"Already escaped?"
Flying Bird A searched the empty room from top to bottom but found no one.
"Spotless, huh!"
Flying Bird A crouched halfway down and carefully examined the traces on the floor. "Nothing was left behind. I couldn't even sense any Weird aura. Were they ordinary people, or Contract Anomalists specifically concealing their Weird aura...?"
"No, to become a Contract Anomalist, one had to join the Aberration Association."
Flying Bird A stood up, one hand in his pocket as he looked up at a hidden corner. "Or were they just a bunch of poor souls who happened to gain power?"
He raised his right hand, made a finger-gun gesture, and fired at the tiny camera hidden in the corner. "Annoying little bugs."
The miniature camera was destroyed by a wind blade, shredded into fragments.
Behind the camera.
Wei Tai, who had been watching the situation, broke out in a cold sweat.
Staring at the now-black monitor, he muttered, "As expected of an S-rank Contract Anomalist. That pressure is terrifying."
Yun Qing said, "Did he find the note we left behind?"
Wei Tai said, "I put it in the most obvious place. There's no way he could've missed it."
Yun Qing said, "Then let's see whether this bird will willingly fly into the cage."
Elsewhere, Flying Bird A had cleanly disabled the surveillance camera, completely unaware that he had just subtly threatened the people hiding behind it.
He looked at the sheet of paper placed atop the shoe cabinet, so conspicuous that it was practically waiting to be found.
Bold and confident in his own abilities, Flying Bird A directly picked it up. A sentence had been pieced together from letters cut out of newspapers.
"O bird beneath the blue sky, have you heard its mournful cry? If I cannot