Chapter 253

"The main gate has been breached?! I knew it... The elevator doors were definitely well-defended, right?! Also, send Team Two to help... Also, Team Three, sweep through the emergency stairwells, don't let them cut off our retreat!"

Although Boris believed he had done a good job of commanding the operation, things spiraled out of control as the elevator ascended to the top floor, amidst the ballistae fired from the defensive positions and a series of chaotic explosions.

First, the main force of the Royal Guard, who was preparing to fight the intruders at the elevator entrance, was thrown into chaos by the explosion. The personnel who had been blocking the staircases returned to reinforce after discovering the explosion on the top floor... But after the two sides merged, another explosion occurred.

Even if Boris were slow to realize, he understood that the enemy had already reached the door. And given the small battlefield in front of the defensive positions, which was completely shrouded in smoke, Boris's choice was to order the ballistae to open fire without hesitation.

"Wait... Your Excellency, our own people are there too..."

"I said fire! Hey--!"

Shoving the operator aside, Boris snatched the controller and pressed the fire button, eliciting screams from the smoke. But seeing the still-lingering fog and the shouts echoing through it, Boris gave a signal to his bodyguard leaders, and then retreated to the top floor with his four trusted men.

This is the control room of the Central Control Tower in Chernobog. The glass windows that used to be like an observation deck are now protected by thick layers of armor. Only when he is in this fortress that even Catastrophes cannot breach does he feel a little safe.

As the door behind him closed and locked, Boris sighed, then picked up a glass of red wine from the 'mayor's' table and took a small sip.

"Damn... where did Loban find such a formidable person...?"

"Perhaps they're from the rebel side? Didn't they say that rebel prisoners were also involved during the attack on the mansion?"

Faced with his subordinate's perfectly reasonable guess, Loban snorted coldly:

"Do you think I don't know what kind of 'misfits' the Third Army is? This level of performance is something only a colonel-level, combat-experienced officer and a special operations battalion could achieve... By the way, aren't you guys missing one person?"

Faced with Boris's questioning gaze, the guard captains exchanged bewildered glances. The three of them looked at each other and realized that the four who had been following their leader had somehow become three.

"Hey?! Don't joke around at a time like this, okay?"

"... Did you go to the restroom?"

As he spoke, a member of the guard pressed a button on the walkie-talkie, but the call came from the other end of the control room... that is, from behind the stairs.

Under Boris's menacing gaze, the two bodyguard captains drew their swords and crossbows, then peered to the left and right of the elevator. But with a sudden, loud power outage in the control room, plunging the entire room into darkness, the two men vanished without a trace.

As if the finger of death had lightly touched his neck, the remaining guards huddled together in fear with Boris.

Even when his employer... Boris, a partner who had also brought him countless profits, beat and berated him to come forward, he merely held a flashlight and trembled as he scanned his surroundings:

"No... I won't go! There's obviously something wrong with this! What!? I'm just a salaried worker... maybe I got some benefits too... but I didn't do anything heinous... kidnapping, extortion, threats, murdering my whole family—that was all Boris's doing! Whoever you are, please spare my life, please spare me--!?"

Watching the last person beside him disappear into the darkness with a strange cry, the yellow plastic flashlights issued to every member of the Royal Guard bounced once after falling to the ground as their owner vanished. During this bounce, the beam of light swept across Boris's already deathly pale face, and then silence fell around him.

Boris picked up the flashlight from the ground with trembling hands, then slowly backed away until his back felt icy cold, realizing he had retreated to the very edge of the command center.

Leaning against the massive glass wall, Boris's back was covered in sticky sweat.

"Who!? Stop playing tricks, just state your purpose! Who hired you? I'll pay three... no, five times! Whatever price my enemy offers, I'll pay five times... plus one... no, ten shares of Chernobog's original capital fund, how about that? Even in the event of Catastrophes, Chernobog's original shares will still be very valuable, so don't kill me. If I live, they'll be even more valuable!"

You mean... you're important?

As that slightly familiar girl's voice appeared in the darkness, Boris swiftly reached for his flashlight, and at the same time, the armor plates around the control room began to move aside on their own.

As the colors of the natural Catastrophes outside cast a twilight camouflage effect on the interior, Boris, looking at the girl in front of him whose suit was spotless, first beamed with joy and began to recount his glorious years running Chernobog.

But as he remembered who the person in front of him was, his narration gradually softened.

"... Aren't you going to continue?"

"Rod Island--!"

Seemingly ignoring Boris's roar, Nana stepped forward:

"You told the outside world that the people of Chernobog, that is, Chernobog itself, were the most important... Using this rhetoric, you attracted a lot of foreign investment and people willing to believe you over the decades... But you deceived them. You kidnapped Loban's daughter and then left Loban to die in that dilapidated mansion... Not only that, you also colluded with the rebels, directing your subordinates to engage in human trafficking, using children like Fufu to buy time for the rebels' attack..."

"I did all this for Chernobog! What's wrong with that!? Things wouldn't have turned out this way at all, if it weren't for you! If it weren't for Rhodes Island messing things up over the Sarcophagus..."

Seeing Boris's continued stubbornness, Nana tilted her head and looked out the window at the increasingly intense Catastrophes:

"I don't care about that kind of thing... I just want to know if what you just said is true?"

"Wh... what really?"

"You said you're more important than Chernobog?"

"Of course!"

Seemingly seeing a glimmer of hope for survival, Boris glanced briefly at the locked control room door, where someone could faintly be knocking:

"Just as I brought prosperity to Chernobog, I can give you assets that Rhodes Island can't... What do you want? Money? Fame? Come to me, and you can get something more important than Rhodes Island!"

"More... 'important,' you mean? What do you mean? Money?"

"... Isn't that right?"

Seeing Nana shaking her head with a smile, Boris, covered in cold sweat, raised his index finger and said in a seemingly cheerful manner:

"Then! Chernobog! I'll give you a seat in the Chernobog council... no, I'll give you Chernobog itself! I can give you the password to the Central Key. With this, whether you seek wealth or fame, it's very simple! You can become a tycoon, you can become the savior of hundreds of thousands of people in this city!"

"Saviors and all that... aren't important~"

Seeing Nana pull out the silver pistol, Boris was already crying and sniffling at the same time. He felt the premonition that his death was imminent.

"Wait! Wait, wait, wait... I'm important, I'm so important! I industrialized an agricultural city district in just thirty years! I combined industrial modules with tourism! My achievements are unparalleled in the history of Ursus! I'm even above the emperor and the Noble Faction! I'm very useful! Please!"

Faced with the person kneeling down, weeping and wailing—someone with whom she might have had no prior conflict or intention to kill— Nana pressed the safety button:

"Let me put it this way... you're very important to me."

He then pulled the trigger.

The reinforced projectile missed Boris, who was kneeling on the ground. Nana's target was the glass curtain wall panel, which was no longer protected by armor... In the suffocating silence, the cracks in the glass wall slowly spread under the influence of the external Catastrophes storm, and then turned into dust.

Nana watched Boris, who had been knocked to the ground by an external Active Originium after only a shattered glass wall, his head broken, until the storm destroyed all the glass barriers.

During this time, the assassin paused briefly at the mayor's seat, inserted the prepared data card into the control panel, took the evidence, and disappeared.

This time, it's really time to say goodbye to Chernobog.

PS: Waaaaaaah!

8th Spring of Siracusa: 285 I am very happy

The civil war in Chernobog, Ursus, is over...

Some say the war ended because of a sudden Catastrophes; some say it ended because of the intervention of another great nobleman; some say it ended because of Boris's violent death; some say it ended because of the arrival of the Emperor's New Army.

There are various versions of the story, but the truth has been buried forever.

"I thought the Black Snake would take back the city..."

"According to your deal with Black Snake Nana, if she truly acted for Ursus from beginning to end, then it wouldn't be surprising if she handed over the Central Key to Chorbokashti had traveled south all the way here."

Nana, unusually, showed a puzzled expression at Kal'tsit's resolute statement: [The rest of the text appears to be a fragment and doesn't translate well. It seems to be a mix of unrelated phrases and sentences.]

"She was the one who helped the previous emperor create the Old Nobility Faction, yet now she stands against her own faction?"

"... She's just standing on the side representing progressive forces, which isn't a bad thing."

As she spoke, Kal'tsit took back the washed mug and then laid out the prepared pour-over coffee utensils one by one.

The soft rustling of coffee grounds against the filter paper mingled with the rising steam from the boiling water. Sitting at Kal'tsit's desk, Nana took a deep, expectant breath. The warm aroma of nuts and blueberries enveloped her. Receiving the comforting hot drink from her boss, who was surrounded by potted plants, Nana, who had returned to Rhodes Island unsure how to face her friends, finally felt a sense of relief.

"Back to your own matter, I did receive the report. That trip to Chernobog was tough... The person returned safely, and none of the accompanying operators were injured. Well done."

"But I might have been exposed."

Nana's tone was somewhat downcast, and Kal'tsit, having learned the general outline of events from everyone's reports, could only pat Nana on the shoulder to comfort her:

"Ah... Black Snake, is it? It's normal that the intelligence organization controlled by the Immortals could find out your origins. Fortunately, it's always a chasm away from your 'truth'... Even so, people today can only speculate about our origins, which is a microcosm of the earth's current state."

"Won't this affect Rhodes Island?"

Seeing 'Medic' restored to his original form, now resembling Feline, clutching a mug and looking troubled, Kal'tsit unconsciously averted her gaze and sighed. Clearly, it was impossible for him to be completely unaffected.

As a neutral organization, getting too close to Columbia could cause conservative countries like the Great Yan and Sargon to become unnecessarily wary of them, which would unnecessarily increase the difficulty of Rhodes Island's missions.

However, contrary to the public's perception of Rhodes Island's entanglement with the ICA and the Colombian Military, Rhodes Island... or rather, Kal'tsit, needs to protect Nana herself.

Whether due to its own inherent threat or the need for AMa77's power due to other threats, Kal'tsit needs Rhodes Island to withstand the pressure of these international affairs.

"Yes, but not much... Rhodes Island has its own historical mission, and you don't need to worry about becoming a burden to Rhodes Island. Correspondingly, you shouldn't have any psychological burden yourself... Huang has come to see me twice in the past two days. Are you avoiding your friends?"

"Well, not really, I just... don't know how I should look at them..."

Although Nana herself couldn't quite explain where her timidity came from, after some abstract explanation, Kal'tsit roughly understood what was troubling Nana about this mission... It was simply because of the Doctor's orders that Nana had revealed her true self, who originally belonged to the roles of assassin and special agent, to Blaze and the others.

As for Kal'tsit, she didn't think it was something to worry about... but considering that in this mission report, many people, including Blaze and Folinic, reported Nana's obsession with the mission objective, based on this suspected PTSD situation, Kal'tsit tentatively regarded Nana's behavior of not daring to face her dark identity as a complex psychological problem.

While analyzing this issue would require starting with Nana's meeting with Rosemary and her family a few years ago, based on Kal'tsit's own understanding of the situation, she even believes that this means AMa77, who was completely ignorant of human ethics in the past, has begun to show an instinctive resistance to the profession of 'assassin', which represents human evil.

After all, Nana's current statement is less about her not knowing how to get along with her old friends, and more about her self-loathing.

However, the most difficult part of dealing with psychological issues is indeed understanding the problem itself. Kal'tsit is not a real military machine after all, and since she cannot achieve a deep Empathy with Nana, she naturally cannot accurately judge her psychological problems.

However, the potted plant cat, who has been wandering the Terra for so long, still has some experience in how to relieve psychological stress.

Using the same techniques she used on Rosemary, she gave Nana a cat-ear massage. After finishing her coffee with Nana, Kal'tsit took the evergreen plant she kept by her side from the bookshelf and returned it to Nana.

"Your identity is actually not important. If you ask me, Nana, you have nothing to hide from anyone, so just follow the confidentiality rules, explain what you can explain, and what you can't explain... that's all."

"Here, this is your own potted plant. If that doesn't work, you still have your potted plant friends, don't you?"

Holding the obviously replaced flowerpot, Nana paused for a moment, then glanced at the plants that had been divided and repotted over the years. Not only were there two more of the same plants in her arms, but two more had appeared in Kal'tsit's room. A smile appeared on her face.

"Um... thank you, Kal'tsit."

"It's nothing. With that person's return, we need to immediately hand over power and redistribute tasks... And ACE and the others are still settling refugees, so the pressure of defending this ship and supporting the field operations teams will all fall on your Trauma Team. We can't let our guard down completely."

It's called Trauma Team, but this organization, originally reorganized from the Human Resources Department, is actually more like a bomb disposal unit, isn't it?

Of course, you can only think about such things yourself. Kal'tsit said that her team was the Trauma Team, so she herself was the Trauma Team. Holding the potted plant, Nana smiled and said goodbye to Kal'tsit. On her way back to her rest room, Nana also realized what Kal'tsit meant.

"As a result, Kal'tsit's suggestion was simply to maintain the same status quo as before... Is consistency all that's required?"

Does this mean I've been doing pretty well all along?

This meant that all her efforts had not been in vain, and Nana's mood improved considerably.

Just as Nana was thinking this, Aili and Xiya... Little Peach and Little Green, those two little halos with Halo above their heads, were peeking at themselves by touching the potted plants in the Rhodes Island corridor, but Nana still found out... Or rather, these two little ones were hiding behind the green plants, adding a pink and green Halo to the plants, making it hard for anyone not to notice them.

As Nana met the eyes of the two little ones and watched them hurriedly run back to the lounge, the smile that had been on Nana's face immediately froze.

As expected... the way he went on a killing spree in Chernobog was still too horrifying.

I convinced myself at the time that I wouldn't regret it, but now that things have turned out this way... I can only say... I brought it on myself?

Although Kal'tsit said that it was fine to continue as before, the smiling face, the mother of Little Cat... the smiling face of Cole, was indeed not quite in line with the fact that she was a serial killer. If possible, Nana would not even want Kate to see such a scene.

So, should I really change my mask?

So, is it enough to just put on that aloof Silent Assassin's expression?

With a sigh, the assassin, clutching a potted plant, pushed open the door to the lounge with her cat ears drooping slightly, looking somewhat dejected. Even though Little Peach and Little Green had just returned, her lounge was completely dark.

Indeed, in the end, Rhodes Island, this idealistic group, is essentially rejecting murderers like themselves...

Just as Nana was fumbling for the light switch in her memory, accompanied by the loud bangs of confetti, Nana instinctively pulled out her Silver Dancer's weapon, released the safety, drew her butterfly knife, and prepared to go on a killing spree. Suddenly, she saw the orange-yellow dressing room decorated as a banquet hall, and --

"Welcome back, Nana (Medic)!~"

"... Huh?"

Upon realizing that they were all her own, Nana instinctively lowered the muzzle of her gun. But before the preoccupied Nana could react, Little Peach, Little Green, Frostleaf, and several other children that Nana didn't recognize took potted plants from beside them and placed them next to the coffee table. Judging from their name tags, they were all members of the Human Resources Department Training Department.

"What's wrong? You look like you've seen a ghost."

As Huang spoke, he used his height to brush away the glitter debris from Nana's head:

"I'm actually against scaring you like this... but I haven't been able to find you for the past two days. Let me tell you, Medic, these people, in order to avoid your senses, not only sent the two little ones to stake out the area, but also had Logos write a hidden magic circle in your lounge. Look at these bad guys!"

Following the gesturing of the fin-shaped object perched on his shoulder, he saw the group of people in front of him, all of whom were clapping and saying, "Welcome back."

"You've worked hard."

As Eileen, wearing the badge of the head of the Welfare Department, spoke, she slightly lifted her skirt to curtsy, a gesture she still used to show that she regarded Nana as her master.

"So, Nana, you still missed Lico Lico's opening day... What happened to your promise not to disappear again?"

Nagisa clearly had a lot of complaints about Nana. Still wearing her church dress, she stared at Nana for a few seconds, then sighed resignedly.

"In short, welcome back."

"Nana! Everyone has prepared cake and refreshments!"