Chapter 151
In the driver's seat, Nana glanced at the seemingly meticulously designed 'Atlas Defense' sign at the construction site entrance:
"Atlas... that's their name..."
"It's clear they have lofty ideals, but unfortunately, I have no intention of becoming a stepping stone for their dreams..."
As she spoke, she handed Nana a page of information. The assassin looked at the building structure and construction progress charts—which her manager had somehow obtained—and at the only area deemed suitable for storing dangerous Originium explosives. Nana raised an eyebrow and then parked the car on the side of the road with a better view.
"There seems to be no one at the construction site... Manager, it seems your plan to find someone to declare war is unlikely to succeed." (Seven)
"In a way, this way we don't have to worry about accidental injuries, right...? As for the Atlas people, once we bury and dispose of those dangerous items, they'll naturally rush over like mad dogs."
Ignoring the manager's strange remarks, Nana gestured for Takina to protect the manager before getting out of the car with Typhon.
While explaining the difference between electronic surveillance and Demons perception to her young disciple, Nana, who had unusually applied elaborate makeup, showed little interest due to the lack of an audience...
Silently reaching the top floor, with one foot on the edge overlooking the construction site, Nana compared the site plans on her phone and gestured a circle to Typhon.
"There, a reinforced concrete structure, a multi-story structure sloping downwards but with an overall thickness not exceeding five meters... Is it possible to penetrate it?"
"It should be fine." Qi
As he spoke, he unfurled the giant bow that had been folded previously... Although he knew it was merely a replica of that Demons projection, Typhon knew that, unlike the ordinary woodworking bow he had used in Sami, this weapon, aside from some differences in its characteristics, was identical in all other attributes to his target.
Thinking that he was rehearsing for the future, a fire ignited in the little hunter's heart.
With a teeth-grinding buzzing sound as the piezoelectric material was energized, the giant bow, much longer than Typhon's height, tauted in the girl's hands...
The mismatch between weapon length and height would normally make it difficult for a girl to draw a bow with the full reach required for maximum power. However, professional archery masters utilize the self-deforming properties of piezoelectric materials powered by Originium Arts to achieve a perfect balance where she can unleash the immense strength of Typhon Sarkaz even without being able to draw the bow to its fullest extent.
Although the range is only the arm span of a 1.5-meter-tall girl... the bow's rebound force exceeds 5,000 pounds. Combined with super-heavy siege arrows weighing 15 kilograms each and spatial magic, Typhon's arrows live up to their name—they are storms capable of destroying everything.
As the Witchcraft mist, used to indicate locations and visible only to pure-blooded Sarkaz, formed several concentric rings in the air, shockwaves and sonic booms followed in quick succession.
As if hit by naval gunfire, Nana only saw a half-built structure in the distance collapse with a deafening roar. Just as she was patting the little Typhon who was leaning in to bask in satisfaction, Nana suddenly saw Takina in a blue uniform below running away with a pistol.
"... What's going on? The manager is still in the car, and what kind of behavior is it to display a weapon in the street...?"
After Typhon used magic to retrieve the somewhat deformed arrow, Nana quickly made a phone call to inquire about the situation. Her manager casually gave her the answer:
[Oh, it's nothing... It's just that your commotion was quite loud, and that explosion directly exposed several of the enemy's spies... After I pointed it out to Takina, the little girl, eager to prove herself, immediately went after them~]
"And then she just left you alone in the car? Is she out of her mind?!"
Nana suddenly understood why Little Raiden had punched her in the face. To be honest, Nana also wanted to pinch her cheek hard now and ask her what she meant by abandoning Lycoris's biggest sponsor.
Anyway, I've come to find you now...
[Oh, that's not necessary.]
Lighting a cigarette, the agent ignored the man who had taken his place beside her. She only glanced at the strangely dressed, gray-haired woman Liberi, who had gotten into the driver's seat.
"My objective has been achieved. Now, all local matters are yours to handle, Number Seventy-Seven."
After speaking, the agent hung up the phone and handed it to the... robot? who was also dressed in a suit beside him.
Of course, although he looks like a machine, with joints and facial features that are almost indistinguishable from a real person, the agent knows that he is not one of those artificial races still in the realm of scientific imagination, but rather an elderly Sarkaz whose age is comparable to Kal'tsit's when it comes to playing with pie chart indicators...
He is Dead Soul attached to a tin shell, and his code name is 'Tin Man'.
"You seem to have finally agreed to see us... Lady Eternal Constant."
"After all, I was very busy with other things, and the little ones outside kept me extremely stressed... I also have children at home to take care of... The ICA doesn't have the government's safety net like you all do..."
Finally taking a long-awaited drag on a cigarette, the manager seemed to have reverted to the kind of person Nana knew best:
"But I'm also curious, why did the Maylander Foundation, which had been silent until now, suddenly contact me when the ICA had reached its limit? Or is it, as my advisor suspects... that Atlas itself was also the work of the Maylander Foundation?"
Seemingly because their conversation had been overly polite, the gray-haired Liberi, who had found the key in the sun visor, started the car, and steadily drove off, chuckled.
"We chose to grant you asylum because we clearly trust the ICA, which is like a sister organization to the Foundation, more than Atlas... You don't need to put on such a pretentious act. After all, we're just here to protect you. This time we simply took you to Trimounts; we didn't ask any questions or record any conversations."
"Ha, I think I've seen similar things in other files, but what happened to that guy in the end? I think he went straight to a special court... Oh well, the opening ceremony is over, now we just need to go to a safe place and wait for the results."
With emerald eyes and a serpentine smile, Liberi glanced at the rearview mirror. Taking advantage of the red light, she turned back and asked in a cloyingly sweet tone:
"Just a few days ago you were frantically dealing with a mountain of stuff, all by yourself... Oh, two people and you're already so confident? While I admit that attack just now was certainly not to be underestimated... I still want to ask, is that so-called 'Ghost Assassin' real? But that commotion just now, it wasn't 'Ghost' at all..."
"... That's about enough, Ho'olheyak."
Aside from the Tin Man had remained silent since the first sentence, interrupting the driver's curiosity, Liberi, dressed in strange clothes, could only stick out his tongue... that malicious smile... like a viper flicking its tongue.
As Ho'olheyak turned around, the manager and Tin Man made eye contact again, if the other person really had such a thing as vision.
"We mean you no harm... but the foundation and the government share the same attitude... You've spent nearly a decade building the nationwide underground order you have today, please continue to maintain it..."
The manager raised an eyebrow and snorted coldly at the Tin Man's distant reminder:
"OK."
PS: You didn't come when the enemy was causing trouble, but you did when the ICA was preparing to retaliate... The agent must have realized that Melander wasn't as 'neutral' as they claimed, which is why he's being sarcastic here.
But the more this is the case, the more she needs to stay under government scrutiny; only in this way can the safety of the ICA and Lycoris be guaranteed.
After all, he was a high-ranking official in the Security Bureau. Being "guarded" as a non-suspect and being "detained" as someone responsible are completely different treatments.
After all, the goal is to prove that the 'Ghost' wasn't staged by the agent himself.
Poor Takina was completely manipulated by her manager, but we'll leave that aside for now. She was just too eager to prove herself, and given her manager's position, there was no need for her to fool her. So, Takina naturally 'misunderstood' and became 'brainless'.
Next, Nana will be 'unhappy'.
And let's celebrate the debut of the Melander group! Ta-da!
PS2: Meow Meow Cat
5th Laytonson's Ghost Assassin: 162 Miracles, do not exist.
With her pistol lowered, the black-haired, blue-clad girl ran through the crowd of onlookers.
Ahead were suspicious individuals also fleeing in panic, but the vehicles behind them that he was supposed to protect were immediately occupied by an unfamiliar group shortly after he left.
At that moment, a sudden feeling of loss truly overwhelmed Takina's heart, and she even had a fleeting illusion... even though it had only happened a dozen minutes ago.
[The legendary Ghost Assassin is going to battle, the protagonist of a story I always told you when you were little... but why do you seem completely uninterested, Takina?]
[... because once everyone enters the specialized class, they'll no longer believe in any 'Ghost Assassin,' Lord Eternal Constant.]
[Well... actually, you can still call me that like when we first met, like 'the unknown older sister' or something... but why doesn't anyone believe me? The Ghost Assassin... every time I tell her story, everyone's eyes light up...]
Takina still remembers the dejected look on that person's face.
She was genuinely surprised that the ever-cool and seemingly in control Eternal Constant, who was always so charismatic and confident both at work and in his daily life, would show such a dejected expression simply because his stories were no longer popular with children.
Perhaps this adult never considered the possibility that we had grown up?
Although thinking that way was annoying, Takina still answered seriously:
[The real world isn't a video game; no one can consistently complete a game without taking damage and with a 100% success rate... Once you've had some exposure to mission materials and subsequent scenario training, you'll naturally realize that consistently achieving a 100% success rate is completely impossible... Aside from first-year students who might aim for perfect scores, everyone will gradually understand... After all, that Ghost Assassin you mentioned seems no different from Santa Claus, the one who supposedly gives presents to all good children at Christmas.]
Yes, where in this world can you find a 'killer' who possesses all magic, sees through every target, moves in and out of heavily guarded areas as if they were nothing, and most importantly, is without desire, discerns truth from facts, and upholds justice?
Can someone who can do that really be called a 'killer' or 'assassin'?
Inoue Takina is such a pitiful soul, deemed incapable even of the most basic job of a 'salesperson'... If someone who can't even prove their own worth believes that a perfect template for their profession exists, how can we even begin to calculate Inoue Takina's life over the past Seventeen years?
She was clearly running forward, but at that moment, the black-haired girl seemed to be falling into a memory...
The sixth official mission of the company was a theoretically simple task: transporting valuable goods.
Because of Atlas's attack, as Lycoris in blue, the highest-ranking commander on the scene... out of greater concern for the safety of the accompanying ICA operators, Takina focused on fighting the enemy, resulting in the loss of one-third of the items and the mission's failure. Takina had nothing to say.
For his second official mission, due to the failure of the previous mission, he was deemed by the Terminal to lack on-site command capabilities and was assigned as an operative to a Lycoris. His mission was to act as a local mobile force to counter Atlas's harassment.
This was the first time Takina had witnessed Lycoris's high-level combat power, but the red-clad woman's performance nearly shattered all of Takina's beautiful fantasies about Lycoris, the red-clad leader...
There was no all-seeing insight, no ingenious arrangement... Chief Lycoris's conversation was brief enough for Takina to discover the situation and lead her men into battle against Atlas.
Although Takina couldn't remember all the details of that mission, she only remembered running and shuttling between different fronts... She destroyed three replica guns during that mission, and her salary wasn't enough to cover the cost of the ICA equipment damage.
All this thankless work was just to satisfy himself, to become the cool character he heard from the 'unknown older sister' who... discerns truth and upholds justice.
However, Inoue Takina was ultimately not the protagonist of that story. Not only did she fail to perfectly achieve the mission objective, but even with all her efforts, she seemed unable to improve the situation on the battlefield in the slightest.
In the end, it was the woman in red who, with the skill of a killer or assassin, pierced through the enemy lines, ending that nightmarish encounter.
Takina still remembers her desperate question at the end of the mission: "Is it acceptable for everyone to die as long as it's for the sake of the mission?"
The woman in red answered, "Yes."
He then added, "[Even if I can't reach the level that person is hoping for, at least I should complete the task... If I can't even complete the most basic part, then I shouldn't stay in the team and hold them back.]"
Legend has it that the Ghost Assassin has a 100% mission completion rate... But Takina just wants to know how much of that so-called mission completion report is pieced together from the blood-soaked memories of those involved?
After that, he was kicked out of the team for 'lacking the skills and mental preparation for on-site operations'. In fact, at that time Takina was the last member of that team besides the one in red.
Inoue Takina refused to acknowledge that such a person was Lycoris's chief, and in order to refute the ridiculous claim that she was incapable of practical mission execution, after undergoing another combat skills assessment, Inoue Takina bypassed Lycoris's command Central Core and, with near-perfect A grades, applied for a solo mission from the Supreme Commander 'Eternal Constant'.
That was to make her completely abandon her illusions and believe that the perfect Ghost assassin could never exist in the human world... This was a VIP escort mission that officially declared the ICA and Astra as enemies due to political factors.
That was Inoue Takina's most well-rounded performance, and also her most disastrous mission as Lycoris... her third mission.
From the moment she assessed the difficulty of the mission and assembled the team, Takina prepared for it to a standard that exceeded what was required for the mission itself.
The original suggestion from the central command was three light elite squads, but Takina opted for a reinforced defense mode that included five full-strength ICA Firearms Operator in addition to her own squad.
The personnel were ICA agents he had met during a previous mission. Because they had received his help, there was no objection to the command, and they would not hesitate to execute orders.
The equipment was incredibly luxurious. Ordinary handguns were the norm, and Takina even equipped each person with a long spear as their primary weapon, tailored to their magical characteristics... Keep in mind that even during the brutal Astra encounter, many of the summoned ICA operators were still using ordinary shields and melee weapons to fight the enemy.
Now, with a team of twelve, plus the five people under his command for close protection and the command squad, a total of fifty-three people fully Firearms Arts... Such a luxurious configuration, coupled with the fact that the squads have cooperated before in past missions, and everyone's actions are tacit, there should be no possibility of anything going wrong while escorting the convoy.
But that's how things can be—just when you think everything is foolproof, things can suddenly take a turn for the worse... Takina couldn't understand why Atlas dared to use Originium explosives in the city.
The defensive convoy was cut off at both ends in the city center, with snipers on the high-rise buildings and crossbowmen on both sides pinning down the small squads.
The fully Firearms Arts squad that Takina had placed high hopes on was rammed by the enemy with a heavy garbage truck loaded with ballast, resulting in heavy casualties. Atlas completely shut down his five-man squad, who were traveling with VIPs, with just one sniper team equipped with advanced optical sights.
If Takina hadn't been fully equipped and had enough smoke grenades to block out the streets and the enemy's line of sight, she would have been killed there.
Then... came the alleyway battle royale that I still remember like a nightmare.
My squad escaped with the VIP, with the enemy in hot pursuit... My teammates and I took turns providing cover and ambushing along the way, but the effect was not significant.
Takina still doesn't know where she went wrong. Her plan is flawless, and her tactics, from being attacked to counterattacking, are perfect.
But one by one, her own people died. No matter how hard she tried to fight back and kill the enemy, the agents she knew, the ones she had gathered to prove she could do it, died before her eyes.
In the end, although the VIP was successfully put into the pick-up vehicle, she was the only one left standing and breathing in the entire convoy of more than fifty people.
Even though Takina later used the terrain and the enemy's Firearms Arts and Originium Bomb she had gathered to give the pursuing enemies a good beating... it was more like a post-battle cleanup than the perfect response a 'Ghost Assassin' should deliver.
If it weren't for the new woman in red who gently accepted Takina and encouraged her to resume her work as Lycoris, perhaps she would still be in the ICA office instead of on-site... continuing to act as a field agent like Lycoris.
What left the deepest impression on Takina after that incident was that a new woman in red was put in charge of local affairs, which meant that the woman in red who had always acted alone had ultimately not escaped her fate of death.
Lycoris, the woman in red, has never revealed any information about herself or her organization. Her cold-blooded insistence on everyone opening a path for her suggests she's likely following the traditional path of sacrificing herself to take down the enemy.
Now, Takina recalled the two Raiden-like Thunder red who were completely different from those she had known... They were the same age and classmates, and because she knew them so well, Takina found it difficult to see them as just another red-clad figure.
Watching the suspect flee ahead, and seeing a car that had just started and was quickly driving away from her side... Takina mind racing, suddenly remembered what she had said to her senior when he comforted her during the lowest point of the VIP mission's impact.
Miracles don't exist.
There's no such thing as a prophetic eye for the future, no such thing as a perfectly orchestrated scheme... Missions that match your abilities, enemies that you can just easily handle... There's no such thing as a free lunch. Be realistic. —Mio
After all, being helpless in the face of unexpected situations is the most common state one encounters in this line of work.
After those five missions that profoundly impacted Inoue Takina, and realizing that her choices could affect thousands of people, she suddenly understood... that simply being "right" couldn't save anyone.
Knowing that the 'Eternal Constant' might be captured, and the perpetrator unknown... surrounded by ordinary people, and with a suspected enemy sentry right in front of him, what should he do? Liu
Should they immediately switch targets and launch a full-scale attack on the vehicle? Or should they capture the guy who's only a few steps away and interrogate him for information?
Emotion urged her to choose the former, while reason held her back... The car was bulletproof, and she had the power to scare the crowd and get the police to chase her... It was better to vent her resentment and anger on the prospective prisoner in front of her.
Thinking this, Takina gritted her teeth, glared fiercely at the car that was already ten meters away... and raised her gun.
Her rationality had clearly evaporated almost entirely when her agent was taken away.
This is one of the rare instances where Takina has lost control since the VIP mission, when the gentle red-clad senior died in the war against Atlas, Takina thought she could handle all problems rationally...
"Why... why am I always the one who encounters this..."
Amidst the hushed gasps of countless passersby, Takina suddenly felt an external force pressing down on her hand. At the same time, the new sidearm given to her by the 'Eternal Constant' was taken away, and she also felt an overly intimate contact at her waist and back.