The rain poured down in sheets.
A fierce wind whipped the downpour against every speck of dust in the mundane world. Yet the narrow alleyway tucked between the towering buildings was spared from the worst, only catching the occasional scattered drizzle.
Xia Mi finished interrogating the last of the suspicious stalkers and tossed him onto the pile. At her feet, the heap of groaning men was already stacked into a little human mountain.
"Nothing useful at all."
What happened to this group after running into Xia Mi didn't even need to be said. She didn't even have to use her dragon form to wipe the floor with them.
After venting her temper a little, she used hypnosis to dig through their memories, but the information she got was sparse.
All of them were from different backgrounds, scattered across the country, but they shared one thing: they had all been hired through a "Phoenix" account on something called the "Hunter Net" to tail Shirou and Nono.
"Hunter Net? What the heck is that?"
Baffled, Xia Mi decided to contact Norton. "Do you know what this Hunter Net thing is?"
From Norton's end came faint background noise. "I know. It's a human-run intelligence exchange and hiring platform. Why?"
"I gotta say, the way they organized this is really weird. None of them even know each other, yet they all responded to the same order at once… Hey Norton, can you help me register an account? I'm curious."
"Hold on," Norton replied, and suddenly the noise on his end grew louder — rapid keyboard clacks, game sounds, voice chat chatter.
"…Norton, where are you? An arcade?"
Xia Mi was stunned. This usually poker-faced tech geek… now had all these trendy hobbies?
"Just a little human entertainment," Norton replied flatly. "What? I can multitask. Play a game, talk to you, research the Holy Grail and Servant system — it doesn't waste even a second."
His nonchalant tone made it sound as if no matter what task he picked up, it was as effortless as breathing for him. Xia Mi wanted to complain that this wasn't even the part she was going to bring up…
"Fine, just send me the credentials already. I just care about getting registered."
"Fast enough. You'll have an automated welcome email from the site admin, 'Nido,' in a few seconds. It'll be full of guidelines and greetings."
Xia Mi frowned. "Send me a copy of that email when it comes… oh, there it is… wait. Admin: Nido? Nido? Nido?"
"…What are you yelling about?"
"Nido, spelled backwards… Odin!" Xia Mi's voice shot up eight octaves.
This Hunter Net was sus!Both Dragon Kings realized it at the same time — Odin's people were finally making their move!
"I have to say," Norton remarked coolly, "you really are the sharpest of my little sisters."
"Is this the time to compliment me?!" Xia Mi kicked the heap of bodies at her feet. "Anyway, this was just a bunch of cannon fodder hired through Hunter Net — probably Odin's people just throwing pawns at us. They didn't know anything… hmph!"
"Well of course," Norton said bluntly. "That crafty brother would never entrust humans with anything truly important — like a key to a Nibelungen. Thinking you'd get something out of them was pure fantasy."
"Compared to that, how's your progress? You need to secure at least one Servant sample for the initial experiment. I suggest you get familiar with the 'Seven Kingdoms' conceptual armaments and causal separation as soon as you're through the basics of magecraft — that's the key to our first success."
"…?" Xia Mi blinked, utterly lost. How long has it even been? You think I can catch up to your absurd level that fast?
Did Norton have no concept of the difference in innate talent? This was like telling someone "you've learned 1+1=2 — now go solve the Goldbach conjecture!"
"…?" On the other end, Norton seemed to pick up on her meaning and tilted his head, genuinely puzzled. Isn't it just a matter of having hands?
"Oi, cut it out!" If not for the blood pact they'd signed, Xia Mi would have already punched him square in the chest.
"Anyway, I still need some time to study. For now, let me just assist on the initial Servant experiment, alright? I've got to deal with this pile of bodies here, so I'm hanging up."
"How are you dealing with them? Disposing on the spot?"
Norton asked casually.
Anyone who's killed someone before knows — killing is easy, getting rid of the body is hard.
But that's for humans. For a Dragon King, it was easy enough to erase them with a word.
"No need," Xia Mi replied. "I already used 'Chi-ke-tsura' (Bloodline Binding) to sense nearby mixed-blood residents — probably Secret Party or House clans. Let them deal with this mess."
———
Chu Tianjiao sped through the streets in style, dropping his son off at home even though the boy coldly brushed him off.
Then the old man drove his fancy car back to his usual spot, bought two bottles of beer, a bag of spicy marinated pork intestines, and double-spicy wings before returning to the Huanya Group — his boss's factory.
Without the car, he was just another middle-aged man who had failed in his career and his marriage. With nothing in his pockets, living in a dorm room provided by the factory.
He greeted the office workers at the factory with a smile, humming a tune as he made his way down to the second basement, where the compressors thrummed and his little dorm — a converted storeroom — awaited him.
He pulled out his key and unlocked the metal door—
"…Huh?"
The door wasn't locked? A thief?
Chu Tianjiao scratched his head. But what would anyone want to steal from a broke chauffeur? Or did some colleague borrow the spare key to snoop? …No way.
Creaaak—
The motion of the door seemed to upset some fragile balance, and before he even pulled it open, it swung out on its own—
Because it was being pushed… by a room full of corpses!
"Damn!" Chu Tianjiao froze at the sight of his room stuffed with dead bodies.
The bodies, still warm and fresh, showed they'd been killed cleanly not long ago. Who the hell dumped this here and tried to frame him?!
One corpse slid from the pile toward the floor.
In that moment, Chu Tianjiao calmly reached out and caught it, his poise nothing like that of an ignorant chauffeur.
His sharp eyes swept the room, finally locking onto the barely visible break in the wall vent beneath the fan.
...
Dozens of minutes later, Chu Tianjiao returned to his now-clean room, moved aside the mattress, and revealed a hidden trapdoor — still untouched. Good. His secret was still safe.
Down below was a private space: a cabinet with jazz records, whiskey and Cuban cigars, an old camera and photo-developing gear. He snipped a cigar, lit it, and dialed a secret number.
"S-Class Operative Chu Tianjiao? You're calling again so soon?"
The voice on the other end — Angre, headmaster of Kassel.
At last, Chu Tianjiao shed his cover as a lowly driver. His true identity was as a long-term field operative for the Secret Party — one who answered directly to Angre, outside the normal Executive Department.
"There was… a little incident today. But the package and I are fine," Chu Tianjiao said as he exhaled smoke.
"Headmaster Angre, I just want to confirm one last time… are you really sure about handing this over to that man?"
He pulled a black suitcase from under the bed. On the silver nameplate was etched a flourishing World Tree.
(Kassel's emblem was a World Tree — half alive, half withered.)
"I'm sure," Angre sighed heavily. "The Secret Party is unstable right now. The Chinese Houses, Westminster, even Solomon's Temple are all pressing on us."
"And now there are problems inside. I've been trying to investigate the traitor, but I'm meeting resistance, and the Board of Trustees hates that I've ceded ground to the Chinese Houses."
"That's why I judged it too risky to keep this within the Party. I can't trust anyone here. But it's too important — I can only entrust it to my partner. After all…"
Angre trailed off, but Chu Tianjiao understood.
After all, what lay inside this case… was the flesh and blood of the Black King.
(End of Chapter)
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