“What?”
Yuki’s eyes widened at the word ‘assassination’. She was so surprised that her voice cracked at the end.
“Will they accept our request?”
Yuki showed a skeptical attitude towards Livio’s plan. Even the most reckless villain values their own life. It was unlikely they would accept a request with no chance of success from the start.
“We’ll make them accept it.”
“What do you mean…”
“Leak information to them that Major Hyun is suffering from a serious illness. Say his abilities have weakened compared to before.”
“But we don’t have solid evidence that Major Hyun has weakened yet.”
“We have the data we’ve collected so far. We couldn’t secure the most important medical records, but there’s plenty of circumstantial evidence, like photos of him visiting the military hospital or records of him falling into a coma due to mana overload. They’ll be interested.”
“Ah.”
“Use those to mix up a convincing story. Make sure the villains can believe what we’re saying.”
“Hmm, I understand.”
Yuki responded with a somewhat uncertain expression. However, it was her role as a secretary to carry out the Guild Master’s orders somehow. Suppressing the anxiety rising within her, she asked Livio a question.
“Then should I contact all the organizations operating in N-sector for now?”
“Do that. The organizations here, without exception, are all grinding their teeth at Major Hyun, so they’ll welcome it with open arms.”
Livio spoke as if it was obvious. There was a reason he was so confident in his thoughts.
In his first year in N-sector, Iberis persuaded the unit commanders to conduct a major villain organization sweep operation. The story of him single-handedly destroying one organization became such big news that it was reported worldwide at the time.
As a result, the crime rate in N-sector plummeted, and the villain organizations that had been rooted here for the past three years lived under constant pressure. They probably had considerable dissatisfaction with Major Hyun.
“How many requests should we place with villains who operate alone or in small teams?”
“Don’t worry about the money. Gather as many as possible.”
“…You mean to create a force that can actually kill Major Hyun.”
Yuki swallowed hard, finally fully grasping Livio’s intention. He really intended to assassinate Iberis.
“That’s right. It shouldn’t be difficult to find suitable people. As you know, there are many who hate Major Hyun. Just the villains he captured or killed during his time in the special team number in the hundreds.”
The Special Ability Crime Special Team that Livio led not only rooted out spies infiltrating the Defense Force and internal traitors, but their main mission was to eliminate criminal organizations that caused terrorism or arrest internationally wanted villains.
Iberis had been the ace of such a special team. In other words, he had made countless enemies.
“There’s no one as strong against the weak and weak against the strong as villains. There must be at least a truckload of people waiting for Major Hyun to weaken. If we persuade them that while it’s impossible to kill Major Hyun alone, it might be possible if many attack together, they’ll likely fall for it easily.”
“But will the villains get along? For the operation to succeed, they’ll need to cooperate…”
“We shouldn’t send requests to those likely to cause problems in the first place. It’s the information team’s job to filter out the loose cannons.”
“You’re too timid.” Livio lightly chided Yuki as he massaged her waist.
“Organizations and teams will move according to their bosses’ orders anyway, so don’t worry about that. However, those who work alone tend to be more unpredictable, so choose stupid and simple ones. If they’re smart, they might reject our instructions and act impulsively.”
“I understand. When should we set the execution date?”
“The sooner the better. Hmm, when was that monster population control operation in the southern region of the Death Lands scheduled?”
Livio narrowed his eyes, trying to recall. Because monsters have extremely strong reproductive abilities, it was necessary to constantly control their population before a monster wave occurred.
That’s why in places with magical boundaries like N-sector, the principle was to immediately kill any monsters that came out of the Death Lands during normal times.
Also, every few months, the units would join forces to clean up the outskirts of the Death Lands. Sometimes they would even launch extermination expeditions into the magical boundaries. Even if they couldn’t reach the center where high-level monsters were abundant, they would go as deep as possible to reduce the population as much as they could.
This population control operation was the first mission since becoming a Defense Force cooperation guild, so all Mars guild members were busy preparing. Livio was also planning to go to the site in person.
“It’s in two weeks. We plan to clean up the outer areas once before that.”
“Is that so? That would be a good time then.”
“Pardon?”
“I mean for Major Hyun’s assassination. Contact the unit commanders who are friendly to us and tell them to exclude him from this operation.”
“Exclude him?”
“Yes. Have Major Hyun take charge of the overall security and public safety of N-sector while the operation is in progress.”
“So when the villain organizations launch a terror attack and assault the Major during that time…”
“We who are participating in the operation will have an alibi.”
Livio wore a sinister smile. His amber eyes, curved like a crescent moon, gleamed strangely.
“If we’re lucky and the villains manage to kill Major Hyun, that would be great. Even if they fail, we’ll be able to gauge his current combat power, so it’s a win for us either way.”
“Indeed.”
“We don’t have much time, so move quickly. Make sure the villains never find out that we’re the clients. If things go wrong, erase all traces so Major Hyun’s side can’t trace it back to us.”
“Of course.”
Yuki answered resolutely, thinking she should call the information team as soon as they got back.
* * *
“That’s all for today’s meeting.”
“Thank you for your hard work.”
As Lucas announced the end of the meeting, the guides rose from their seats with tired faces.
“Deputy team leader, a moment please.”
“Yes?”
Lieutenant Suzuki Sato, the deputy leader of the guide team, was startled by Lucas’s voice calling him. He approached Lucas with a tense expression. Even after living together for the past few months, Sato still found Lucas intimidating.
“What is it…”
“Is the guides’ training progressing well?”
Lucas asked, putting down the documents he was holding. After the S-sector support operation, he keenly felt the need to improve N-0 unit’s skills. Comparing them to other units made it even clearer how poor his unit members were.
Honestly, it was miraculous that they had survived this long on the frontline where rifts occurred two or three times a week with such meager skills. He could understand why Iberis had tried to handle everything alone until now. If he were in Iberis’s shoes, he too would have thought it better to do everything himself rather than entrust tasks to such unreliable subordinates.
However, it wasn’t right to handle their duties for them just because they lacked ability. Lucas consulted with Sato and created a new training schedule to improve the guide unit members’ skills.
He not only greatly increased physical training time and added mana control training sessions, but also included shooting and practical martial arts training every other day.
‘Guides now need to know how to kill monsters in the field and protect themselves without an Esper’s help. Each person needs to pull their own weight. If you’re not satisfied with my methods, you can leave. I’ll write you a transfer request.’
Lucas sternly declared to the guides who expressed dissatisfaction with his decision to conduct training every day except holidays.
The complaints stopped immediately. This was because many of N-0 unit’s members had been kicked out of their previous posts for various reasons. Even if they applied for a transfer, there were almost no units that would accept them.
If they were expelled from here too, the only remaining option was to be discharged, so the guides had no choice but to follow Lucas’s instructions to stay in the military.
The training was just as intense for the Espers. Their training was handled by Brenda and Caleb. From what he heard, they were being mercilessly drilled.
As a result, the medical office was unexpectedly busy. Even without going on missions, people kept getting injured, big and small, during training.
“Ah, yes. We’re following the schedule you’ve drawn up without missing a day, Team Leader.”
“Are they keeping up with the training well?”
Lucas checked on what he was most concerned about internally. He wanted to train them personally, but it was difficult to find time while also working as a military doctor.
Fortunately, both the deputy head of the medical office and the deputy leader of the guide team had been the head and team leader respectively before Lucas came, so there was no problem in handling their subordinates. So Lucas delegated full authority to them and only supervised occasionally.
“They feel like they’re dying from the difficulty… but there haven’t been any deserters yet. They can see their skills improving with their own eyes, so they have no choice but to work hard. Recently, some have even started to enjoy the training.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. Ah, but for mana control training, it would be better if you conducted it rather than me, Team Leader.”
“Why? Is there a problem?”
“Not a problem per se… it’s just that no one can match you in that area, Team Leader. Everyone wants your guidance.”
“Hmm, if that’s the reason… I’ll try to make time once every three days.”
“Thank you.”
“You may go now.”
After dismissing Sato, Lucas pressed his tired eyes with his hands. Left alone in the conference room, instead of returning to his office, he took out a neatly folded paper from his coat pocket. It was the results of the matching rate test conducted this morning.
