headed left.
“Everyone, don't push yourselves too hard!”
“…I think you're the one who needs to be careful, Agent Rubia.”
Next, Team Two—Francia and Michel—headed right.
“…May fortune be with you.”
“If things start looking dangerous, don't hesitate to run.”
Finally, Team Three—Eugene and Edel—headed upward.
“If that happens, head back to the passage first. It'll be safer if we escape together.”
“That won't happen, so don't worry. Let's move.”
And so, the six infiltrators began their intelligence-gathering mission to uncover the truth behind the secret organization.
Team One—Rubia and Meriel.
The two mages from Mallet.
From their years of experience, they instinctively understood one thing.
With the exception of Dark Magic, every covert operation inevitably relied upon tangible information.
Rather than drawing solely upon intangible knowledge like memories, any organization operating in secret had no choice but to base its plans upon real, existing records.
For example, suppose they concluded that they should exploit corrupt politicians.
To arrive at that conclusion, they would inevitably have required information such as:
An environment where honest politicians never had the chance to shine.
An environment where corrupt politicians escaped proper punishment.
An environment where no new blood entered politics, allowing those corrupt individuals to continue their political careers indefinitely.
And finally, firsthand experience in successfully corrupting specific politicians.
Naturally, not every attempt would succeed.
But by constantly learning from failure, they could steadily improve their chances of success.
Their two hundred years of clandestine activity had been built upon an immense accumulation of information spanning from the distant past to the present.
Which also meant that somewhere, all of that information had to be stored.
And when it came to preserving records, no organization surpassed Duel.
For the two women, this operation was like a fish returning to water.
For countless years at Duel—Mallet, both had handled research materials concerning every kind of document, Artifact, and living organism imaginable.
They knew better than anyone where valuable materials would be stored.
Especially in an underground facility.
“Thank goodness they don't ask for authentication codes every time someone enters.”
“I know.”
The two quickly scanned the books on the final shelf of Document Repository N6 before walking along the wall to the right.
Creak—
About five minutes later, they entered the next archive.
Rubia suddenly stopped.
“Rubia?”
“…I think it's here, Meriel. I can feel a very dense malice.”
“……”
Relying on her instincts as a Holy Mage, Rubia moved toward the location where the malicious presence felt strongest.
The seventh row from the left.
The third bookshelf.
The second shelf from the bottom.
Focusing on the sensation at her fingertips, she slowly ran her hand across each spine before pulling out the eleventh book.
“Introduction to Betelgeuse's Demonology… On Contracts and Bargains…”
“Demonology? Is it about evil spirits?”
“…It seems to apply to both evil spirits and Beasts.”
As she skimmed the overview, Rubia recalled the conversation they had shared earlier.
“They've been alive for two hundred years? The Chairman of the Platinum Dawn Society?”
“At least two hundred years. We don't know the exact length.”
“How could anyone possibly survive for that long…”
“That's exactly what we have to find out. We have to uncover everything from that point onward. Why the Platinum Dawn Society was founded. How it grew. What its current objective is. What they're trying to accomplish. What they intend to do after achieving that objective. Everything began with that person's life.”
As she reflected on Eugene's words one by one, she continued turning the pages.
“Contracts… bargains…”
About halfway through the book, her gaze abruptly stopped.
It was a section discussing contracts with supreme-ranking evil spirits and Beasts.
《On Contracts and Bargains》
Although both evil spirits and Beasts are hostile forces against humanity, the methods by which they form contracts are completely different.
Evil spirits possess a minimum level of respect toward humans, as they choose only those they deem worthy of borrowing their power.
Beasts, however, seek only those whose demonic nature makes them suitable to have their lives stolen.
Respect never enters into the equation.
Instead, what Beasts feel toward their chosen prey is something closer to kinship and pity.
As a result, there are cases where they completely devour the contractor's consciousness, bind the contractor's physical freedom, or even imitate them entirely.
Furthermore, evil spirits reside within the contractor's subconscious, existing alongside humans as parasites regardless of whether a master-servant relationship exists.
Beasts, on the other hand, grant overwhelming power to their contractors in exchange for complete control over both body and mind.
Ultimately, they are reborn into the world through that human as a vessel.
As a consequence, the contractor inevitably dies.
Thus, contracts between evil spirits and humans resemble spiritual exchanges built upon mutual respect.
Contracts between Beasts and humans, meanwhile, are closer to sacrifices and investments in which humans willingly offer their lives to achieve a desired objective.
In particular, certain highly intelligent high-ranking Beasts have reappeared in the world decades earlier than their natural emergence by using this method.
After reading that far, Rubia immediately began piecing everything together.
“Contracts… bargains… an objective worth sacrificing your life to a Beast…”
If Charlotte Platina truly possessed such an objective...
If she had borrowed a Beast's power to survive for centuries, determined to achieve that goal at any cost...
Then the Empire would be reduced to complete ruin afterward.
A Beast would never simply leave her alone once she had fulfilled its purpose.
It would inevitably emerge far earlier than scheduled.
She didn't know the exact mechanism...
But whatever Beast was capable of keeping a single human alive for over two hundred years couldn't possibly be weak.
At the very least, it had to be S+-Rank.
There was also a significant possibility that it was an SS-Rank Beast.
Battles against SS-Rank Beasts had always been desperate struggles.
Nibas of Hallucination.
Even with the elite forces of the Ribenian Orthodox Faith deployed against it, they had been forced to sacrifice an entire village.
Even then, casualties had only remained in the hundreds because the village's population had been unusually small.
Dabios of Slaughter.
Even when the Empire's finest forces had gathered together, it hadn't retreated a single step.
Even with the secret technique Aura Blade at their disposal, had everyone not worked together to create a single fleeting opening, the casualties required to defeat it would have numbered in the hundreds.
An SS-Rank Beast alone posed that much of a threat.
During the all-out war seven years ago, six SS-Rank Beasts had appeared simultaneously.
The result had been a crisis severe enough to threaten the very existence of the Empire.
Now that a new threat called the Gate Beasts had emerged, they couldn't afford to assume the enemy would act according to their expectations.
They had to identify the Beast involved in this incident as quickly as possible and discover how to deal with it.
Otherwise, this time...
“I don't recognize your faces. What are you doing here?”
It happened at that very moment.
“I thought every Resistance member was supposed to be in training right now.”
At the voice coming from behind, Rubia turned around with a gentle smile.
One was a burly man with closely cropped red hair.
The other was a woman with long crimson hair flowing down her back.
“Ah, Bravo asked the two of us to come down here for something.”
Naturally, she closed the book while hiding her left hand, simultaneously signaling Meriel.
Three fingers.
Plan Three.
If deception failed, engage in a swift suppression.
If the battle dragged on, prioritize defense and retreat.
Meriel responded by blinking twice before quietly taking a single step backward, maintaining a calm expression.
Flynn Alvesta, captain of the Red Fang Marauders, tilted his head.
“Bravo from the Resistance asked you? You mean that fellow Dale?”
“Yes. He said we needed to find a method for producing magic artillery shells in preparation for siege warfare during the operation.”
“Hmmm... I see. Well, we're preparing for special operations, but if we're expecting a full-scale war, I suppose we'll need magic cannons as well.”
Surprisingly, he no longer seemed suspicious.
“Well, if you want to join the training, you'd better find it quickly and head back up. The last group should be departing soon.”
“That's the plan.”
As Flynn nodded and started to turn away, the woman beside him suddenly grabbed his arm.
“What are you doing, Captain?”
“Hm?”
“They're disguised. Looks like they're using some kind of disguise-type Artifact.”
“Damn...!”
If deception failed, subdue them as quickly as possible.
Rubia and Meriel immediately unleashed Mana Missiles and Wood Chains simultaneously.
Unfortunately, their opponents were anything but easy targets.
“Hup!”
Crack!
With nothing more than a single straight punch, Flynn Alvesta shattered both kinds of magic projectiles before grinning broadly.
“I always welcome little surprises like this. Make it entertaining!”
“We don't have time to play around with you.”
As Flynn charged straight toward them, the two mages retreated while unleashing a relentless barrage of magic.
The first battle had begun far earlier than anyone had anticipated.