Chapter 505 CH 489: A HEIST?
Mark was having a headache, pain throbbing every inch of his forehead. Lately, everything felt overly complicated – be it jobs, tasks, or living life in general – and after spending so much time outside of work, he did not expect to find himself in such a disastrous situation the moment he returned.
It felt like he was quite literally stepping on a bomb waiting to explode any second now.
The two members of the Kaminari family, one the literal heir, the other bearing the title of Lightning Blade; which also made her a pseudo-heir in some aspects.
The Saintess of the Church.
The Heiress of the Hanekawa family.
And lastly, the direct student and apprentice of Bridget Bishop, the great witch and headmistress of the Academy.
The absolute weakest of them, Luvia, was already more than enough – be it in status or her inherent power – for him to feel a heavy pressure press on his shoulders from all directions, making him thoroughly wonder about the prospects of changing jobs and just living a life far away from everything.
The five of them together? This was no longer a mission but a suicide mission that had been pushed on him. And the first one to die in this mission, undoubtedly, would be none other than he himself.
'I need to go find my sister.'
Recently, his dear sister was seen making some weird movements that went beyond her normal behavior, leading Mark to have thoughts of her awakening herself or maybe learning about the supernatural side of the world in some way, shape, or form.
A matter that he wished to keep from her for a few more years at the very least, however, he fancied a guess that he should have seen it coming from miles away. It was an impossible endeavor from start to finish, and he should have been aware that he could not hide anything from his sharp little sister for long.
What was destined to happen would transpire no matter what, and now his sister was talking about going to England to meet some of their extended family members— a sign of a great omen in itself.
'Did that woman finally take interest in us?'
He hoped desperately that was not the case here. And again, he had a feeling that such hopes would lead to nothing but disappointment.
"Mark?"
"I apologize for my conduct," Mark answered, waking up from his short trance— a state that he had gone under due to the duress of the current scenario. He was more tired than he believed possible if he was making this kind of mistake at work. "Today, I wish to inform you about our upcoming mission."
Mark clapped his hands and a large screen manifested in front of the crowd. On the large screen, a picture of a statuette depicting a woman with two wings could be seen clearly. At first glance, it looked like a relatively normal statue of an angelic woman, however, the people present in the room had the knowledge of it being anything but normal.
"I am sure all of you know of our mission already but I will still do a short briefing to get everyone on the same page, for courtesy's sake, if you will." He pointed at the picture hovering on the bright screen. "This is our target. Nike. The goddess of victory. Despite her name, she is a relatively minor goddess more seen as a tag-along in the Greek Pantheon. She is known for having protected Zeus during his fight against Typhon with her shield and is primarily an emissary of Athena— the goddess of war and wisdom."
A new picture was shown as the slide moved and Mark continued his speech. The picture depicted this time around showed two young adults with relatively similar features. A man and a woman— twins in everything but gender.
"The Shadow Twin. The preliminary ranking is theorized to be Gold. The chances of them possessing a divine weapon are deemed to not be low so the final ranking we are estimating is Executioner for both of them. They are not known for their fighting prowess but even so, they are relatively difficult to deal with as they specialize in assassination, theft, and illusions." Mark chuckled as he spoke, eyeing Adam with a knowing smile on his tired face.
"We will leave them to you if it ever happens. There will be a nice bonus for catching or killing those two as they have been a constant thorn for the Association for the longest time. They, however, are not our main target for this mission."
A third image slid into view on the screen— this time it depicted the image of a lavish house that seemed to be situated in a very wealthy neighborhood. "Le Louvre des Ombres. Held by one of the big shots of the Supernatural criminal world in Europe. He calls himself… Moriarty, I suppose."
Adam tilted his head in wonder, "Moriarty… As in the villain in the Sherlock Holmes novels?"
Mark nodded his head. Adam was so strong now, that he had forgotten that the boy had only entered the Supernatural world in recent times. Really recent times.
"Be it Sherlock or Moriarty, they are both historical figures who truly exist in this world. Their stories are honestly more biographies that were carefully modified to make them more realistic to the mortal eyes."
"Oh…"
"The current person holding the mantle of Moriarty is thankfully not the mythological figure that is depicted in the legends. He is a descendant and a rather powerful one at that. As he was once designed to be the Director in Paris before most of his crimes were brought to light. He is the greatest dishonor to the Hunter Association branch in Paris."
"And he is still alive, I assume."
"Yes. Despite everything… He is still alive."
Adam grimaced, as they said, fear the man who grew old in a work where people die young. Adam would bet one of his lives that the Association didn't let the villainous man live just because of the goodness of their hearts. Either he was too dangerous and killing him was thus not worth it or he had some way to threaten everyone into inaction.
The second one seemed rather likely by the look of things here.
"Our goal is certainly not Moriarty either. Attacking him would cause us nothing but a headache and to be honest, most Hunter Associations surrounding the world decided to not meddle in his affairs and let only the Paris Association suffer for housing the dishonored villain. Moriarty is generally only active in Europe so it's their problem anyway."
"So, even associations have power and check balance, huh." Tsubasa sneered but Mark simply shrugged his shoulders in response, "Everywhere there are humans there will be such a situation. Even the Church is not exempt from this rule. Much less us poor humans."
They looked at Elysia but all she did was smile and chose to keep silent. Clearly, she had nothing to say and was not interested in trying to defend the church. Elysia knew for a matter of fact that perpetual darkness, similar to all of humanity, existed in the depths of the Church but she did not completely reject that form of darkness. She simply needed to clean those who had gone too far and had led themselves astray.
"Okay. Now that the situation is clear. Let me proceed. Our goal is to get the statuette by any means. Theft, assassination, money, negotiation. You name it. Our initial plan was to buy it at the auction in the traditional sense but…"
He looked at both Tsubasa and Adam awkwardly, "Let's just say the coffers of Los Angeles are getting thin in recent times and we need to allocate more resources on rebuilding the city and making sure fewer citizens choose to leave the city bounds in the coming future. We also plan to hire more independent hunters. All of this is causing funding problems and so we decided to enter France incognito and simply steal the thing before leaving."
"A heist? This might be interesting."
"Do you think so, dear? With our power set, I believe a heist would be pretty boring for you."
"Oh… True."
Slowly, Adam was learning how to open a teleportation portal and Tsubasa already had the ability to open one for herself. Furthermore, with his power of illusions, he could just walk in and steal the thing before leaving and no one would notice before it was too late.
Of course, for that, they first needed to know where the goods had been kept.
"This brings me to my last news. For the need to go incognito and because of money issues… We will take the planes. No private jet."
Adam initially wanted to say he could bring them here by flying himself but, remembering how far the distance between France and the USA was… he wisely chose to keep his mouth shut.
The trips promised to be interesting at the very least.
———
(AN as of 17/02/24: Once again I am here and once again all I can do is apologize. Those in my discord may have been able to follow me a little but yeah I have been busy like hell and I have been spending money like water but finally, it's done. Son of the Hero King book 1 finally hit the shelves on the 11th February 2024 which also was my birthday.
It's available here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CTTX7LL1
But honestly, you just have to type Son of the Hero King Book 1 on Amazon and you will find it.
Currently, only the ebook and Kindle versions are available but in two weeks or so the Paperback version will also be available and the Audiobook version is starting on Monday. This is admittedly another reason I was busy as I had to create a guide for the characters and their voices for the two Narrators. I will also closely work with them during the creation of the audiobook.)
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