Noticing how Lilith had cald down, now lost in thought, Apex took a chance.
"Do you want to take you to Noah’s birthday party?" he asked gently. "He and Sophia would love to see you again."
Lilith’s lost expression twisted into fright almost imdiately.
"No," she said firmly, shaking her head. "If I et them… they’ll die."
For the first ti, Apex heard and saw sothing in her voice and face he hadn’t before: Fear. Real, genuine fear.
And that told him everything he needed to know. She still cared about her old friends. She had even tried to see them in the past, but the cult never allowed it—threatening to kill them if she ever dared to et them or bring them up ever again.
"No, they won’t," Apex Ace assured her. "Your captain is gone. No one’s going to kill them if you were to visit them." His voice was steady, persuasive. He wanted her to see that she had reasons to live, to stop begging them to have Death earn her and her father’s souls despite having no idea what it ant.
Lilith’s eyes widened. "Yes... Captain is gone." A spark of excitent flickered in her expression, her whole deanor shifting. "Now, no one can stop from seeing them!"
Apex Ace smirked slightly. "I’m sure Big Sister Elinor can take you to them. And she can help you pick out gifts for your friends. You’re not planning on showing up empty-handed, are you?" His tone left no room for argunt.
That wasn’t the only reason he was pushing for this. By sending Elinor along with Lilith, he’d keep Elinor from following him around. With her occupied, he could use the Cursed Clout to slip away undetected. He was already running late, but with Cursed Clout’s shadow-folding, he’d make up for lost ti. Elinor just had to go.
"Right, Elinor?" Apex Ace pressed, turning to her. "You’ll take Lilith shopping for gifts, won’t you?" Stay updated with .Côm
He didn’t actually need to push—Elinor had already planned to help Lilith. She nodded eagerly. "Of course! Lilith, do you know what your friends like?"
"They like candy! Can we get lots of candy for them?" Lilith asked eagerly as she hopped off her throne, practically skipping toward Elinor.
As she moved, the grueso scene around them—pile of corpses, pools of blood—began to fade, vanishing into nothing. Only two bodies remained: Bartha, cradled in Elinor’s arms, and the lifeless form that had housed her father’s mutated Rust Worm.
Lilith seed to have completely forgotten about making Death earn her and her father’s souls, too caught up in the excitent of seeing her old friends again after a long and dark period.
Leaving her in Elinor’s care, Doctor Druid and Apex Ace turned toward the basent, but before they could leave, Lilith’s voice rang out behind them, "Doctor Druid! Apex! Aren’t you guys coming with us?"
Doctor Druid smiled warmly, gently replying to her, "No, sweetie. Our work here isn’t done. We have to catch the bad guys. But you go on—don’t forget to buy your friends the best gifts!"
anwhile, Apex Ace subtly signaled Elinor. Informing her to take Lilith to Janice. She’ll know where to find candy or at least have soone arrange it. It was past midnight—finding a store open at this hour would be a miracle, and even a vending machine stocked with candy would be a stroke of luck.
"I will!" Lilith bead, and for the first ti, her smile wasn’t the unsettling, manic grin they were used to—it was genuine. Then, without another word, she followed Elinor, who carried Bartha’s corpse as they exited the building.
---
When Apex Ace and Doctor Druid reached the basent stairs, Ace’s suspicions were confird—the way down was completely caved in, blocked by mud and debris.
He concluded that a C.I.B. operative had done this. No doubt about it. The Cultists would not be foolish enough to deliberately cut off their only way from the basent to the outside world.
Judging by the low-tier cult mbers he had encountered earlier and the fact that both the stairs and elevator were still impassable, the fight below wasn’t over yet.
The basent was a warzone. When the cultists had broken in, the high-tier agents most likely had imdiately reacted, sealing off every exit. They had one goal: prevent the enemy from overwhelming them and executing whatever twisted plan they had in store while securing the curse criminals in their holding cells.
And right now, that battle was still raging.
Apex Ace wondered if the basent was lined with various curse array formations, considering it housed the holding cells for cursed criminals. If that were the case, then blocking the elevator shaft and staircase with mud had to serve a purpose within those formations. Because regular mud wouldn’t stop a high-tier curse user from escaping if their life depended on it.
He wasn’t particularly interested in unraveling that mystery, though. What mattered to him was figuring out how to get past the blockage and into the basent—without alerting the C.I.B. The last thing he needed was to be mistaken for an intruder and killed on sight.
"Master, leave it to ," Doctor Druid said confidently.
Without hesitation, she materialized a small seed in her palm and pressed it into the mud sealing the staircase.
Almost instantly, the seed sprouted, its roots expanding and burrowing deep into the packed earth. Within monts, the once-impassable blockage loosened and shifted, creating a clear tunnel down into the basent.
Apex Ace stared at Doctor Druid in disbelief, wondering if she was ssing with him. Out of his three toy summons, she was supposed to be the wisest—her character was older than both Emi Nakamura and Da Wasp, after all.
But before he could voice his doubts, she spoke, explaining, "Those roots are undetectable in mud. We don’t need to worry about being discovered."
His skepticism faded instantly. Of course. He should have known better than to doubt her.
"Let’s go," he said, stepping into the tunnel—feeling a little ashad for forgetting Doctor Druid’s prowess.
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