Mendapatkan informasi, an sich bukan hal besar. Yang jadi masalah besar adalah mereka mengungkap konspirasi yang khusus menargetkan Midnight Inn. Meskipun Inn mengklaim tidak terlibat dalam kegagalan Sanguis Pluvia, sedikit yang percaya, dan akibatnya banyak yang ingin balas dendam.
Sanguis Pluvia sendiri memang sudah dikeluarkan dari realm Asal, tapi itu tidak berarti realm itu damai, atau tidak ada lagi elemen liar di dalamnya. Meski hampir tidak ada kekuatan di realm Asal yang bisa menantang Midnight Inn, kecuali salah satu tamu Dao Lord yang ikut campur, bukan berarti organisasi lain yang lebih kuat dan berpengaruh tidak bisa memanfaatkan mereka untuk mulai menata bidak melawan Inn.
Mereka bahkan tidak perlu menghancurkan Inn itu sendiri. Karena Inn begitu fokus pada bisnis, mengganggu bisnis mereka dengan menargetkan tamu mereka adalah salah satu caranya.
Tentu, mengurus semua itu adalah tugas orang jauh lebih senior dari Jimmy. Baginya ini cuma kesempatan untuk dapat pengalaman dunia nyata dengan peacock warriors. Meski mereka sudah bertarung di Midnight Games, jadi agak membosankan karena pola mereka mudah dihafal. Yang lebih penting, merak mereka punya keuntungan besar melawan serangga, dengan mudah membantainya, jadi para pejuang aslinya hampir tidak perlu berusaha keras.
Adil saja, merak itu secara teknis memang lebih kuat dari kebanyakan pejuang asli. Tak bisa dielakkan. Itu konsekuen hidup di Midnight Inn sejak lahir.
Jimmy tidak ragu, dan mengarahkan kuda bangsawanya lewat jalur yang dihafal dari peta, sampai di kamor kapten. Dia baru butuh beberapa detik sejak dapat pesan soal formasi yang disabotase, tapi pemandangan yang ditemui benar-benar tak terduga.
Formasinya, seperti dijanjikan, sudah hancur. Tapi di samping formasi hancur itu ada kapten, yang seharusnya kabar baik, kecuali dia sudah mati. Kamarnya kayak lewat angin puting beliung kecil, semua furnitur dan elektronik tergeletak berceceran.
Kurang peduli kebersihan, lebih ke kapten yang mati. Jimmy cepat mendekati dan cek kondisinya, tapi pria itu tak bisa diselamatkan.
"Bisa cari tahu apakah Rose Society yang lakukan ini juga?" tanya Jimmy ke kuda bangsawanya. "Itu tidak sesuai rencana."
Merak yang cemas menghubungi agen rahasia, sementara tak terlihat oleh keduanya Qawain dan Hera mengawasi segalanya. Di tangan Qawain ada pria tak sadar, memakai semacam armor yang menutupi sosoknya dalam bayangan, tidak bahwa itu memengaruhi keduanya.
Sekali formasi hancur, dan lari jadi mustahil, sosok bayangan itu coba bunuh kapten dan diri sendiri, untuk menghapus jejak. Qawain dan Hera, sayangnya, gagal selamatkan kapten, tapi mereka cegah pria bayangan itu mati.
"Kurang poin buat biarkan target mati," ujar Qawain keras.
"Oh tidak, dia mau tahu caranya kalau salah satu target coba bunuh diri setelah bunuh orang?" Hera membela dengan defensif.
"Dia tahu atau tidak, fakta tetap sama: kalau kita tidak di sini, dia kehilangan semua jejak. Pengawasan bagus buat pertumbuhannya sendiri, kau jangan coba bela dia di setiap kesempatan."
Hera, tentu saja, paham, tapi tak bisa menahan diri.
"Ini berita mengkhawatirkan," kata Qawain, ekspresinya jadi serius sedikit. "Musuh yang bersembunyi di gelap paling berbahaya. Dengan Pengelola Inn yang semakin jarang muncul di Inn sebenarnya, banyak lawan handal mungkin coba memanfaatkan kesempatan. Kuharap kita siap hadapi rintangan apa pun yang mereka hadirkan."
Hera memutar mata.
"Yakin World Eater kita akan urus siapa pun yang ganggu kita. Kau terlalu khawatir, semuanya akan baik-baik saja."
"Semoga," bisik Qawain, mengalihkan perhatian ke anak-anak. Tapi instingnya, yang diasah ribuan tahun perang, perlahan memperingatkan ada bahaya tak dikenal di depan, dan kalau dia tidak jadi lebih kuat, dia tak akan selamat.
Masalah lebih besar adalah kalau dia lemah, Anita pun tak akan lebih baik. Sepertinya mereka perlu kerja keras setelah bayi lahir.
Jimmy, sementara itu, tidak biarkan kematian target mengganggu, meski cukup kecewa tak bisa tangkap kapten hidup. Perasaan pribadinya harus menunggu, karena setelah serangan ke stasiun angkasa came operasi penyelamatan.
Orang-orang yang tinggal di stasiun takkan selamat sekarang stasiun hancur, jadi semua harus dibawa ke Inn sebagai pengungsi sementara sementara kapal penyelamatan dibawa ke lokasi stasiun angkasa.
Mengawasi operasi skala besar itu beda jauh dari banyak operasi yang dia kelola saat kecil. Semuanya punya unsur ketidakpastian lebih banyak. Untungnya dia jauh lebih kuat sekarang, dan belajar cepat. Dia tidak akan ulang kesalahan sama — apalagi Kakak Besar Z akan membimbingnya.
Operasi berlanjut, sementara di realm Midnight Gerard bagikan semua info yang didapat ke Lex, yang sedikit mengerutkan dahi.
"Tingkatkan jumlah pelatihan staf di Kuil," kata Lex pelan. "Aku tak tahu apa yang harus diantisipasi, tapi lebih baik kita cukup siap."
Adil saja, Lex memperkirakan akan punya beberapa ribu Earth Immortal dalam beberapa dekade ke depan, yang akan bikin Inn jadi kekuatan handal. Tapi akan kekurangan parah pekerja lebih kuat.
Lex alihkan perhatian ke Zagan, yang masih bermeditasi di sudut mana saja. Monster itu hampir jadi Heavenly immortal. Lex tidak ingin mendesaknya biar cepat, tapi dia juga tak bisa tanpa pasukan tempur lebih kuat.
Dia sendiri juga tak ingin jadi Heavenly Immortal sebelum mencapai batasnya sebagai Earth Immortal. Ada banyak hal untuk dipikirkan.
Getting their hands on information, in and of itself was not a big deal. What was a big deal was that they had uncovered a conspiracy specifically targeting the Midnight Inn. Though the Inn claimed to be uninvolved in the fall of Sanguis Pluvia, few believed it, and as a result many wanted revenge.
While Sanguis Pluvia itself had been removed from the Origin realm, that did not mean that the realm was at peace, or that there were no more rogue elements in it. Although there was hardly any force in the Origin realm that could challenge the Midnight Inn, not unless one of the guest Dao Lords got involved, it did not mean other more powerful and influential organizations couldn’t make use of them to begin placing the pieces against the Inn.
It did not even need to be the destruction of the Inn itself that they achieved. Since the Inn was so focused on being a business, then disrupting their business by targeting their guests was one way of doing things.
Of course, dealing with all of that was the job of someone far more senior than Jimmy. For him this was just an opportunity to get some real world experience with the peacock warriors. Although they had been fighting in the Midnight Games, it became a bit tedious since their patterns were easy to learn. More importantly, their peacocks had a huge advantage against insects, easily slaying them, so the actual warriors hardly got to exert themselves.
To be fair, the peacocks technically were stronger than most of the actual warriors. It couldn’t be helped. Such was the consequence of living in the Midnight Inn from birth.
Jimmy didn’t hesitate, and led his noble mount through the path he had memorized off a map, and arrived at the captain’s room. He had hardly taken a few seconds since he got the message about the formation being sabotaged, yet the scene he encountered was completely unexpected.
The formation, as promised, was destroyed. Yet alongside the destroyed formation was the captain, which would have been a good thing except that he was dead. The room looked like a small hurricane had passed through it, with all the furniture and electronics flung all over.
Less concerned with the cleanliness and more with the dead captain. Jimmy quickly approached him and checked his condition, but the man could not be saved.
"Can you find out if the Rose Society did this too?" Jimmy asked his mount. "That wasn’t according to plan."
The troubled peacock reached out to the secret agent, while invisible to them both Qawain and Hera overlooked everything. Within Qawains hand was an unconscious man, wearing some kind of armor that covered his figure in shadows, not that it affected the two of them.
Once the formation had been destroyed, and escape became impossible, the shadowy figure had tried to kill the captain and himself, to hide all traces. Qawain and Hera, unfortunately, hadn’t been able to save the captain, though they kept the shadowy man from dying.
"Minus points for letting the target die," Qawain said out loud.
"Oh come on, how was he supposed to know that one of the targets would attempt a murder-suicide?" Hera questioned defensively.
"Whether he knows or not, it wouldn’t change the fact that if we hadn’t been here, he would have lost all leads. Scrutiny is good for his own growth, you should not try to defend him at every turn."
Hera, of course, knew as much, but couldn’t help herself.
"This is troubling news though," Qawain said, his expression turning serious ever so slightly. "Enemies hidden in the dark are the most dangerous. With the Innkeeper showing up less and less at the actual Inn, many formidable foes might try to take advantage. I pray we are ready to deal with whatever obstacle they present."
Hera rolled her eyes.
"I’m sure our resident World Eater will take care of anyone who tries to trouble us. You worry too much, everything will be fine."
"I hope so," Qawain whispered, turning his attention back to the kids. But his instincts, honed over thousands of years of war, were subtly warning him that there was some unknown danger up ahead, and if he did not grow stronger, he would not survive it.
The greater problem was that if he was weak, then Anita would not be better off. It seemed like they needed to get some work in after the baby was born.
Jimmy, meanwhile, did not let the death of the target distract him, although he was quite disappointed that he couldn’t capture the captain alive. His personal feelings, however, would have to wait for following the attack on the space station was the rescue operation.
Explore more adventures at
Those living in the station would not survive now that the station had been destroyed, so all of them needed to be brought to the Inn as temporary refugees while rescue ships were brought to the site of the space station.
Overseeing such a large operation was quite different from the many operations he had managed as a kid. Everything had much more of an element of unpredictability. Fortunately, he was a lot stronger now, and was a quick learner. He would not make the same mistake again - especially since Big Brother Z would be guiding him.
The operation continued, while in the Midnight realm Gerard shared all the information he got with Lex, who frowned slightly.
"Increase the number of staff training at the Temple," said Lex softly. "I don’t know what we can expect, but it’ll be best if we’re sufficiently prepared."
To be fair, Lex expected to have a few thousand Earth Immortals in the next few decades, which would make the Inn a formidable force. But it would have a severe lack of stronger workers.
Lex turned his attention to Zagan, who was still meditating in a corner somewhere. The monster was on the verge of becoming a Heavenly immortal. Lex didn’t want to push him to speed things up, but he also couldn’t be devoid of a stronger fighting force.
He himself also didn’t want to become a Heavenly Immortal till he reached his limit as an Earth Immortal. There was a lot to think about.
Komentar Chapter (0)
Login buat ikut berkomentar.
Belum ada komentar di chapter ini. Jadi yang pertama!