The Author's POV

Chapter 272: The Last Hurdle [3]

"Are you guys ready?"

A stern male with a gray suit and squared glasses asked.

Holding onto a small spherical object, he raised his head and looked at the people in front of him.

There were a total of fifteen people in front of him, and each and one of them had a terrifying aura revolving around them. The lowest-ranked member present was ranked, and the only reason why he was there was because of his special ability.

Calmly glancing at everyone in the room, the grey-suited male's eyes paused towards a certain girl.

An orange-haired one.

"Monica, I want you to listen carefully." Lifting his glasses with his finger index finger, he sternly said. "Your task is simple, you are to create as much chaos as possible. The location we've set is right outside the Monolith, you alongside the others are to divert the attention of the higher-ups away from the main building."

"Tsk, why do I get the most boring task."

Monica clicked her tongue.

"You're not the only one doing the boring task."

Behind her, one of the individuals spoke up causing Monica to turn around and glare in his direction.

"Shut up meat fodder."

"What did you call me?"

"I called you meat fodder, isn't that what you are?"

"Do you wanna fight?"

"Come on, I'm ready."

Bickering with Monica was a white-haired man with red eyes.

His skin was quite tanned and he had a sturdy build. An unfathomable aura exuded from his body, it was to the point that it even exceeded Monica's.

Ranked 5th in the Hero ranking, SS ranked hero, Amon Slabaugh, the unbreakable shield.

"Calm down both of you."

Stepping in and stopping the both of them, was a tall black-haired old man. A light gray goatee drooped down from the middle of his chin, and a white stripe appeared by the side of his hair.

Ranked 4th in the Hero ranking, SS ranked hero, Tasos Mallatos.

"Let's not do this now." Raising his hand to stop Amon from attacking Monica, before turning his attention towards her. "Monica, if you think about it, Amon and I are going to be the ones that will do the real heavy work. We're the ones that will actually be suffering the most, please be a little more respectful."

Both being SS ranked, it was them who were actually shouldering most of the troubles.

Monica was merely there to deal with the weaker S-ranked villains.

Raising her hands, Monica complained.

"That's why I'm saying it's boring. With you two next to me, how am I supposed to get a piece of the fun?"

Tasos smiled.

"Monica, if only it was as easy as you make it seem."

The mission they were currently being tasked to do was extremely dangerous.

Even he, an SS-ranked hero felt threatened by the mission. Less need to be said about Monica who was weaker than him.

"I know bu—"

"Alright, everyone please be quiet, I'm about to activate the artifact."

Cutting Monica off was the grey-suited male from before. Closing his eyes, and channeling his mana into the sphere, a yellow glow suddenly enveloped the room.

Shortly after, small threads of mana lingered in the air as a small portal formed before everyone's eyes.

—Vooom!

The moment the portal appeared, everyone stopped whatever they were doing and solemnly stared at the portal.

Heavy tension descended into the room.

"Haa…haa…done "

With heavy breaths, the grey-suited individual looked at all the people present in the room. Evening his breathing, he spoke.

"Please be careful when you go in, the goal of this mission is finally deal a heavy blow to the Monolith. I want you guys to take this seriously, and please try to come back safely…we can't afford to lose any of you guys."

Listening to the man's words, everyone reassured.

"Will do, don't worry."

"Roger."

"Alright…here." Turning his attention towards Monica, the gray-suited male handed her the orb. "Once you're done with everything, channel your mana into the orb and a portal should appear. Let me warn you though, the orb requires a lot of mana to activate, so don't go all out and preserve some mana."

"…I at least know this much."

Monica replied as she put the orb away.

"Alright, good luck on your mission everyone."

"Thanks!" Thanking the grey-suited individual, the first one to move forward and step into the portal was Amon. "haha, I'll be the first one to go in. I'll see ya'll on the other side."

—Vooom!

"Wait up you meat shield."

"Haish, can you two stop it."

Following him were Monica and Tasos.

—Vooom! —Vooom!

Eventually, everyone entered the portal, and silence descended in the room.

Staring at the portal that was slowly closing, the grey-suited individual lifted his glasses up with his finger before muttering.

"All the preparations are ready, the rest is up to you."

***

At the same time.

Standing in front of the large monitor where the image of a guard strolling around could be seen, Matthew turned his head and asked.

"The target seems to be moving towards the second level. What should we do?"

"We wait."

"Wait?"

"Yes." Without taking his eyes away from the monitor, Luther calmly explained. "We're going to observe him for a little bit more."

"I see…" Matthew's brows knit, obviously not satisfied with the answer. After a bit of hesitation, turning his head, he asked. "If I may ask, why can't we alert the others about him and just take him in?"

Interlocking his hands behind his back, Luther briefly glanced at Matthew.

"Be patient, Matthew. Our turn will naturally come. We don't know what he's planning, and we also don't want to startle him too early. We should first trap him before moving in."

If it was just him, he would've gone and captured 876 already, but since he was tasked with nurturing the new recruits, he couldn't be too careless.

"Either way, we've sealed the gates, so it wouldn't hurt to know what he's planning. Since I'm responsible for you all, I have to make sure you guys don't die."

Since this was a mission given to him by Xavier, he knew that the recruits over here were important.

He couldn't let them die.

"Sir, the cameras for corridor 2-Hall/4 have spotted 876. It seems like he has entered one of the guard's dormitory."

Disrupting Luther out of his thoughts was Matthew. Turning his head, he questioned. "Dormitory?" Luther's face turned into a scowl. "Is he planning on switching faces again? How laughably predictable"

The more he observed 876, the more scornful he became.

At first, he thought he was someone smart, especially since he had managed to flawlessly escape the lab.

However, from the looks of things, he had overestimated 876. He was merely someone who relied too much on an artifact that allowed him to change faces.

Turning around, he looked at his members and ordered.

"Alright, let's get this over with, it's time to move out and catch that little rat."

With 876 entering the dormitory, Luther knew that they had caught him. There were no escape routes that he could take.

He was done for.

***

Smirk.

Walking away from the infirmary, a smirk emerged on my lips.

'By now you think you've got me, no?'

If so, they were in for a surprise.

From the very beginning, I knew that the nurse was closely monitoring me. Not just me, but everyone that was present in that specific room.

Though the chances of them thinking that I had purposely burned myself were low, they were not slim. Therefore, it wouldn't have been strange for them to send someone to monitor the patients in the likelihood that this happened.

Turns out that they weren't wrong. I really was hiding amongst the burn victims.

Just then, me raising my hand pretending to kill her was also part of the act.

From a glance, I could tell that she was pretending to check the patient, and was actually looking at me.

Once she saw that I was ready to kill her, she quickly acted as though everything was alright.

Might've fooled someone else, but not me.

"Should be this way."

Turning right into a corridor, I lowered my head and hastened my footsteps slightly.

Even though I had already left and wasn't sure what the nurse was doing at the moment, I knew that she had probably warned the others of my whereabouts.

Well, in all honesty, I wasn't really that thorough when burning the guard's face. Though I covered his face with the bandages, it was pretty obvious that it wasn't me.

Anyhow, it was the effort that mattered.

As long as I made it seem like I tried, then everything was fine.

Her warning the others about my whereabouts was what I wanted.

'I hope that by now they know about my ability to change faces', I thought to myself, as I calmly walked through another corridor of the facility. 'They wouldn't be that dumb, right?'

Everything that I did since the beginning was not a coincidence.

From the very moment I pretended to be the unit captain back in the forest, I knew that my ability to change faces would be found out.

There was no way Luther wouldn't have found out about it due to the obvious difference in stature.

Maybe the others since they were distracted by the fake body in my hands, but not someone as experienced as Luther.

…I had not spent six months thinking about my escape from the lab to just throw it away due to a simple mistake.

Letting him know that I could change faces was part of my plans.

'I guess my worries were unfounded.'

Walking around the facility, I noticed that my path was fairly unobstructed. This could only mean one thing, they were monitoring my movements. The only reason why my path was unobstructed was because they didn't want to alert me.

'…and that's exactly what I wanted.'

Lowering my hat to hide the smile that had emerged on my face, I continued to move forward with even strides.

From the moment I was stuck inside the lab thinking about my escape routes, I realized that being passive and continuously hiding using the mask was not going to cut it when infiltrating the Monolith.

I needed to be more aggressive with my approach. Rather than waiting for an opportunity, I had to create one.

…and that was exactly what I was planning on doing.

By directly setting a target on myself, I was letting them feel in control.

Though my plans were filled with inconsistencies and were full of flaws, that was on purpose.

From the very beginning, my main plan was to act in a way that made it possible for me to read my opponent's next moves.

By putting subtle flaws in my plans, I was trying to influence their minds in a way that made them think and act the way I wanted them to.

'…and once you know what your opponent's next move is, everything else becomes easy.'

Freely moving around the Monolith, I quickly entered the second level. Completely unobstructed.

Wherever I went, no guard said anything or stopped me. Everyone was just minding their own business.

Upon entering the second level, checking the map on my watch, I headed towards the right.

Walking for a couple of minutes, I arrived before a metal door.

[Dormitory - Room 45]

"This should be it, I think."

Taking out a small card from my pocket and seeing the [45] engraved on it, I quickly swiped it.

—Clink!

Upon scanning the card by the side of the door, the door opened. Entering the room, the first thing I saw was five individuals sitting in front of a circular table playing cards. The smell of smoke invaded my nostrils.

With a cigarette in his mouth, one of the five individuals turned their head in my direction and pointed at the table.

"Oh? Ansel, you finished with your shift? Come and join us."

"Give me a second." Tapping onto my bracelet, a sword appeared in my hand. Nostalgically looking at the sword, I muttered to myself. "This should do for now."

Though it wasn't bleak star as it had been destroyed during the explosion, it was still a sword. This was enough for me.

"Oy, oy, why are you taking out a sword?"

The guy from before said. A hint of wariness appeared on his face.

"Oh, don't mind me. It's just been a while since I've touched a sword."

"A sword? Since when do you practice the sword?"

"A while?"

"I've never seen you hold a sword before…When you said a while, it must've been quite a long time ago."

The guy laughed.

"Mhm, been quite a while."

Smiling, I nodded my head.

Eight months to be exact. Given that I had stayed in this world for only two years, it was quite a lot of time.

"Anyway, put the sword down and come play a game with us."

"Ah, right." Putting my sword by the right side of my waist, I smiled and calmly walked towards the table. Glancing around and making sure there were no cameras, I approached the table.

Smirking the guy holding onto the cigarette pointed at his watch.

"Hehehe, you know the rules. If you want to play you must start with 10 merit points."

"Is that so?"

"Yeah."

—Click!

Suddenly, a subtle metallic click rang out in the room. Following this, with his eyes wide open, one of the five individuals sat on the chair slumped on the ground. A gaping hole appeared on his forehead.

"W-what are you doing?"

"Hey!"

"Ansel!"

Startled, everyone stood up and took out their weapons. Ignoring them, and staring at the guard I had just killed, I thought to myself. 'It's been a while since I last heard this sound, feels quite nostalgic.'

"Answer me! Why are you doing this!?"

Raising my head, and staring at the four individuals who had surrounded me, I lowered my head and once again placed my hand on the sheath of the sword.

"Sorry, but all but one guy will have to die for me."

—Click!

Once again, a clicking sound resounded across the room… Not long after, heavy silence descended in the room.

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