As the Malice Points were deducted, a brand-new map — incomparably more detailed than anything before it — began to unfurl slowly in his mind.
This was no longer a simple floor plan. It was a complete three-dimensional model: fully scalable, rotatable, and capable of structural cross-section analysis.
Russell's consciousness submerged itself within it, like an architect scrutinising his own work.
It was an enormous estate situated within the City of Westminster.
The structure was extraordinarily complex — vast in footprint, unmistakably neoclassical in style, its every detail radiating a solemn, symmetrical grandeur.
Russell's awareness drifted through it like a ghost, passing freely through walls, inspecting the interior layout of every room.
"This is quite the undertaking."
He surveyed it all, quietly marvelling to himself.
The main building, the wings, the gardens, the stables — every section was laid out with meticulous order.
He could even perform cross-sectional cuts across the entire structure as though playing a simulation game, examining the framework hidden inside the walls, the routes of the ventilation ducts, even the layout of the drainage system.
With this, he was essentially in an unassailable position.
Russell zoomed in on the map and focused his attention on the main building's security system.
The number of guards, their patrol routes, the frequency of shift changes — all of it was presented before him in clear, intuitive detail.
The security was even tighter than he had imagined. Practically impenetrable.
But that was fine. Any system designed by human hands would have its flaws.
He walked patiently through the three-dimensional model, searching for those fleeting blind spots in the surveillance coverage and the gaps between patrol rotations.
Yet as his understanding of the estate deepened, a strange, inexplicable sense of familiarity began to creep over him.
He had the nagging feeling he'd seen this place somewhere before.
At first, Russell didn't pay it much mind.
After all, the architectural styles of upper-class estates all tended to follow the same tired template — chasing nothing more than a particular flavour of opulence and grandeur.
But when he pulled his perspective back and began to observe the estate's surrounding environment, that sense of familiarity grew stronger and stronger.
A wide, tree-lined boulevard. An immaculately manicured lawn of enormous scale. And directly in front of the estate — a memorial monument he found unsettlingly familiar, crowned with a gilded angel.
Russell's consciousness hovered in mid-air, his gaze locked onto that monument.
That architectural style... that statue out front... the longer he looked, the more it resembled a scene from a postcard.
His heart lurched. A wave of dread shot through him like an electric current.
Something was very wrong.
Nine-tenths wrong, tipping straight into ten.
He snapped his viewpoint up to maximum altitude. A bird's-eye view of the entire City of Westminster unfurled before him like a painted scroll.
He saw the straight, tree-lined boulevard leading to the estate. He saw St. James's Park beside it. He saw the distant, unmistakable silhouette of the Parliament building on the horizon.
Every geographic coordinate, every landmark — all of it pointed to a fact he desperately did not want to believe, yet had absolutely no choice but to accept.
"What the f*ck — that's Buckingham Palace?!"
Russell's consciousness wrenched itself free of the map. He sat on his bed in a daze, staring out at London's ashen sky through the window, utterly motionless for a long, long moment.
With the Blind Box opened, the mission brief materialized slowly in his mind.
[Target Building: Buckingham Palace]
[Advanced Challenge Unlocked:
Mission Objective (Phase One): Before the countdown expires, infiltrate Buckingham Palace and steal any single item from Princess Louise Edwards.
Time Limit: 168 hours (countdown has begun)
Mission Rewards: Purchase cost refunded; Malice Points earnings boosted by an additional 20%; special item purchase permissions unlocked; Attribute Points +1.
Failure Penalty: Identity exposed.]
[Phantom Thief announcement letter has been sent automatically]
"?!"
Russell jolted out of his stupor. His pupils trembled as he stared at those ice-cold words floating in his vision.
You absolute beast — what in the hell did you just send out?!
—
Buckingham Palace. East Wing. Third floor. The Royal Gallery.
Beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, London's sky burned like something set alight — fierce and hazy all at once.
The air was crisp, and a thin mist clung like a gauze veil around the bare, leaf-stripped treetops of St. James's Park.
Louise Edwards, eldest daughter of King Edward VII, stood in quiet stillness before a landscape painting.
She wore a gown of ivory white, its hemline of lace like frozen sea-foam, falling in silence onto the mirror-polished marble floor.
Her golden hair had been carefully coiled into an elegant chignon, with only a few loose, curling strands left to fall beside her ears — softening the rigid propriety of her appearance with a touch of girlish gentleness.
The young woman's bearing was flawless beyond reproach.
Like every masterwork in this gallery — exquisitely framed, placed in the most fitting of positions — she received the admiring gaze of those who looked up at her, day after day. And day after day, she remained fixed in this small, contained world.
Louise's gaze was not focused on the wild and magnificent ocean rendered on the canvas before her.
Those amber eyes looked past the glass of the window, out toward the city's skyline — half-swallowed by the sunset and the drifting mist — and in their depths lived an untarnished innocence and longing.
Her governess had once told her that every street in that city was like a river in perpetual flow, carrying the joys and sorrows of countless lives, rushing onward through day and night.
But she had never truly seen it.
For her, London was not a river. It was a painting.
A landscape painting, hung outside the window, that would never be changed.
She could see the ships passing on the River Thames. She could hear the low, resonant toll of Big Ben in the distance. But she had never touched that cold river water, nor ever felt the faint tremor that toll sent rippling through the cobblestones underfoot.
The only thing that could connect her to that real world was The Times, delivered each morning alongside her breakfast.
Yesterday, for instance, the front page had described a battle that had taken place beneath Lloyds Bank.
A Phantom Thief by the name of Moriarty — like a knight who walked in shadows — had, single-handedly, foiled a jaw-dropping heist.
"The Midnight Phantom." "A Hero of the Dark." "A swashbuckling rogue in the spirit of Zorro."
The reporter had exhausted every ornate turn of phrase in their arsenal, straining to sketch the outline of that mysterious figure.
Reports about Moriarty were her absolute favourite to read.
A canary will always envy the raven that soars free beyond the cage.
She had imagined the Phantom Thief many times — jet-black hair, perhaps, and eyes as deep and dark as London's fog — but these were only imaginings.
The young woman had more than once wished she could see this Phantom Thief with her own eyes.
A pity, though — the Phantom Thief seemed to have no particular interest in Buckingham Palace.
He frequented Kensington District far more often.
As it happened, she had a pen friend who lived in Kensington District. She rather wondered if that friend had ever encountered the Phantom Thief in person.
Lost in her idle reverie, the young woman was startled from her thoughts by a steady, composed male voice sounding from behind her — familiar in a way she couldn't quite place.
"Good afternoon, Your Highness."
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