Cecil looked at her teacher helplessly.
She could only understand her teacher's disdain for modern technology.
After all, he was at such an advanced age.
“Have you broken through to Scale Six?”
The special envoy suddenly asked.
Upon hearing those words,
“Hahahahaha!”
The bearded old man instantly burst into extremely hearty laughter.
The old man was clearly in a wonderful mood.
“You girl, your eyes are as sharp as ever. How did you know this old man had advanced?”
Orphal stroked his long, white beard that reached down to his chest, looking proud.
“It really wasn't easy.”
“Before I knew it, that young fellow Mason had actually pulled so far ahead of me.”
“He has sat in the Director-General's chair for so many years, his spiritual Scale had already pulled ahead long ago.”
The old man snorted, a stubborn competitive fire flashing in his eyes.
“But now, this old man has finally broken through the bottleneck. At least I've evened the score a little!”
Mason.
This was the true name of the Seventh Agency's current Director-General.
In the entire Kingdom of Velen, the only person who would dare to refer to that highly powerful and terrifyingly strong Director-General as a “young fellow” was probably the man sitting right in front of her.
Cecil looked at him, somewhat speechless.
Leaning back in her seat, she felt the exhaustion in her body, which had already accumulated from handling continuous official business, grow even heavier.
She really didn't know how to respond to that.
It was clearly her teacher who had initiated the contact and found her through a targeted teleportation.
The moment he showed up, he said he “could have flown her there.”
And the 【Fly】 spell was undeniably a Scale Six spell.
The old man had gone through all the trouble to teleport here.
On the surface, he claimed it was to help her, but in reality, wasn't this just blatant bragging?
Cecil sighed in her heart.
However,
she really wasn't in the mood for idle chatter right now.
She had far more important and urgent matters to face.
She needed to use this travel time on the airship to completely sort out her thoughts.
And think carefully about how to deal with the complex situation ahead.
First of all,
her purpose in sending letters to Prince Edric and the current Director-General, Mason, was very simple.
She hoped to leverage the political influence of these two powerful figures to secretly form a joint force to keep the capitalist factions in check.
Prince Edric controlled a portion of the military directly under the royal family, and he had always advocated for extreme caution and deep control over massive capital conglomerates like the Wayland Chamber of Commerce, which had grown too big to manage.
Unfortunately,
Thomas Wayland was no ordinary merchant.
He was like a sly fox that had lived for countless years.
In terms of political sensitivity and interest bargaining, he could always come up with perfect solutions from his treacherous and calm mind.
Just like a while ago,
at the well-known dinner party held in Lord Drake's manor on the outskirts of Landon,
and the high-profile media Open Day held by Wayland Capital the very next day.
These two perfect public relations campaigns had not only reversed the Wayland Chamber of Commerce's terrible reputation among the lower classes but also pushed the government's regulatory departments to the opposite side of public opinion.
Causing all of Prince Edric's political encirclements to fall flat.
As for Director-General Mason,
he was recognized as the most powerful mystic in the Kingdom of Velen today.
He was also the Chosen of the Goddess of Magic.
Among the seats in the Royal Council, the Director-General's words carried considerable weight.
On the supernatural level, when the military approved the firing clearance for certain strategic-level weapons, they had to consult the Director-General's opinion.
Cecil knew very well that trying to completely prevent the Wayland Chamber of Commerce from obtaining the firing clearance for the Octowin with just a few whistleblower letters was unrealistic.
The power of capital had already penetrated every corner of the Council.
Therefore,
her bottom line was that even if she couldn't ultimately stop the firing clearance from being issued, she had to ensure the Wayland Chamber of Commerce faced obstacles at every turn when executing the firing order.
The Octowin must never be allowed to do whatever it pleased in the waters of Moon Bay.
Her heading to the front line in person this time was also to make this happen.
She planned to board the warship Octowin as soon as the airship landed, using her supreme administrative privileges as a Landon special envoy.
She would act as an officially dispatched wartime observer.
This way,
before any planned or sudden target lock-on was finalized,
she could stay in the command room and find ways to use procedures and rules to control the situation, preventing the worst-case scenario from deteriorating.
While Cecil was constantly simulating every detail of her plan in her mind,
the old man waited for a long time but didn't receive any compliments from his student.
“Ivy?”
He gave an awkward laugh, feeling a bit bored himself.
Looking at Cecil, who was lost in deep thought with a grim expression, he tentatively asked,
“What's wrong?”
“Why do you look so worried, girl?”
The old man put away his cynical smile, a trace of seriousness entering his tone.
“If there's anything difficult, tell me!”
“If it can be solved, I'll solve it for you easily!”
“If it can't be solved, I'll try my hardest to solve it for you!”
Hearing these protective words,
Cecil's eye twitched slightly.
She looked up at her teacher's sincere eyes and shook her head helplessly.
“While I really appreciate your care for me,”
“what you just said...”
Cecil sighed.
“wasn't that just a bunch of nonsense...”
If things could really be solved simply by throwing raw power around and killing people, she wouldn't be this worried.
More importantly,
even though she had actively sent a letter to her teacher to seek combat assistance, she did not plan to reveal the full story of Hastings Port's internal situation.
Especially regarding the mole.
Even though the old man had broken through to Scale Six and seemed to be in a wonderful mood,
Cecil knew her teacher's temper all too well.
If he found out right now that there was a Wayland Chamber of Commerce mole among the high-ranking officials of the Seventh Agency's Hastings Port Branch,
and that there were even issues with some of the headquarters' approval processes,
with his explosive temper, who knew what kind of table-flipping scene he would cause in Landon.
At the very least,
Cecil could 100% imagine it.
The old man would run to the Landon headquarters, grab Director-General Mason by the collar, and interrogate him.
Because,
the sloppy old man sitting next to her,
whose true name was Roland Orphal,
was one of the true founders of the Seventh Agency, having lived through the wave of mysticism and single-handedly established the kingdom's supernatural order.
His seniority and privileges within the organization were such that even the current Director-General had to respectfully address him as “Sir.”
At this critical juncture of both internal and external troubles, Cecil absolutely could not allow any chaos in their rear base.
“The core issue right now is,”
Cecil rubbed her temples, directing the conversation toward their overt enemies.
“the mess that Wayland Capital and the Mist Veil Society have stirred up together in Moon Bay is simply too massive.”
“I'm afraid it won't be easily resolved.”
“Ordinary defense lines can't withstand the continuous onslaught of the sea-folk at all.”
Hearing his student's worries,
old Mr. Orphal, who had been leaning crookedly against the back of his seat,
suddenly turned grave.
He sat up straight, the cloudiness in his eyes instantly vanishing, replaced by a steady and sharp glint.
“I've already read all your letters on my way here,”
Orphal said solemnly.
“The reason I rushed over so quickly this time to back you up,”
“aside from worrying about your safety, is also because...”
The old man's voice dropped.
“recently, the manpower at the Landon headquarters has indeed become extremely tight.”
“Almost all high-level investigators of Scale Four and above who can be mobilized have been dispatched.”
“What?!”
Upon hearing this news, Cecil's eyes instantly widened in shock.
Manpower shortage at headquarters?!
How was that possible?
As the core of the kingdom, Landon stationed several times more elite agents and containment teams than all the local branches combined.
Moreover, when she left Landon for Hope County, the defense forces at headquarters were still extremely abundant.
What exactly had happened during the time she was away?
Why was it that even when she made regular reports to Director-General Mason using her exclusive private line, she had never heard any news about such personnel movements?
Cecil immediately cast a questioning look at her teacher.
Orphal looked at his student.
He reached out and slowly stroked his long white beard.
“North of Landon, in the fortress region of Euckshire.”
“In the deepest part of the Pennine Mountains, a Divine Scion that has been slumbering for nearly fifteen hundred years, just three days ago...”
The old man paused, his tone heavy.
“awoke.”
“What?!”
Cecil was completely horrified, almost jumping out of her seat.
A Divine Scion awakening.
The meaning of these words in the field of mysticism was equivalent to a walking disaster.
“Which one is it?”
Cecil pressed her hands against the wooden table and asked urgently.
“The Skeletal Divine Lord.”
Orphal uttered this ancient and eerie name.
“A remnant polluted entity left behind from the end of the Fourth Epoch.”
“Mason has already secretly mobilized more than two-thirds of the high-level combat units at headquarters, dispatching them overnight to the Pennine Mountains to establish a sealing containment zone.”
“So, the royal capital is actually extremely empty right now, with no spare forces to provide cross-regional reinforcements to Hastings Port.”
After listening to her teacher's explanation,
Cecil's already furrowed brow knitted even tighter.
The timing of the outbreak of such a high-level supernatural incident was simply too suspicious.
“This isn't right.”
Cecil leaned back in her seat, her voice cold.
“This is too abnormal.”
“The events in Moon Bay, the unusual movements of the Mist Veil Society, and the sudden revival of that Divine Scion in Euckshire.”
“How could they burst out so coincidentally at the exact same time?”
The scent of conspiracy in this was already so strong that they didn't even bother to cover it up anymore.
“And there's more.”
Cecil calmed her emotions.
She reached out to open her briefcase and pulled out a thick stack of ancient document transcriptions.
“I've recently consulted a large amount of early historical data regarding Moon Bay.”
“I discovered a bizarre geographical gap.”
“Oh?”
Hearing this, old Mr. Orphal sat up with interest and gestured for her to continue.
Cecil pointed to a year written on the transcription.
“According to the kingdom's geographical gazetteer,”
“in all official and folk records dating back two thousand years,”
“there was simply no such place name as 'Moon Bay' in this region.”
“In other words, two thousand years ago, this bay in front of Hastings Port completely did not exist on the map.”
Orphal raised an eyebrow.
“If there was no Moon Bay two thousand years ago, what was it called back then?”
Cecil took a deep breath.
Her gaze fell upon the last page of the documents.
“Although the name Moon Bay is not in the records,”
“I found a familiar ancient name in even earlier fragments of mythological geography.”
“That name is not appearing for the first time.”
Cecil raised her head and stared fixedly at her teacher.
“Its last appearance was on that ruined piece of parchment handed to me by the man in black from the Temple of Slaughter a while ago.”
“The only coordinates referenced on that parchment were...”
“Grey Hills.”
“Uh...”
The old man scratched his head.
“Where is that?”
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