Chapter 1061 – #252_사냥꾼(2) – DeepL
#1055
1.
A week passed.
The script was perfect.
Everything that had been planned had gone according to plan, and Xiu had gotten used to it through trial and error.
There were two things she was getting used to.
The ability to write a screenplay.
And the ability to carry it out.
Four teams from the Lehar Group.
A total of ten lives were nourishment for the lotus.
2.
At the top of Solidus, bisecting Hexenacht, is the Almak Club.
The exterior of the club is stuffy and clunky.
It looks suspiciously like an armory bought by a porn company that is serious about SM.
There’s a reason for this.
The Almac Club occasionally hosts auctions, parties, plays, and other entertainment, but it’s basically Lydia’s workshop.
Lydia’s taste for quirky corners and eccentricities is reflected in the decor, and Solidus is grateful that the interior is at least up to standard.
“Can we take down the chandelier and put up a mirror ball?”
“Uh, I don’t think so.”
“Don’t you think it’s tacky that for hundreds of years the most luxurious ornament you could hang from the ceiling was a candle holder made of crystal and gold?”
“I don’t know….”
Lydia’s assistant stammered, wondering if any of her top-down ideas would ever make it into practice.
The problem was, it was too obvious, and Lydia didn’t have a nice personality.
She knew it wasn’t rational, so she took it out on her subordinate for her unfulfilled wish.
“So, you’re saying I’ve lived so long that I look old to you?”
“Oh, no…. But the mirrorball is….”
“You’re only thinking about following trends, don’t you ever think about starting them? If the Palace of Versailles had mirrorballs, there would be mirrorballs in the lobbies of luxury hotels by now, wouldn’t there?”
“Sin, I’m sorry, I’m guilty as sin!”
But in the best of all possible worlds, the secretary, who was suffering from the demands of a demanding boss, was soon able to return to work.
She had an unannounced visitor.
And a very uncomfortable one at that.
“Mrs. Magnus.”
“I thought we were done with the payment. What are you doing here?”
Lydia looked up at her guest, a man with a head taller than she was.
The head of the Lehar Group.
Herja Valhirie, Witch of War.
A witch who could not be described by the simple rhetoric of unusual in many ways.
First of all, she is 190 centimeters tall.
Her entire body is as muscular as a female judoka’s, and her Mohican cut, which shaves off her sideburns, makes it impossible to tell her gender from the back.
She’s a “strong woman” who seems to be able to subdue even the toughest men with her strength, not her motherly love.
“Holy shit.”
Trying to sit down, Herya couldn’t find a place on the couch, which was tailored for women, and ended up plopping down on the table.
Every time Lydia looked at her, she wondered what the hell had to be done to her body to produce such a monstrosity.
Would a lethal dose of growth hormone and steroids turn her into that?
“Is that you?”
He sits up like a thug, baring his teeth in a vicious manner.
“Bottomless and endless. What the hell do you mean by coming here out of the blue?”
The relationship between the Lehar Group and Solidus Top is a tense one.
For Solidus Top, the Rehar Group is a great service, solving his problems for money,
and Solidus Top is a lucrative client for the Rehar Group.
But Lydia doesn’t like Herya very much.
Reminiscent of a primitive tribal chieftain’s wife, she’s rough, savage, and uncultured.
The only child of a duke of a kingdom, she’s different from Lydia in every way.
And vice versa, of course.
Herya hated Lydia for always being a bitch and a nag.
She eagerly awaited the day when she could crack open the golden head and see what was inside.
“It’s you, Mrs. Magnus. Heh, you’re the one who’s being petulant. You always are.”
“What is this, dog balls sucking….”
Lydia’s face contorted.
Not only had she stomped into the moxibustion workshop, but she’d said something so insignificant.
“I’m a busy woman, Mr. Herya, and if you want to catch floating clouds with me, I’ll charge you. Pay.”
“Pay?”
-Bang!
In the next instant, Herya’s outstretched arm grabbed Lydia by the throat.
Her twitching forearms and viciously sprouting veins threatened to twist Lydia’s slender throat like sorghum.
“Let go. Unless you want me to grope you.”
Lydia’s eyes were already glowing with gold, though her movements were indistinguishable.
Before she knew it, the moths were flapping their wings, stirring up gold dust, and the flames of destruction burning around her neck were scorching her palms.
Gritting her teeth, she stepped back first.
Her fury gave her the upper hand, but Lydia’s strength was real.
One of the strongest of the three.
The archwitch who locked horns with Duke Erelim during Clipport’s invasion of Gehenna.
That’s Lydia Magnus.
Herja regained her composure.
“Five of the Lehar Group’s teams. Thirteen have suddenly gone missing since your request, Mrs. Magnus.”
“What the fuck do you want me to do? It’s your dog’s job to police the asshole. Didn’t they run away because you were being an asshole?”
“It was a planned raid.”
Herya is straightforward, but not stupid.
If she were, she wouldn’t be able to function as the head of the Lehar Group in a public world full of con artists.
“I targeted the least contactable of the group’s teams, leaving no trace of magic after the battle, and no one sensed anything unusual about the situation.”
It’s not like they disappeared due to the usual group desertions or personal disputes.
They just disappeared too neatly.
That’s why Herja instinctively found something unnerving about this series of disappearances.
The signs of man-made interference were too natural to be real.
The work of a methodical, professional hunter.
“In other words, Solidus Top is targeting the Lehar Group. That’s my conclusion.”
“They want them alive.”
“You have proof?”
“Why would I want to? You’re the one who has to deal with it.”
“No one knows more about the Lehar Group than you do. You send my team on a mission that doesn’t look like much, and then you take advantage of a loophole right afterward. Don’t you think it’s ironic?”
“It’s ridiculous.”
“I know you sell witches, I know you turn them into gold coins, and I know you’re known as the Witch of Gold Coins.
I know that you’re an ambitious man who despises the Lehar Group and hopes to one day eat them whole. Need I say more?
Besides, you’re the only witch I know who can keep things as clean as this, Lady Magnus.”
“Well, even if that were true, how is that proof?”
“I don’t need any of that!!!!”
“You just asked me for proof.”
Lydia was beyond frustrated, she was outraged.
But Herya slammed the table in fury.
“Talia’s gone.”
“…The Witch of Tragedy?”
Lydia’s face, which had been half-heartedly treating Herja, suddenly turned serious.
The Witch of Tragedy is not only Herya’s closest confidante, but also a 21st rank powerhouse.
Such a powerhouse has disappeared in a single day on this continent, in what is supposed to be a public domain.
Unless Herya’s anger and bewilderment is a skillful performance, there’s definitely something going on.
“Don’t play dumb. It makes me want to rip your top off.”
Lydia looked at Herya.
Belligerent but moderately intelligent, unable to read the board but aware of the crisis at hand with an animalistic sense.
That was Lydia’s value for her.
I decided to make it a little more fitting for this question.
“It’s a stretch. Even if your story is half-true, Gehenna is behind this.”
Prediction.
Gehenna planned to retaliate for the raid on WitchPoint.
“Ha, that’s not possible. All we got was a traitor dead. A traitor to us, but a traitor to them, do you understand?”
Yes.
So we made it a goal.
And then there’s Witchpoint, which has a less direct connection to Gehenna than the role it plays.
Gehenna has been too much of a bystander to take action on the death of a hero.
If she wanted to twist judgment and make them pay, she wouldn’t have done it so quietly.
She would have done devastating damage to the Rehar group.
But he didn’t.
“What happened to the infighting?”
Prediction two.
Infighting within the Lehar Group itself.
In fact, it’s the most reasonable assumption in Lydia’s view.
It doesn’t take long for public figures to turn on each other, and if it’s an insider rebellion, they’ll know the whereabouts and circumstances of their own team.
“…….”
Herya paused as if stung by a vote, then poked more fiercely.
“Don’t muddy the waters.”
“Clouding the point. It’s your judgment that’s clouded.”
It’s not uncommon for the leader of a group to be eaten by the group.
They don’t want to admit that there might be a traitor in their group.
Especially not when it’s Lydia, the snarky one, who’s pointing the finger.
But even she knows that pulling at the pods here won’t yield anything, so she prioritizes immediate action.
“Find a place for our group in the city.”
“Me? Why, to save your asses? Why?”
This is where Lydia and Herja went off the rails.
The majority of Lehar’s group were not granted Hexenacht citizenship, and that’s where Lydia comes in.
“I’m not going to let you little bastards into the city, just to see what a mess you make.”
A life of struggle meant many enemies.
Bringing them into Hexenacht would break the discipline of absolute neutrality.
But weren’t heroes supposed to grow up fighting and killing amongst themselves?
Lydia may have put on this façade, but her heart was not in it.
Asking a full hound to work is not efficient.
If the Lehar Group became complacent about life in Hexenacht, who would do the heavy lifting in the future?
It was convenient for Lydia to keep the hounds hungry.
“What a bitch…!”
After a few back-and-forths, Lydia stuck to her “I don’t know, you guys figure it out” attitude.
“I’m not letting this go.”
“Okay, okay, I’ll look forward to it.”
Herya had no proof, and the power differential between the two was clear.
Exasperated by Lydia’s sarcasm, she walked away with nothing to show for it.
The next day.
The logistics fleet at the top of the Soledad headed through the Panama Canal to the ‘gates’ of Hexenacht.
The 80,000-displacement Panamax-class logistics ship sank for unknown reasons.
Beneath the deep blue waters.
“What the fuck?!”
Lydia was furious.
