Chapter 304: Agent Headquarters (1)

“Gearsight, huh….” Lennok had heard that name before.

While tracking traces of the Guido Cult at Rebatenon University, wasn’t a necromancy student considered part of the Machine Cult?

He thought they were far removed from Guido’s fanaticism, but it seems they were even called by the name Gearsight.

“They’re a group that started in the Machine City Machina, growing in scale and capital, and have consistently shown interest in the civilizations and weaponry of other cities,” Jenny said, nodding. “They’re an elite research group pioneering new frontiers in magic engineering. There are rumors that their leader recently started opening trade networks with Pandemonium. If that’s true, it wouldn’t be strange for a new member of Pandemonium to emerge soon.”

Jenny’s tone was practically conclusive. Lennok, realizing why, nodded. “Did you find something from the captured Defense Force members?”

Though they had chosen three strong candidates, their words and actions suggested Gearsight was all but confirmed as the mastermind behind this incident. Considering there hadn’t been much time to think about this matter, he could guess the source of the information.

Dray immediately spoke up. “As a result of repeated investigations and interrogations by our staff, along with Manson, abnormal metabolic activity was discovered in the blood of the captured members. They’re artificially enhancing physical and cognitive abilities by injecting microchips into their bodies.”

What appeared on the screen were unknown mechanical devices flowing through blood vessels. Clinging to various parts of the vessels, ceaselessly squirming, they looked utterly bizarre, like parasites. Dray looked at them with a calm expression and said, “Overwhelming output, efficiency, and even recovery power compared to regular mana users. Physical abilities that almost certainly give them an edge against supers of the same class. In other words, they are super-soldiers, blooming as products of magic engineering.”

“Wouldn’t there be side effects with this method?”

“Of course. It’s a plan that the Defense Force command already attempted to collaborate with Gearsight on once, and failed.”

As a former member of the Defense Force, and even a veteran of its special forces, Dray was well aware of the various alliance plans the Defense Force had attempted. “In exchange for forcefully activating their metabolism, aging accelerates abnormally, and later, their cell regeneration ability repeatedly degenerates. In exchange for boosting combat capabilities for a short period, they have to live the rest of their lives with bodies much weaker than others. It’s inevitable to incur some losses when securing long-term military power.”

“….”

“I understand it was a project limited by a lack of prerequisite technology for efficient results, but the fact that they’ve brought it out now is proof that they’ve partnered with someone who possesses that level of technology.”

“So, as long as they succeed in the coup, that’s all that matters, huh… But there are too many strange points.” Lennok shook his head and said, “If they’ve decided to oppose the city government, it wouldn’t be strange for them to advance directly into the megacity and bomb the outer districts right now. Instead, they’re hiding their demands and only repeating sporadic attacks. What’s the reason?”

If the Defense Force had invaded the outer districts of the city in a near-total war, Lennok would have focused on sweeping away the enemies without much hesitation. However, the biggest event that occurred after the Defense Force made its demands and declared war was not their advance, but merely another councilman’s assassination plot to kill Meyer.

“There’s a high probability that the command’s objective lies elsewhere… I need to find that out to decide how to deal with this situation.”

Even for the sake of the business he was running with Jenny right now, he had to prevent the Defense Force from bombing the outer districts. But if he couldn’t grasp the command’s true objective in that process, he would end up wasting his strength in vain. Lennok currently had neither the leisure nor the time for that.

“Of all times for Divine Bow to be away… If she were here, things wouldn’t have gone this way,” Jenny sighed quietly, but it couldn’t be helped. At the very least, it seemed highly probable that the Defense Force had confirmed Evelyn Marcia’s absence and taken action.

Beep! Lennok, checking his phone’s alarm, nodded and stood up. “For now, both of you, contact Dyke and Antares and keep focusing on gathering information.”

“What are you going to do, Van?”

“I need to meet with the people who best understand this situation.” Lennok said, raising his phone screen. “Even without Evelyn, there’s ultimately only one direct city government armed force that understands this field best.”

The colleagues Meyer mentioned who were moving in a different direction than himself. There was no need to ask who they were from the start. It was the intelligence organization that, despite the restrictions of the Prohibition Edict, had acquired the privilege of managing the underworld of the megacity without concern. On the pale screen, the name of Agent Hina O’Neil appeared.

[How far along is the data collection?]

“Fifty-six percent of the target. Much faster than expected.”

[That’s not enough.]

A stiff, mechanical voice calmly reverberated through the speaker. [To build combat algorithms and implement repetitive learning, far more data and learning time are needed than now.]

“I know. But I’d appreciate it if you considered our position,” an old-sounding male voice replied. “We’re grinding down our unit members to secure data, and transmitting that data through Vulcan’s outer magnetic storms. We’re practically exchanging human lives for algorithms. If you don’t give us more time…”

[It was your generals who decided to agree to our plan, wasn’t it?]

“….”

[If the data on the promised commander-level supers is not secured, the deal is off.]

“…Calm down. We haven’t prepared for so long just to end it here, have we?” The hesitant man continued, “If data acquisition were easy just by conducting battles, it would clearly be our mistake. But there are cases where we’ve fought battles and collected absolutely no data.”

[What do you mean?]

“Adamant Thunder of Sector 49… He killed six of our members and captured four in a single battle, then disappeared. But the spell bias analysis system you sent us never activated even once during the fight with him.”

“….”

“Many of our members who confirmed the outcome are dissatisfied. We promised equivalent compensation, but the work isn’t showing any signs of proper progress, is it?”

The man spoke forcefully to the silent voice. “It’s clear that your data analysis system has a problem. I believe follow-up action is needed.”

[Understood.] The voice, which had been silent for a long time, replied. [Among the samples that attempted battle, only that wizard’s data was processed as an error. This is our mistake.]

The man’s face brightened. “Then?”

[We will handle the matter of Adamant Thunder directly.]

“….” Was it not the introduction of new technology that would revolutionize the Defense Force’s power? The man quickly composed his disappointed expression, cleared his throat, and said, “Alright. Then we will no longer touch Adamant Thunder and instead focus on securing other sample data.”

[And don’t forget to proceed with the downtown raids. If you unnecessarily hold back and attention is drawn to us, then…]

“We were going to move anyway. Don’t worry.”

After much coaxing and appeasement, the man, who had ended the communication, slammed his fist violently onto a chair. CRACK! The sturdy wooden chair shattered like a toy under his gloved punch.

The man was also one of the generals who had worked on the front lines for a long time and risen to a high position. Though rusty from not experiencing combat for a long time, his inherent mana was on par with any warrior. The killing intent he radiated became intangible blades, indiscriminately slashing and shattering everything around him.

“Damn it! Those bastards, supposedly at the forefront of magic engineering, are worse than children in negotiations…!”

“G-general. Please calm down.”

A young soldier, fidgeting beside him, carefully tidied up the chair’s wreckage and soothed him. The man seethed with anger for a while before slowly slumping into a chair.

“…Right.” The man quickly composed his breathing and gazed silently out the window. “We can’t crumble after coming this far. The die has been cast long ago.”

Stroking his grizzled beard, the man murmured as if enchanted. “How could I be abandoned after climbing this far? Haven’t I always dreamed of entering that place?”

“….”

“If necessary, even if it means making the blood of Vulcan’s citizens our carpet…!”

The man turned his gaze to his aide and snarled, “Contact the other generals. From now on, we must move in earnest.”

“Understood!”

The man watched his aide quickly leave the room with a complex gaze. Outside the window behind the man, the scenery was moving very slowly.

The day after receiving Hina’s call. Lennok finished his simple preparations and immediately headed to the meeting place she mentioned. Due to significant progress in his research with Aris, he needed to report additional results on spirit-based spellcraft and reschedule. Furthermore, to clean his damaged firearms from consecutive battles in the fortress, and even undertake personal training in space-related spellcraft, ten bodies wouldn’t be enough.

But he couldn’t simply ignore her summons. [Welcome to the Agent Headquarters, a direct intelligence agency of the city government.] The place Hina called Lennok to was none other than the heart of the Agent Headquarters.

Whoosh! A vast field covered in green grass. In its center, a rippling, streamlined building made entirely of glass. Though the building appeared infinitely transparent, Lennok noticed that not a single detail of its interior was visible.

This was the headquarters of a direct city government intelligence agency that directly managed the megacity’s underworld security. Although it had a very sophisticated atmosphere, unlike the image he had, its security must be beyond what Lennok imagined. The pitch-black sedan parked nearby also had dark tinting, not easily showing its interior. On top of that, there were the formidable security barriers surrounding the headquarters’ exterior. Considering Evelyn had been with this organization for a long time, such seamless meticulousness was, in a way, only natural.

Ding! While he pressed the pager and waited for the door to open, sharp gazes were felt from all directions.

“….”

Blatant stares, felt even from people pretending to be on the phone nearby, or even from those completely hidden from view. This was the first time he had received such stares in the city’s central area. Reactions that couldn’t be made without recognizing Lennok. It was proof that the Agents were putting no small effort into mapping the underworld forces within their organization.

As he fiddled with the cigarette inside his coat while waiting, the door opened and someone quickly emerged. Dressed in a neat suit, she pushed up her glasses and smiled. “Long time no see.”

“Indeed.”

“It hasn’t actually been that long.”

When Hina said it teasingly, Lennok chuckled and replied, “Are you talking about the executive general meeting?”

“Huh? How did you…”

Lennok walked past the surprised Hina and immediately picked up an entry pass from the first-floor desk. Waving the necklace-style temporary nameplate given to visitors, Lennok replied, “At that time, I was a bit tense myself… I was personally checking every life sign passing near the stadium.”

It was a meeting where he intended to negotiate with the Chairman of Cartel. He was prepared for a life-or-death battle right there if necessary, so he was sensitively observing the surroundings. It wasn’t difficult to grasp the presence of Evelyn, who appeared to help Lennok at that time, as well as the Agents who were observing the situation.

“That’s a very… inhuman answer,” Hina said, shaking her head with a peculiar expression, then naturally stood in front of Lennok and began guiding him. “Anyway, welcome. To be honest, since Van was formally appointed as an external consultant for the Agents, we should have had a meeting like this a long time ago, but somehow, things got complicated and it ended up like this.”

“If Evelyn hadn’t been away, this wouldn’t have happened.” From the very beginning of his contact with the Agents, hadn’t Lennok exchanged tasks and transaction details through Evelyn? Though not intentionally, it was true that he had effectively used her, an undeniable ace within the Agents, as his dedicated liaison.

But Hina’s expression, upon hearing Lennok’s words, looked quite displeased, contrary to expectations. “That wasn’t our intention, but rather, the team leader…”

“The team leader?”

“…That’s not a story to tell when the team leader isn’t here. Let’s talk about it later.”

Hina naturally changed the subject and continued, “Anyway, the reason I called Van today isn’t just to show you around the Agent Headquarters. It’s about the attempted assassination of Councilman Meyer. Since the perpetrator is highly likely to be another councilman, we Agents are taking over some of that work to resolve the current situation.”

“I see.” Lennok replied, fiddling with the cigarette in his coat. The attempted assassination of Councilman Meyer by the Bardiche Brotherhood just a few days ago. Although on the surface it might seem like a terrorist act committed by an underworld organization with a grudge against a city councilman, the truth behind it was entirely different.

The Defense Force command’s coup. The city councilman’s visit during that series of events. The suppression and abduction of security personnel, which would have been utterly impossible without precise knowledge of the related schedule. All those processes were inexplicable unless committed by a fellow councilman.

Therefore, Meyer had suspended all external activities and was under strict guard at his residence, following the city council’s recommendation. He remained the de facto general manager of this operation, yet found himself in a difficult position where he couldn’t move directly.

“The assassination failed, but as a result, Meyer’s scope of activity was significantly reduced. They were prepared to corner him somehow from the start.”

Of course, just because Meyer was under virtual house arrest didn’t mean communication was completely cut off. However, the sense of reality between communicating with the outside using video calls or holograms versus personally going out and meeting people could only be vastly different.

The councilman who stabbed Meyer in the back, even if they couldn’t kill Meyer, succeeded in making it difficult for him to resolve this matter. As a result, the Agents, who had been moving discreetly unlike Meyer, stepped forward and exchanged duties with Meyer, taking over his responsibilities.

The Agents’ summons to Lennok now was, in essence, no different from taking over what Meyer had intended to do.

“Why would another councilman interfere with this to such an extent?” Whoosh! Lennok asked as he ascended the building in the elevator with Hina. The view outside the glass window rapidly rose, and the ground scenery receded.

“If the Defense Force’s mobile fortress truly starts bombing Sector 30, the city council won’t be able to escape responsibility either.”

“The secretariat believes it’s unlikely to be a personal grudge against Councilman Meyer.” The top floor of the building. Hina replied as they walked down a vast corridor where no one else was coming or going. Only the sound of their footsteps echoed in the hallway.

“Then?”

“It’s because of the Prohibition Edict,” Hina murmured. “Van, you’ve been active in Vulcan’s underworld for a long time, so you might not fully grasp it, but the Prohibition Edict, which binds the power of the light, has been a fierce point of contention for a long time.”

“….”

“Is the prohibition, created for the city’s order and citizen safety, not becoming a shackle now…? Over the past two decades, as the influence of the underworld has rapidly grown, such voices are getting louder among city government officials.”

Hina knocked on a wooden door, elegantly embossed with the Agent’s emblem, and continued, “There’s also the opinion that the Agents’ power alone isn’t enough to manage the outer districts.”

“That means many people in this city are hoping for the Prohibition Edict to be lifted.” BANG! At that moment, the wooden door swung wide open, revealing a clear voice from within. “The power that’s been condensed in this city for decades is itching to burst out.”

What appeared from inside the door was a middle-aged man with a relaxed impression. Dressed in a shabby shirt, the man scanned Lennok up and down, then grinned and extended a hand. “And I think you might be the solution to this problem.”