Chapter 1065 – #253_술래잡기(2) – DeepL
#1059
1.
“So you’re here after all?”
Entering the hangar with the pomp and circumstance of entering a ballroom, Lydia glanced around.
A tropical storm was brewing, and the sound of rain pounding on the plate ceiling was a welcome relief from the sweltering heat.
“Hmm, am I running a little late?”
There was no sign of my much-anticipated date.
Instead, there was a deserted hangar with one wall ripped out, an abandoned desk, ashes from burning papers, and a portable bathtub.
-Yelp
Lydia swept her white opera-gloved hand across the table like a detective.
The tiniest bit of dust.
“Phew.”
She blew the dust away.
The room had been occupied about two days ago, but now it was empty.
As soon as Lydia realized it was Xiu, she got the coordinates of Dorothy’s workshop from her secretary.
Lydia had gotten the coordinates of Dorothy’s workshop from her assistant when she took her hostage before, just in case.
The purpose of Xiu’s movements is obvious.
“Well. Clichéd revenge.”
Lydia is after the Lehar group for intuitive reasons that are both easy and difficult to understand.
There’s no doubt that Xinxiu hates Lydia as well, but for now, he’s prioritizing the Lehar Group over Lydia, the planner.
The new version of Xinxiu, not the original Xinxiu, must have considered the possibility that the immigration registry would reveal his movements.
The Lehar Group’s radius of operations is shaped like an hourglass with a thick bottom, covering North, Central, and South America.
Dorothy’s workshop happened to be on an island near the Dominican Republic, so it was only natural for Lydia to make that her first stop.
As you can see, she was a little late and in vain.
In frustration, Lydia slowly walked around the now-empty shop.
The cottage was practically empty, except for the papers and the results of her magical experiments.
As the rain pelted the glass windows, Lydia pondered.
“Am I alone for now?”
Lydia wasn’t exploring the mansion out of curiosity.
Where a person stays long enough, they leave their mark.
I’d say he’d been thorough, but if he really wanted to erase everything, he should have burned the place down.
Traces of life, fingerprints, hair, etc.
It would take a witch to erase all those little things.
As a witch who works with “ideas” and “particles,” Lydia estimated that Xiu had been alone in the mansion for about ten days.
Predictably, she’d been working on her revenge alone.
Or maybe it was all a ruse to cover her tracks.
We won’t know until the immigration list is released.
But even at this point, I can make a guess.
“We have a leak.”
No matter how diabolical Brand New Xinxiu’s plan is, his behavior suggests that he has a grasp of the conflict between Lydia and the Lehar group.
It’s as if he’s reacting to information from within, not just information that’s available on the surface.
No matter how tightly Lydia grips the top of Solidus, the top of Solidus has already enlarged to the point of hypertrophy.
There’s no way she’s going to be able to thread it all the way through.
“Good work, girl.”
Lydia spotted another of Xiu’s invisible shackles.
With a hole like this, if Lydia were to move the entire top to find Xiu, the information would be relayed to Xin Xiu through the rats in the top.
The only people who can move in this situation are a trusted few.
Or Lydia herself.
Lydia’s greed for control of Xin Xiu is another device.
2.
Simple, basic economic common sense.
Where there is demand, there is supply.
What are the three things that have never gone away in the history of civilized humanity?
Women, drugs, and weapons.
Terrorists, rebels, criminal organizations, countries prohibited by international law from possessing certain weapons, etc.
Countless blue-chip customers want to acquire weapons through informal channels.
The violence they unleash is the source of their power and the means to achieve their ends.
In the past, Dorothy’s arms trafficking business was an organization that scratched each buyer’s itch.
Sure and reliable delivery, tight security, maintenance support, and uncompromising quality.
It was the conscience of the industry, bringing “industry standards” to an industry where “unofficial” was the name of the game.
When its leader, Dorothy, abruptly washed her hands of it and disbanded the trafficking organization, it was Solidus Top who took over.
Lydia needed someone with experience running a business, so she lured Dorothy’s staff with a hefty salary and a guarantee of status.
Without much bloodshed, most of the former Dorothy’s employees accepted the offer.
After all, they were at the bottom of the system and needed someone to run the business in place of their departed boss.
There was also the fact that they needed someone with a backbone in a public society full of jokers.
With these mutual interests and Lydia’s business savvy, the world’s leading arms trafficking organization was successfully merged into the top of Solidus.
But there’s one thing Lydia, driven by her inherent greed, has overlooked.
Dorothy was a much more connected boss than she realized.
“…….”
Xiu silently deciphered the cipher sent to the crystal ball.
[Lehar Group Hexenacht breakout. Herja and Lydia’s relationship is believed to have taken a turn for the worst. All Solidus smuggling ships ordered back to service. An elite level witch has been assigned to each smuggling ship. Caution Requested]
Xiu doesn’t know exactly who sent this coded message.
She was surprised when a telegram was delivered to Dorothy’s mansion in the middle of the night, not quite honestly.
She identifies herself as Dorothy’s henchwoman, and tells of Lydia’s merger with Dorothy’s smuggling business, which has put her in a position to access a lot of important information at the top of Solidus.
She offers to help him pay back his enemies, and she does.
As a result, Xiu was able to receive near-real-time reports on the state of the conflict between the group and the top, allowing him to change his plans on the fly.
I don’t know how long I’ll be able to rely on him, but….
“…….”
Xiu held his breath for a moment.
A tingling sensation clung to his fingertips and then disappeared.
This time, it wasn’t a side effect of the red branches.
Shifting his base of operations away from Dorothy’s workshop, Xiu built a device between the hangar doors.
It was a one-time magical signal that would alert him when someone opened the hangar door to Dorothy’s workshop.
A kind of security device.
Should I say Lydia?
She’s very quick to arrive at the correct answer.
For a moment, I wondered if I had done the right thing by offering to play a game with Lydia.
However, it’s an act that definitely pays off in the form of a rift between Solidus and Rehar’s group.
No matter how you slice it, if you’re in the Lehar Group’s circle, it’s hard to get comfortable with Xiu.
When Herya clashed with Lydia and the atmosphere at the top and in the group became toxic, the freelancer who only looked at the bottom line stepped outside the fence.
-Shoot!!!
It rains.
Xiu is hanging halfway off the cliff, cloaked in dense bushes and darkness, looking down at the cottage.
This is a coastal town in western Peru.
While it doesn’t have the large-scale cartels of Colombia or Mexico, Peru is far from politically stable.
Until the 1990s, extreme rebel groups that embraced Maoism fought the government tooth and nail, and although they have since disintegrated with the death or capture of their leaders, they still operate in fragments down in the countryside.
And wherever there is a criminal organization, there is always an illegal source of income, and where there is an illegal source of income, there is a public stamp of approval.
Those who don’t dare to dip their toes into the honey pot of Mexico and Colombia are straw men for these criminal small businesses.
Today’s target is one of them, a freelancer for the Lehar Group who, thanks to Xiu’s epilepsy, has chosen to go undercover.
From here on out, it’s a game of speed.
Herya rallies her entourage, scattering a total of 27 “former” Lehar Group members in the process.
He tours South America, killing them as fast as he can before being captured by the monster Lydia, who chases after him like a Pac-Man.
Xiu is not consumed by rage.
He’s cold.
His cool head tells him that he has no chance of killing Lydia in this battle.
There will be plenty of opportunities in the future.
After Dorothy is saved, after he returns to Gehenna and establishes a solid power base with the Hesed Society, and after he reaches a higher magical level.
With his mind made up, Xiu soared into the sky.
The first strike.
The most crucial moment to decide whether a battle is won or lost.
The moment to quickly subdue the target as planned.
-Piyuuuuu!
A high, piercing sound accompanied by a brilliance that shot into the sky.
Not one, but two, three, eight.
In the midst of this torrential rain and darkness, the magic illuminates Xiu’s figure like a flare.
“Gotcha. You little rat. You think we’re going to take you down so easily?”
The witch, dappled and glowing in different lights, is not the original target.
It’s the 20th ranked ‘Radiant Witch’ that we’re going to hunt down much later.
“Shit, it was just one of them that was chasing after us?”
“So she’s the one who’s been killing me?”
“Lydia the Bitch.”
“The one at the top of Solidus, right?”
As if on cue, a dozen or so witches slipped out of their cloaks and chattered like they were removing active camouflage suits from a science fiction novel.
“Huh? Isn’t that her?”
“Black armor with red spears…. I think that’s him.”
“What, does that mean it wasn’t Solidus?”
Some people even recognized Xiu’s identity.
It’s the woes of celebrity.
Xiu’s prey is no ordinary game NPC.
They’re not passive enough to play along with the game plan and get blown to bits.
The freelancers have their own sense of crisis, and they’ve attached themselves to the High Witch, the Witch of Radiance, to defend themselves against the mysterious attacker.
Their favorite method.
An eye for an eye, tooth for tooth, violence for violence.
In magical combat, hierarchy is absolute.
An overwhelming advantage in just one rank, and a difference of two or more, is almost guaranteed to win or lose the battle.
However, there is an easy way to reverse this disparity.
It’s to increase your headcount.
From past hunts, I’ve learned that you’re at an exponential disadvantage when your group of prey exceeds three people.
Even a flying, crawling Xiu who is skilled in combat would be hard-pressed to take on 17 witches at once, much less a High Witch.
“If I can just catch that bastard….”
“Isn’t this rather good?”
“Let’s do it…!”
Their eyes glowed with greed as they realized their advantage after being frightened by the unknown.
“You came because you’re confident, right?”
Xiu smiles back at the Radiant Witch as she smirks.
Yes.
I was hoping it would come out like this.
“Dive deep.”
It was worth it to set the hunting grounds near the sea.
