"Strange... Nobody home?"
He had been knocking for half a minute without getting a response. Just as the man standing outside the door wondered whether no one was inside, the quietly opened door and the gun barrel pressed against the crack froze him in place.
Cold sweat instantly broke out across his body. He hurriedly raised both hands to show he meant no harm, then quickly glanced toward the stairwell at the end of the corridor.
"D-Don't get excited... Brother, I'm one of General Absek's men."
Veteran pressed his centurion's pistol against the man's chest and interrogated him expressionlessly.
"Where did you hear my name?"
The man replied at a rapid pace.
"Mr. Bannott sent a telegram... We roughly know the envoy who came here is called Pangolin. Isn't that your name?"
"Your name?"
"Anwo... I told you, you wouldn't know me anyway."
"Heh, how do you know I don't?" Hearing that name, Veteran gave a meaningful smile and slowly lowered his gun.
The man standing there was Anwo, a thousand-man commander under General Absek.
Under normal circumstances, someone of such high rank would never be sent to handle a clandestine meeting. But for an organization that had existed for less than a month, it made perfect sense.
After all, whether through sweet talk or grooming, cultivating trusted followers took time.
And for a bunch of monkey kings wearing crowns, anyone they trusted even a little had basically been promoted into a senior officer and kept close at hand. When something came up, they could hardly entrust it to those lackeys scrambling for promotion. Naturally, they could only send their senior officers to handle things personally.
More than that, there was also careful consideration in choosing who handled what.
After all, meeting the Legion's envoy before the Heavenly King did