Young Master's PoV: Woke Up As A Villain In A Game One Day

Chapter 420: The Handler [III]

I don’t think my brain had ever gone haywire as fast as it did when I made sense of what Selene had said.

Noverneir Spires.

From what I knew, it was an untamed Death Zone in the Spirit Realm — an island of giant beasts and titanic monstrosities somewhere in the Sea of Screams.

The location was mentioned a couple of times in the game, mostly because a few Dukes had shown interest in claiming it. There were rumors about some hidden treasure of ages past buried there.

What was it?

No one knew.

The rumors were more myth than anything.

Now, however, it had my full interest.

But what truly made my mind whirl was the mention of the Faceless King.

What the fuck?

The Faceless King was the one true leader of the Syndicate, reigning over all the Nameless Lords and, by proxy, the world’s largest secret society.

Very little was known about him. He was a figure of secrecy, and that was what gave him power.

Some captured spies in the story claimed he was a thousand-year-old immortal. Others swore he was a god in disguise, one of the last remaining ones in the mortal realm.

Much of it had to be bullshit.

What I did know for a fact, though, was that he was unbelievably strong. I knew that because I had faced him in the game.

Michael was almost at the peak of his powers when he tried to eradicate the Syndicate. Even then, he couldn’t do anything against their leader.

If I had to scale the Faceless One, I’d say he was as strong as a single Monarch. Or maybe even stronger.

In the end, the protagonist was unable to defeat him. As a result, the Syndicate successfully woke up the False God... and eventually succeeded in ending the world.

Any information about the Faceless One was priceless to me. Sure, I possessed no might or authority or influence to do anything to stop him right now, but if I could just figure out what he was doing, maybe I could piece together his plans.

Or maybe I wouldn’t.

Maybe trying to calculate the movements of a man strong enough to rival a Monarch while I couldn’t even manage my own sleep schedule was the definition of biting off more than I could chew.

I still had a thousand different, more immediate things to worry about, after all.

Yet the fact remained — any information on him was worth a goldmine.

Ironically, that was not what stopped me from executing the sinner on the altar.

It wasn’t what she had revealed, but the implications behind why she had revealed it. Why did she tell me that instead of answering what I had asked her?

Selene Valkyrn wasn’t a coward. I had just threatened to dismantle her piece by piece and burn her nervous system to a cinder with foreign Essence, and she hadn’t so much as blinked.

Her eyes had held nothing but icy defiance and pure contempt.

If she was going to cave in, if she was going to submit to my intimidation, she would have done so when I nearly chopped her thumb off.

Despite my dislike for my father, I had inherited the same menacing presence as him, and I knew how to make use of it.

So it wasn’t like I wasn’t sincere in my warnings.

It was more likely that Selene simply... didn’t have the right answer for me.

Perhaps the question I presented was beyond her knowledge.

But that didn’t make any sense!

’How many moles are active in the Academy right now?’

That was what I had demanded to know. And a woman like Selene, a high-ranking member of the Syndicate, was the obvious choice to be the handler of the assets inside the Academy.

So she had to know. Right?

...Right?

"Are you... not the handler?" I breathed out.

There was a barely perceptible twitch in Selene’s neck, a small yet undeniably clear gesture — no.

She was trying to shake her head.

Oh fuck. Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuuuck!

I had messed up on so many levels.

Because of her strength and status, I had somehow assumed the handler of the Academy moles had to be her. It was the logical conclusion. The perfect fit.

The possibility that she couldn’t possibly be the handler had never even crossed my mind. In hindsight, it was stupid of me not to consider such a simple variable.

As a celebrity Hunter and one of the senior Instructors, Selene was too out in the open to be used as a primary handler.

She was too exposed to be constantly coordinating with low-level sleeper agents.

But even if she wasn’t the handler, the idea that she would still have no knowledge of the other active moles...

It didn’t make sense.

Not unless the Syndicate didn’t trust her completely with such sensitive information.

Though if they didn’t... then how come she had clearance to know where the Faceless One was? That piece of intelligence, I’d think, was far more sensitive. Right?

So that also didn’t make sense!

...Unless.

I sighed.

Fuck.

Unless she had gone out of her way to acquire that information without clearance. And that would make her a double agent. Because what else could she intend to do with that knowledge?

"Are you working for the Grandmasters?" I heard myself say before I fully processed the thought. "Are you a counterspy?"

Selene answered me with silence. Again.

And once again, her eyes gleamed with that cold edge that made me feel far more uncomfortable than I should have been in front of a chained, drugged, and one-armed woman.

Fuuuck!

This was bad.

Because this meant the situation was already far worse than I had initially thought.

Even if the Grandmasters had arrested Selene to put on a performance for the world, they didn’t need to actually bind her to the Siphon Block.

The very fact that they had done so meant that even they didn’t know how many moles were planted in the Academy anymore.

...Or up to which rank they had infiltrated.

The whole Academy...

The entire Apex Institute was already compromised.

The realization hit me like a plunge into freezing water, completely washing away the leftover heat of my anger.

I felt dizzy.

I needed to get out of here.

I hopped off the marble altar, my boots hitting the sticky floor with a damp thud that sounded way louder in my head than it was in actuality.

In the blink of an eye, I was standing before the heavy wooden door that had manifested in the black brick wall. Fishing out my Key, I prepared to leave this place.

But I couldn’t help glancing back.

Selene’s eyes were already beginning to glaze over again. The brief window of clarity she had forced open with sheer willpower was finally slamming shut under the relentless weight of the paralysis drugs.

Although it was hardly audible, I could tell she was wheezing.

I tried forcing my gaze away but failed. For some reason, my heart ached at the thought of leaving her like that.

I supposed I could at least bring her some water after nearly killing her.

"...You are going to be a headache, Instructor."