Chapter 93: Aerial Banquet Hall (2)
[Ugh…… my clothes were way too tight.]
Kali, dressed in a staff uniform, stroked her shirt collar as if uncomfortable.
Inside the banquet hall where the party had begun, people crowded together in a dense throng.
She stood near the stairs leading up to the second floor, holding a silver tray lined with cocktails.
[Keep your eyes open. It wouldn’t be strange if Edwin showed up at any mont.]
Diesel, wearing a neat suit just like Kali, muttered over a closed communication channel.
Assigned to guide guests at the entrance, he scanned the surroundings near the doorway.
From ti to ti, several guests sent Diesel flirtatious smiles and tossed him personal questions, and each ti he quietly laced his voice with subtle ntal-type mana and drove them away.
Things were no different on Kali’s end.
[These bastards think sexual harassnt is their right.]
She grumbled in an extrely irritated tone.
Unlike Diesel, Kali had no way to drive people off, so she was being forced to endure a man making inappropriate suggestions to her.
“Just co with for a mont. I’ve got a drug you’ll never get to see in your life. Of course, there’s so Qubit too.”
The man said this as he placed a hand on Kali’s waist.
“I’m sorry, but I’m not interested.”
She maintained what she considered a polite attitude and made her refusal clear, but the man did not budge.
“Think it over carefully. It’s a chance to earn your entire year’s salary in a single night.”
As his hand slid lower and lower, Kali found it harder and harder to control her expression.
‘If this keeps up, it’s going to turn into a disaster…….’
Diesel, who knew her personality to so extent, hurriedly began forming a ntal-type spell.
Just as he was about to project it—
Soone grabbed the man’s hand with crushing force.
“What the hell……?”
The man frowned deeply and turned to look at his opponent.
Then his face drained of color, and he began to stamr.
“E-Edwin sir…….”
A silver-haired, sharp-eyed middle-aged man.
He was ‘Edwin Silver,’ the target of this operation.
“I believe I ntioned that today was an extrely formal occasion.”
A voice thickly mixed with contempt and disgust rebuked the vulgar behavior.
The man’s face crumpled miserably.
“I-I was only making a business proposal. I didn’t have any other intentions.”
At the utterly ridiculous excuse, Edwin showed no particular reaction and simply stared straight at the man’s face.
With eyes that looked as though they were gazing at sothing utterly trivial.
“Tsk…… damn it…….”
The man’s face flushed bright red, and after clearing his throat, he hurriedly fled the scene.
Edwin watched until the man disappeared from view, then turned his gaze toward Kali.
His deep eyes swept over her.
They resembled the gaze of an ancient tree that had endured countless years.
At that, Kali neatly adjusted her attire and bowed her head.
“Thank you, Edwin sir.”
“You’re a face I haven’t seen before.”
“…….”
“What’s your na?”
In response to Edwin’s question, she calmly gave the alias listed on her fabricated profile.
“My na is Rachel.”
“A new hire?”
“Yes.”
Edwin studied her intently for a while.
Perhaps finding the scrutiny uncomfortable, Kali ford the most amicable smile she could manage and spoke.
“Is there so kind of problem?”
“It’s rather rare to send a new hire out to a VIP party.”
With that, he silently looked down at Kali.
He was probably accessing the Electrosphere to review her profile.
‘This is getting complicated.’
If her infiltration was exposed here, it wouldn’t simply end with a failed job.
Being caught by a gacorp executive ant that, in the worst case, she could be branded with corporate tags.
Diesel desperately racked his brain.
‘What do I do…….’
The first thing that ca to mind was a ntal-type confusion spell.
If it could just create a brief opening to slip away, they could sohow buy ti to resolve things.
‘No. That’s too dangerous.’
If Edwin Silver was a figure of this caliber, he would certainly have counterasures prepared against ntal-type magic.
If it failed, the risk would be far too great.
‘Then hacking?’
That was nearly impossible as well.
Altering information in real ti that Edwin, a gacorp executive, was personally reviewing?
Even if Little Sister showed up, it would still be difficult.
‘Then…….’
One last thod squeezed out of desperation.
Diesel searched for where the rude man who had been pestering Kali earlier had gone.
He was in a corner of the banquet hall, inhaling from a pipe that looked like a drug.
‘Perfect timing.’
Having found his target, Diesel quickly ford a spell and projected it.
A simple ntal-type magic that amplified the target’s emotions.
He had woven it with an extrely small amount of mana, just in case there were sensors nearby that detected magical fluctuations.
However, perhaps because the target’s ntal fortitude had been lowered by drugs, the reaction was far more violent than expected.
“Fuck this shit……!”
The man hurled the glass pipe he was holding violently to the floor.
With a sharp clatter, shards scattered in all directions.
At the noise, everyone nearby turned to look at the man, murmuring among themselves.
As the hall grew restless, Edwin turned his gaze away from Kali and toward the disturbance.
“S-Sir. This is inappropriate…….”
The man approached the nearest female staff mber, grabbed her wrist, and tried to drag her sowhere.
At that, a crease ford on Edwin Silver’s perfect face.
“…….”
Taking advantage of the mont, Diesel signaled Kali with his eyes.
She imdiately pretended she had other business and hurried away.
“Co with ! Fuck! I said co with !”
The man’s reaction was far more intense than Diesel had intended.
‘This isn’t going to get us exposed, is it……?’
It was violent enough to raise suspicion of ntal-type magic.
Just in case, Diesel prepared a spell formula to calm the target.
But at that mont.
“……?”
Suddenly, the man’s wrist was cleanly severed.
“Kgh……!”
Blood burst out from the cut wrist.
As the vivid red spray splashed across the female staff mber’s face, a sharp scream belatedly erupted.
“Kyyaaaaaaah……!”
Because it had happened in an instant, the man looked as if he simply could not believe what had occurred right before his eyes.
“Th-this…… what is this…….”
When he turned around, the one who had cut off his hand was standing there.
It was Edwin Silver, holding a sword that glead with a silver radiance.
Wiping the blood from the blade with a handkerchief, he walked toward the man.
The man then threatened Edwin in a trembling voice.
“D-do you know who my mother is? No matter how much you’re Edwin, if you treat like this, my mother will…….”
“Your mother. Yes. She is a very admirable person indeed. If not for your mother, what was just cut off would not have been your hand, but your head.”
With a restrained motion, Edwin slid the sword back into its scabbard, then placed his palm against the man’s wrist, from which blood was pouring freely.
“Kkeuaaah……!”
The man scread.
Even though a pain-control implant should clearly have been operating.
That scream was probably not from pain, but from fear.
“L-let go……! Let go……!”
Edwin completely ignored the man’s words as his eyes shone in a spectrum of colors.
It was the mana recoil phenonon that appeared in a lee Mage.
‘Radiance-type mana…….’
At the sa ti, his palm glowed brightly with mana light.
Soon, searing Radiance-type mana began to cauterize the man’s severed wrist.
“Kkeuaaah……! Kkeuaaaaah……!”
With a crackling sound, the stench of burning flesh spread everywhere.
The man, his face twisted in sheer terror, scread repeatedly before foam ford at his mouth and he lost consciousness.
Edwin dropped the man to the floor with a dull thud, then wiped the blood from his hand with a handkerchief.
After that, he gave a chin gesture to a nearby manager. From sowhere, several staff mbers who appeared to be part of a dical team rushed out in unison and carried the man away on a stretcher.
“Edwin sir.”
One of the managers who approached him tried to convey sothing.
But Edwin stopped him with a raised hand.
“Wait. There’s still sothing I haven’t dealt with.”
Edwin turned his gaze back toward where Kali had been.
“Hmm…….”
But upon finding no one there, he frowned and scanned his surroundings.
Sensing the danger, Diesel called out the spirit’s na.
〈Ar.〉
At her master’s command, Ar released a pre-prepared ssage into the internal server network.
【Lady Ophelia has finished preparing.】
“…….”
After reading it, Edwin’s expression softened noticeably.
He soon adjusted his attire and headed off sowhere.
‘Whew…….’
At the sudden, unexpected situation, a line of cold sweat ran down Diesel’s back.
Kali, who had hastily withdrawn, saw that the situation had been resolved and spoke over the closed channel.
[……That was close. What just happened back there?]
Kali had no idea at all that Diesel had used ntal-type magic.
Since it wasn’t information she needed to know, Diesel deflected the question.
[We got lucky.]
[Yeah.]
[But that Edwin guy, was he a mage?]
[Hmm……. There wasn’t any information like that.]
To be using magic so openly, yet there being no particular information about it in the Electrosphere.
That ant control was just that thorough.
[He’s tougher than I expected. Totally different vibe from those high-ranking stuffed shirts.]
Kali muttered in a slightly tense voice.
A gacorporation executive who was a Radiance-type lee Mage skilled in both swordsmanship and magic.
There were quite a few people who had at least learned enough self-defense to protect themselves, but ones with skills at that level were extrely rare.
[If we’re talking levels alone, he’s at least around a six.]
At Kali’s remark, Diesel muttered inwardly.
‘I need to be careful.’
This was absolutely not soone to take lightly.
Especially in the middle of a delicate operation like infiltration.
‘Nothing ever cos easy.’
Having steeled his resolve, Diesel began moving toward the next stage.
〈Synchronizing.〉
Sowhere in a corner of the banquet hall building.
Diesel’s consciousness blurred as he connected to the Electrosphere.
Kali stood guard beside him, watching all directions.
‘Hacking Ophelia…….’
A world-famous pop star, Ophelia.
Being half android, she was more vulnerable to hacking than an ordinary person, but even so, it was naturally never an easy task.
Just what kind of hacker had been hired to make sothing like that possible?
‘The Aguiggun Clan, right.’
A new clan that Diesel had supposedly created.
Perhaps the hacker belonged to that clan.
‘He’s already gone as far as founding a clan…….’
Kali glanced sideways at Diesel, who was sitting quietly.
It felt like only yesterday that they had worked together as a team for the first ti, yet he had already risen to the position of a clan leader.
‘Just what kind of person is he?’
Her eyes carefully traced Diesel’s face.
Thick eyebrows and sharp eyes.
A blade-like nose bridge and a jawline that looked as if it had been carved.
There was a slightly delinquent air about him, but perhaps because of that, he exuded a decadent charm.
‘He is handso, though.’
After briefly enjoying the sight of the handso face, she turned her head away.
‘I wonder if he’s recruiting clan mbers.’
Although Kali had been active as a Ghostcatcher for quite so ti, she had not joined any clan so far.
She simply hadn’t wanted to be bound by such things.
‘I should ask him once this job is over.’
The reason was simple.
For so reason, Diesel gave off a very strong ‘money’ scent.
If nothing else, Kali was a woman with an uncanny talent for sensing the sll of money.
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