CP

Twelve was truly the age of a flower bud. Even on these turbulent seas, a normal twelve-year-old should have been enjoying a carefree childhood in their parents' arms.

Naturally, where there were normal children, there were also abnormal ones.

Louis was one of the latter.

At just twelve years old, Louis had accomplished something remarkable. In the span of two months, with only a little covert nudging, he had brought down the two organizations that controlled this city. The two powerful underground kingpins now lay quietly on the ground, their souls already embraced by the gods.

Feeling a little pleased with himself, Louis walked with a spring in his step. He whistled as he returned home, gathered his things, and threw anything that might reveal his identity into the fireplace, burning it all to ashes. Then he slung on his backpack and made his way through the night to the restaurant he often visited.

"Hey, young Louis. The usual today?"

"Yeah, same as always."

He hadn't been in this city long, but he ate here often because he liked the food, and he'd gotten pretty friendly with the owner.

Louis took his last meal here very seriously. The streets outside had already descended into chaos. The owner had shut the doors, while men in black suits hurried back and forth through the streets and alleys. Before long, the fighting became impossible to contain. Two headless beasts, driven by nothing but their instincts to survive, displayed the last of their ferocity in the city.

Revenge! Revenge at any cost!

Kill the scum who murdered their leaders!

That was what people from both organizations were thinking.

"Thanks for the meal."

Louis smiled, wiped his mouth, and said goodbye to the owner. Then he headed straight out of the restaurant. The once-bustling street was now as quiet as a morgue. A few gang members lay scattered across the road, blood flowing from their bodies.

Louis shook his head slightly, then turned and slipped into an alley. He took a short run, planted a foot against the wall, and leaped onto the rooftop. Then he bounded across the rooftops like a great bird, landing and taking off again. Before long, he had left the city behind.

"Hey, Louis! You're late! I thought you were already dead!"

The beach lay a short distance west of the city. In the darkness, a large ship sat silently by the shore, without a single light on. It looked like a giant lurking beyond the night sky. Before Louis had even reached it, a booming voice carried across the night and reached his ears.

Louis didn't answer. His body, which had been moving at a jog, suddenly accelerated. He dashed forward like a cheetah. Even in the darkness, the complicated terrain of rocks along the shore couldn't slow him down. He moved with a cat's agility, quickly reaching the ship. With a leap and a few steps against its hull, he landed lightly on the rail.

"Never thought that idiot Dylan would get back before me,"

Louis crouched on the rail and tossed the bag hanging from his shoulder toward the guy opposite him. "Did you run away from the fight?"

"Hey! Who are you calling a coward? Dylan Wade completed his mission flawlessly! I was way faster than you!"

He caught Louis's bag and casually slung it over his shoulder. The kid was fifteen or sixteen, a little taller than Louis and much more solidly built. He had delicate features and broad shoulders, and he shouted with an arrogant grin. "You're the one who spent two months as somebody's lackey, Louis. How was it? I hear a lot of big shots have some pretty weird tastes. Heh."

He gave Louis an extremely lecherous look. Louis was only twelve and still very young, but his handsome features were already striking. For all they knew, he might have been exactly someone's type.

"I never thought you'd be that kind of person."

Louis jumped down onto the deck, then turned toward the other side. "Brother Wade, can I beat him up?"

"Go ahead."

A man sat on the opposite rail. He looked seventeen or eighteen, and his golden hair gleamed like flecks of gold, catching the dim moonlight and giving off a soft glow. He was very handsome, every bit Louis's equal in looks, with a tall, lithe build and a radiant smile. "Honestly, Dylan's really annoying. Why don't you give him the beating I owe him, too?"

"Hey, Brother Wade!"

The teenage boy, Dylan, protested angrily. "Why are you like this, too?"

"Hahahaha! All right, all right. Louis, how did the mission go?"

Wade laughed as he walked over to Louis and asked.

"Done. Otto's dead, and I took out the other gang's boss, too. The city's in complete chaos now,"

Louis replied.

"Good,"

Wade said with a nod. "With the minister assassinated by Dylan, the general taken out by me, and Otto dead at your hands, this rebellion has been nipped in the bud. Our mission is complete."

"Hahaha, so that means"

Dylan grinned foolishly. "We've completed our graduation assignment, right? We can go back now."

"Yeah."

Louis nodded, feeling some of the tension leave him as well.

"Now we'll officially join"

He said, "Cipher Pol."

Louis wasn't a gangster's lackey, of course. He, Dylan, and Wade were trainees at the South Sea Training Camp, a branch of the World Government's intelligence agency, collectively known as Cipher Pol. Not long ago, their yearlong training had ended, and they had been sent on a mission. Completing it would qualify them to officially join the CP series.

The mission assigned to Louis and the others was to put down a rebellion in a country in the South Blue. The king had been horrified to discover that he had already lost his authority in his own country, which had been infiltrated so thoroughly by some faction that it was riddled with holes. So he reported the matter to the government. Since the country was an Affiliated Nation, the mission had been assigned to Cipher Pol.

It was one of the most difficult assignments among all the graduating trainees. The three central figures behind the rebellion were all formidable opponents. Even the weakest, the minister, was a powerful figure who dominated the country's political scene. He was never surrounded by fewer than twenty bodyguards. The true mastermind, a general who controlled the country's army, had been a pirate with a bounty of nearly a hundred million before changing his name and infiltrating the country. He was incredibly strong.

Louis's target was Otto, one of the two Mafia bosses in the country's most important port city. As a Mafia godfather whose business reached across the entire country, Otto was a crucial source of funding for the rebel alliance. Neither his personal strength nor the forces under his command were to be underestimated. Louis had only discovered just how formidable he was after getting close to him.

Fortunately, the mission was still completed. Even an alliance with immense power in this country had been brought down by the three of them, who had struck with careful planning and the element of surprise.

Now they could officially join the CP series and become agents of the World Government.

At the thought, Louis let out a quiet sigh. He didn't know whether this was a good thing or a bad one. After all, he knew quite a lot about Cipher Pol. He was, at the end of the day, a transmigrator.