After drawing the curtains, the scrutinizing gaze of the fat owner of the "Unique" Dance Hall was shut out of the bar.
Lumian Lee returned behind the bar at the very back of the tavern, where the lighting was poorest and only silhouettes could be seen. Putting on an act, he picked up a glass he had no idea how many times he had already wiped and polished it once more with a rag.
Compared to the dance hall diagonally across from it, the first floor of The Solitary One Bar was very quiet. The few customers sat in corners, savoring drinks that seemed as though they would never run out. They completely ignored Lumian's absence from his post, as if they paid no attention to what was happening around them and had no thoughts at all.
Lumian knew that they truly could not think.
Aside from intelligence personnel who occasionally came here to exchange information and change shifts for Bureau 8, the vast majority of apparent customers and staff were actually marionettes!
Having encountered a veteran Marionettist before, Lumian knew that before becoming a Demigod, a Beyonder of that Sequence could possess no more than three marionettes. That was not even enough to fill the first-floor hall of the bar, let alone the puppet theater performances in the cellar, which usually had ten or twenty "Spectators" watching. Whoever controlled so many marionettes behind the scenes had to be a Saint.
Of course, Lumian did not know that person. Normally, he only communicated with the expressionless man guarding the cellar, pretending that he was the main body, while the other party pretended Lumian believed he was the main body. Both understood without saying so.
Just like how Bureau 8 clearly knew Lumian was a believer of The End Church, yet