Dominic lay on the roof of an abandoned building, looking down through a monocular telescope.
His gaze quickly settled on a group of soldiers inside the defensive line.
Those men were dressed in standard Brevis Vanguard, with the Brevis Governor's Office's insignia printed on their chests.
They carried Lasgun, responsible for providing firepower to the defensive line, and occasionally firing at the zombies that broke through the machine gun net.
Their movements were skillful and their teamwork was excellent; they were clearly a regular army.
Dominic's eyes turned cold.
He had long suspected that the Plague Cleansing Cult had official backing, otherwise it wouldn't have been able to develop so quickly in the Lower City.
The Vanguard was a direct force of the Governor-General's Office, so its presence here was not surprising.
After all, apart from the private army of the St. Garus Family, only the Vanguard in the entire Brevis was capable of suppressing the onslaught of the walkers.
But he never expected it to be so blatant.
The fact that regular armies and heretical sects cooperate in combat is a serious crime that would warrant Inquisition in any Imperial World.
He suppressed his emotions and continued to observe.
The pressure on the defensive line was immense, with wave after wave of zombies surging in, their roars shaking the pebbles at their feet.
The soldiers took turns firing, their faces showing exhaustion.
During the brief reload, the two soldiers, who were close together, began to talk in hushed tones.
Dominic had already gotten close to them and was using his hearing-enhancing equipment to eavesdrop.
"Damn it, this place is no human being." The short soldier on the left spat as he stuffed an energy magazine into the machine gun.
"Dealing with these monsters every day, I'll get infected sooner or later. What's the difference between coming here and going to my death?"
"Say less," sighed the tall soldier next to him.
"The order has been given, how can I not come?"
"I just don't understand," the short man said indignantly.
"We are the Vanguard, the governor's direct troops. Why should we help these charlatans? I think they're no different from heretics."
The tall man looked around and lowered his voice, "You don't know anything."
"These people are really strange. I don't know if they're heretics, but they can really tell who's sick and who's not."
"You think we can rescue so many people from this godforsaken place on our own?"
He noticed that the shorter man had calmed down a bit and his tone had softened.
"Besides... we don't just listen to them directly."
"As mentioned above, cooperating with their actions is all at the behest of another superior."
"The other one? Is it that newly promoted lieutenant general?"
"That's for sure," the tall man scoffed.
"I heard they're eager to make a name for themselves and curry favor with the Governor-General."
"These cult members are, frankly speaking, just tools he found to speed up the recruitment of soldiers."
"Once this is all done, keep them if they're useful, otherwise... humph, they'll all die."
"So that's how it is..." the short man suddenly realized.
"So this is how this sect suddenly appeared; it turns out it's a way for that lord to curry favor."
"Keep your voice down, don't let them hear you." The tall guy shoved him. "Hurry up and reload, they're coming up again!"
The machine gun fire resumed, drowning out the rest of the Dialogue.
Dominic put down his binoculars, his brow furrowed.
According to the soldiers, the Plague Cleansing Cult was a faction secretly formed by a Vanguard, whose aim was to gain credit and curry favor with Governor Kerry by rapidly screening the population.
Did Kerry himself know about it?
Dominic leaned against the cold wall, lost in thought.
If Kerry orchestrated it all along, he wouldn't need to pin the blame on a lieutenant general.
Given his position as governor, he could have openly discussed the matter under the guise of an "anti-epidemic task force," without needing to secretly establish a religious sect.
But what if he didn't know...?
How could the Governor's Office have remained completely unaware of such a serious matter as a lieutenant general secretly colluding with a heretical sect?
And that mysterious letter.
The letter writer went to great lengths to lure him here, seemingly wanting him to believe that a powerful figure in the Uptown was behind the Plague Cleansing Cult, specifically Kerry von.
But now it seems that the only person directly involved is a lieutenant general who is eager to claim credit.
Was that letter not meant to expose Kerry, but rather to help him "clear his name"?
wrong.
Dominic shook his head.
It's also possible that Kerry deliberately set a trap to shift all the blame onto Paul Serra while he himself hid behind the scenes and pretended to be innocent.
After all, the death of a lieutenant general is better than the resignation of a governor.
But this only made things more chaotic.
He originally thought he was there to lift the lid, but now that the lid has been lifted a crack, what's inside is even more mysterious than he expected.
What is the relationship between the mysterious lieutenant general, the Plague Cleansing Cult, Kerry Von?
Whose side is the owner of that mysterious letter on?
Dominic observed for a few more moments, and after confirming that there were no further clues, he quietly withdrew from the front line with two Sisters of Silence.
The wind, carrying the smell of burning, swept through the abandoned streets, and the howls of the zombies echoed endlessly.
The machine guns behind the defensive line were still roaring, like a heart that never stopped beating in the decaying Lower City.
No one knows how many eyes are watching behind this plague.
In the underground chamber of Saint Garus Castle in the Uptown.
Luna stood before the enormous crystal ball, her pale fingers hovering above its surface, her brows furrowed.
The crystal ball was filled with swirling mist, intermittently reflecting images of the abandoned streets of the Lower City.
The flashes of automatic machine guns, the silhouettes of zombies, the uniforms of the Vanguard... the images were intermittent, as if disturbed by something.
Her informant was supposed to keep a close eye on Dominic's movements and guide him step by step to uncover the "truth."
According to her plan, Dominic would be furious to see the Vanguard and the sect mixed together and would immediately conclude that Kerry Von was the mastermind behind it.
But now, the image inside the crystal ball is becoming increasingly blurry.
Things seem to be deviating from what was expected.
Then her carefully laid out plan might very well go awry.
As Luna thought of this, she became distracted, and the scene in the crystal ball went completely black, leaving only churning gray mist.
A bad feeling, like cold vines, slowly crept into her heart.
She had endured so much for so many years, bearing the heavy burden of reviving her family. She had finally waited for this opportunity to drag Lynn into the abyss, and she absolutely could not let it all go to waste.
" Dominic, Lynn..."
She murmured the two names, her lips pressed into a straight line beneath the mask.
Things seem to be slipping out of her control.
No, the game has only just begun; she's the one in control!