It took a few minutes after I explained what happened to Nikolai, but instead of breaking his excitement, it only seemed to make my friend even more excited.
If him being captured by the New Dawn had traumatized him or anything like that, he sure didn’t let it show, but I was glad he was seemingly okay with all that.
Probably, being the son of Don of a wielders’ mafia did this to you, rough you up and stuff.
He was a genius, I had to give him that.
With a single call from one of the school suppliers, he arranged that three of the Black market’s guards came in as a cleaning crew to fix something that happened on the rooftop of the secondary building.
I don’t know the kind of procedure they went through, but they were exceedingly successful in infiltrating the school.
"Giovanni, Robert, Luke, did you bring the tranquilizers?"
They didn’t say a word, just took out the syringes and injected its content on the man, who didn’t take even three seconds to pass out.
"Guys, what the fuck did you use on him? Elephant tranquilizer?"
They laughed and nodded, explaining that Nikolai did some research on wielders’ physiology, and that since they were basically immune to anything that was designed to affect ’humans’, they would probably be affected by larger doses of these components.
However, since it was quite hard to put his hands on such an amount of Midazolam, Nikolai thought it’d be better to just buy a handful of elephant tranquilizer injection.
"He’ll be out for quite some time, but if he snaps out of it, we have ten more syringes here."
My eyes went wide on how prepared they were, since I couldn’t disclose too much of the information through the call.
Nikolai you wonderful son of a bitch!
But when the three guards got ready to wrap him in a carpet - and yes, we were really going to do that – Evellyn grabbed my shoulder and looked deadly serious into my eyes.
"What’re you going to do with him?"
I shrugged.
"If you’re so worried about him, don’t be. We’re not going to kill him, if that’s what you mean."
Time around us seemed to freeze as Evellyn kept glaring at me like I was some kind of villain, but after a few seconds, she finally spoke.
But it didn’t mean I was going to like her retort.
"I’m coming with you."
She caught me a bit off-guard, but I just couldn’t let her interfere with how I was going to interrogate him, right?
"Wait, you? With us? No can do." I shook my head effusively.
"So you ’are’ going to torture him." She glared at me like a raging poodle. "Is that what you became after just a few weeks? Is that what Rodrick would want for you?"
That retort broke me in indescribable ways, I was ready to get back at her and it would probably become a futile argument between two teenagers over who was right.
But after what she said, I just shrugged and pushed her gently to the side.
"Whatever."
She followed us, and when the ’cleaning crew’ stepped forward to deal with her, I raised my hand.
"Leave her be. Let her do whatever she wants."
I wasn’t their boss, but I was a very close friend to their boss, so I had some advantages on them.
***
exiting the school was unexpectedly easy, and the ride to the Black Market was silent. It didn’t take long, but Robert had to inject more tranquilizer on the man every five minutes.
Luckily, we didn’t run out of syringes until we arrived.
"Take him to the basement, guys." And they did as they were told.
Evellyn just watched me, looking unsure of what I was going to do next.
"Evellyn, I know you might think like this today, and I don’t disagree with you." She softened her eyes a little bit, but not for long. "But I need you to understand that the man in the basement is not only a member of the monitoring division. He’s also a-"
"He’s a member of the New Dawn guild, and he’s probably just one of the many members hiding under the Association’s facade. I know." Her tone was adamant.
"Then why?"
"You really don’t know?"
"All I know is that if you torture him... If you ’kill’ him, you’re going to move towards a path beyond any redemption... And I can’t just-"
"Why are you so sure about something that even I don’t know, Evellyn?"
"BECAUSE I’VE SEEN IT, GODDAMMIT!" She stomped the floor, and almost everyone at the entrance looked at us.
"Hum... How about we go to the basement and finish this conversation there?"
Evellyn grimaced, but followed be, begrudgingly.
When we arrived there, I saw the man chained up and still unconscious.
My room didn’t feel much like a room then, it felt like something very wrong, and not in the evil sense, with my bed in one corner, and the lab table with all the things I needed to begin my adventures through the world of poison.
But Evellyn just stood there, silent, looking at ’him’.
"What do you mean you’ve seen it?" I started, hoping that she wouldn’t bring the topic to an abrupt end.
She sighed, looking defeated for a moment.
"The ability you saw with yours, Infinite Consciousness. It allows my mind to travel through countless universes, and in all of them... You were there. But I’ve seen many versions of you go break real bad, and all it took was a single act of cruelty. Kurt... You learned to ’love’ the taste of blood, the face of pain and the scent of fear. I just can’t-"
"Wait!" Now ’I’ couldn’t. "I don’t think I’m following quite well, so please, if you’d be so kind to explain it to me in english, I’d be very happy."
"Your way with girls is one thing that never changes..." She cleared her throat. "Anyways, as I told you before, my mind can travel through universes."
"Like time travel?"
"More like a MANTIS from Doctor What, except for the point where I don’t choose the point in history or the universe where I’ll end up."
I paused to digest what she was telling me.
"And why do you travel through universes? I mean... What’s wrong with this world itself, hum... Besides what we already know?"
"You don’t get it, Kurt." She punched my chest, and even though her strength was so low that it couldn’t even tickle, I felt the hit, deep within. "It’s not as if I ever had a choice, to begin with! I was marked with that ability the moment I awakened. And as soon as my body dies, something completely out of my reach activates my ability. And the next thing I know..."
"Is that you are in a new body exactly like yours, but in a wholly new world..." We heard the agent’s voice behind us. "I knew that your potential had to come from something out of this world. The leader didn’t expect great things from you for nothing..."
He smirked, but I was already waiting for him to wake up. I just didn’t expect him to wake up during such an important moment as the Red Oracle revealing her whole existence to me.
So I approached him and punched him real hard on the face.
"You... I knew we should keep a closer eye on you, but for you to actually still be this strong... Didn’t Sylas seal your abilities?"
"Good thing you know which topic actually matters in this discussion." I felt a grin spreading through my lips. "Now, would you care to explain what ’the fuck’ you guys did to us?"
"Us?" He tilted his head. "I saw Leblanc ordering Sylas to seal ’your’ powers, but I know nothing about her."
"I see..." I looked at him and remembered what I was so eager to find at school. "Let’s see if you have it, shall we?"
His eyes went wide at my grin, but I wasn’t paying attention to him anymore.
The most important thing now was the screen that popped up in front of me as soon as I used [PRYING EYES] on him.
[NAME: Johan Lenox
RANK: S
AGE: 28
CLASS: Assassin
STAMINA: 500/500
HP: 800/800
MP: 1300/1300
BASIC STATS
Strength: 120
Dexterity: 300
Agility: 300
Perception: 230
Intelligence: 500
Vigor: 450
EQUIPMENT
Silent Blades – HIDDEN -
SKILLS
Poison Blade
Vicious Barrage
Conceal Presence
Mirage Walk
Shadow Walk]
He was an S-rank agent, chained up and at my mercy. I couldn’t think of anything better than that, except for if I only could be able to overpower him in a fight head on, but that wouldn’t be the case.
I had more fun things to do with him, so I used [STEAL]
[PREPARING SKILL]
[THE PLAYER WISHES TO STEAL OR COPY THE TARGET’S ABILITY?]
Will he still be an S-rank if I strip him of every single one of his abilities?
’Steal.’
[DUE TO THE SKILL LEVEL, THE PLAYER CAN STEAL UP TO 03 ABILITIES]
He won’t be an assassin anymore if I take these.
[CONCEAL PRESENCE – SUCCESSFULLY STOLEN]
[MIRAGE WALK – SUCCESSFULLY STOLEN]
[SHADOW WALK – ALERT!]
[THE PLAYER CANNOT STEAL A SKILL THAT HE ALREADY POSSESSES]
[THE 03 ABILITIES HAVE A SYNERGY EFFECT]
[DO YOU WANT TO MERGE THEM?]
[YES] [NO]
What?