A location was sent.

But Julius didn't intend to go alone. Trusting mercenaries was difficult.

'Wow, the client was a Schneider? We've got both a Schneider and a Deutschmann, did we win the lottery?' If they realized who he was, they might decide to take him too.

He couldn't risk that.

But there was another problem. Julius had committed a serious offense he couldn't speak of, not even to Gabriel. That meant he could only bring one person.

It wasn't because he feared for his own safety. In that regard, he was confident enough. The issue lay in how this would look. His association with the case would raise questions he couldn't afford.

And so, Julius arrived at the designated location with the only person who made sense.

Reinhardt Krüger, warden of the Lichterfelde concentration camp.

"A warehouse?" he asked.

"Yes."

Julius nodded and stepped out of the car. He adjusted his hat, taking in the structure before moving toward the entrance with Krüger close behind.

"Wait."

Julius raised a hand and halted. He activated SIBYL's heat-detection overlay across his retina.

"...."

At first, the silhouettes inside registered normally, but the readings were wrong. The heat signatures were faint like dying embers.

Not the warmth of the living.

The residue of bodies already gone cold.

"Inside. Everyone's dead."

Krüger raised a brow. "What? How do you—wait. Then that means…"

It was at that moment that Julius noticed SIBYL's radar pinged, revealing a shape overhead. The outline pulsed on his display. A helicopter was tracking them from above.

"Shit." Julius immediately wrapped himself in nanotech exo-armor, plating sliding up to cover his face. He sprinted for the car. Krüger did the same and threw himself into the passenger seat as Julius took the wheel.

"They almost got us."

Inside that warehouse, six were dead. Whether the mercenaries tried to deceive him or had been killed themselves no longer mattered.

Screech——

The tires screamed as Julius slammed the accelerator. The car shot forward at breakneck speed. Through SIBYL's interface, a minimap formed in the corner of his vision, showing the helicopter's position closing in from above.

"Mister Schneider, what do we—"

"Wear your seatbelt, you bastard!" Julius screamed, stomping the accelerator harder. The world outside turned into a blur. Krüger fumbled, then obeyed, clipping his belt as Julius fought the wheel through the bends and the tachometer climbed.

Krüger opened the deep web client on his phone under Julius's instructions and slammed a message onto Nightreign's black market page.

[What's the meaning of this?!]

But there was no response back. The last activity on the chatroom was two hours ago, when Julius was still at the party.

"Mister Schneider, does this mean they have the Deutschmann heir?!"

"It doesn't matter, I couldn't care less what they do with Leo," Julius said through clenched teeth, keeping his eyes on the road. "But this will damage Dream indefinitely. I've achieved my objective. Even if they had handed me Leo, I would've killed him regardless. Now shut up and let me drive."

"...Yes, sir."

"Find out more about that page in the meantime," Julius ordered. "Depending on how this plays out, it might not hit the news. Dream is meticulous. They'll cover up Leo's disappearance until they can spin it in their favor."

Krüger nodded and began tapping furiously. He scrolled through Nightreign's forum, hunting for activity, looking for IP leaks, vendor handles, anything that could explain the reasoning for their betrayal.

Nightreign prided itself on a one hundred percent completion rate. Even if this had been their biggest job, that pride made it impossible to believe they would abandon everything just for Leo Deutschmann.

By the simple math of risk and reward, using Leo against Dream made little sense. If Nightreign were as clever as they claimed, they would know Dream would retaliate and wipe them out after any negotiation.

That contradiction bothered Julius. Either someone had forced their hand, or Nightreign had been compromised from the start.

"I've been in the black market for years, Mister Schneider," Krüger said. "From my experience, reputable mercenary groups prioritize their clients. Especially those who flaunt a one hundred percent completion record."

Julius nodded but kept his eyes forward. He didn't need the reminder. Perhaps it had to be said, but this wasn't his first time dealing with the black market.

In his previous life, he had relied on it for intelligence on revolutionary movements. He knew the underground well enough to trust that Krüger wasn't speaking out of ignorance.

Nightreign had a reputation for reliability. That was why Julius hired them in the first place. So the fact they would abandon a job midway… the fact there were bodies in that warehouse…

"Still no response?"

"...No."

"Then forget about it," Julius said. "That might have been Nightreign's last job."

"Are you saying—"

"They've been compromised."

"Wait, then. Mister Schneider, what does this mean for me?" Krüger's voice cracked with panic.

"Abandon that account," Julius said. "My instincts tell me the vantage point didn't come from Nightreign at all."

Krüger's face drained of color. "W-wait, this is my livelihood—"

"I'll pay you a salary worth more if you shut your mouth right now."

First of all, he was a warden before a traitor. What did he mean it was his livelihood?

"…."

Krüger swallowed as the phone trembled in his hand. He glanced at Julius as if looking for mercy and found none as the car pushed on through the dead of night.

That morning, Julius confirmed all of his suspicions.

[BREAKING REPORT]

[Authorities discovered six bodies inside an isolated warehouse on the outskirts of Grunewald Forest early this morning. The location, a decommissioned distribution site that had long been abandoned by its previous owners, was discovered following reports of unusual vehicle activity in the area.]

"Good morning."

Julius set the tablet down as he listened to the morning news, measuring out coffee grounds, pouring water, and letting the steam rise inside his kitchen.

The scent of coffee blended with the morning air, filling the space as he processed each line of the report.

[Preliminary identification confirmed that several of the deceased were registered criminals with existing bounties. However, the most shocking discovery was Emma Schulz, youngest daughter of the Schulz conglomerate and publicly known fiancée of Leo Deutschmann.]

"Ugh, too sweet."

[In a separate development, Leo Deutschmann was notably absent during last night's Dream Industries 30th founding anniversary celebration. Cross-checks with Dream personnel indicate he has not been seen since the previous evening.]

Everything aligned with what he anticipated.

Nothing about the news surprised him.

"In the end, nothing changed despite my involvement. That's quite concerning."

Because it had already happened in his previous life. Leo Deutschmann was never meant to attend Dream's 30th founding anniversary.

Because that night had always been his last.

But then a question surfaced.

How had Nightreign been led into the warehouse?

"They owned the warehouse."

So then, how did the authorities know to check there?

"Because Nightreign created enough movement to draw police attention… something a group with a one hundred percent completion record should have accounted for."

If Nightreign was truly that meticulous, how did they fail so catastrophically?

"Because they were destined to fail from the start."

Julius glanced at his phone. The deep-web forum glowed on the screen, with lines of text scrolling past.

[I swear there was a black-market commission saying Nightreign was about to kidnap that Deutschmann boy. Something like €6,000,000 to contest them? Where did it go?]

He narrowed his eyes.

"I never saw that post."

And that night, Julius had been glued to the dashboard for almost half the party.

That meant something had deliberately prevented him from seeing it.

"The administrator?"

If it was the administrator's doing, then everything made sense. And if that were the case…

"I understand now."

Julius had been fighting the deep web's administrator all along.

"Nameless…"

His instincts kept circling back to that name.

"So it was compromised from the start."

If Nameless truly was the administrator, then it explained everything. How Nameless had always been one step ahead of everyone, even against a regressor.

Julius opened his messages and typed a single line to Krüger.

[Never use the deep web again.]

He hit send, then set the phone down.

"Tsk."

The coffee had gone cold.

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