“How long was I out?”
Elias lay on the blanket in the temporary camp, his voice dry as if he had been parched in a desert for three days.
The stinging pain in his soul still tormented his senses.
“Not long,” the “robust human” Guss replied gruffly.
“Less than half an hour.”
Half an hour?
Elias mentally calculated the time.
That seemed to be soon enough... There was still room to maneuver.
“Where is Ms. Cecil?”
He rolled his stiff eyes, not seeing the cold-faced female agent in the trench coat anywhere nearby.
“You mean that woman?”
A rather strange expression appeared on Guss’s disguised human face.
He lowered his voice and said:
“She told me to tell you something before she left.”
“When she gets back, she’s going to have a long talk with you...”
The demon intentionally dragged out his tone.
“...about what happened at Mester's Treatment Room.”
Oh, no!
Elias was startled.
“You let her see?!” he asked, quickly lowering his voice.
“Of course.”
“And even if she didn't see it...” Guss snorted coldly.
“Do you think that puppet commander wouldn't tell her?”
The puppet commander?
Elias froze for a moment, his groggy brain taking a few seconds to process.
Guss was talking about Luke!
Damn it.
That made sense!
That guy really was a big mouth.
After tonight’s battle, Elias had figured him out.
Not only was that guy insidious and cruel, but his ability to talk nonsense and draw aggro was even greater than Elias's own.
While fleeing, wouldn't it be perfectly natural for Luke to leak the explosive news that “Elias summoned a demon” to the pursuers just to divert their attention and fish in troubled waters?
Thinking of this, Elias felt a splitting headache.
This was a huge problem.
“Where is she now?” Elias rubbed his temples irritably.
“She took a team to capture that puppet commander.” Guss looked like he was just an indifferent bystander enjoying the drama.
“Luke escaped?”
Elias furrowed his brows tightly, his gaze becoming exceptionally solemn.
This mole from Wayland Capital was truly not an easy one to deal with.
If it were just a one-on-one fight against Luke himself, Elias had a hundred ways to rub that hypocritical face into the mud.
With his current Scale level, killing a Scale One Luke wouldn't be much harder than killing a chicken.
However.
The reliance of this capitalist lackey was far from his own supernatural level.
It was that appalling “financial might”!
First, there were those seven Scale Four alchemy puppets tonight.
Seven of them!
It was like he was buying them in bulk like common cabbages!
Branch Manager Guardian was only at the level of Scale Four.
Luke alone carried seven combatants of a branch manager's caliber with him!
This was simply smashing people with money; it was inhuman.
Fortunately, Guss was a genuine Scale Five high-level demon tonight.
Combined with the innate racial talents of infernal creatures and Guss’s overall strength, he was barely able to crush those killing machines.
Otherwise.
Any normal investigator squad would have been ground into meat paste by those puppets tonight.
The outcome of the battle would have been unthinkable.
Of course.
With Luke’s habit of talking nonsense.
He said he had seven, but he might have had an eighth or ninth hidden away. You couldn't trust a single punctuation mark from an insidious villain like that.
Secondly.
Elias recalled the scene at the convent entrance a few hours ago.
When Luke struck John’s spiritual body away in one blow, he had clearly mobilized some kind of spirit world power.
What was most unpredictable now was exactly how far Luke’s spirit world trump cards could go.
But...
Elias glanced at the “rugged man” beside him.
The guy standing next to him was, at the very least, a top-tier creature from the spirit world.
When a demon went up against a capitalist, it was hard to say who was darker.
But looking at it this way.
It seemed entirely plausible that Luke could successfully escape from Ms. Cecil’s pursuit.
After all, he was a whale who could pay to win; he certainly had plenty of life-saving items.
“Right.”
Guss seemed to suddenly remember something and casually added another blow.
“That guy named Luke.”
“He took that pendulum with him in the chaos.”
“What?!”
Elias completely ignored the agonizing pain deep in his soul and scrambled up from the blanket.
A total loss!
“What else did you expect?” Guss curled his lip.
“Why do you think the humans of the Seventh Agency are chasing him like mad dogs?”
Elias’s head spun.
It was over.
He had no way of knowing the situation on Charlotte’s side now.
And now the Soul Pendulum was lost too!
Losing the Soul Pendulum meant he had no bargaining chip to trade with Crowley.
“No!”
He made a split-second decision.
He couldn't just lie here and wait for death.
Elias gritted his teeth, trying to force himself to stand up.
Even if he had to crawl, he had to crawl over and snatch that thing back!
A thick, powerful hand pressed mercilessly onto his shoulder, forcing him back down onto the blanket.
“What are you doing?” Guss frowned, his strength extraordinary.
“Didn't that human Bishop tell you to rest?”
“Rest my ass!” Elias cursed, grimacing.
Waves of stinging pain pulsed from his soul.
He stared at Guss and forced himself up again, slowly.
“I need to find that woman!”
He had to find Cecil.
At the very least, he had to ask her where she had moved Charlotte.
If he couldn't get the pendulum, he at least had to know his sister’s condition.
It would be even better if he could get the pendulum along the way.
“If it really comes down to it...”
A flash of ruthlessness crossed Elias’s eyes. He gritted his teeth and threw out his final trump card.
“I can pay more!”
The moment the words “pay more” left Elias’s mouth.
Guss’s eyes lit up!
“Sure thing!”
This infernal demon was instantly excited.
What doctor’s orders? What soul barrier?
He was respecting his client!
The client’s needs were his commands!
Guss rubbed his thick palms together, revealing a simple, honest smile.
“Your Excellency is indeed a man of great ambition.”
“I won't ask for much.”
The demon held up a hand the size of a palm-leaf fan, his five fingers spread wide.
“Five coins!”
“Leading the way and fighting—one flat price!”
“Five?” Elias frowned.
“After all, that human still has alchemy puppets that haven't shown themselves yet.”
Guss argued plausibly, trying to explain the high price.
“This is high-risk work.”
“Two!” Elias cut the price by more than half without hesitation.
“No way!” Guss refused categorically.
“This is life-risking work. Two wouldn't even cover the cost of repairing my amulets!”
“Four! That’s my bottom line!”
“What if we catch up and those puppets around Luke have already been destroyed by Ms. Cecil and her people?”
Elias argued his case, his brain working lightning-fast in this moment.
“Wouldn't you just be picking up the credit for free then?”
“If I paid four, I’d be a total sucker!”
The demon was momentarily choked by this airtight logic.
It... seemed to make some sense?
“Then... three!”
Guss gritted his teeth, as if making a massive concession that betrayed his ancestors.
“No less!”
“Deal!”
Elias settled it immediately, speaking so fast he seemed afraid the other would regret it.
“Uh...”
Guss stood there dazed.
Only then did he realize with hindsight.
Three was this guy’s initial reserve price!
He’d been played!
When it came to being unscrupulous.
You humans really take the cake!
“But...”
While Guss was secretly gnashing his teeth.
Elias looked around, confirming that the busy investigators hadn't noticed the commotion over here.
He suddenly leaned in close to Guss.
His voice was extremely low, as if even the air were an enemy to be guarded against.
“Did you place the thing I told you to place?”
Rate on N.U.
