It was a good decision to have that dinner. It managed to get Machua to loosen up and allowed us to formally make a decision on what to do with Ernest. Everyone agreed that we had to protect him and take down Dalan if we could. Shortly after, we all retired to our rooms and night came.

  I slowly opened my eyes once I confirmed both Rasa and Ernest were asleep. I sensed their mana and noticed nothing was out of place. Their mana was behaving normally. They weren’t hiding or intentionally restraining it. It was flowing freely.

  My eyes lingered on Ernest. My mind brought me back to his apartment when he spilled his backstory to me. I could sense at the time he had been holding it all in and that he had been wanting to confide it in someone, anyone really. I just happened to be the one.

  “Hah…” I deeply sighed.

  I didn’t know any of that. Ernest had… died before I could learn about his past. I didn’t know it was recent. I thought he had been working with him for a while. With my connections, I could have figured out where Dalan was. If I knew… I would have taken care of Dalan earlier. So that he would never have had his ears cut off.

  It’s my fault. So the least I could do was ensure we were going to defeat him when he came for us. I couldn’t take care of him early, I wouldn’t have much of an explanation for that and, as Captain Galas put it: Machua needed to be charred before she was tossed into the fire.

  I silently apologised to Ernest. I quietly opened my suitcase and fished a small package out. It was something I wasn’t sure if I was going to use tonight, but it wouldn’t hurt to keep it on me.

  I quietly snuck out of the hotel by phasing through the window and walking down the air. I wasn’t in a rush, so I took my time. I followed familiar alleyways and paths, now obscured by the darkness. I was heading to that warehouse Rasa fought Ernest in, as I wanted to see if anyone had investigated the place in the short time we took him. It would give me a better picture of how long it would take for Dalan to find us.

  I walked through the dark warehouse nonchalantly, and into its security room. I snapped my fingers and casted a [Precision Flame]. I made it fly out of my fingers into a small corner of the room.

  “Didn’t I say it was rude to eavesdrop on people?”

  The fly that was revealed to me buzzed a little then flew away. A short time later, a small girl peeked her head through the doorway.

  “Sorry…” Plue apologised to me with a light-hearted tone.

  I lightly sighed this time around. She was good-natured enough to come out herself and apologise but still decided to follow me despite everyone else being asleep. This is the daughter of the Lemuel?

  “If I can ask something. How’d you find my fly?” Plue asked.

  “World Trait. Machu and I are attuned to the world. So, we can sense what is natural or not. It’s easy for me to tell that your fly’s not a real fly. And when you’re sneaking, you try to hide your mana instead of letting it naturally flow out, which we can catch.”

  Plue tilted her head, not understanding what I was saying.

  “Ah, imagine a river. Everything flows down that river, but if someone tries to swim, it sends ripples. And I can sense that ripple. Even if you’re swimming in the same direction of the flow,” I explained.

  “I don’t fully get it, but that means you can sense people well right? Is the World Trait also the reason why you and Machu are so hard to track?”

  “Yeah. You probably noticed this, but Machua unconsciously blends in with the environment. We’re pretty good at sneaking.”

  I remembered winning hide and seek every single time as a child. I was continuously shocked when my friends would pass my hiding spot. That unconscious sneaking also made me unintentionally surprise them from time to time, when they didn’t realise I was there. I had to actively make noise to get attention.

  “Wow. Auntie Eli wasn’t lying about you. You’re really good at your job.”

  Ah, right. Elize would have told her some things about me. Just how much I didn’t know, but it brought to mind one thing she told me about Plue. She could keep a secret.

  “You know, I’m going to be doing something dangerous tonight. You might want to stay at the hotel.”

  “But you noticed I was following you from the beginning right? So if you didn’t catch me then, then you’re telling me it’s okay to come with, right?” Plue asked without a hint of shame.

  This girl… She was audacious. She was certainly her father’s daughter. I thought about it for a little. Taking Plue along could be dangerous and could break Elize’s deal, but on the other hand, if I could tease out those kidnappers and take them down, I could greatly accelerate the situation. Though honestly… I wanted to take Plue for a different reason. I wanted to know why she wasn’t around in the past timeline. Or maybe that she was around, but I didn’t know it was her.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  “You can keep a secret, right?” I wanted to confirm.

  Plue nodded her head. “Uh-huh, I’m really good at it.”

  “Okay, then you can come with. Your bugs will be mighty useful.”

  Plue pumped a fist in the air energetically.

  “I’ll tell you what I’m here for. I want to investigate the trail of evidence we left behind. This warehouse had a lot of stuff in it, so Dalan must value this place highly. Which means he must have people watching it or checking it every so often. We didn’t clean the place up well, so there must be a trail that Dalan and his boys will be eager to follow.”

  “Are we gonna set a trap? That sounds fun.” Plue asked.

  I was hit with a familiar feeling when she said that. I’ve heard that line before from a very different person. Maybe not so different actually. I narrowed my eyes just a little bit before continuing.

  “… We could. How do you want to do this?”

  I wanted to see if her idea or reasoning would be the same as that person.

  “Hm… I’d set up a lure, I think. I’ll have my bugs watching, and then one of us can make a bit of a distraction and when they come find us the other one can take them all out.”

  It was put a lot more elegantly than that, but the plan was roughly the same. If you take into account how they used the same weapon… No. I can’t conclude anything as of now.

  “Which one of us do you want to be the bait?”

  “I’ll do it. You’re stronger than me so you have a better chance of finishing them in one go.“

  “Alright then. I’ll trust you on this. Let’s start our stakeout.”

  ———————————————————————

  It didn’t take too long for Plue’s bugs to pick something up. A few people had not-so-sneakily snuck into the warehouse and began investigating the chaos that we all left behind. They didn’t seem too high up the ladder, but Dalan wasn’t the kind of guy to appoint anyone else control of his operations. If we took them out, he’d figure something was wrong and investigate it himself.

  Plue purposely knocked over some trash cans outside and left behind a bit of a trail for them to follow. As expected, they took the bait. They followed her all the way to the dead end of an alleyway. The same one as last time, actually. We were getting a lot of use out of this specific spot.

  “Hah, so there’s our little sneak. Remember, the boss wants them brought to him intact. He wants to kill them him-“ One of them began to say.

  Suddenly, each one of them found that their feet was no longer on the ground. I had rushed and slid on the ground, kicking their legs out from under them.

  “Yeah, that’s enough of that.”

  Quickly, I did a handstand and spun my legs around like a whirlwind. I caught each of their bodies on my legs and launched them into the alleyway walls. I dashed and stomped two in the face, while Plue knocked another one out with the back of her scythe.

  “Wow, you were like a breakdancer!”

  “… Yeah,” I responded a little gloomily. I didn’t really think about what I was doing, so I ended up using a move I haphazardly learned from a guy I didn’t like very much.

  “Uh, so should we wake them up and ask them about Dalan?” Plue asked a bit awkwardly.

  “Nah, they probably don’t know anything,” I responded with a normalised mood now. “Dalan wouldn’t trust anyone with his location or anything like that. But this’ll get him a bit angry so he’ll try and track us down himself.”

  “Then we drop them at the Bureau?”

  “Yeah, that’s good enough. We shouldn’t reveal our identity to them though. Let’s just tie them up and write a note for them to read through. Can you write the note for me?”

  “Sure!”

  The two of us dropped the thugs down at the Bureau and left it at that. With that done, I had finished what I wanted to accomplish for the night. Though, I was a little disappointed that no one came after Plue. I was sensing all around us the entire time and nothing registered as out of the ordinary. No one was aware she was here. It was an uneventful night.

  The two of us were on top of a rooftop, devouring some meat buns we had bought. Plue was kicking her legs while sitting at the edge, and she was enjoying looking at the city streets at night. I sat down next to her with a can of tea.

  “This was a nice trip.”

  “You know, most people don’t call a stakeout and fighting thugs a nice trip. It’s especially weird coming from Lemuel Salas’ daughter.”

  “Is it?” She asked with a tilt of her head. “But you’re used to it.”

  I thought back to when I was still first learning the ropes of all of this underworld stuff. It was a completely different experience than what I did in the past timeline. Sure, we snuck around, but it wasn’t anywhere as stressful or as secretive as Phantom work. It wasn’t as lonely either, despite the fact that my work involved knowing a lot of people.

  “Not really. It’s all just… a part of the job. But how would you have gotten to know about these kinds of things?” I questioned her.

  “Master taught me. Just a bit though, while papa wasn’t watching,” Plue spoke with a bit of pride.

  “Your master?”

  “Auntie- Ah! I can’t tell you,” she caught herself. Unfortunately for her, that was enough for me to figure it out.

  “Sienna Sharula.”

  “Nooo! Keep it a secret, pleaseeeee. Master’ll kill me!” She begged. “How’d you even figure it out?”

  I wanted to bully her a bit more, but I was beginning to feel bad for her.

  “Well… she’s quite well known among Phantoms. If you trace back the Phantoms in Erelier history, there’s one that stands out that matches her profile.”

  In truth, I mostly figured it out because she’s Captain Galas’ older sister. He told me tons of stories about her, but never anything about her having a disciple of her own. It made perfect sense, Plue is her comrade’s daughter, and if she wanted to keep it a secret, her own brother wasn’t going to betray her trust. Unfortunately it ended up that I happened to figure it out from the both of them.

  “You’re a Phantom?” Plue asked with a bit of a sparkle in her eye.

  “Uh-huh. But don’t tell anyone okay? You can’t even slip up and say Ma or something like that. It’ll be real dangerous for me.”

  “Got it. I won’t mess up this time.”

  I patted Plue’s head a little bit like how Machua always likes to do. If it wasn’t for the fact she was already doing it and I had a reputation to maintain, I bet I would’ve been patting her head and hugging her as often as she did.

  “By the way, I haven’t even told Machu. So it’s a secret from her too, okay?”

  “Okay!”

  Plue and I chatted for a little bit longer about the underworld things we both had experience in. She talked about how Sienna taught her in a secret place, which was obviously Tartarus, but only when she was sure Lemuel wasn’t watching. I talked about my experience with learning to be a Phantom on my own. I avoided lying as much as I could, but because of that it was pretty vague. Plue was understanding of that, though my mind was mostly elsewhere at the time.

  The longer I talked to her, the more I was… uncertain of something. I never knew a Plue Salas in the past timeline, though I knew Lemuel had a daughter. But… I was beginning to question myself if I actually did know Plue Salas. Perhaps I didn’t know a Plue Salas, but I did know Plue Salas.

  “How do you feel about crows, Plu?”

  “Crows? They’re kinda cool. I think I’m a crowkin actually, but I don’t really know. Why?”

  “I’m looking for someone on the side. A Phantom who likes crows.”

  There was this Phantom I knew who used the alias of the ‘Crow Reaper.’ I was the first one to call her that actually, and since then she begun announcing herself under that name. She was an elegant sort of person who I had felt could do anything she put her mind to. She used a scythe as well and had a wide information network. She provided me with information often and in return I would do a few favours for her.

  I don’t know if I would have considered us close, but one day I received a posthumous letter from her that informed me that she had died and that she was thankful for our bond. I never got to know her true face or her name, but I felt for her. I had set up a small funeral for her that no one else attended. I didn’t know anyone she had formed a connection with.

  Plue was not an elegant sort of person, she was not a Phantom, and she didn’t use a crow motif other than her race. But the Crow Reaper first appeared in front of me after Lemuel’s death. Which was a few years away from now. There was a possibility that a Plue, who was ruined by her father’s death, dove deep into the underworld, and acquired those skills.

  “I’ll tell you if I happen to meet them then.”

  That was unlikely. I had been spending this entire past year trying to find her, and I could find no trace. I concluded that she must not have been a Phantom yet, or that she was just that good. I had a plan to try and sniff her out either way, but it wasn’t something I could set into motion at this moment.

  In the end though, the only thing I can say was that the Crow Reaper kept her secrets to the grave, like a true Phantom.

  “Thanks, Plu. Let’s head back for now and get some rest.”

  “KK. I hope we get to do this again tomorrow.”

  “Heh, maybe, Plu.“