By Zephyria The guy who had just come and made a fuss was particularly cocky and didn’t even greet properly, so he had disliked him a few times. He was even less likely to call him brother affectionately, but somehow, the feeling was different from usual.
The man tilted his head and looked behind the box once. Since there were other guys around, it seemed okay to leave his post for a short while.
He followed the others towards the entrance. He couldn’t possibly think it was someone else because the face was the same, and he was a little curious about what could be so serious that the cocky guy had run all the way here and desperately called him “hyung-nim.”
The man strode forward and turned the curve of the cave to the right. Then, he stopped dead in his tracks at the sight before him.
“Wh-What the fuck. What is this―.”
The scene was truly shocking. His colleague who had gone ahead was lying on the ground as if he had fainted in that short time, but the problem was that his top was stripped off and lying next to him, and his bottoms were hanging on his legs as if they were only half-removed.
He felt disgusted by the naked body thrown aside, but fear overwhelmed him even more. The culprit who had done this should have been there, but the mercenary who had followed was nowhere to be seen.
The man’s face changed colors in real-time as he cursed, and he instinctively took a step back. At that moment, he felt someone push his shoulder hard from behind. The terrified man immediately swung his fist backward, but it cut through the air without any impact.
Before he could identify who had pushed him, the man’s vision went dark as a hand reached out in front of him.
Meanwhile, Alec, who was loitering near the entrance of the mining team’s hideout and base, was surprisingly diligently keeping watch and waiting for Leonardo. He even whistled along with the thumping sounds coming from inside from time to time.
“He said he’d be quiet, but he’s waking everyone up.”
He took out a uniquely designed pocket watch from his pocket, checked the time, and clicked his tongue. He had planned to leave this area before dawn, but time had passed more than he thought, and it was already almost sunrise.
But anyway, he had made a contract, so he had no choice but to wait to fulfill it, so he hummed a song and planned his future course of action.
Just then, he felt a faint presence at the end of the path where he was standing. Alec immediately stopped singing and stared in that direction. Since the cave was straight and there was no place to hide, he reached behind him to see if there was anything he could use as a weapon in his back pocket.
The presence gradually approached, and the footsteps grew louder and louder. It felt cautious, but the opponent’s gait, which didn’t seem to hide the sound of footsteps, felt bold, which heightened the tension.
The silhouette hidden in the darkness gradually became clearer, and as the other party approached to a distance where he could roughly make out the face, Alec looked a little surprised as if he hadn’t expected it.
He pushed up the silver-rimmed glasses he was wearing to focus. Then, he hid a slight look of embarrassment and smiled.
“How did you get here…?”
Leonardo, who had transformed into a 40-year-old upper-level manager with brown hair and a long scar on his mouth, stared up at the tall metal box in front of him. The Etaid piled on top of it emitted a shimmering blue light in the torchlight. A smile appeared on his lips.
“Found it.”
Around him, there were countless necks that had been twisted and defeated. Of course, he hadn’t killed them, just temporarily knocked them out.
Strangely, only the Etaid’s storage location was separated, so he had gotten lost several times, and there were about a dozen well-trained mercenaries guarding the front, so it was more difficult to control his strength than before. The fact that he was trying to do it moderately while they were rushing at him with all their might also played a part.
Still, he tried to knock them out without pain since they were trying to make a living and earn money, but he even kindly leaned the guy against the wall, wishing him a speedy recovery, after accidentally hitting the back of his head and almost sending him to the threshold of heaven and hell.
Leonardo roughly pushed the fallen people aside and jumped onto the box at once, as if jumping over a high fence. Then, he saw an eye-popping amount of Etaid piled up.
He lightly stepped on the minerals, crouched down, and lifted the blue minerals with both hands. He wanted to enjoy the feeling of finding treasure for a moment, but since there was no time, he only checked whether it was Etaid or not.
The shape and color of the crystals. The energy that spread when he sent out a faint Magic Power was definitely what he was looking for. After confirming, he grabbed the red gem on the ring on his left index finger and twisted it slightly. Then, the gem fell off and rotated in the air, gradually increasing in size.
This was a type of hidden Artifact, and when the Council confiscated all his belongings, they didn’t properly check the locked Artifact and this inside, so the contents that were originally inside were still there.
Inside the Artifact floating in the air, another blue Magic stone was shining brightly.
It was Kuamer’s Magic stone that Leonardo had caught on the Perion coast three months ago, and its color and shape were similar to Etaid, so it was very suitable as a substitute to fill the empty space. In addition, the water attribute of Kuamer’s Magic stone maximized the expansion effect when it met Etaid in a heated state.
It wasn’t that he brought the Magic stone for the purpose of replacing it, but it wouldn’t be good if it was known that he had come here and taken the Etaid. Leonardo poured about half of the Magic stone that was inside onto the box, and then filled the Artifact with Etaid again.
Then, he mixed the Magic stone and Etaid that had been poured onto the box appropriately. The two substances had similar mass per unit volume, so it would be quite difficult to distinguish them with the naked eye unless someone who knew how to look at minerals compared them one by one.
Until he first heard about the mining team from Alec, he thought that the reason why they mined Etaid was simply to sell valuable minerals.
However, after wandering around the area and checking the condition of other minerals, he realized that Etaid was treated exceptionally.
The fact that this Etaid was included in the list of minerals to be excluded from those to be paid to the miners, the training level of the mercenaries stationed in front and the overwhelmingly large number of people, and the location hidden in a very difficult place to find.
Overall, it was difficult to erase the feeling that Etaid was being given special treatment.
Leonardo, who compressed the Artifact filled with minerals again and fitted it like a part of the ring, jumped lightly from the top of the tall and huge metal box.
If his suspicions were true. That is, if a large part of the purpose of this mining team was Etaid,
He might find out the reason why the auction price of Etaid had skyrocketed recently, or he might encounter other forces with similar purposes to his own. So, from now on, the task was to find the highest-ranking person in the mining team who made this system exist.
Leonardo straightened the clothes he had taken and wore, and immediately went out of the cave he was in. Then, he followed the tunnel and walked to any place where he could feel the presence of people.
It was still before dawn, so there was almost no movement and it was just quiet, but after turning a few curves, he was fortunate enough to run into someone. That someone also looked rough, and his impression didn’t look very good this time either.
Just as he was about to approach the guy in front of him to get a hint about Martin, the other party, who he thought would just pass by, looked around and approached him secretly.
It seemed that the other party had something to say, so Leonardo stopped walking and made a puzzled expression. The man then carefully approached and lowered his voice and said to him.
“Isaac, Martin is calling for you.”
Leonardo stared blankly at the man who had spoken to him for a moment. Then, he nodded lightly.
For some reason, things seemed to be going easier than he thought.
The owner of this face, called Isaac, was a manager who guarded minerals that were even more valuable than Etaid. He thought that the higher the rank of the manager who guarded expensive minerals, the easier it would be to approach a person named Martin if he borrowed this face.
But he didn’t expect it to be this accurate.
The rough-looking man led Leonardo, saying that ‘that person’ had come.
Of course, Leonardo had no idea who ‘that person’ was, so he tried to save his words as much as possible and guess who ‘that person’ was. And from his words that Martin was likely to be reprimanded because of the recent miners’ escape, he sensed that he was someone who was the backing of this system.
Like the head of a large merchant group or a businessman backed by a noble family, which Alec had mentioned as ‘those who usually put out such flyers’.
And now, Leonardo, in the guise of Isaac, was sitting with one knee bent as if swearing allegiance to ‘that person’. Next to him was the man who had led him, saying that Martin was calling for him, in the same posture, and both of them had their eyes fixed only on the ground.
In this deep and secret space that they had reached by going down side paths, they could not raise their heads without permission, and they focused only on the conversation they heard as if they were not there.
In front of them, Martin, whom they had been searching for, was sweating profusely and talking to a person who seemed to be a confidant of ‘that person’. But it was more like a one-sided scolding than a conversation, and in the midst of that, Martin only repeated that there would be no problems.
From what he heard, those who knew of the existence of ‘that person’ and could meet ‘that person’ were only the three people in the mining team who were in this place now.
As such, this meeting was being kept strictly secret, and in the midst of the secret conversations, Leonardo was able to hear the answers to the questions he had had in real-time.
“First, take out only the Etaid. We can’t go around looking for the escaped guys one by one.”
“Yes, yes. I understand.”
The person who seemed to be ‘that person’s’ confidant then instructed the managers of the mining team to slowly prepare to leave as well. He seemed to be concerned that if some of the escaped people were caught by the Council and interrogated, the existence of this mining team could be revealed.
In addition, he gave Martin a hint about the current progress of each battalion of the Council and the situation of searching for the missing people, and suggested a rough escape route.
Leonardo swallowed hard. The content he was hearing now was something that outsiders should not know. It was content that could never be known unless they had eavesdropped on the Council’s radio communications or meetings, or were an insider of the Council.
In the meantime, ‘that person’, who was listening to all these conversations, was just standing far away in the back and watching this side, without directly contacting or giving instructions to Martin. Such actions allowed him to guess that ‘that person’ was reluctant to reveal his existence or was someone who should not be known.
However, Leonardo had briefly made eye contact with ‘that person’ when he followed Martin into this cave earlier. And ever since then, he had been in a state of confusion.
Although his face was half-hidden by the darkness and the robe, ‘that person’ was definitely someone Leonardo knew.
He wanted to raise his head and check again, but he couldn’t lift a finger because about five other confidants were closely watching his actions.
As the conversation between the confidant and Martin grew longer, a faint dawn light seeped in from far behind ‘that person’ and slowly illuminated the interior. Leonardo, seeing their shadows stretching to his feet, realized that dawn was slowly breaking.
‘That person’, who was standing far away, also turned his head and looked back at the incoming light. Then, he said to his confidant as if to say that was enough.
“Let’s go.”
“Ah, yes. I understand.”
The confidant gave Martin the final instructions and then stood next to ‘that person’. Martin then bowed to them. The man who had been sitting on the floor with his knees bent also stood up and bowed, and Leonardo also stood up from his seat and took the same action as them.
The confidants, including ‘that person’, quickly moved their steps and moved away towards the light of dawn coming in from the end. Leonardo, watching their backs as the sound of their footsteps gradually faded away, slightly raised his head and let out a silent laugh.
‘What did I just see?’
The moment he heard his voice, Leonardo was sure.
In the back of ‘that person’ as he took off the hood of his robe, he could vaguely see dark green hair.
It was what Leonardo had seen when he was arrested in the Zodiac’s grand plaza, when he was smoking on the terrace of the Council’s annex, and when he entered the peninsula and attended the commanders’ meeting.
Allowing the mining team to move meticulously, avoiding the Council’s eyes, and backing the system to survive.
Laina Rogia, the successor of the Kleinder family, which holds considerable power among the aristocratic families.
He was the 3rd Battalion Commander of the Council’s Central Branch. Meterion Kleinder.