Chapter 93: Aerial Banquet Hall (2)
[Ugh…… my clothes were way too tight.]
Kali, dressed in a staff uniform, stroked her shirt collar as if uncomfortable.
Inside the banquet hall where the party had begun, people crowded together in a dense throng.
She stood near the stairs leading up to the second floor, holding a silver tray lined with cocktails.
[Keep your eyes open. It wouldn’t be strange if Edwin showed up at any moment.]
Diesel, wearing a neat suit just like Kali, muttered over a closed communication channel.
Assigned to guide guests at the entrance, he scanned the surroundings near the doorway.
From time to time, several guests sent Diesel flirtatious smiles and tossed him personal questions, and each time he quietly laced his voice with subtle mental-type mana and drove them away.
Things were no different on Kali’s end.
[These bastards think sexual harassment is their right.]
She grumbled in an extremely irritated tone.
Unlike Diesel, Kali had no way to drive people off, so she was being forced to endure a man making inappropriate suggestions to her.
“Just come with me for a moment. I’ve got a drug you’ll never get to see in your life. Of course, there’s some Qubit too.”
The man said this as he placed a hand on Kali’s waist.
“I’m sorry, but I’m not interested.”
She maintained what she considered a polite attitude and made her refusal clear, but the man did not budge.
“Think it over carefully. It’s a chance to earn your entire year’s salary in a single night.”
As his hand slid lower and lower, Kali found it harder and harder to control her expression.
‘If this keeps up, it’s going to turn into a disaster…….’
Diesel, who knew her personality to some extent, hurriedly began forming a mental-type spell.
Just as he was about to project it—
Someone grabbed the man’s hand with crushing force.
“What the hell……?”
The man frowned deeply and turned to look at his opponent.
Then his face drained of color, and he began to stammer.
“E-Edwin sir…….”
A silver-haired, sharp-eyed middle-aged man.
He was ‘Edwin Silver,’ the target of this operation.
“I believe I mentioned that today was an extremely formal occasion.”
A voice thickly mixed with contempt and disgust rebuked the vulgar behavior.
The man’s face crumpled miserably.
“I-I was only making a business proposal. I didn’t have any other intentions.”
At the utterly ridiculous excuse, Edwin showed no particular reaction and simply stared straight at the man’s face.
With eyes that looked as though they were gazing at something utterly trivial.
“Tsk…… damn it…….”
The man’s face flushed bright red, and after clearing his throat, he hurriedly fled the scene.
Edwin watched until the man disappeared from view, then turned his gaze toward Kali.
His deep eyes swept over her.
They resembled the gaze of an ancient tree that had endured countless years.
At that, Kali neatly adjusted her attire and bowed her head.
“Thank you, Edwin sir.”
“You’re a face I haven’t seen before.”
“…….”
“What’s your name?”
In response to Edwin’s question, she calmly gave the alias listed on her fabricated profile.
“My name is Rachel.”
“A new hire?”
“Yes.”
Edwin studied her intently for a while.
Perhaps finding the scrutiny uncomfortable, Kali formed the most amicable smile she could manage and spoke.
“Is there some kind of problem?”
“It’s rather rare to send a new hire out to a VIP party.”
With that, he silently looked down at Kali.
He was probably accessing the Electrosphere to review her profile.
‘This is getting complicated.’
If her infiltration was exposed here, it wouldn’t simply end with a failed job.
Being caught by a Megacorp executive meant that, in the worst case, she could be branded with corporate tags.
Diesel desperately racked his brain.
‘What do I do…….’
The first thing that came to mind was a mental-type confusion spell.
If it could just create a brief opening to slip away, they could somehow buy time to resolve things.
‘No. That’s too dangerous.’
If Edwin Silver was a figure of this caliber, he would certainly have countermeasures prepared against mental-type magic.
If it failed, the risk would be far too great.
‘Then hacking?’
That was nearly impossible as well.
Altering information in real time that Edwin, a Megacorp executive, was personally reviewing?
Even if Little Sister showed up, it would still be difficult.
‘Then…….’
One last method squeezed out of desperation.
Diesel searched for where the rude man who had been pestering Kali earlier had gone.
He was in a corner of the banquet hall, inhaling from a pipe that looked like a drug.
‘Perfect timing.’
Having found his target, Diesel quickly formed a spell and projected it.
A simple mental-type magic that amplified the target’s emotions.
He had woven it with an extremely small amount of mana, just in case there were sensors nearby that detected magical fluctuations.
However, perhaps because the target’s mental fortitude had been lowered by drugs, the reaction was far more violent than expected.
“Fuck this shit……!”
The man hurled the glass pipe he was holding violently to the floor.
With a sharp clatter, shards scattered in all directions.
At the noise, everyone nearby turned to look at the man, murmuring among themselves.
As the hall grew restless, Edwin turned his gaze away from Kali and toward the disturbance.
“S-Sir. This is inappropriate…….”
The man approached the nearest female staff member, grabbed her wrist, and tried to drag her somewhere.
At that, a crease formed on Edwin Silver’s perfect face.
“…….”
Taking advantage of the moment, Diesel signaled Kali with his eyes.
She immediately pretended she had other business and hurried away.
“Come with me! Fuck! I said come with me!”
The man’s reaction was far more intense than Diesel had intended.
‘This isn’t going to get us exposed, is it……?’
It was violent enough to raise suspicion of mental-type magic.
Just in case, Diesel prepared a spell formula to calm the target.
But at that moment.
“……?”
Suddenly, the man’s wrist was cleanly severed.
“Kgh……!”
Blood burst out from the cut wrist.
As the vivid red spray splashed across the female staff member’s face, a sharp scream belatedly erupted.
“Kyyaaaaaaah……!”
Because it had happened in an instant, the man looked as if he simply could not believe what had occurred right before his eyes.
“Th-this…… what is this…….”
When he turned around, the one who had cut off his hand was standing there.
It was Edwin Silver, holding a sword that gleamed with a silver radiance.
Wiping the blood from the blade with a handkerchief, he walked toward the man.
The man then threatened Edwin in a trembling voice.
“D-do you know who my mother is? No matter how much you’re Edwin, if you treat me like this, my mother will…….”
“Your mother. Yes. She is a very admirable person indeed. If not for your mother, what was just cut off would not have been your hand, but your head.”
With a restrained motion, Edwin slid the sword back into its scabbard, then placed his palm against the man’s wrist, from which blood was pouring freely.
“Kkeuaaah……!”
The man screamed.
Even though a pain-control implant should clearly have been operating.
That scream was probably not from pain, but from fear.
“L-let go……! Let go……!”
Edwin completely ignored the man’s words as his eyes shone in a spectrum of colors.
It was the mana recoil phenomenon that appeared in a Melee Mage.
‘Radiance-type mana…….’
At the same time, his palm glowed brightly with mana light.
Soon, searing Radiance-type mana began to cauterize the man’s severed wrist.
“Kkeuaaah……! Kkeuaaaaah……!”
With a crackling sound, the stench of burning flesh spread everywhere.
The man, his face twisted in sheer terror, screamed repeatedly before foam formed at his mouth and he lost consciousness.
Edwin dropped the man to the floor with a dull thud, then wiped the blood from his hand with a handkerchief.
After that, he gave a chin gesture to a nearby manager. From somewhere, several staff members who appeared to be part of a medical team rushed out in unison and carried the man away on a stretcher.
“Edwin sir.”
One of the managers who approached him tried to convey something.
But Edwin stopped him with a raised hand.
“Wait. There’s still something I haven’t dealt with.”
Edwin turned his gaze back toward where Kali had been.
“Hmm…….”
But upon finding no one there, he frowned and scanned his surroundings.
Sensing the danger, Diesel called out the spirit’s name.
〈Ar.〉
At her master’s command, Ar released a pre-prepared message into the internal server network.
【Lady Ophelia has finished preparing.】
“…….”
After reading it, Edwin’s expression softened noticeably.
He soon adjusted his attire and headed off somewhere.
‘Whew…….’
At the sudden, unexpected situation, a line of cold sweat ran down Diesel’s back.
Kali, who had hastily withdrawn, saw that the situation had been resolved and spoke over the closed channel.
[……That was close. What just happened back there?]
Kali had no idea at all that Diesel had used mental-type magic.
Since it wasn’t information she needed to know, Diesel deflected the question.
[We got lucky.]
[Yeah.]
[But that Edwin guy, was he a mage?]
[Hmm……. There wasn’t any information like that.]
To be using magic so openly, yet there being no particular information about it in the Electrosphere.
That meant control was just that thorough.
[He’s tougher than I expected. Totally different vibe from those high-ranking stuffed shirts.]
Kali muttered in a slightly tense voice.
A Megacorporation executive who was a Radiance-type Melee Mage skilled in both swordsmanship and magic.
There were quite a few people who had at least learned enough self-defense to protect themselves, but ones with skills at that level were extremely rare.
[If we’re talking levels alone, he’s at least around a six.]
At Kali’s remark, Diesel muttered inwardly.
‘I need to be careful.’
This was absolutely not someone to take lightly.
Especially in the middle of a delicate operation like infiltration.
‘Nothing ever comes easy.’
Having steeled his resolve, Diesel began moving toward the next stage.
〈Synchronizing.〉
Somewhere in a corner of the banquet hall building.
Diesel’s consciousness blurred as he connected to the Electrosphere.
Kali stood guard beside him, watching all directions.
‘Hacking Ophelia…….’
A world-famous pop star, Ophelia.
Being half android, she was more vulnerable to hacking than an ordinary person, but even so, it was naturally never an easy task.
Just what kind of hacker had been hired to make something like that possible?
‘The Aguiggun Clan, right.’
A new clan that Diesel had supposedly created.
Perhaps the hacker belonged to that clan.
‘He’s already gone as far as founding a clan…….’
Kali glanced sideways at Diesel, who was sitting quietly.
It felt like only yesterday that they had worked together as a team for the first time, yet he had already risen to the position of a clan leader.
‘Just what kind of person is he?’
Her eyes carefully traced Diesel’s face.
Thick eyebrows and sharp eyes.
A blade-like nose bridge and a jawline that looked as if it had been carved.
There was a slightly delinquent air about him, but perhaps because of that, he exuded a decadent charm.
‘He is handsome, though.’
After briefly enjoying the sight of the handsome face, she turned her head away.
‘I wonder if he’s recruiting clan members.’
Although Kali had been active as a Ghostcatcher for quite some time, she had not joined any clan so far.
She simply hadn’t wanted to be bound by such things.
‘I should ask him once this job is over.’
The reason was simple.
For some reason, Diesel gave off a very strong ‘money’ scent.
If nothing else, Kali was a woman with an uncanny talent for sensing the smell of money.