The moment he laid eyes on this contract, a wave of confusion welled up in Lu Mingfei's heart.
He raised his head and looked into Anthony (Prometheus)'s violet eyes, falling for a moment into hesitation and second-guessing.
His instincts were telling him that if he actually signed this contract, he would in all likelihood be wading straight into some species of hell from this day forward.
And besides — he already had a contract of this exact sort with Lu Mingze. If he went and signed another one, what would that even amount to?
Two great powers waiting hand and foot on one single person?
But what the mysterious figure before him had just said had set Lu Mingfei's heart trembling, beat after beat.
The scene from those final moments rose unbidden in his mind. That heart-wrenching image of the red-haired girl as her curtain fell was shaking that cowardly heart of his.
At the moment the gates of the Underworld had swung wide open, Lu Mingfei had seen this young man.
If it were him — perhaps there really was a way?
But who in the world was he? The Dragon King? Yet surely not even the Dragon King could pull off something like splitting open the heavens and the earth.
Just as Lu Mingfei was hesitating, he saw Anthony (Prometheus) draw the contract back from in front of him.
For a moment, Lu Mingfei was struck dumb. He looked up at Anthony (Prometheus), only to find the man slipping the contract into a sealed envelope, all the while remarking placidly:
"Since you didn't raise any objection, I'll take that as your consent."
What the hell?
Lu Mingfei's expression cratered into stunned disbelief, but by the time he had collected himself, he discovered that his own name had already been written onto that contract.
Lu Mingfei was just plain dumbfounded.
Hold on now — wasn't this just hostile sales tactics, plain and simple?!
"No need to keep staring. Once you've finished reading it, that counts as consent to sign."
As though he had read what was in Lu Mingfei's gaze, Anthony (Prometheus) explained mildly. He pointed, while he was at it, at a line of mosquito-sized fine print at the bottom of the contract.
"Force-picked melons aren't sweet, you know."
Lu Mingfei said with a long, miserable face. Anthony (Prometheus), for his part, calmly answered:
"Not planning to save Erii anymore, then?"
He looked down, his gaze sweeping over Lu Mingfei from above, and issued his command: "I can offer you an opportunity."
Lu Mingfei was momentarily speechless. Anthony (Prometheus) simply watched the scene outside the window in silence. After a long while, he abruptly spoke again:
"Think it through. This is the one and only chance you'll ever get."
"Nothing to your name — or everything in the world?"
Lu Mingfei lowered his head, suppressing the urge that kept rising to spit out one bad joke or another.
Every time he closed his eyes, the scene from earlier flashed back through his mind.
Powerless. He himself had been powerless. Even though he understood, deep down, exactly the sort of useless wretch he was — and even though he was so spineless he didn't even have the will to change any of it — even so…
He raised his head and looked at Anthony (Prometheus).
At the very least, in this one moment, he wanted to say — he didn't want to make that girl wear that disappointed look one more time.
He had no idea how long this moment of resolve could last. But at the very least, right now.
"Fine."
The instant Lu Mingfei finished saying that, he flopped back onto the bed as though all the strength had been drained from his body.
At last, Anthony (Prometheus) turned his head, and those eyes settled back onto Lu Mingfei.
"Then — welcome to the Underworld, Lu Mingfei. Of course, you needn't worry about regretting it in the future."
Anthony (Prometheus) reached his hand out toward Lu Mingfei, that customary smile playing on his face: "Because I'll make sure to keep an eye on your workload — guaranteed to never leave you any time to regret it."
"So the welcome-to-the-job line is just 'welcome aboard our pirate ship'?"
Lu Mingfei couldn't help spitting out the bad-joke quip. Then, after a brief silence, he opened his mouth again:
"Then — what should I call you? Surely there's some form of address?"
"And — just who in the world are you?"
Lu Mingfei gazed at the mysterious youth and, unable to suppress the bewilderment in his chest any longer, asked outright.
"My surname is Lin. You can just call me boss."
Anthony (Prometheus) said lightly: "Pulling you up out of this is just a whim, more or less. As for my identity — let's say, for the time being, I'm Hades."
"Then is this dog your pet?"
Lu Mingfei lowered his gaze and saw the black hound on the floor, mouth split open with its tongue lolling out. He asked, a little hesitantly.
Hades was just a code name, surely?
He thought to himself reflexively. And then, in answer, came Anthony (Prometheus)'s reply, his face wearing a faintly peculiar expression:
"No. This dog isn't mine. And I'd strongly recommend you not touch it."
"Huh? Why?"
Lu Mingfei turned his head with a blank look, but his hand was already laid on top of the black hound's head.
In the next instant, he felt his body slam into something with terrific force.
Going by the result, however, it felt more as though a freight truck had run him clean over. His five organs and six entrails seemed to have all relocated; he collapsed to the floor in an instant and started screaming his head off.
"OOOH OOOH OOOH!!!"
"I told you you'd best not touch that dog. Its temper isn't exactly even."
Anthony (Prometheus) said with helpless resignation, reaching out to dribble a drop from an ampoule onto Lu Mingfei. Watching Lu Mingfei recover, he remarked airily:
"He's a friend of mine, just being kept here for the time being. His name is Xiaotian."
"Xiaotian? Does he think he's Erlang Shen?"
"He really does, yes."
Lu Mingfei, on hearing this answer, was the one left bewildered this time.
He froze where he was, and after thinking it over for a long while, finally seized on a realization: the person in front of him appeared to be entirely serious.
Which was to say — he really had just said he was Hades…
Lu Mingfei swallowed once.
But Anthony (Prometheus) paid no further mind to Lu Mingfei. Instead, he opened the chat group and pulled up Carmen.
[Master of the Pure White Holy Seat: @AAA City Female Ghost, you around? You around?]
[AAA City Female Ghost: I'm not!]
[Master of the Pure White Holy Seat: Perfect — come give me a hand]
[AAA City Female Ghost: When did you stop being able to take a hint? Ugh, fine, hurry it up — what do you need?]
[AAA City Female Ghost: Stop dawdling, I'm busy as hell right now, the Smoke War's already kicked off]
[Master of the Pure White Holy Seat: Hm? That fast? Need any help? I can send Emiya over]
[AAA City Female Ghost: You sure are quick to put your subordinates to work. But no need for now — Kali's still alive, so the Smoke War shouldn't go too far off the rails]
[AAA City Female Ghost: Spit it out. What am I doing for you?]
[Master of the Pure White Holy Seat: Grab me a Possibility related to the index finger — I need it for forging]
[AAA City Female Ghost: Sure, I'll fish one out of the river and send it over]
The brief exchange with Carmen ended just like that. Anthony (Prometheus) soon received the Possibility Carmen had sent him.
After flipping through it quickly, the Forgemaster's analytic faculty engaged on its own, and Anthony (Prometheus)'s mind already had an idea taking shape.
"Speaking of which — Boss, what's actually going on right now?"
Lu Mingfei, having spent a while staring blankly at the Xiaotian Hound and its dangling tongue, at last gave up on trying to pet it again. He lifted his head toward Anthony (Prometheus) and asked.
"I feel like I just lived through a whole lot of things, and all of them — they were really real."
He said quietly. Anthony (Prometheus) turned his head and gave him a small, acknowledging nod.
"Not bad. If even you can sense that there's been a time rewind, then the others can almost certainly sense it too."
He gazed off into the distance and remarked with feeling:
"That's why the second loop is the more interesting one, really."
Lu Mingfei looked up, a little dazed, and stammered out:
"You just said — rewind?"
"Yes. Rewind. I rolled time back to the very beginning."
Anthony (Prometheus) said: "Right now, Akai hasn't been opened yet, and Herzog is still in his double-act form, unchanged."
"Doesn't that mean Erii — "
"Unfortunately, no."
Anthony (Prometheus) shook his head and continued.
Theoretically speaking, once time had been rewound, Erii ought to have come back from the dead.
And the moment in time Anthony (Prometheus) had chosen as the rewind point was right before Lu Mingfei and Erii's elopement.
The trouble was that, within Anthony (Prometheus)'s soul-sensing range — which covered very nearly all of Tokyo — Minamoto Wakao was alive, the heads of the Eight Snake-Branch Families were all alive, and yet, of all people, the one missing was Erii. She alone had failed to come back to life.
Only after questioning the chat group did Anthony (Prometheus) realize what had happened: this round, the chat group had pulled a fast one on him.
Erii's soul had been locked down by the chat group itself.
The essence of time rewind was to return souls — and indeed the whole world — to the Underworld, melt them all back down, recast them, and from there return them to that earlier point in time.
It was precisely for that reason that Anthony (Prometheus) had needed to throw open the gates of the Underworld and pull all of creation into it.
From that perspective, the Underworld did have something distinctly of the Forgemaster about it. Indeed, Anthony (Prometheus) often felt as though the whole Underworld might as well have been forged by a Forgemaster's hand.
And it was precisely here that a problem arose.
A soul that hadn't entered the Underworld could not be rewound.
The trouble was, Erii couldn't get into the Underworld in the first place! The poor girl's soul was still sitting parked inside the chat group's fixed soul space.
It was a tatty enough one, at that, that the chat group had stuffed it into a particularly stable little pocket — one Anthony (Prometheus) couldn't pry her out of no matter how hard he tugged.
Skipping class had failed; now he had no choice but to go through the proper procedure.
"Anyway — even though Erii didn't come back, the others are still something we more or less have to take into account."
Anthony (Prometheus) said offhandedly, and Lu Mingfei tensed up in an instant.
"The others? What's that supposed to mean?"
"I mean it literally. Even though we rewound time, since even you can remember what happened before the rewind, there's no reason others couldn't manage the same."
Anthony (Prometheus) smiled. "Any halfway-decent half-breed should be quite clearly aware of their pre-rewind memories, wouldn't you say?"
For a moment, Lu Mingfei was stunned, but Anthony (Prometheus) seemed disinclined to leave him any time to brace himself. He took the Xiaotian Hound by the leash, and his form began to slowly fade into the air.
"I'm off, then. You handle the rest from here on out."
"Huh? Wait — what am I even supposed to do?"
"Something will come along to tell you exactly what to do, very soon. Don't worry, you'll never have to worry about your workload being under-saturated."
Anthony (Prometheus) shrugged and remarked lightly:
"As for right now — you'd best think about how to explain the situation to your own teammates."
"Let me set you a nice simple little goal. First, go and break clean through the Eight Snake-Branch Families."
Anthony (Prometheus) tossed off the order casually, leaving Lu Mingfei utterly stupefied.
Take on the Eight Snake-Branch Families? Me?
But then he caught on to something:
"Then where are you off to?"
"Akihabara."
Anthony (Prometheus) answered without so much as turning his head, leaving Lu Mingfei thoroughly perplexed.
But clearly he had no intention of elaborating; his form simply vanished from the spot on the instant, and at the same time, the Forgemaster's Cage covering the area was lifted.
And so, in this moment, Lu Mingfei's figure was once more exposed beneath the gaze of the surveillance systems.
Off in the distance, Sakatoku Mai's movements stiffened for a beat. Watching Lu Mingfei through the lens of her sniper scope, her expression tightened, and she dialed Lu Mingze's number.
Lu Mingfei, meanwhile, sat there blankly for a while before he heard someone knocking on his door.
"Coming, coming — who is it?"
Lu Mingfei opened the door, and there, on his doorstep, were Caesar and Chu Zihang — still wearing their host-club uniforms, both with grave expressions on their faces.
"Lu Mingfei — do you still have your memories?"
The instant he saw Lu Mingfei, Caesar didn't pause for so much as a beat; he asked the question immediately, his eyes serious.
"Boss — what are you referring to?"
"I mean the memories from after the White King awakened."
Caesar drew in a long, deep breath and addressed Lu Mingfei: "I just confirmed it with Chu Zihang. He remembers, which is how I made sure it wasn't just my own memory glitching out."
"It seems this world just underwent some kind of mutation, of some sort."
Lu Mingfei looked over and caught the expression on Chu Zihang's face.
The senior-classman who was usually all stone-faced calm had, in this moment, taken on a rare urgency, brow tightly furrowed.
He remembered what Anthony (Prometheus) had said to him just before leaving — the words very nearly slipped out — but then he saw Caesar turn toward Chu Zihang.
"Can you confirm that everything just now was real?"
"I don't believe my memory would be in error."
"Could it have been some form of Kotodama?"
Caesar pressed further. Chu Zihang's gaze moved over to Caesar, and he answered in a low voice:
"Do you really think that could have been Kotodama? Even the White King was caught up in it. If we say this was Kotodama, then what kind of dragon would it have to be to pull off something like this?"
"Even if it were Nidhogg — could even it manage a thing like that?"
Caesar fell silent for a while. Then, after a long pause, he traced a cross over his chest.
"Dear God."
The Christian murmured under his breath. Lu Mingfei, for once, did not crack any bad jokes in the moment. He simply felt as though something had been pressed into his palm.
Just then, with no opening for him in the conversation, Lu Mingfei lowered his head and glanced at his own palm.
And there, he found a little something — like a beeper of some sort, white all over, small and delicate.
And as though it had heard Caesar's invocation of God, the divine intent inside it began to whirr to life.
With that, the cover of the beeper flipped open on its own with a soft whir, and on its little screen a row of characters appeared.
What the hell is this thing?
Lu Mingfei stared at the beeper and rummaged about, finding a slip of paper stuck to the underside.
[A little gift to my new employee — the purpose being to encourage you to take initiative in executing your tasks]
[You can call this thing your Orders. It will dispatch tasks to you on a regular basis. Completing them won't necessarily get you anything in particular, but if you fail to complete them, please refer to the contract you signed]
[Hang in there. I'll be watching you, always. From this day forward, you are also a proud index finger]
What the hell is this thing?
Picking up on the all-too-familiar tone and cadence, Lu Mingfei, still half-dazed, looked at what had appeared on the beeper.
[To Lu Mingfei: Proceed to the Eight Snake-Branch Families, and to the third member of the Eight Snake-Branch Families you encounter, say: 'Take me to see that son-of-a-bitch Tachibana Masamune.' Afterwards, ignore his anger]
Lu Mingfei: ?
"What kind of garbage is this?!"
He couldn't help blurting it out — and then caught the puzzled looks Caesar and Chu Zihang were shooting at him.
But before Lu Mingfei had any chance to explain himself, he suddenly felt jolts of electric current pulse through his body.
"OOH OOH OOH!"
In an instant, Lu Mingfei felt as though he'd been deep-fried crisp on the outside, tender on the inside.
He had successfully been treated to the same hospitality previously enjoyed by Muzan and those Magicians down in the underground Lobotomy Corp facility.
Caesar and Chu Zihang stared, mouths agape, as Lu Mingfei suddenly went into something like a seizure. After which, a puff of smoke came drifting out of his mouth.
"Lu Mingfei — you all right now?"
"Y-yeah, I'm fine — I think."
Lu Mingfei forced a strained smile onto his face. Instinctively, he was about to fling the beeper from his hand.
But that motion hadn't even completed when, once again, he felt that electric current course through his body.
This time it was milder, but as Lu Mingfei's gesture grew bigger, the current grew right along with it.
So he wasn't even allowed to throw it away!
Lu Mingfei stood there a little stunned. For the first time, he was getting a real taste of what tyrannical bylaws were like — purpose-built, it seemed, to deal with deadbeats.
"Wait, you want me to go to the Eight Snake-Branch Families? Going in like this is just walking myself onto a plate, isn't it? At least give me some gear, for crying out loud!"
Lu Mingfei hastily turned his attention back to the beeper, thinking the words at it in his head.
Unexpectedly, the beeper seemed to have understood Lu Mingfei's meaning. More characters popped up across its screen with a series of soft whirs.
[To Lu Mingfei: Proceed to the wardrobe to collect your Index Finger uniform and weapon, and equip them]
[To Lu Mingfei: Orders are not to be defied or refused]
So this thing was the Order itself.
As Lu Mingfei was thinking that, he could hear, inside his head, the electric-shock countdown ticking.
He gritted his teeth, simply got up, and ran over to the wardrobe. He opened it — and sure enough, there was a set of clothes waiting inside.
A black suit, and a mask covering half the face.
This time Lu Mingfei didn't waste much hesitation. He scooped up the outfit, then, lowering his head, discovered that there was — of all things — a spoon underneath it.
Now what was this?
He picked the spoon up — only for the spoon to dissolve almost instantly into a liquid. The black fluid streamed into Lu Mingfei's sleeve. For a moment, he was left bewildered.
But soon enough, he stopped feeling the black liquid at all. It had settled silently between the layers of his clothing, forming a layer of protection.
"Lu Mingfei!"
Just then, Lu Mingfei heard Caesar calling his name, and hurriedly turned around to ask:
"Boss, what is it?"
"What's your general plan from here on out?"
Caesar asked with a furrowed brow: "Based on what we just discussed, we can confirm that time has been rewound. What we don't know is whether or not everything is still going to play out exactly as it did before the rewind."
"But regardless — if we've come back with our memories intact, then for us, our advantage in this current situation has just been hugely amplified."
A trace of something like fury seemed to smolder deep in Caesar's eyes. He spoke gravely.
This time around, they would no longer be in the dark.
Even if others had also kept their memories of the previous rewind, for Caesar, they could finally stand near enough to a level starting line and compete with everyone else.
Perhaps, this time, there would be a way to head off everything that had happened the last time.
Lu Mingfei watched Caesar and Chu Zihang, suddenly seething with fighting spirit, and for a moment the words caught in his throat.
What he badly wanted to say was something like: Boss, I haven't got any opinions on this — you guys hash it out among yourselves and just don't ditch me when the time comes.
But immediately after, Lu Mingfei realized he couldn't say any such thing.
Because, in his head, that goddamn electric-shock countdown was sounding off again!
That Order — he had to complete it.
So, after a stretch of silence, Lu Mingfei simply opened his mouth and said quietly:
"Boss — I think we should head straight for the Eight Snake-Branch Families."
The moment those words came out, the way Caesar and Chu Zihang looked at Lu Mingfei changed.
As though to ask: were those words really something that sorry sack could have brought himself to say?
"That said — there's reason in it."
Caesar mulled it over for a moment, then suddenly nodded: "Tortoise might also have his memories from the last rewind. In that case, he'll stand on our side."
Truth be told, Lu Mingfei was actually working with a bit more intel than those two were.
But after glancing at his own Order, Lu Mingfei truly didn't dare say that Tachibana Masamune was the Ōshō — which was to say, Herzog.
He still placed some amount of faith in that last clause in the contract, though. As he recalled, somewhere in it was an employee life-insurance provision.
Whatever else he was, that Hades surely wouldn't sell him out outright.
And so, in his heart, Lu Mingfei carried that slightly anxious thought, and looked up at Caesar.
"We've already infiltrated Genji Heavy Industries once before. Let's start from there."
Suddenly, Chu Zihang spoke up: "I checked the gear before I came here. Also — the Deadpools at Genji Heavy Industries need to be dealt with."
"Quite right. Let's go. And we'll need to figure out a way to draw out the Ōshō."
Caesar nodded slightly. The two of them looked at Lu Mingfei — and saw that at some point Lu Mingfei had already changed into a black suit, with even half a white mask now adorning his face.
At this moment, he was looking back at the two of them, putting on a perfectly polite smile. Of course, since he had never practiced it, it came out a little ugly.
Heaven have mercy — it wasn't as though he'd wanted to do this.
It was the Order that had made him do it!
And what was more — that polite smile, prodded on by the electric-shock incentive, was actually growing more and more polished by the second.
"Let's go. I'm all set."
Following the Order on the beeper, Lu Mingfei spoke up. Caesar and Chu Zihang exchanged a glance — and for the first time, they saw the very same look of deep concern in each other's eyes.
"Lu Mingfei — how many fingers is this?"
Suddenly, Caesar held out three fingers and asked tentatively.
"Boss — I haven't lost my mind."
Caesar studied Lu Mingfei skeptically.
"Really, now? The state you're in right now, saying that isn't exactly convincing."
Lu Mingfei opened his mouth, then closed it again — and in the end gave up on explaining, with a resigned sigh.
"Don't worry, Boss. I really am fine."
Caesar and Chu Zihang exchanged another glance, and in the end chose not to press further.
They weren't quite sure what Lu Mingfei had run into during the final moments of the previous rewind; for now they'd chalk it up to him taking a particularly heavy psychological hit.
Once this mission was over, they were definitely going to sit him down and have a serious heart-to-heart with him.
And so the few of them at last stopped dawdling. Once they had gathered up their things, they made for Takamagahara at speed once more, intent on running the same playbook all over again and infiltrating Genji Heavy Industries.
...
Meanwhile, inside Akihabara.
Anthony (Prometheus) stretched out his hand, letting dazzling sunlight filter through the gaps between his fingers. Beside him, the Xiaotian Hound was strolling along with its tongue lolling out, keeping pace with him.
Man and dog ambled along like ordinary foreign tourists, taking this otaku sanctuary at a remarkably relaxed pace.
And as it happened, Anthony (Prometheus) really had come here as a tourist.
Just that this particular outing had its own ulterior purpose.
The main thing was to bring back some merchandise to satisfy the assignment.
Thinking back on Erlang Shen's parting instructions to him before he left, Anthony (Prometheus) couldn't help feeling a touch of a headache.
If he were going to some other world, fair enough — he could more or less bring back something specific to that world. But of all worlds, this one was the Dragon Race's.
A place like the Dragon Race's domain — what local specialty was he supposed to bring back from here?
Was he supposed to bring back a dragon scale?
Anthony (Prometheus) had a feeling Erlang Shen wouldn't quite buy that. After mulling it over, Anthony (Prometheus) gave up thinking about it.
Forget it. Just hit Akihabara.
See if there was anything worth buying — grab a few things for Erlang Shen and that would do.
The problem was, once he'd actually gotten here, Anthony (Prometheus) realized something.
He didn't seem to have any money on him.
He had never had much occasion to use money. He had stacks of points piled up, but as for the assorted currencies of all those random worlds — they were nontransferable. How was he supposed to keep that stuff around?
Just as Anthony (Prometheus) was deliberating between whether to forge a stack of cash with the Forgemaster, or to simply forge the merchandise itself outright, his soul felt the approach of another presence.
Anthony (Prometheus) raised his head. In the next instant, his soul had locked onto that intruder. A faint hint of interest surfaced on his face.
"A ninja?"
He murmured to himself. And then — understanding.
"Ah, I see — so it's someone from the Fūma Clan. So the Eight Snake-Branch Families — that means it's Herzog, then."
Recalling the Herzog who had appeared before him at the moment of the world rewind, Anthony (Prometheus) couldn't help giving a small whistle.
It looked like the other party was even more impatient than he had imagined.
And — in the face of a moment like this — his self-control was rather worse than Anthony (Prometheus) had pictured, too.
With the world rewound, and his situation confirmed — the man had probably gone scouring all of Japan for traces of him without bothering to ask why, hadn't he?
Anthony (Prometheus) shook his head regretfully, sighing softly to himself.
Still — it was within expectations.
Decades of planning had popped like a bubble. That couldn't feel great.
"But by the look of things, he really is in a rush."
For a moment, Anthony (Prometheus) ruminated on it. Then his form abruptly vanished from where he stood.
And on the ninja's end, watching from a short distance away, he felt his vision blur for a beat.
In the next instant — he could no longer find his target.
Just as the ninja was beginning to panic — a curious query came drifting in by his ear:
"Are you looking for me?"
The ninja, every nerve at battle-station alert, struggled to turn his head — and saw Anthony (Prometheus). His mouth opened slightly, but he saw, on Anthony (Prometheus)'s face, that delighted little smile.
"Lovely weather we're having today. A pity — you people always seem to have no idea what one should be doing with a time like this."
Anthony (Prometheus) said regretfully, even as he flashed the ninja a smile.
"Tachibana Masamune sent you, didn't he? Well, that's just as well — saves him having to scuttle about hiding any longer."
"Take me to him."
Without a moment's hesitation, the ninja moved to bite down on the poison capsule lodged in his teeth.
Only — in the next instant — he discovered that he was incapable even of taking his own poison!
All that was left was Anthony (Prometheus)'s look, as though he were regarding an idiot.
Committing suicide in front of Hades — that took something special, didn't it.
All at once, Anthony (Prometheus)'s expression shifted. He had picked up on what Lu Mingfei was doing on the other end.
After handing him the beeper, he had expected Lu Mingfei would get hit by the shocks easily a dozen times first. Going by this, it had been fewer than he'd expected.
To have actually taken action this quickly.
For a moment, Anthony (Prometheus) stroked his chin, hung the ninja out to one side, and took a glance at the situation on Lu Mingfei's end.
Catching that Lu Mingfei was over there bitterly cursing the Order System, he couldn't help but curl his lip.
All this fuss over that little thing? The Order System hadn't exactly been invented yesterday. Did it really call for that level of theatrics?
Still — he really couldn't just leave it alone.
Anthony (Prometheus) lowered his head and glanced at the Xiaotian Hound beside him.
"Mind taking a little trip for me?"
He extended a hand slightly toward the Xiaotian Hound, asking. The Xiaotian Hound barked twice, and Anthony (Prometheus) broke into a smile:
"Off you go, then."
He stretched out a hand and set the coordinates. In the next moment, the Xiaotian Hound bounded downward, and its form vanished from the spot.
Only then did Anthony (Prometheus) at last turn back to the ninja, and, in a tone of irrefusable cold detachment, deliver the will of Hades:
"All right then — you're out of time."
"Now — take me to Tachibana Masamune. Or, if you prefer — Herzog."
...
Meanwhile, on the other side, Lu Mingfei and his party had once more pushed into the depths of Genji Heavy Industries.
Theoretically speaking, this time they should have started directly from the Deadpool breeding pools and worked their way out from there.
Caesar, crouched within the ventilation shafts, was mulling this over. But at the same time, after a glance at the situation outside, he found himself developing a headache.
It seemed, after all, that the second loop applied to more than just the three of them.
The defenses inside Genji Heavy Industries were visibly, dramatically heavier than they had been the previous time.
All one could say was — Herzog was truly in a rush now. Faced with the present situation, he had even abandoned the vast majority of his earlier arrangements.
What's more, through the Kamaitachi, Caesar could pick out from the conversations of those soldiers that even Tachibana Masamune had personally come to Genji Heavy Industries.
So — where might Tortoise be?
For the moment, Caesar wasn't clear on that question.
What he was very clear on was that there was no time left for him to hesitate.
Because Lu Mingfei and Chu Zihang weren't beside him.
Owing to the heavy increase in defenses, the moment they had stepped inside Genji Heavy Industries, Caesar and the other two had been forced to split up.
To the point where he had no choice but to go it alone for now — and on top of that, his first objective had become finding those two again.
So — what was Lu Mingfei up to at this moment?
He was faithfully carrying out his Order.
No choice in the matter — failing to do so meant getting zapped.
"One, two, three."
He counted the third person he caught sight of, then burst out from his hiding place. In the next instant, he heard the Order's incessant, unbroken beeping.
[To Lu Mingfei: Seize your target by the collar]
In the midst of the crowd, Lu Mingfei felt like crying out of sheer despair. But he had no choice but to comply.
And so, beneath the gaze of everyone present, he grabbed by the collar what was presumably a member of the Sakurai Clan, and announced coldly:
"Take me to see that son-of-a-bitch Tachibana Masamune."
For a beat, the person Lu Mingfei had grabbed wore a look of confusion — and then, very quickly, he caught on.
The next thing he did was throw a backhanded punch!
And it was precisely in that moment that Lu Mingfei felt the black liquid inside his clothing seem to come to life.
Reflexively, he reached for it — and from inside his own clothes, Lu Mingfei drew out a weapon.
It was a — table fork?
Lu Mingfei's eyes went wide.
[To Lu Mingfei: Use the fork to stab down on the opponent's hand, then sweep your own hair back, and afterward, strike forcefully with the fork at the point three centimeters beneath the opponent's nose]
Lu Mingfei went blank.
He couldn't help mentally firing off a giant question mark.
Couldn't you, you bastard, have at least issued me two proper weapons?!
And so, in the next instant, feeling the urging of the Order, Lu Mingfei, in fury, stabbed the fork toward the incoming fist.
Was that the Order — or what?
____
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🔥 New history:Homelander: Founding the Hero Association
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