Chapter 303

Kinuan was still in Border City. Quilia handed me the evidence.  

"You knew Kinuan’s movements and still let him be?"  

The hologram displayed photos and videos of Kinuan, captured and sent by the believers scattered throughout Border City.  

"We saw him, but there was no way to catch him. By the time we arrived after receiving the believers' reports, he had already vanished. Besides, we lack the firepower to subdue him. We don't need an army, but rather a small number of elite fighters."  

Quilia spoke calmly.  

Deploying an army in Border City just to catch Kinuan was unrealistic. Even if we did, it wouldn't mean much. A mere increase in numbers would only escalate the chaos.  

Wooong.  

The aerial vehicle we were in headed toward the most recent location where Kinuan had been sighted.  

Click, click.  

I tapped my thumbs together, sinking into thought. My mind accelerated as focused contemplation seamlessly melted into my thoughts.  

‘Kinuan is deliberately exposing himself to external enemies.’  

He was using himself as bait.  

‘I don’t know how many enemies he has. There could be fewer than I think, or far more.’  

How many would flock to find him? I was already one of them.  

‘But he’s making sure that only the competent ones can track him down.’  

I couldn’t stop the corner of my lip from twitching into a smirk.  

"This is an invitation from Kinuan."  

He wasn’t completely hiding, nor was he making himself too easy to find.  

Kinuan was ensuring that only those who had reached a certain level of skill could locate him.  

‘Tracking him down is already playing into his scheme. There could be a trap waiting.’  

My thoughts grew increasingly tangled.  

‘…But what if he’s already accounted for this line of thinking and is trying to make me hesitate?’  

Kinuan’s baiting strategy might just be an empty bluff.  

If he couldn’t shake off his pursuers anyway, he might have intentionally left easy clues to make it seem like a trap.  

Cautious individuals tend to avoid answers that come too easily. Those accustomed to hardship grow uneasy when things go too smoothly. I was no different.  

‘If it’s just a bluff, then? Is he trying to make his pursuers hesitate, buying time? Does he need time to use the Mind Transfer Device?’  

My mind spun through countless possibilities.  

Kinuan was chaos itself, a being of infinite potential.  

Predicting his next move was nearly impossible.

‘Trap or not, I have to push forward. Even if it is a trap, I’ll just have to overcome it with my own strength.’  

I made my decision.  

“How much do you know about Kinuan’s subordinates?”  

“Dead Ronin is practically a religious cult that worships Kinuan. They’d willingly die for him. It’s hard to believe they only formed after Kinuan arrived in Border City, given their level of cohesion and loyalty.”  

“Kinuan is a master manipulator. He must have lured them in with all sorts of words. Border City has no shortage of psychologically vulnerable outcasts. To someone like Kinuan, who’s been through the worst of the Empire, they would’ve been easy to handle. How large is the group? They must have taken heavy losses after the recent incidents.”  

“By our estimates, there are about a dozen left. More than half of them were wiped out in the last event.”  

Taking the risk of wiretapping into account, I attempted long-range communication with Lars.  

— I'm on the move. Have you found him?  

“I’ve found traces. Meet up with the Fox and head this way.”  

— The time has finally come.  

I could hear the tension in Lars’ voice. The real mission was right in front of us.  

The transmission ended.  

Squeeeze.  

I consumed a packet of nutrient jelly, replenishing my energy. The ammonia-heavy smell stung my nose, instantly sharpening my senses.  

Srrk.  

I moved my hands, checking my gear—a soldier’s habit.  

The Shock Pistol, Ruina, the high-compression heavy weapon, Crucis, and two Mothblade daggers—crafted from the Firelight series. There were originally three, but I had used one against Kinuan and never recovered it.  

‘And while it’s not exactly practical… the Graken Vuth.’  

Graken Vuth was little more than a decorative dagger. It had been a long time since I’d actually needed to use it.  

“Quilia, how skilled are you in combat? Things are going to get chaotic. I need to know how much I can rely on you.”  

“I can hold my own against the best soldiers from any nation.”  

“So, Imperial Guard level. Got it.”  

I roughly gauged Quilia’s combat ability.  

‘Truthfully, she’s probably beyond that.’  

I had seen what a Parish Overseer was capable of. If she had been assigned as his escort and close aide, she had to be an exceptional fighter.  

‘More importantly, if she can skillfully incorporate cognitive distortion into combat… she’ll be deadly. Under the right conditions, she could achieve feats beyond her natural limits.’  

Before I knew it, our aerial vehicle had begun its descent.  

We had arrived at the old city district of Border City—once the heart of the city in its earliest days.

Like all cities, the old district of Border City had deteriorated over time. With no redevelopment and unchecked expansions, the area had become a chaotic fortress of overlapping structures. The buildings were so precariously tangled that if one collapsed, it seemed the others would topple in succession.  

There was no proper open space or landing pad in the district, making landing difficult.  

Thud.  

Quilia and I leaped onto the rooftop of a suitable building, while our aerial vehicle followed its designated course back to the temple.  

"Kinuan was last spotted over there."  

Quilia pointed toward the marketplace in the old district.  

We descended from the rooftop using an emergency staircase. Plenty of eyes were on us, but no one was foolish enough to approach.  

Quilia was dressed in the robes of a Coritan priestess. The white fabric, embroidered with gold, stood out. In the Federation, it would be the equivalent of a bureaucrat’s uniform—no street thug would dare pick a fight.  

Ding-a-ling.  

We stepped into a general store along the market street. A glowing emblem at the entrance marked it as a Disemist establishment.  

Stop.  

Quilia and I halted inside, staring at the “fresh head” displayed on the store’s counter. Neither of us gasped or screamed.  

Beside the severed head lay a body, its cleanly sliced neck stump strikingly precise.  

"This was the store’s owner. A devout believer," Quilia explained as she walked further inside, her voice calm.  

"…They haven’t been dead for long."  

"This confirms our invitation."  

I quietly moved my hand to my waist, my fingers settling onto Crucis with a firm click.  

‘Someone is coming.’  

The footsteps outside shifted direction, heading straight for us. If it was just an ordinary customer, we could send them away. If not, we'd have to act accordingly.  

"Hey, what’s all this? Did I just walk into a murder scene?"  

A relaxed voice rang out.  

A man stood at the store’s entrance, a cigarette hanging from his lips. His left arm was a prosthetic, and the scars etched across his chest armor told of long battles.  

Creak.  

I turned my head, analyzing him.  

He was an older man. Not fully cybernetic, and judging by his biological appearance, he was past fifty. His graying hair and beard were striking.  

‘A seasoned mercenary.’  

That was my immediate assessment.  

Was it mere coincidence that a mercenary happened to walk in at this exact moment?  

Possibly. But assuming so would be naive.  

‘He’s here because he was led by some kind of information, just like us.’

Quilia was also waiting for my signal. As someone trained as a Coritan soldier, she was likely accustomed to following orders without question.  

Step.  

The man took a step into the general store. He smiled as if wanting to cooperate and casually wiped his hands on his pants, ready to offer a handshake at any moment.  

Something felt off.  

My instincts churned. My senses sharpened, scanning the surroundings with intensity.  

It wasn’t just the man’s sudden appearance that unsettled me.  

Whir.  

Then, I realized the source of my unease.  

A faint green light shimmered on the man’s temple—a marker from an optical targeting system.  

Pew!  

A sharp, needle-like gunshot rang out. A sniper.  

Thud!  

The man staggered sideways and slumped against the door, as if he had simply lost his balance from drinking too much. But blood was now trickling down from his temple.  

"I’ll go out and find the sniper," Quilia said, pulling out her force catalyst mask. With her cognitive distortion abilities, she could slip away unnoticed, avoiding further sniper fire.  

"No, there’s no need for that," I replied. "The sniper must have seen us enter this place. But they didn’t target us, and I didn’t sense any hostility. We don’t know yet if they’re an enemy or an ally."  

I dragged the dead man’s body further inside the store.  

‘If they meant to attack us, they would have already taken the shot.’  

I wanted to see for myself who else had been drawn here by Kinuan’s influence.  

‘I don’t even know all of Kinuan’s enemies myself.’  

Kinuan… he could be using himself as bait to gather his enemies here. If powerful individuals with conflicting interests were to gather, fights would inevitably break out, and they would kill each other off.  

‘That would create exactly the kind of chaotic situation Kinuan enjoys.’  

Before long, the back door of the store creaked open.  

I raised both hands, signaling that I wanted to talk rather than fight.  

"If you’re looking for Kinuan, then let’s talk. You must be here for the same reason, right?"  

A woman stepped out from the shadows between the store shelves, holding a sniper rifle.  

She was middle-aged, her face lined with wrinkles and scars. Her attire and weapon suggested she was also a mercenary.  

Like me, she had cybernetic limbs, but unlike me, she hadn’t bothered covering them with artificial skin. The exposed mechanical components were plain to see. Even the parts of her body that were still organic looked unnaturally sturdy—it was clear she had been born with a powerful frame.  

"You’ve got good judgment, kid. No wonder you’re after Kinuan."  

"You just sniped that guy—was there bad blood between you two?"

"Haha, he was my ex-boyfriend. We had a pretty nasty breakup."  

"Still, going straight for the kill—bold move."  

I slowly lowered my raised arms. She was someone I could talk to.  

"I cheated on him with another guy, that’s why we broke up. Because of that, he became a laughingstock among his comrades, the guy who couldn’t even keep his woman. He’s been swearing he’d kill me for years. I had no choice but to strike first—hope you understand."  

"Hmm."  

Hearing about middle-aged relationship drama made me frown slightly.  

The woman laughed at my reaction. But the tension between us hadn’t fully dissipated.  

"So, let’s ease up a little, yeah? Anyway, where exactly are you two from? It’s an odd pairing. One of you looks Imperial, and the other… a Coritan priest?"  

She playfully winked with one eye.  

A strange sense of déjà vu hit me. I didn’t know why. At first, I thought it might be because of Ragnata, but that wasn’t it.  

Ragnata had an oddly transcendent aura, whereas this woman was thoroughly grounded—someone who wouldn’t hesitate to kill without necessity.  

"…An Imperial youth and a priestess. Just so you know, my crew is nearby. If we start a fight, the only one who benefits is Kinuan."  

She casually revealed what she was relying on.  

But that feeling of familiarity was distracting me. Something important was trying to surface in my mind.  

"You’re a Nomad mercenary."  

I stared at her, carefully observing her face and features.  

"Well, you could call me a mercenary, yeah. Kid, you seem pretty interested in this old lady. Want me to throw in my bust, waist, and hip measurements while I’m at it? One hundred and three…"  

She shrugged her shoulders. Her frame was larger than most men’s, making even small movements look exaggerated.  

Something felt familiar.  

And then, I finally understood why.  

"Damn it… Gabriel…"  

This woman looked just like Gabriel.

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