"Isn't the glass dome a bit conspicuous?"
"Hello?"
"LCS-456 speaking!"
"Chioma? Are you still there?"
"Shit. The connection must be faulty. Might as well continue with the plan."
Still crouching, I hurried towards our meeting point: the giant glass dome.
My eyes scanned the area until I finally spotted Hadal.
He was resting against the dome, his head tilted forward as he slept peacefully.
…
I wasn't sure whether to punch the fool or simply wake him up.
On one hand, punching him might make him scream like a little girl.
On the other hand…
Hmm.
The satisfaction alone might be worth it.
Unfortunately, I decided to put my personal desires aside and wake him up normally.
"Hey! Wake up!"
I shook his shoulders while keeping a hand over his mouth.
Hadal's eyes snapped open.
He stared at me in absolute shock, and I couldn't help but feel relieved that I'd covered his mouth in time. Otherwise, the entire security team outside might have heard just how loudly LCA-455 screamed when woken up from his beauty sleep.
"What the hell were you doing sleeping?" I whispered.
"I wasn't sleeping," he replied, still looking slightly dazed. "I was… uh… mentally training while waiting for you to return."
"Right."
I gave him a disappointed stare.
He won't scream too loudly if I punch him, will he?
"You were thinking about doing something terrible to me, weren't you?" Hadal asked, eyeing me suspiciously.
"Don't worry about that. We have more important things to deal with."
I removed my hand from his mouth.
"Can you contact Rose?"
"Let me see."
He pressed a finger against his earpiece.
"LCA-455 speaking."
Silence.
He tried again.
"LCA-455 speaking. Is Rose Mensah there?"
Nothing.
"LCA-455 here with LCA-456. We've reached the meeting point."
Still nothing.
Hadal lowered his hand and frowned.
"What the hell is going on? Why isn't Rose picking up?"
"Same thing happened to me when I tried contacting Chioma."
We stared at each other.
For a few seconds, neither of us said anything.
Then, almost simultaneously, we reached the same conclusion.
We're fucked.
We were deep inside enemy territory, surrounded by people who would probably kill us if they discovered what we were doing. We had no guide, no communication with our superiors, and barely enough experience to handle the situation ourselves.
The odds weren't exactly in our favour.
"So, what now?" Hadal asked, scratching his chin.
I folded my arms.
"Honestly, we only have one option."
"We head down to the library," he said firmly. "That scroll is our only ticket out of this mess. We need to get it and find a way to survive. Simple as that."
"Yeah, I suppose you're right."
Suddenly, Hadal's expression brightened.
"Wait! I remember something!"
Oh, great.
Whenever Hadal had an idea, there was about a fifty-percent chance it would save our lives.
The other fifty percent usually involved me suffering.
"A few days before the mission, I decided to research the Sankoré family. One of the most interesting things I discovered was their library, known as the Lion's Garden."
I stared at him.
"The Lion's Garden?"
"Yeah."
"How… over the top."
"That's not the point right now!" Hadal clicked his tongue in frustration.
"Then what is the point? You know how these household families behave. Pompous and annoying for absolutely no reason. Even I, someone from the Greenlands, know that much."
"Well, yes. That's what they want people to believe."
Hadal paused, lowering his voice.
"But from what I found, the Lion's Garden isn't just a library. It's also a research facility where they create terror beasts."
My expression changed.
"Wait. They create what?"
"Artificial beasts. They're called Ẹranko Àtọwọ́dá."
I repeated the name silently, trying to commit it to memory.
Artificial beasts?
So the Sankoré family wasn't satisfied with being rich, powerful, and ridiculously secretive. They also had a facility dedicated to creating monsters.
Wonderful.
Just wonderful.
"But how did you even find this information?" I asked. "We barely had any time to prepare. Honestly, I'm surprised you managed to dig all of that up."
Hadal puffed out his chest slightly.
"Chioma taught me how to research and connect information."
"Chioma?"
"Yeah. Remember those extra classes on Sundays? The ones for people who wanted to improve their skills?"
I stared at him.
"You actually paid attention during those?"
"Of course I did!"
"Huh. Who would've thought?"
"Joseph."
"What?"
"Shut up."
I grinned.
For a brief moment, the tension eased.
Unfortunately, reality came knocking again.
"We can't stand around chatting forever," I reminded him. "They already know we're here. My connection to Chioma is gone, and neither of us can reach Rose."
"Same here," Hadal muttered.
He glanced towards the dome's edge.
"Our only option is to finish the mission and hope we can get out alive."
I sighed.
"Funny, isn't it? This has been the most intense three hours of my life. I'd rate this mission a two-point-five on the Lecter scale."
Hadal slowly turned to look at me.
"You're exaggerating because you're tired."
Before I could respond, his body began glowing with bright Flow energy.
Then he stepped forward.
And passed straight through the glass.
I froze.
…
What?
I hurried to the window and pressed my face against it, desperately trying to figure out whether my eyes were deceiving me.
Nope.
Hadal was definitely floating downwards.
Floating.
Gracefully, too.
And the most annoying part?
He looked back at me with the smug expression of someone who knew he'd just made another person feel completely inferior.
His lips moved.
I couldn't hear him, but I could read them perfectly.
Should've gone to the extra classes on the weekend.
…
I'm going to kill him.
Well, on the bright side, Hadal had made it inside.
Now it was my turn.
I considered copying the Flow art he'd just used. Unfortunately, I wasn't particularly good at learning new arts on the spot unless I had a decent understanding of how they worked.
And right now, I had absolutely no idea what he'd done.
That left me with two options.
Wait for Hadal to figure something out, or break the window.
The second option was probably a terrible idea.
For one, I had no clue whether the glass was stronger than my punch. And even if I could break it, using a powerful Flow art on a window seemed like a stupid way to announce our presence to every guard in the vicinity.
I needed something quiet.
Something precise.
Something that wouldn't attract the attention of the guards or the artificial beasts inside the library.
Then it hit me.
A laser.
That's what I needed!
I raised my hand and concentrated my Flow energy into the tip of my index finger.
Slowly, I compressed it into a thin, focused beam.
A faint glow appeared at my fingertip.
Then—
Zzzzzzzzt!
A narrow beam sliced through the glass.
I began tracing a large circle, carefully cutting along its circumference.
My Flow output was strong enough to maintain a consistent beam, but there was one small problem.
Once the circle was complete, the glass would fall.
And judging by how large the piece was, it would make one hell of a noise when it hit the ground.
The guards might hear it.
The beasts might hear it.
And if either of them came to investigate, our little mission would turn into a nightmare.
"Come on… hurry up already," I muttered.
The circle was almost complete.
Just a little more.
Finally, I finished the cut.
A nearly perfect circle had been carved into the glass.
All I needed to do was push it through.
"Here we go!"
I pressed against the circular piece.
It slipped free.
And immediately began plummeting towards the ground.
Shit!
I had expected this, of course.
Which was why, the moment the glass began falling, I activated Cloud Chasing Step and launched myself downwards.
My feet landed on the branches of a large tree, absorbing most of the impact.
Without wasting a second, I pushed off the branch and shot towards the falling glass.
I caught it just before it could hit the ground.
For a moment, I simply stood there, holding the enormous circular piece of glass in my arms.
Then I exhaled.
"Well… good."
I carefully lowered the glass.
"The plan worked. That's a relief."
"THAT'S A RELIEF?! THAT'S ALL YOU HAVE TO SAY?!"
Hadal's furious whisper nearly made me drop the glass anyway.
He'd descended after me and was now glaring at me as though he'd aged ten years in the last thirty seconds.
"Do you have any idea how close that was?!"
"Relax. I had everything under control."
"YOU ABSOLUTELY DID NOT!"
"Keep your voice down!"
Hadal immediately clamped his mouth shut.
We stared at each other for a moment.
Then I shrugged.
"Besides, I would've used the art you performed if I knew how."
"Whatever, Joseph."
He rubbed his forehead.
"So, what's the plan now?"
I glanced towards the building.
"We find the illegal technique. Alternatively, we could take pictures of those artificial terror beasts you mentioned and threaten to expose the Sankoré family."
Hadal stared at me.
For once, he didn't immediately argue.
Instead, he looked towards the distant buildings, seemingly considering the possibility.
Then he shook his head.
"That might be a terrible idea."
"Yeah, probably."
"Let's stick to the original plan. We find the scroll, then one of us breaks a window to signal the other that it's time to escape."
"Sounds simple enough."
I held out my fist.
Hadal looked at it before bumping his own against mine.
"Don't screw this up, Joseph."
"Please. I'm the last person you should be worried about."
"That statement is exactly why I'm worried."
I ignored him.
"Let's split up. We'll cover more ground that way. Whoever finds the scroll first signals the other, and then we get the hell out of here."
Hadal nodded.
"See you around, Joseph."
"Yeah. See you around, Hadal."
With that, we separated and disappeared into the shadows of the Lion's Garden.
Neither of us knew what awaited us deeper inside.
Neither of us knew what secrets the Sankoré family had buried beneath its elegant façade.
And neither of us knew that, somewhere within the library, our little mission was about to become far more dangerous than either of us had anticipated.