Chapter 307

Quilia, Maria, Sariel, and I were all looking at the teahouse.

Sariel’s sense of smell was directed toward the teahouse. A long, lingering scent was trailing from within.

‘Teahouses are usually found in affluent districts.’

For the lower class, "tea" was just a synthetic beverage they drank on rare occasions, and even then, it was usually sold as an extra at bars or taverns. It was difficult for people at the bottom to drink real tea.

‘So, a teahouse in disguise… A drug shop.’

It was a common cover. Everyone knew, but they just let it slide.

In fact, drug addicts were wandering around the area.

‘Their main business is probably selling drugs, but to maintain the facade of a teahouse, they must have bought a small quantity of actual tea.’

The amount of tea leaves they purchased was far more than what would be needed for a single person’s consumption.

‘Besides, Akies Victima is closely tied to awakening-type drugs.’

A significant number of Kinuan’s subordinates—Dead Ronin—were likely drug addicts. Most Akies Victima users relied on the power of drugs. People like me, who had undergone high-grade neurochemical treatment, were the exception. Those who received advanced enhancement procedures had less reason to learn Akies Victima.

I fixed my gaze on the teahouse.

‘The question is, is this a trap or not?’

As I approached, a sense of unease surged through me.

“There, there… The smell is… thick and stagnant,” Sariel muttered, lifting his head and pointing at the teahouse.

“I’ll go in first and take a look—” Quilia began.

I pulled her back by the shoulder and stepped forward.

“You’re not in great shape, so don’t push it. Your Force usage isn’t unlimited either, so conserve it.”

More importantly, if Kinuan’s traces were inside, I wanted to secure them myself.

Maria and Quilia knew exactly what to do without needing my instructions. They positioned themselves strategically and took cover, watching over me.

I walked along the wall, weaving between vagrants and addicts.

‘Think from Kinuan’s perspective, Luka. Bring him down to your level.’

Countless thoughts floated through my mind. First, I dismissed the notion of an overwhelmingly powerful Kinuan. If he were omnipotent, I wouldn’t be able to win in the first place. I erased the possibility of a helpless defeat.

All I needed to consider were the conditions that would allow me to win.

‘Maria isn’t the cautious type. If Kinuan had intended to use her, he could have already gathered information about her combat abilities and capabilities through various means.’

But Kinuan would have only gathered superficial information about Maria’s group. He wouldn’t have had the time or resources to dig deeper.

Right now, I wasn’t the only one involved—Ilay, the special operations unit, and even Corite assassins had entered the scene. Maria’s group was a low-priority target in Kinuan’s surveillance ranking.

‘Sariel’s drug-enhanced sense of smell is sorting out even the smallest particles, retracing movements from several days ago. This level of ability goes far beyond normal expectations.’

Even I was surprised by Sariel’s olfactory capabilities. It was an ultra-sensory ability that was rarely seen. I highly doubted Kinuan had anticipated this.

‘Kinuan never reveals himself to anyone.’

Even after being around him for a long time, I still didn’t know his true nature.

‘He would never disclose his whereabouts to his subordinates. The Dead Ronin worship him. He maintains an air of mystery, something almost inhuman. There’s no way he’d let his followers see anything remotely personal about him.’

I pieced together Kinuan’s past actions. He had likely lived here for years under the guise of a drug dealer. And when acting as one, he must have used a different prosthetic body.

‘Whenever Kinuan showed himself to us, he always used an old-model prosthetic. He wanted to make us think he couldn’t afford to replace it. It’s likely that his brain has reached its limit in adapting to new prosthetics, making such a deception all the more convincing.’

Kinuan was cunning enough to pull off such a ploy. He was the type to bury himself under multiple layers of schemes and disguises.

I followed Kinuan’s thought process as if I were him.

‘He’s standing on thin ice. He’s not in a comfortable position. Staying in Border City, he must have barely scraped through countless precarious situations.’

In terms of overall ability, Kinuan and I were equals. I had to think that way to beat him.

I wouldn’t overestimate him. What’s difficult for me is just as difficult for him. If he can do it, so can I.

‘Every time his plans ran into trouble, he must have squeezed out every ounce of his resources to find a solution. Just like I did.’

I tried to understand Kinuan by recalling my own past. Our minds were like mirrors reflecting each other.

Crack.

I rounded the back of the building and yanked the emergency exit door. The lock shattered with a sharp snap, drawing the attention of the vagrants and addicts. It would only take a moment for them to turn violent.

Just then, Maria’s warning rang out in the form of a sharp gunshot.

Fwip!

Maria’s suppressed sniper shot pierced through a vagrant’s thigh.

“Gah, urk!”

The vagrant staggered, dragging his wounded leg as he scrambled into a pile of trash.

Thud, thud, thud!

The people who had been about to enter the teahouse scattered into the alleyway. They feared the sniper shot that had come from an unknown direction.

‘Well done, Maria.’

Maria would handle any unnecessary intruders, and Quilia was keeping watch from a nearby rooftop.

Most importantly, Sariel’s sense of smell was sweeping through the area like an intricate surveillance network. Deceiving his nose would be incredibly difficult.

Clatter.

I propped the battered door against the wall and stepped inside.

‘The scent of tea leaves and drugs.’

Even though I wasn’t on Sariel’s level, my sense of smell was quite sharp.

Our five senses were tools for perceiving the outside world. The fundamental principle of Akies Victima was honing those senses to an extreme level in order to process vast amounts of information.

I turned my gaze toward the display counter.

‘The teahouse is just a front.’

A layer of dust had settled on the tea display. In contrast, the handles of the cabinets and drawers—where the drugs were stored—were smooth from frequent use.

‘Now, I need to find traces of Kinuan.’

Kinuan would have erased any evidence of his presence meticulously…

I narrowed my eyes.

Contrary to my expectations, finding his traces was ridiculously easy.

When I entered the back room where he had likely lived, I saw photographs and notes plastered on the walls.

Swish.

I stood in the center of the room and examined them. The photos depicted various locations and individuals, each accompanied by annotations.

Lines connected the pictures, forming a web of relationships.

The network was so complex that even I couldn’t grasp it all at a glance. There were also many blank spaces, suggesting that some of the work had already been concluded and removed.

…The more I looked, the more questions arose.

‘It makes sense that he wouldn’t store information digitally. Kinuan isn’t some elite hacker, nor does he have the backing of a major organization. If he needed to keep records, he would avoid digital means.’

However, the Kinuan I knew wasn’t the type to expose information so carelessly.

‘This relationship map is vast, but it’s within the range of what he could process in his head. There’s no real need to visualize it physically.’

I didn’t even blink.

‘Why? For what reason did he leave this behind? A trap?’

If this were a trap, then Maria and Quilia would already be dead. Kinuan had no reason to spare them.

‘And he has no reason to keep me alive either.’

Until now, Kinuan had been trying to use me. My survival had been beneficial to him.

Because of that, I ended up being used as bait, drawing the attention of Ivan Accretia and Mushir al-Kashura in his place.

‘But that role is over now. I’m nothing more than an obstacle in his pursuit.’

If even this place were a trap, something critical should have already happened.

I blinked my dry eyes and frowned.

‘Cognitive dissonance.’

The reality I knew and the Kinuan I knew weren’t this easy to deal with. There was no way things would go this smoothly. The fact that I had found his traces so easily made it difficult to trust what was in front of me.

‘…Did Sariel’s sense of smell really catch Kinuan off guard? Just accept it. Accept it already!’

I was still overestimating Kinuan. There was candy right in front of me, but I couldn’t bring myself to take it, afraid it was poisoned.

Every piece of candy Kinuan had ever dropped had been laced with poison. Now, even if he had actually left a real one, could I just pick it up and swallow it without hesitation?

However, I was operating under the premise that Kinuan had not anticipated Sariel’s ultra-sensory ability. Because the result came too easily, I kept trying to break away from that premise.

‘Kinuan didn’t expect Sariel’s sense of smell! Accept it! Accept it, you idiot!’

I screamed at myself. My mind was so weighed down by the idea of an infallible Kinuan that I wasn’t processing the information right in front of me.

Instead of simply recognizing what was there, I was wasting mental effort trying to figure out why Kinuan had exposed his information so easily. I was exhausting my brain over an ‘intention’ that might not even exist.

‘Ignore the paranoia that even this mistake was part of Kinuan’s plan.’

I tried to suppress my instincts from Akies Victima. With conscious effort, I barely managed to restrain my inaccurate intuition.

"Alright. If I keep acting like this, I’ll end up with another hole in my forehead."

I threatened my own brain like a lunatic as I stared at the wall. The photographs, notes, and tangled lines of information seeped into my mind.

‘Jafa, Anguis Regina, Lapis, En, Son Seok-jae…’

There were photos of people I had encountered, as well as Maria’s group.

Some of the photos were marked with an X. Most likely, those individuals were deemed useless. Jafa, Son Seok-jae, En…

I quickly read the notes beneath them. The information didn’t differ from what I already knew.

Thud.

I stopped at one particular photo.

‘Giselle Custoria.’

My eyes widened as if my vision had zoomed in. I read the notes about Giselle.

‘Luka’s weakness, co-founder of G&G Cybernetics, currently missing, high priority for retrieval—where could she be?’

There was a vast amount of information on the wall, but key plans were missing in patches. The information here was only for "organization."

I stared at one of the empty spaces. The adhesive residue was still sticky, meaning something had been removed recently. The writing had also been smudged, as if deliberately erased.

‘There are no photos of Lars or the Parish Overseer. They’re definitely major figures…’

I checked the arrangement of the other photos and notes.

‘…If it were me, I would have placed the Parish Overseer and Lars' photos here.’

Following Kinuan’s thought process, I placed my hand on the sticky adhesive.

Then, using only deduction, I traced the erased relationship line between the Parish Overseer and Lars with my fingers. The writing along the line had also been wiped away, making it difficult to read.

I gathered the few legible letters and pieced together the context.

‘…Something related to assassination.’

Who was supposed to kill whom?

…Lars still hadn’t responded.

A cold chill ran down my spine. This was the moment to let go of my suppressed intuition. Goosebumps spread across my body.

I slowly lowered my hand. My fingers brushed against Crucis.

"Quilia, you're here, aren't you? Don't act rashly. I'm saying this for your sake. No matter how skilled I am, I can’t only subdue an unseen opponent without certainty."

Right now, Quilia probably wasn’t keeping watch from outside. That thought took root in my mind. If I was wrong, I’d just shrug it off and look like an idiot.

Vmm—

As the cognitive distortion ability was lifted, the space wavered.

Thud.

Quilia emerged as if pushing through the air.

Drip.

A thick tear fell from Quilia’s left eye.

"Around ten minutes before we arrived… we received word that the Parish Overseer had passed away."

It wasn’t natural causes. He had been perfectly fine just hours ago.

"The culprit?"

"A soldier from the Empire who had been acting with you. Gaya was also severely wounded. I have no choice but to suspect you."

I resisted the urge to squeeze my eyes shut. A deep sigh clawed at my throat, desperate to escape.

‘Lars.’

What the hell was happening where I couldn’t see?