The Author's POV

Ko Knock—

The moment the door knocked, my head snapped in its direction.

Staring at Angelica who was also staring at the door, I put my finger on my mouth and urged her to hide. 

Ko Knock—

The door knocked once more. 

Taking the mask and putting it on, I hoarsely said.

"Coming."

—Gulp!

I quickly chugged onto a potion. Slowly, the mana inside of my body started recovering, albeit slowly.

Glancing around the room to make sure that Angelica wasn't within sight, I extended my hand towards the right side of the wall.

Ci Clank—

Upon touching the wall, the side of the wall lit up slightly and the door unlocked with a click. 

"Who is it?"

Showing an annoyed look, I opened the door and looked at the one responsible for disturbing me. 

This time, I wasn't acting. 

I truly was annoyed. 

"Hello."

Standing opposite to me was a Duergar wearing a typical guard uniform. One that most guards wore, although they were a little bit too big for him. 

'Is he a new guard?'

I wondered to myself.

Glancing left and right, I noticed that he was someone that I had never seen before.

My brows instantly knit.

"Who are you? Are you my newly assigned guard?"

"No sir."

The Duergar replied, shaking his head.

"Than what is it?"

"I'm here to drop something off."

He briefly replied in a low tone.

My eyes squinted at his words.

"…Drop something?"

"Something by D.W."

At the mention of D.W. my eyes opened up slightly.

Taking a step to the side, I gestured for the guard to come in.

"Get in. Don't disturb me while I'm working."

"Okay."

The guard nodded his head and entered the room.

Once the guard stepped into the room, subtly glancing towards my left and right, I closed the door.

Ci Clank—

Upon closing the door, I turned to face the guard that had just arrived.

Extending my hand, I asked.

"Do you have it?"

"Yes."

Taking something out from his dimensional space, the guard handed me a familiar black bracelet.

The moment my eyes landed on the black bracelet, they instantly lit up.

"Thank you very much."

Snatching the bracelet away from the guard, I quickly looked through its contents.

'…looks like everything is here.'

Making sure that nothing was missing, the smile on my face grew.

That's right, the bracelet in my hand was in fact my bracelet. 

Because I knew that the duergars would strip me of everything, and I wasn't too keen on ingesting the bracelet again, I asked Waylan and Douglas if there was a way to have the bracelet delivered to me.

Fortunately, it seemed to be possible.

Although the location of Inferno was hidden, they still had portals. 

With the aid of one of the upper-echelon of the dwarfs, we managed to contact one of the spies put in Inferno and had him deliver the bracelet to me.

The D.W. Stood for Douglas and Waylan. It was a small keyword to indicate to me that they were the ones who sent the duergar. If not for that, I would've been extremely wary, and perhaps have even resorted to extreme methods. 

That aside, this saved me a lot of trouble since I had carefully prepared a lot of things beforehand. Now that I had the bracelet with me, things would start progressing much more smoothly. 

In fact, I also had a few new things that I was sure the duergars would absolutely love.

Whilst I was looking through the bracelet, looking back towards the door, the guard spoke up.

"I have delivered the package, I should be leaving now. If I stay any longer our roles will be compromised."

His tone sounded a bit worried.

"Hm, ah, yea."

Because I was too engrossed in checking my bracelet, I completely forgot about the guard's existence.

'He's got a point.'

Given Karl's character, for him to be talking to a guard for so long would make no sense. Since this whole place was under strict surveillance, everyone that came into contact with me would be put under heavy scrutiny. 

Especially since I was a very important person right now. 

This was why I quickly dismissed him.

"You can go. If you find anything strange do report it to me."

"Yes."

After my words, turning around the 'guard' headed for the door.

But just as the guard was about to leave, recalling something, I spoke up. 

"Wait a second."

"Yes?"

Halting his steps, the guard tilted his head in confusion.

"Give me a second."

I proceeded to take out multiple pieces of paper and a pen from my dimensional space. Then, holding onto the pen with my right hand, moving onto a desk, I quickly wrote something on each paper.

Since I couldn't get in contact with anyone outside of Inferno, the only way I could communicate to the outside would be through the guard over here.

Aside from warning Waylan and Douglas about the situation, I also wanted to give Smallsnake and the others a heads up.

Things were going to be a bit hectic soon, and they too will have a small role to play soon. 

"…done."

It didn't take long for me to write the message.

Aside from a few words about how much I missed them and how my life without them was devastating, I wrote a few things regarding the plan. 

Putting the pen down, I smiled in satisfaction.

Folding each paper neatly, I handed them to the guard.

"Here, take this. When you have time, deliver these to the same people that gave you the bracelet. You don't have to worry about finding them, just hand them to the guy who gave you the bracelet and he should know what to do."

Since Waylan knew who they were, he would have no trouble delivering them the letters. Plus, this could also give him an excuse to meet them and perhaps even teach them a thing or two.

"…I understand."

Taking the pieces of paper, the guard put them away. After that, lowering his head slightly, he opened the door and finally left.

Ci Clank—

Silence once again descended on the room.

Angelica who had been hiding the whole time finally revealed herself.

Since the only people that were aware that I worked with Angelica were Waylan, Douglas, I couldn't quite expose her identity just yet. 

"Have you sorted everything out?"

She asked.

Her tone sounded extremely annoyed.

Turning my head in her direction, I nodded slightly.

"Yeah, we should no longer have any more distractions. Feel free to do whatever you want to do."

In hindsight, her annoyance was understandable.

Whenever she had to hide, she would always have to consume a lot of energy. 

I couldn't be blamed though. Not my fault I was popular.

"…Okay."

Unaware of what I was thinking, much to my fortune, closing her eyes, Angelica sat down on the ground and started to practice.

Staring at her for a brief moment, I stretched my arms.

'Gotta get to work as well.'

Time waited for no one, and each second I lazed around, the greater the danger the city would be in.

As such, after a while, turning around I sighed and walked back towards the panel.

'Let's see if Jomnuk kept his word.'

Tapping on my bracelet, I took out a small squared metallic box.

At the side of the box was a small hole that was about the size of a finger. Without hesitation, I put my finger on the hole.

—Shua!

Right as my finger entered the hole, the box lit up and a holographic projection soon appeared next to me.

Squinting, I looked at the projection next to me. 

Moving my hand across the projection, my brows furrowed tightly.

"…this is a lot more complicated than I thought…at least he's kept his words."

Projected in front of me were the instructions on how to disable the second beacon. However, much to my surprise, the instructions were completely different from the first beacon.

In fact, they weren't similar in the slightest.

'…I get that you did this to make it harder for the duergars to compromise the defensive system, but why am I the one that needs to do all the work?'

I grumbled to myself.

Although I was grumbling, my eyes never stopped studying the projections in front of me. 

In order to buy me more time, and prove my worth, I needed to deactivate a couple more beacons.

My goal was simple. 

Just when things looked to be on the duergars side, that'd be the moment I would finally make a move.

***

[Lock, research facilities.]

SHUOM—

A terrifying flame completely engulfed a white room, enveloping it like a curtain. The bright and ferocious flame was so hot that black spots started forming on the glass that allowed one to oversee the insides of the room.

The fire curtain spread around the room at incredible speeds, till finally, it completely enveloped the room.

As the fire spread, if one looked closely, a bright light shone in the middle of the room. It was so bright that it even outshone the light coming from the fire. 

The light within the brilliant flame soon became increasingly clear as time passed and the flame lost some of its powers. Finally, the flame weakened completely and a small red card appeared in the middle of the room.

Clamped by two large metallic arms, complicated runes and engravings appeared in the middle of the card.

Once the flame completely died down, only smoke could be seen in the room. But it wasn't long before that also disappeared as the ventilation system quickly got rid of it too.

[Experiment log #11286. - Mana lingering in room : 30%]

A metallic voice suddenly sounded from above. 

With both hands pressing on the windowsill, a beautiful girl looked at the scene within the room with astonishment. 

"30%? …I did it, didn't I?"

An incredulous and almost relieved look appeared on Melissa's face as she stared at the card in the middle of the room. 

She couldn't believe it.

After working on the project for over a year now, she had finally managed to get some results.

She had finally managed to reduce the efficiency loss to 30%.

Although it sounded like a lot, she went from 49% around a year ago all the way to 30% in just a year.

That was a massive improvement on a system that she had to develop all by herself. Furthermore, the value wasn't just any value. 

The value signified that she could now commercialize the product. Soon, money would start endlessly coming into her pockets. 

"Kekeke."

Just the thought made her chuckle like a deranged person. 

Standing next to Melissa, with both hands on her mouth, her assistant muttered.

"Melissa? …we did it didn't we?"

"Who is we?"

Melissa sharply said, no longer laughing. 

Pointed at herself, she corrected Rosie. 

"It's me who did. There is no we."

"…ah, I didn't mean it that way."

Rosie quickly apologized.

It was true. 

Melissa was the one that did all the work. All she did was watch from the side and help her clean up the room.

Stroking her small delicate chin, Rosie took her eyes away from the room and softly said.

"Hmm, technically speaking if you count the other person in the group, it could count as we."

"Ah?"

Unfortunately for Rosie, Melissa heard it all.

She then looked at her in disgust.

"Him? He did nothing. I was the one that did all the work. He can die for all I care."

"But isn't he already dead?"

Being the one that was responsible for cleaning up after Melissa's mess, she knew who the other partner was.

Of course, Melissa made her sign a contract in order to keep her mouth shut. 

"How can he die when he's already dead?"

She joked.

But contrary to the reaction she expected, once she looked at Melissa, she realized that her face was completely stiff. 

"….Melissa?"

Hearing Rosie's words, Melissa's brow twitched. 

She forgot that only she and Amanda knew that Ren was still alive.

Turning around she walked towards a nearby desk.

Her next words confused Rosie to no end.

"…You're right Rosie. I'd be very surprised if he was still alive. So surprised that I might end up killing him again....Of course, by accident."