I Became the Slit-Eyed Henchman of the Evil Boss - Chapter 54

WeTried Translations

Translator: Botanica

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◈ I Became the Slit-Eyed Henchman of the Evil Boss ◈

Chapter 54

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That Was the King of Troublemaking (2)

She couldn't accept it.

'No way. He's the one who tricks people better than anyone alive, and he says something like that?'

Kyne couldn't rein in the anger boiling up inside her, and she huffed and puffed.

"Then what, is that a lie too? That Argyrion planted silver threads in the order's people?"

"Ah, that part is true. A silver thread did come out of Sikton's brain. Did you not hear?"

It was the first she'd heard of it.

"Why are you only telling me this now?!"

"My apologies. You were busy learning to control your divine power, so I forgot I meant to tell you once it was all settled."

Ortes shrugged. He said he was sorry, but he didn't look sorry in the least. It was obvious that keeping her in the dark this whole time had been deliberate, a controlled release of information.

'He probably wanted to shut down any chance of me suddenly charging off to get revenge. Now that I'm right beside him, he probably figures he can keep me in check.'

Kyne kept fuming, but she followed after Ortes all the same. If she stormed off right now vowing to wipe out Argyrion on the spot, she'd obviously just get caught.

'...And the capsules with my family in them are at Hydra Corp too.'

A sudden wave of gloom welled up in her again.

* * *

'Why is everyone suddenly looking at Karisia like she's some kind of god...?'

Back at the listing review hall, I was thrown off by the rain of stares aimed at Karisia.

Looking at the automatons sprawled by the entrance and the one corpse, I could roughly guess what had happened.

The admissions officer, seeing that I'd brought Kyne back, kept bowing his head over and over. I waved back at him and went straight for Karisia.

The crowd kept their eyes on Karisia, but none of them dared step any closer. The awe in their eyes gave me a fair idea of just what kind of power she must have shown here.

Still, better to hear it straight from her.

"President, what happened here?"

"You're late?"

A friendly little scolding, the moment I got back. The president really is thorough about punctuality, as always.

I first looked over the others I'd sent ahead to the listing review hall. Niobe and the admissions officer didn't know about my relationship with Karisia. So it would never occur to either of them to explain the situation to her on my behalf.

Ah, though, if Niobe had gathered her intelligence thoroughly, as a Blasphemia agent should, she might at least know that Karisia was Ortes's superior. Except she thought I was an inspector disguised as Ortes, which made that knowledge useless anyway.

But you, Lampades, that's a different story, isn't it.

I turned my head toward Lampades. He could've just said one thing: "That friend of mine ran into something and might be a little late."

Catching my gaze, Lampades suddenly shook his head. What was he denying, exactly?

Behind Lampades I could see his tower's people comforting one another. Judging by how they'd gathered around Astrape, they all seemed worried about the tower's youngest mage.

'Ah, I see. He means he was too busy looking after his own people to have the chance to say anything to Karisia.'

Fair enough, if that was how it was. I gave him a nod to let him know it was fine.

* * *

Lampades, having arrived at the listing review hall, found himself thinking. About Ortes.

'Ortes had clearly said he was attending this in his capacity as Hydra Corp's Office Head of the Secretariat.'

But what had the Museion admissions officer called him?

'Relief Team Leader. And that little mage over there, who was actually part of the Emergency Relief Team, hadn't denied it either.'

Could someone who'd come to attend a listing review also be the head of the Emergency Relief Team at the same time?

If the relief team had been some pre-existing post, he might have found some way to force himself to accept it. But it was the "Emergency" Relief Team. Manpower that, by definition, could only have been thrown together and dispatched in a hurry after this terror attack had already happened.

There was no way to hold both roles at once.

The words of that shabby-looking man radiating an ominous Qi had only sunk Lampades deeper into confusion. That baffling word, Blasphemia.

It was a word he thought he'd caught a glimpse of once, in some classified job long ago. Could this be a clue to Ortes's true identity?

Sunk in thought, Lampades noticed at some point that Ortes had turned back and was looking at him.

Not at the others who'd escaped the Museion admissions office alongside him, at him and him alone. Lampades was the only one who knew the relationship between Karisia and Ortes.

It had to be a silent interrogation, asking whether he'd told Karisia about Ortes's many identities, his many faces.

Lampades shook his head with everything he had. A declaration that he'd said nothing at all.

A state of focus born from extreme tension. Lampades noticed that Ortes's gaze had shifted, just slightly. Not a matter of mood, but a physical fact.

The direction of those eyes gleaming beneath his eyelids had turned, just barely.

And that glint aimed itself past him, at the members of his own tower behind him.

Whether it was a hint at the price they'd pay for letting their mouths run loose, or born of some greedy interest in them as talent Hydra Corp could use, he couldn't tell.

Then Ortes smiled and nodded.

Lampades found hope in that silent interrogation.

'Ortes is hiding his identity even from his own president. He must have judged that now still isn't the time to reveal his true self. Which means there has to be a wide gap, still, between the true nature of Hydra's president and the man Ortes really is...!'

* * *

Karisia was listening to Ortes's hushed explanation, or to put it another way, a whisper against her ear.

She liked the sound of that voice murmuring close by.

"I will report the full details once we're back in Etna City. For now, please just know that I have obtained one countermeasure that is genuinely effective against the terrorist organization calling itself Argyrion."

The moment Ortes heard he'd been called late, he reported, as briefly as he could manage, everything that had happened while he was away.

'I'd only meant that everyone else had already shown up and he alone hadn't, that's all.'

Such an extremely businesslike posture. Karisia shook her head slowly.

"So, what happened on your end, President?"

"One of Argyrion's mages attacked me directly, and I took him down. I did not expect one to make it all the way to the review hall, though."

Ortes furrowed his brow as if flustered. A change so subtle that anyone but Karisia, who knew his expressions inside and out, would never have noticed it.

"Did the crystal not warn you?"

"No. The crystal showed me no premonition at all. I felt the barrier shudder, so I'd already been braced for it. The moment he broke through, I struck first and took him down."

Karisia briefly explained how the fight had gone. She'd released mana to form a makeshift barrier, sealing herself and Argyrion's mage inside it together, then struck him down with a curse that killed on sight.

"...A curse that kills on sight?"

"Ah, given how it works, it probably wouldn't work on a higher-ranked Eroded or a strong mage. Breaking through their mana field is one problem, and if they can regenerate, burning their brain out is pointless anyway."

At this point, Ortes realized why Phoibos's crystal hadn't gone off.

It was supposed to warn of danger approaching in the future.

'Argyrion's mage hadn't even registered as a danger to Karisia!'

How could someone who'd fought well right up until he caught one glimpse of Karisia and just keeled over count as a threat, a crisis? Ortes let out a hollow laugh at such an absurd showing of magical power, then asked, serious again.

"It looks like things will wrap up soon. Shall we head straight back to Etna City?"

"Yes. I doubt the Ten Towers will take much interest just because one mage got taken down, but just in case, let's head back quickly."

"In that case, I will go finish tying up matters here, and come back."

* * *

The first person I went up to was Niobe. The Emergency Relief Team seemed to suit her better than I'd expected, her hands moved with practiced ease as she injected mana ampoules into people who'd run dry and worked through a whole sequence of first aid.

"Niobe."

"Oh, senior. That kid?"

I opened my hand and pointed in Kyne's direction. She was chattering away at Karisia about something.

"Thank goodness.... So, what's going on?"

Seeing that the first aid on the patients was more or less done, I handed Niobe a piece of paper. On it was an order: memorize the contents, including whatever papers followed after, then burn it.

Niobe looked at me, her face gone stiff.

"Relax your face, Niobe. You should keep a bright expression, wherever you are, whenever it is."

"I see! So senior always walks around smiling to make it hard to read your emotions...!"

That wasn't really it. I'd just gotten so used to putting people on guard that approaching them with a bit of a smile had hardened into a habit, that was all.

But there was no need to go out of my way to correct her, not when she thought of me as such a model senior agent.

I pulled out the next memo and wrote down, on the spot, what I'd deduced.

This was less a deduction than a fact. The fire mage who'd just been fighting Niobe was exactly that. Most of what followed was close to fact as well.

To the fact that one traitor had already been found, I added the inference that there had to be more of them out there.

In the final line, I set down a way to break through the crisis.

But which would be easier for a rank-and-file agent, contacting the Audit Office Head directly, or contacting a senior she was on decent terms with?

On top of that, the Audit Office Head had more than one email address. Besides the public-interest tip line open to ordinary agents, there was a separate account reserved for genuine emergencies.

The address I'd sent the tip-off email to through Arabel after taking down Nardanit was that very emergency-contact account. In a situation like this, keeping up with even the emergency account had to be a struggle, which meant the public-interest tip account Niobe would know about was bound to end up neglected.

Niobe read every message and nodded.

With that, I'd put every countermeasure I could think of against Argyrion into place.

Niobe was a regular agent. She wouldn't get me classified intelligence, but she'd be more than enough to keep a rough sense of Blasphemia's overall movements.

If the Order of the Divine Name moved to hunt down Argyrion, word would come to me, which meant I'd now set up a channel into both the Order of the Divine Name and Blasphemia.

'If I let information from each side leak to the other, I could probably steer their moves to some degree.'

A three-way balance of power, in other words, among Argyrion, Blasphemia, and the Order of the Divine Name.

I gave my heartfelt thanks to Zhuge Liang, model to every underappreciated employee out there, the ultimate hard-to-get hire who'd made his own boss come courting him three separate times.

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